Messenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (23 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

J
uliette came awake with a slow, meandering awareness. She was enveloped in warmth and a mixture of hard and soft. She heard crackling and popping and knew there was a fire burning nearby. A moment’s uncertainty shot through her, but she smelled no smoke. She caught a whiff of masculine-scented soap instead, and opened her eyes.

A simply decorated room surrounded her. The walls were wood beams woven through with gold, the window was draped in a curtain of white and gold, and the sheet over her was white with gold threading. She blinked down at it. Her body felt sore . . . but deliciously so. She tentatively moved her legs and instantly felt the resulting twinge between them. Memories flooded her and she shivered. Then, slowly, she smiled.

“Good mornin’, lass,” drawled a deep, rumbling voice. As always, his accent purred across her skin like a delicious promise. He was behind her, spooning her, and she was in his bed. She turned her head to look up and found him on his elbow, gazing steadily down at her.

“How long have you been watching me?” she asked.

He smiled, flashing straight white teeth. “No’ long enough,” he said as he gently brushed a lock of her hair from her forehead.

Slowly, she rolled over in the bed to face him.
Good God,
she thought, as she stared up at the curve of his chin, the broad plane of his shoulders, and the vast expanse of muscle across his chest and midsection.
I’m in bed with an archangel.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, his forefinger curled beneath her chin to raise her eyes. His own eyes were twinkling with amusement and obvious pride.

She blushed, having been caught at her blatant ogling. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I am.”

“Good, then. I’ll make you somethin’ to eat.”

Thirty minutes later, they were sitting at Gabriel’s kitchen table, sharing a Scottish breakfast sans the blood pudding, which she admitted she just couldn’t stomach the thought of. Gabriel had laughed and acquiesced.

Now they sipped strong, creamy tea and talked about their favorite subject—the history of Scotland. Juliette had never had this before. She had never known anyone who loved the land as much as she did, and she’d certainly never had a conversation with someone who knew as much about its past as she did. Now that she could actively recall aspects of the last two thousand years from a personal perspective—it gave new meaning to the subject.
Gabriel
gave it new meaning. Because even as she had experienced it, both good and bad—so had he.

Somehow, as they sat there across from each other at the round wooden table, their elbows firmly planted on the surface, their tea mugs never far from their lips, they managed to touch upon all the amusing aspects of the land’s history. His stories were self-deprecating and adorable, his voice like a Scottish lullaby. She laughed and he chuckled and the morning flew by in a new and special kind of camaraderie.

“I’ve go’ somewhere I want to take you,” he told her after they’d finished off their third cup of tea. “Are you up for a field trip?” he asked, silver eyes twinkling.

“Absolutely,” she said, finding herself in a wonderful mood despite the lingering dangers associated with being an archess. What was it, exactly, that had put the smile on her face? The tea? The breakfast? The company? All of the above and more . . . “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

They piled into his little car and Juliette had to hide her smile at seeing someone of his size fold himself the way he did in order to fit into the European vehicle. To her, all the cars in the UK looked like Matchbox toys. It was incredibly economical and it was easy to find a parking space, but she wasn’t sure the engineers had men with six feet and four inches of height in mind when they’d designed them.

She, on the other hand, fit perfectly. It was a thin silver lining on the rain cloud of being small.

They wound their way through the moors and peat bogs, and she stared out the window as they drove, uncommonly easy in her peaceful, companionable silence. She gazed at the way the mists parted and retreated with the coming day. The heather was becoming greener and in late summer, it would blanket the countryside with royal purple. The sky was blue but for the faintest streamers of lingering clouds. The rolling hills beckoned, appearing impossible in their symmetry. It was enchanting.

Juliette turned from the window to glance at the man driving. His black long-sleeved sweater hugged the curves of his hard muscles and reminded her of how those muscles felt when holding her down. On a bed. As he slowly drove into her again and again . . .

Juliette’s eyes widened, her breath catching, her cheeks flushing horribly hot. The thought had overcome her with sudden ferocity. She hadn’t expected her mind to go there in that manner. But now that it had . . . she was stuck in that gutter, unable to pull herself out. She couldn’t stop thinking about how he had felt, how his silver eyes had been glowing like liquid lightning, how he had teased her and tormented her with gentle, expert persistence.

Juliette rolled her eyes and put her heated forehead to the glass of her window. The contact cooled her a little and helped somewhat. But he was still there, filling her senses from both the inside and out.

She could remember the words he’d whispered to her in Gaelic. . . . She’d even understood them. And now that she could recall her past lives, she knew
why
she’d understood them. They were precious words. And they confused her in a new, terrible, and wonderful way.

“Mo sheacht míle grá thú.”

It didn’t exactly have a literal English translation. It was more of an emotion put into the sound of words than anything else.
You are my love,
those words said.
You are my love seven thousand times over.

You are my love.

Juliette blinked at the blurring of Caledonia as it sped by. Gabriel loved her.
He loves me,
she thought.
My God. I have the love of an archangel.

“We’re here, lass.”

The car began to slow and Juliette turned in time to see Gabriel pull the vehicle off the main road and onto a smaller, winding road that led up a hill. It took her a few seconds, but as the small cabin at the top of the hill became clearer—so did the standing stones just on the other side.

