Gabriel (25 page)

“I'm just tired from earlier. I overdid it outside—that's all.” I cut off Gabriel's concerns, and he paused and then nodded lightly. I was well aware that my physical appearance was already starting to conflict with the promise I had made; yet still he seemed to believe me.

“I don't like that we aren't moving, on the river, the Sealgaire, or otherwise. While we are here, if at any time you sense danger, from whomever, no matter what, you mustn't hesitate to think yourself away, okay?” Gabriel said.

“Okay,” I answered, though I didn't think I could simply think myself away right at this moment.

“Tomorrow evening I have to go out of town—the last of the business I need to tie up. We'll leave the next day,” he said matter-of-factly.

I couldn't face arguing with him, not right now at least. “I'd like to come with you, if you don't mind.” I wasn't so willing to let him leave me behind this time around.

“I think it's best if you stay here. But I will have to take someone with me.” He paused, and his muscles knotted in his broad shoulders, anticipating that I wouldn't like what he was about to say.

“What do you mean
someone
?”

Releasing my hands, he scratched his temple and moved a few stray hairs from his vision. “The gentleman I do business with always knew that one day, when I was ready to cash in the last of my chips, it would come only because I had decided to stop.”

“What chips? You don't need money, Gabriel. You have your abilities. Can't you just influence people to get what you need?”

“Influencing, if it's done in such a way that is wrongful, can be
damaging
, Lai.” He seemed uncomfortable with the question.

“Damaging how?” I pushed.

“It's not important.” His body stiffened and a dark looming sensation stretched from his being to mine—one that felt like fear.

Wanting the feeling to subside for him, I moved on. “What does he think you are stopping exactly?”

“He knows I am an Angel, and he knows about Vampires, but that's all he knows. I'm not the only Angel he does business with. He always assumed the day would come when I would want to fall, and he, like most men would, thought that decision would come from the influence of a woman.” He raised his eyebrows. “I had to cancel my meeting with him when you went missing. And so, instead, he's invited me to a soiree he's hosting at his home in Chelsea to finalize our arrangements and bid me farewell.”

“And what—you need to take a woman with you to do that?” I said, sensing where this was going.

“I think it's best if I live up to his expectations. I don't want him to become suspicious of the reasons why. I want him to believe that I have now chosen to fall and live a mortal life with a human. Because that is the story I would want him to tell, if he were ever in a position of having to confess what he knew.”

My eyes swept across the floor, finally resting back on his. “Doesn't he know that you can't fall, not without the Arch Angels' agreement?”

“He doesn't know any of that, Lai.” He straightened my sweater and stroked the tops of my arms. “I've kept his understanding of things as minimal as possible. It's safer that way.”

I wanted to ask exactly what kind of business it was that he was involved in with this gentleman, but the only question that came from my lips was a jealous one. “Who were you planning on taking with you?”

“He's expecting a human.” He paused. “I was thinking of asking Iona.”

I pushed down the nervous feeling rising inside me. I already feared I had hurt him. By asking the details of his meeting with Hanora, I had shown distrust in him, but I hoped he recognized that it wasn't that. My question, my worry had stemmed from my own insecurities.

“Speak to her. And if she wants to go, then I suggest, in the absence of her father, you ask Fergal's permission. They are traditional like that.” I turned on my heel.

Gabriel reached for my waist, pulling me back in toward him. “Lailah, are you okay with that?”

“Yes,” I said too slowly.

He peered over my shoulder and then planted a sweet kiss on my lips.

I parted from Gabriel. “You're worried they might see?”

“We have to be careful,” he said, “but you make it very difficult for me. All I want to do is kiss you.”

I smiled softly, and standing on tiptoes, I pecked his cheek. I sighed and walked to the doors. “Let's get this over with. You okay to follow behind?”

“Following you is easy, Lailah. It's the watching you leave that's hard.”

