Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (13 page)

Lilith knew that. That was probably why she’d called Taylor by her rank, twice.

Every single word Lilith said was designed to manipulate. Her posture was, too. Taylor followed her into the office, but Lilith didn’t take the seat behind her desk. She sat back against the front edge, folded her arms across her chest, and looked Taylor over. All so casual, as if Lilith intended to put her at ease.

It just made Taylor more wary.

“Leave the door open,” Lilith said, which meant she wanted everyone to hear. Closed, the soundproofing would keep all of the other Guardians in the warehouse from listening in. “Are you well? Everything is healed?”

“Perfectly.” As if she’d tell Lilith anything else.

“Good. Am I correct in thinking that you no longer have Michael’s abilities?”

Taylor was glad she didn’t. But she resented admitting it in this way. “Yes.”

“Then you’ll begin training as a novice. Michael will be mentoring you.”

Was Lilith hoping for a reaction? Taylor was happy to disappoint her. She stated flatly, “That won’t be happening.”

“I’d really appreciate it if it does. Because if I assign you to Hugh, Michael said that he’d kill him.”

Shock parted Taylor’s lips. She couldn’t think of a single response. Was Lilith lying? It was possible. But given everything Taylor had seen in Hell and heard about Michael since her return, it might be true.

And she wasn’t the only one who wondered. A hush had fallen over the warehouse. All was quiet . . . except for the even beat of a strong heart, coming from directly behind her.

Michael.

Fear clawed up from her chest. She swallowed it down. Her body trembled and her fingers twitched, but she refused to call in her gun. Stiffening her muscles, she forced the shaking to stop. Goddammit. She would not even acknowledge him, and she sure as hell wouldn’t whimper and quiver.

She would
not
be afraid.

But that heartbeat was so loud that she could barely focus on Lilith anymore. And she needed to. The other woman was watching her with that two-thousand-year-old stare, the demon who could look into a man’s soul and know what he was made of. Taylor didn’t want her to see this.

Too late. Lilith’s eyes narrowed. “Fuck me. You’ve already decided to Fall.”

Gasps and murmurs from outside the office. From behind her, a deep, harmonic “No.”

Oh, God. A shiver wracked Taylor’s frame before she suppressed it. Damn him.

“Yes,” she said.

The temperature dropped. A psychic hum started, a low, throbbing darkness that climbed through her like ice. Sir Pup rose to his feet, growling. She tasted the reaction from the others, their acidic fear and worry. Even Lilith, who wouldn’t sense anything psychically—but the hardening of her face, the shifting of her stance, said she saw something in Michael that worried her.

Taylor realized she was trembling.
Trembling.
She grabbed on to her growing anger. Fuck him. Did he really think he could terrify her into anything?

“Lucifer has burned the Pit,” Michael said. “He will break through to Chaos soon.”

His voice had gentled. The terrifying hum eased. Too damn late.

And Taylor had to respond, but she wasn’t going to give him more than that. Not a single damn look. She stared at the painting of Caelum next to Lilith’s desk. “So what if he does? The only thing I can do is shoot a gun. I’m useless as a Guardian. As a human, though, maybe I can do something. And I’d be safe from demons because the Rules would protect me. I’ve heard a million times that the most powerful person in a room full of demons and Guardians is a human.”

“Dragons and wyrmwolves don’t follow the Rules.”

“And if they come from Chaos, I’m not any safer from them as an unskilled Guardian, am I?”

He didn’t answer that, because they both knew the answer. She wouldn’t be.

“You know that every single Guardian matters,” he said instead. “You have thought this yourself.”

Oh, this was a really bad time to remind her of how he’d gotten into her head without permission. “And I also remember that everyone was ready to sacrifice one of our friends in order to get you back.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Lilith broke in, bringing Taylor’s gaze back to hers. And for once, Taylor knew that wasn’t a lie. She’d been there when Lilith had argued against sacrificing Ash, a halfling demon and a Guardian ally, to the frozen field. “But to open the portal, the demons need dragon blood. There’s not much of that hanging around. So they will more likely target someone tainted with the spear or the sword . . . or tainted by Michael’s blood.”

