Her Guardian Angel 4-Her Angel Series (20 page)

His eyes
burned vivid red, flashing brightly. The wicked edge to his smile
reminded her of those creatures Marcus had fought but this man
still looked human, or at least like some sort of vicious angel. He
didn’t have black skin or red teeth.

That soon
changed.

Marcus
dragged her close to him, his arm tight around her, as the man’s
skin darkened and he grew taller, his body filling out until his
breadth was the same as Einar and Marcus standing shoulder to
shoulder.

Taylor
didn’t stop at the sight of him.

She
didn’t even slow when two more angels with red wings and black
armour appeared, ascending out of hellish cracks in the ground that
burned orange and black like lava. The tarmac hardened again and
they landed there, flanking the one who had turned into something
sinister.

Taylor
strode right up to the demonic angel at the front.

He
towered over her, his red eyes locked on her in a predator’s stare,
cruel and evil, and utterly shocked as Taylor leapt and landed a
firm resounding slap on his cheek.

“Bastard,” Taylor shouted and went to hit the demon again,
curling her fingers into a fist this time.

He held a
hand up, halting her, and changed, transforming back into the rough
handsome man that had first appeared but retaining his leathery
bat-like wings. His irises darkened but there was still a trace of
red to them. Marcus’s grip on Amelia didn’t loosen and she was glad
of it.

“Taylor?”
The man raised an eyebrow and ran a glance over her, and then
looked past her. Amelia backed into Marcus when the man’s
red-ringed eyes briefly settled on her.

Einar
stepped forwards and drew a long steel blade out of thin
air.

The man’s
eyes shifted to him, unconcerned, and then back to Taylor. “You
know them? You’re with them?”

Taylor
shrugged.

“She’s
with me,” Einar said and the man looked at him again and
frowned.

“A fallen
angel?”

Taylor
walked back to Einar and looped her arm around the thick length of
his. “He wasn’t always fallen.”

The man
smiled but it was grim. He seemed even less pleased to know that
Einar had once been an angel of Heaven like Marcus. He laughed
derisively. “It makes sense now at least.”

“What
does?” Taylor said and the man waved a hand at the two men behind
him. They nodded and the ground around them bubbled, burning red
and orange again, and they descended back into it. Back to Hell,
Amelia presumed.

She was
so busy staring at the tarmac as it cooled again that she jumped
when Marcus moved with her towards the edge of the porch and placed
his hand firmly on her arm, as though she needed to be held in
place. She had no intention of going anywhere near this man if that
was what he was worried about. She was fairly certain that he was
one of those Hell’s angels that Einar and Taylor had mentioned last
night. She just wasn’t sure how Taylor knew the man.

Marcus
stared at the man, his expression one of confusion.

“Do you
know him?” she said and he looked at her, his eyebrows high and
eyes wide, as though she had startled him.

“No.” The
conviction in his tone and the way he shook his head said that he
definitely didn’t, but the uncertainty that crept back in as his
gaze returned to the man left Amelia wondering if he did know the
newcomer.

“I found
out about you and Villandry and went to lay into him, and he starts
spouting shit about not being with you anymore. So this is…
unexpected… but V makes sense now.” The man shrugged, lifting his
black leathery wings with it, and sighed. He rubbed his cheek and
frowned. “You could have offered me a better greeting
though.”

“I was
with Villandry over a year ago.” The frustration in Taylor’s voice
made it clear that she knew this man intimately. An ex? Was Taylor
as bad as she was at picking out the good men amongst the bad?
“Bugger me… have you always been this slow? Christ only knows how I
put up with you for so long. I’ve been with Einar for
months!”

The man
growled, stepped up to Taylor, and towered over her. The skin
around his eyes darkened and they burned bright red, fixed intently
on the woman in front of him.

“Word
doesn’t exactly travel swiftly to the lower reaches of
Hell!”

“Back
off.” Einar stepped between them, pressed his sword to the man’s
throat and forced him away from Taylor.

“What in
Hell’s good name are you doing here anyway, Veiron?” Taylor touched
Einar’s shoulder but he didn’t relent. He remained between Taylor
and the man she had called Veiron, his sword at the
ready.

Veiron’s
crimson eyes shifted coldly to Amelia. “I have come to stop her
from dying.”

“What the
hell?” Marcus stole the words right out of Amelia’s mouth. “What do
you mean, stop her from dying?”

Veiron
regarded him and then looked back at her, his eyes boring into hers
in a way that made her feel intensely vulnerable.

“I
thought the meaning would be obvious.” Veiron shrugged easily
again. “I have seen it in Hell. She dies. You’re there when it
happens so you must have known about—”

“You
knew?” Disgust rolled through Amelia, burning in her heart, and she
broke free of Marcus’s grip and turned to face him.

His
silver-blue eyes met hers and she couldn’t bring herself to look
into them.

“How
could you lie to me?” She stared at her feet and then ran into the
house, needing space and air that she couldn’t find whilst standing
so close to Marcus.

“Tetchy
little thing, isn’t she?” Veiron said and she had half a mind to
head back and imitate Taylor by hitting the demon as hard as she
could. It wouldn’t get her anywhere, but it would certainly make
her feel better and she doubted he would hit her in
return.

He wanted
to stop her from dying.

Marcus
was going to be there when she died.

What the
hell was going on?

Amelia
hesitated in the entrance hall when she realised that she was
trapped and Marcus would catch up with her, if he came after her at
all. Hers were the only footsteps ringing out on the chequered
marble floor as she paced it and she could hear him arguing with
Veiron about what the man had seen. The way he was speaking made
her want to believe that she was wrong about him and that this news
really had come as a shock to him too, but the hurt in her heart
was too great to ignore.