 

TWENTY-TWO

T
HE CHOKING FUMES WAFTING
from the roaring bonfire hit me square in the face. I approached the group with caution. The Sealgaire, as they preferred to be collectively called, were sitting on fold-out chairs, ramming marshmallows onto long skewers and toasting them against the yellow and orange flames that danced against a darkening sky.

It didn't take me long to find Brooke, giggling like a giddy schoolgirl next to Fergal on the grass, slightly parted from the rest of the group. She barely acknowledged my arrival, giving me only the faintest glance as I assessed the seating arrangements.

Ruadhan was engrossed in a conversation with Riley and Claire, while Cameron stood quietly beside them. Dylan and Jack were missing, but Gabriel had told me the lads were taking shifts, patrolling the perimeters of the property. Iona was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear her singing in the kitchen of the motor home. I smiled, one because she had a beautiful voice, and two, and more important, because I could just make it out from here. My abilities had not yet left me completely.

I sensed I was being watched as I moved around the fire. Phelan was staring at me, gesturing for me to take up the seat next to him. I had no desire to converse with Phelan, but then there weren't a lot of options.

Reluctantly, I headed over, moving the plastic chair slightly farther away from him before sitting down on the torn fabric.

Lifting a white marshmallow from a bag beside his feet, he pierced it with a metal spike and handed it to me. “Here,” he said with an almost taunting voice.

I shook my head in reply.

“Fluffy 'mallows don't interest you, like?” he said sarcastically.

My eyebrows arched. “No, they don't. But to be honest, I'm more concerned that you wouldn't be able to refrain from pushing me into the fire while I toast it.”

Phelan's broad shoulders fell a little as he relaxed, a genuine laugh falling from his lips. “Touché.”

“So,” I said.

“So,” he repeated. “You're a demon.” It wasn't a statement or a question; the elevated pitch in his words made it sound more like … wondering.

Hot from being so close to the fire, I tugged at the neckline of my sweater. “I'm many things.”

Phelan got up to retrieve two cans of beer. As he offered me one, I recoiled at the sight of the silver dagger clipped to the waistband of his sweatpants.

He tapped it and said, “Protection—you understand.”

I shook my head as he waved the beer can at me.

“Just blood then?” he asked.

“Not quite. You got anything stronger in there?” I peered over.

“Aye.” After rummaging, he handed me a miniature bottle of gin, and I gripped it somewhat gratefully. We exchanged a “cheers,” and I unscrewed the cap and knocked it back.

I searched for Gabriel. He had been making the rounds but was now walking toward the motor home—I could only assume to speak to Iona about the soiree. Before he stepped through the entrance, he turned around and his eyes, brought out by the royal-blue button-down parka he was wearing, met mine.

Are you okay?

I didn't answer his thoughts, but nodded instead.

I returned my attention to Phelan. “Fergal seems to be getting on nicely with—Lailah.”

“Surprises me a bit. He only just lost his brother. He's perked up since he met her.” Phelan hunched over, parting his legs as he continued to slurp his beer. Despite the winter's early evening, he had dressed in his usual wifebeater, with only his hat and a dull green scarf wrapped around his neck for warmth.

“He was very close with Padraig, I take it?” I ventured, trying to tease back my new bangs from my vision.

Phelan's eyes found mine quickly, and he looked at me with a sense of confusion. The flames from the fire seemed to warm his gaze. Contradicting what I knew about him, they somehow made him seem softer.

“Iona?”

“We had a little time to chat. I'm sorry for your family's loss. I understand you were in Creigiau seeking out Lailah, the night they … perished.”

Phelan withdrew a roll-up from behind his ear and fiddled with it in his fingers before finally lighting it. “We were looking for the girl, and we found her. Might have taken us a while to track her down again, but here we are, so it wasn't in vain.” He took a long drag of his cigarette. “We lost Padraig before that night. Fergal, well, he's still a child, and he cries like one, too. That will be my pa's influence; he got on better with him than his own, like, so is no surprise.” Phelan's tone was filled with disdain. “She, however, is not quite what I was expecting. I assumed we were seeking out someone a little more … divine.” He paused. “We're
friends
now, right?” His voice was laced in sarcasm. “So, between
friends
, she doesn't strike me as being any sort of celestial being, Brooke.” The cherry at the end of his smoke brightened as he pulled on it while making his point. Turning his body in toward me, he said, “I don't like being deceived. I knew you weren't who you said you were the second I met you.”