And that meant Taylor? Her anger flared hotter. “So this isn’t about training, is it? This is about letting Michael protect me? Fuck that. I’m going to Fall.”

Lilith’s gaze hardened. “You have no idea what you’re asking. How much you’ll regret it.”

No idea? Now they were going to tell her what she did and didn’t know? What she
felt
?

Taylor knew exactly what she felt. The eggshell wasn’t hollow. Rage boiled inside. That thin layer had just kept her from exploding.

Now it began to crack.

Her fists balled at her thighs. “What should I regret, Lilith? Let me tell you what being a Guardian has brought to me. No, no—let me start with the last time I was in danger and Michael tried to protect me. Let’s start with how well that turned out.”

“But Khavi was right, wasn’t she?” Lilith’s smile was a scythe. “She said a vampire would kill you and one did.”

“Oh, she was right. Because she let it happen and made fucking sure she was right! But yes, let’s talk about Khavi, too. When I met her, the first thing she said to me was that my brother would never wake up. Isn’t that so kind? Like ‘Hi, nice to meet you. Let me stab you in the face!’ But she’s not done fucking with my head and foreseeing my future. Because although Michael decides he’s protecting me, he leaves me in her care when he goes off to fight some dragon across the world. And she tells me, ‘He was going to fall in love with you, but now he’s not.’”

“That sounds like the kind of thing a demon would say.” And Lilith would know. “You are aware that she’s a liar?”

“Yes! That’s the fucking point. She said it while I was on my way to the house where she’d seen that I’d be killed. But she disappears just before the vampire shoots me, even though she knows it’s about to happen and she could stop it. So that when Michael shows up and kisses me without telling me that he’s forcing his way into my brain by sticking his tongue into my mouth, I’ll think it’s because he gives a fuck. But no. He knew this would be happening, too, because he was all ready to have those symbols carved into him, link me to him. He was all ready for me to die, even though he was supposed to be protecting me. And you expect me to trust that protection again now? He’ll probably just cut me open and sacrifice me to Lucifer himself.”

Another dark, icy press against her shields. His voice came from just behind her. “Andromeda—”

“I’m not done, Michael!” She had no interest in listening to more lies. They thought she didn’t know her own mind? It was a miracle that she did so well. It was a miracle that she still had a mind left. “I’m waiting for Lilith to tell me exactly what I’m supposed to be regretting. Because the human experience with Guardians was pretty fucking bad, but it’s just beginning. One of the first things I do after I’m transformed is stick a sword through a friend’s back because Michael has decided to go on a path of vengeance on my behalf—even though I never asked him to and
begged
for him to stop. And after that he promises not to take over my head anymore, as if my free will might matter. But when Khavi takes two people to Hell and leaves them for Lucifer, he forces me away again when I try to save them, even though I’m screaming for him not to take me. Because he’s
protecting
me. But he doesn’t stop Khavi from beating me down when I try to save Nicholas and Ash, and when they come back from Hell, Nicholas’s guts are sewn up with fucking barbed wire. Oh, and don’t forget that after I offer myself up as bait, Michael decides that he’ll torture me by eating me, then forces me to crawl up all over him like I’m going to fuck him—because raping my brain just isn’t enough. Then that fun trip is topped off by Khavi stabbing a spear through my chest. So, hey. You think that I don’t know what I’m saying? I’m saying that when I compare fifty more years of a human life to an eternity of the shit I’ve gotten as a Guardian, dying sooner looks pretty fucking good!”

Her eyes gleaming, Lilith looked beyond Taylor. “I don’t think dying looks good at any time. Killing does, though.”

Killing Michael? Someone else could. Taylor didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

With effort, she reined in her temper. “But I’m not you, and you’re not choosing for me. I’m done with that,” she finished tightly. “And I’m going to Fall.”

“I get it. Michael screwed you over. Khavi screwed you over. Now you’re going to screw them over,” Lilith said. “But there’s a better way to do it.”

Taylor shook her head. This wasn’t about screwing anyone. She didn’t care what Michael or Khavi thought about her Falling. She just wanted out of this.

“I will not transform you now,” Michael said, and Taylor closed her eyes. Each word seemed underscored by a gentle apology and a promise not to hurt her.

She’d heard his promises before.