Instead
of heading upstairs where she definitely wouldn’t be able to
escape, she ran down a corridor next to the staircase. It led to a
kitchen at the back of the house and a door to what looked like
freedom to her. She tried the handle, silently praying it wouldn’t
be locked. The door opened and she burst out into a small courtyard
garden. It was chilly in the shade but it didn’t bother her as she
paced the cream York stone patio, treading across the narrow space
from one tall wooden fence to the other, trying to gather her
scattered emotions and gain control over them again.

The
silence was just starting to become soothing when another set of
footsteps met hers.

“I didn’t
know,” Marcus said but she refused to look at him.

Even if
he hadn’t known that she would die, he still knew something and she
wanted to know what that something was. She needed to know whether
she was better off with Veiron, a demon, than she was with an
angel.

“You knew
something was going to happen to me though.” Amelia kept pacing
back and forth across the small space, too agitated to remain
still. The constant motion helped her think and stopped her from
lashing out at Marcus. She could easily hit him right now. She
could hit them both for how they had tied her in knots inside with
only a few words and scared her more than the fight with the
demonic angels on the rooftop had.

He was
silent for a moment.

“Yes,
but—”

“But
nothing.” Amelia swept her hand sharply downwards through the air
and drew in a deep shuddering breath as she came to a halt facing
one of the wooden fences.

She had
been fine when this had all been about protecting her. No one had
mentioned death or anything like that. Just a little danger. Marcus
had said things in a way that had made her feel as though he just
had to keep her safe for a while and it would all blow over. Now
she had a demonic angel telling her that it was his mission to keep
her alive and that Marcus was going to be there when she
died.

She
wasn’t sure who she was supposed to believe. Why would a demonic
angel want to protect her? Why would he know that Marcus was going
to be there at her death?

Amelia
met his gaze. Was he destined to fail in protecting her?

She
turned away from him and dug her fingers into her hair, clutching
her temples. She didn’t want him to die. She didn’t want to die.
She wanted all of this crazy shit to go away and wanted her life
back.

“Amelia,”
Marcus whispered and she listened to his footsteps as he crossed
the courtyard, undoubtedly coming to her.

She
tensed when he lightly placed his hands on her shoulders and closed
her eyes. No matter how much she told herself not to take any
comfort from him and to remain angry, his touch began to calm her
and chase her fury away, until she wanted to lean back into him and
feel his arms around her.

“It came
as a shock to me too.” His low tone stirred warmth inside her,
smoothing out the rough edges of her feelings as much as his
touch.

She knew
that. He had been genuinely surprised to hear what Veiron had said
and had sounded horrified when confronting him. She should have
stuck around to hear what the man had to say on the matter but she
hadn’t been able to ignore her need to escape it all. The feeling
had been building inside her since the alley attack and she had
reached breaking point.

“Will you
look at me?”

Amelia
shook her head. She wasn’t strong enough to do such a thing. If she
did that, her resolve would crumble completely and she would fall
into his arms in search of the comfort she so badly needed. She
wanted to hear him say that Veiron was wrong and that she wasn’t
going to die, and he wasn’t going to fail her. They would get
through this.

“Look at
me.”

She went
to shake her head again and the world spun and suddenly she was
facing him. There was so much hurt and sorrow in his eyes that she
had to clench her fists and pin them to her sides to stop herself
from reaching up and touching his face to chase away his pain and
reassure him.

He
lowered himself so they were eye level with each other and then
sighed and released her right shoulder. He swept the hair from her
face, tucking it behind her ear in a way that made her feel like a
child, and brushed his thumb over her cheek. She was certainly
playing the role of petulant child so she couldn’t be angry with
him for treating her like one. Ashamed of herself, she
straightened, took a deep breath and blew it out, expelling all of
her anger and weakness with it.

“I swear
to you, Amelia, I did not know. They did not tell me what they
saw.” The sincerity in his look and his tone drove belief deep into
her soul. He wasn’t lying to her. “I have tried and tried to make
them tell me about what happens, but they wouldn’t.”

“But they
did tell you about me and they sent you to protect me, didn’t
they?”

“Yes.” He
lowered his head and then met her gaze again. “But my duty is not
why I am here with you now… and it is not why I was intimate with
you.”

Amelia
wanted to ask when his feelings for her had changed and altered his
mission with their appearance. The affection in his silver-blue
eyes and the tenderness in his touch as he stroked her cheek to
calm her told her everything she needed to know about him. What had
once been little more than duty to him was now a personal mission
and he was confused because of it. Einar had said that Marcus was
fiercely devoted to his duty and Heaven, and that love had changed
many angels’ loyalties in the past. Was the loyalty inspired by his
feelings for her now battling his loyalty to Heaven? The conflict
in him and his eyes said that it was, and that he was as unsure of
everything as she was.

She
placed her hand over his, bringing it closer to her so he cupped
her cheek, and leaned into his palm. It was warm against her face,
solid and real, a comfort to her.

“Am I
more than a mission to you, Marcus?” She slowly opened her eyes and
found his, holding them so he could see that he meant something to
her and would be honest in his answer.

He nodded
and brought his other hand up so he held both of her cheeks. “So
much more, Amelia.”

He drew
her into his arms and she frowned at the cold feel of his armour
against her face.

“Can we
get away for a while?” she said so quietly that she was certain he
wouldn’t hear her. “I need to escape this insanity and just be with
you.”