“I didn't think I'd fooled you even for a moment, Phelan,” I offered uncomfortably, sloshing around the last few drops of gin in the miniature bottle.

“And from one
friend
to another, I don't think you are who you say you are now,” he said.

Despite his—correct—intuition, he didn't know anything for sure, and I highly doubted that he genuinely believed I was “the girl.” So I ignored his comment.

Setting the bottle down on the ground, I crossed my arms and gripped the hem of my sweater. I hadn't expected it to be so hot that I would need to remove layers, so I was only wearing a small cami underneath, which allowed for the scar running across my chest to be visible.

As I pulled the sweater over my head, my top rode up with it, exposing my skin. But Phelan had already seen the worst of my scars—the one left by Frederic. It made no difference what he saw now.

Holding the cigarette between his lips, Phelan studied the one across my heart, but then his gaze found the far more damaging scars left by Jonah's knife. “Your marks came to you by the hands of humans?”

I found myself kneading my fingers through the back of my hair, feeling for the bump on the back of my skull left by Ethan when he had inadvertently killed me in my first life. “Some,” I replied, unable to remove the quiver from my voice. “But most of them came from Vampires.”

Phelan hooked his thumb under the collar of his shirt, pulling it away slightly from his skin, so I might see his better. “And what, you don't like yours?” he asked, releasing his shirt and flicking the ash from his cigarette instead.

“Not especially. Do you?”

“I'm proud of mine. They brand me a righteous warrior, fighting in the Lord's name. Every single one I am left with is a reminder of a battle—a warning to others that I won.”

“Then why have you got crosses tattooed over the one on your neck?” I asked.

“Each cross is a symbol of every demon that I've killed. You may notice that I wear more tattoos than I do scars.” He paused for a moment. “If you came by yours by the hands of the demons you fought, you shouldn't be ashamed of them, like. They stand for something.” He blew out a stream of smoke from his nose.

“Unlike yours, mine represent stupidity and ignorance. They only show me to be a victim.” I thought for a moment, finding myself clutching my waist. “Well, nearly all of them.”

Phelan dropped his cigarette to the ground, stubbing it out with his sneaker, and handed me another miniature. I thanked him and took the bottle, only sipping the spirit this time.

“What about the one on your shoulder?” His voice was a little softer now, more sincere. “You told me when you got it, but you didn't tell me how.”

I screwed up my face, confused. In the motor home, I had thought he was asking after the horrific, jagged scar running up my spine, the one Frederic had inflicted on me—not the one from the night I found Jonah.

“What?” he said, responding to my bewildered expression.

“I'm sorry. I thought, before, that you were asking about the one down my back, not that one.”

Phelan's pupils dilated a little, but I didn't know why. “Then how'd you come by the one on your shoulder?”

My bangs fell into my eye line as I tipped my chin. Irritated, I tried to shake them away as I shrugged nonchalantly.

Phelan removed his beanie hat and leaned over to me. I instinctively shuffled back.

He frowned. “It's made of wool.”

Pushing my bum to the back of the chair, I nodded at Phelan, and now, with permission, he stood in front of me. Squatting down, he inclined his upper body toward me. I regarded him warily as he slowly lifted the beanie up and over my head and awkwardly tucked my bangs inside.

As he leaned back on his haunches, he placed his hands on top of mine, which were resting on the metal arms, and tipped his body in toward me. “That should stop your fussing.” His hands clenched and he pulled me to my feet, the bottle of gin dropping from my lap and rolling on the ground. I took a sharp intake of breath, and—despite the ashy, melting smell coming from the fire—he was so close that all I could taste was his mint aftershave.