Shaking off the effect of his voice, Taylor focused on the painting again. “I’ve served,” she told him. “That’s why you let Anthony Ramsdell become human again, wasn’t it? He found a loophole. The Doyen Scrolls said—the scrolls that
you
wrote in your own freaking blood—they said a Guardian could go on to judgment anytime before the hundred years of training was up, but the option to Fall was added as a reward for service after the hundred years was over. Well, you sent him back to Earth early to help Colin and his sister, so he technically served. And I’ve served, too.”

“You are mistaken. I let him Fall because his blood was tainted, and he could never have become a full-fledged Guardian.”

A brittle smile touched her mouth. “Well, guess what? As far as everyone is concerned, my blood is tainted, too.”

“There are other reasons.” The heat of his body suddenly warmed her back, his inhalation stirring her hair. “But we won’t discuss them here.”

Taylor stiffened.
Oh, shit.
But she wasn’t fast enough—and Michael was the same bastard that he’d been in her head. Without asking, he grabbed her up and teleported away.

*   *   *

The world spun. Sick and dizzy, Taylor clung to the solid form beside her to keep from falling over.

Clinging to Michael, she realized. He was holding her steady, his arm wrapped around her waist, her side pressed to his. She staggered, pulling away from him. His grip tightened.

“Don’t touch me,” she rasped.

He released her waist, but didn’t let go. His hand settled against her lower back. “You cannot even stand—”

“Don’t touch me!”

The ground heaved. Taylor stumbled forward. Her knees cracked against stone pavers. She caught herself before her head slammed into a broken pillar and pushed shakily to her feet. Massive marble blocks piled around her. Above, the sun glared at her from a brilliant blue sky. Water glinted on the horizon.

Caelum. Michael had brought her to the Guardians’ realm. Was it still falling apart? But the ground seemed steady now. And Michael was—

Holy shit.

A giant marble hand pinned Michael against a shattered temple wall. The wrist melded smoothly into the pavers; its palm and fingers caged him, as if they’d slammed him back against the marble and held him there. The wall behind him had cracked. Michael stared at her from over the marble thumb, his eyes fully obsidian. His clenched jaw appeared as hard as the stone.

Stunned, Taylor shook her head. Was that even real? But the hand was still there when she opened her eyes again.

“Andromeda.” Pain roughened his voice. “Can you release me?”

Release him? Understanding hit her. The hand had pushed Michael away after she’d yelled at him to let her go—and Gifts often manifested in times of emotional stress and need.

“Did I do this?” But she must have. “Is this my Gift? I control marble—or stone?”

“No. This was Caelum.”

The realm? “It
attacked
you?”

“No. She listened to you.” His hand pushed between the fingers and gripped the marble. The thick muscles in his arm flexed. The tendons in his neck stood in sharp relief as he strained. Abruptly, he stopped and shook his head. “I cannot break Caelum’s stone now. I would need my sword.”

The flaming sword that could cut through rock. “So you’re trapped?”

His gaze met hers. “If you wish, you may avenge yourself now.”

And just punch him or shoot him while a giant hand held him motionless? Maybe he deserved it, but it wouldn’t change anything—and it wouldn’t make Taylor feel better. “I don’t want to even deal with you.”

“Then will you release me?”

She had no idea how. And maybe that would be what he deserved: she could leave him here and return to Earth through the Gates. One of the portals would take her right back to headquarters.

But she couldn’t do that, either. Damn it.

She started toward him. “Do I need to rip you out of there or something?”

“No.”

Michael vanished. Almost instantly, he appeared next to her—but not too close. So he’d finally gotten the message to stay away.

And he obviously hadn’t really been trapped at all. Had he pretended so that he could offer her that opportunity for revenge? It would have been meaningless anyway. He could just heal himself.

More manipulation. But where was her anger at? Taylor tried to drum it up and couldn’t, as if the shock of seeing that marble hand had burned it away.

At least she wasn’t afraid anymore. She looked up at him, at the hardness of his face and the terrifying strength, and she didn’t tremble.

He watched her in return, his obsidian eyes lightening to amber. “I will teach you how to sing to her.”

She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Caelum. She has chosen you as her voice. She is yours. You are hers.”