Now she knew where she was. She’d been here before. Just not in this lifetime.

Gabriel glanced over at her as he maneuvered the car into the parking lot and shut it down. His smile was soft, his eyes shiny. He reached into the backseat for his jacket, and then got out of the car and slid the garment on. Then he made his way to her side. He opened her door and offered her his gloved hand. “Come with me, luv.”

She smiled up at him and took his hand, relishing the way his fingers closed so protectively over hers. She could feel the electric current of his strength even through the material of both of their gloves. He was very powerful.

And he was hers.

“I played here once,” she told him softly as he led her from the car to the trail that would take them to the stones. “As a child.”

“Aye, I imagine you did,” he said with a smile. The wind tossed his hair and brushed the sable locks against the leather of his jacket. “I imagine you’ve been here many times.”

They moved up the trail, their hands intertwined, and the wind kissed their cheeks, welcoming them into the past. The tops of the ancient stones appeared first, cresting the rise with monumental grace. Juliette stared at them with wide eyes as she and Gabriel approached, suitably quiet and reverent.

Clachan Calanais.
These were the Callanish Stones, erected thousands upon thousands of years ago—built by a people that no one knew anything about, and for a reason that no one could discern. There were thirteen main stones in a circle that measured around thirty feet in diameter. At the center of the circle was a burial cairn that had been used over and over again by generations long past. No one knew why it had been placed there to begin with. The Callanish Stones dated to several thousand years BC. They were all tall, averaging at around ten feet, but some were taller than others. Rows of other stones extended from the main circle in long lines.

Juliette gazed out over them and remembered touching each one. At one time, she’d been a child running between them, sprinting as fast as her little legs could go, placing her tiny palm to their surfaces as if to absorb their magic. That had been several lifetimes ago.

“Do you know why I come here?” Gabriel asked softly beside her, his hand still grasping hers. She looked up at him, studying his profile as he gazed with ancient eyes out over the primordial landscape. “This place is older than I am,” he told her. “I walk the Earth feelin’ as though I am a livin’, breathin’ secret. I’ve seen countries come an’ go, wars won an’ lost. . . . Bu’ here”—he paused, shaking his head—“I’m finally embraced by somethin’ that knows more than I do.” He looked down at her and smiled a poignant smile. “These stones keep secrets from
me
.”

Juliette grew lost in that winsome expression. She was drowning in the mercury of his eyes and in the landscape around them that whispered epitaphs and promises with each breeze that sailed through the passages of stone.

She understood. Somewhere deep down, she was able to feel Gabriel’s confession as if it were her own. She turned to fully face the archangel, reaching to take his other gloved hand. He cocked his head to one side, his expression at once unreadable.

And then she stood on her tiptoes, reaching to whisper something in his ear, and he bent to meet her. “I have a secret, too,” she told him softly, sending the words across his skin with wicked deliberation. She saw him shiver and smiled when he pulled her closer.

“Aye, luv?” he asked softly. She could hear the smile in his voice and see the sides of his lips curled up in a smile.

“Aye,” she replied, mimicking his accent. She giggled softly and then paused, stretching the moment out. “I do,” she continued. “But I’m not going to tell you what it is,” she teased. “Unless you can catch me.”

With that, she ripped her hands out of his and headed full speed toward the nearest stone. Grinning ear to ear, she pressed her palm to its surface, sensed the familiar buzz of antiquity, and then hurried on, moving as fast as her booted feet would carry her.

Behind her, she heard a deep laugh and it sent delicious shivers through her. She knew he was taking chase and she knew he could easily catch her if he wanted to, but she didn’t care. She laughed as she ran, touching the stones as if tagging them, one after another. They seemed to laugh along with her, urging her on, giving her moral support as she raced to brush every surface before he caught her.

He was giving her a head start. It was as if he knew she needed to touch every stone. She crossed the field separating two lines of the ancient monuments and raced to the other side, pressing her palm to the nearest cold, hard surface. She spun, ran to the next one, and jumped when Gabriel came out from behind it, having moved so fast, she hadn’t seen it. She laughed in surprise and bolted in the opposite direction, catching a stone here and there that she had missed.

Finally, she was nearing the end. She heard footsteps coming up behind her and she squealed, feeling his familiar heat drawing nearer. One more stone . . . she touched it—and Gabriel’s arms were snaking around her, pulling her up short and lifting her. She gasped as he swung her around toward the same stone and lowered her beside it, her back pressed against the weathered rock, his own hard body locking her in. She was breathing hard as he leaned in, his smile cruel and beautiful, his eyes laughing.

“I’ve captured you,” he told her softly, bracing his arm against the rock by her head, caging her in before him. “Now, wha’s your secret, lass?”

“Her secret is that she can heal people with no more than her touch,” came a deep voice from behind Gabriel.

Gabriel spun, turning his back to Juliette, shielding her where she stood against the tall, protective stone. But she peeked around the archangel’s strong body, needing to know what was happening.

Three men stood several yards away. They were tall and handsome and all of them wore black. The man who had spoken was obviously their leader. He was an African-American man, incredibly muscular, so that his clothes stretched taut across his body. His light amber eyes were stark in the frame of his face. Beside him was a man who looked Italian, with olive skin and thick black hair and deep, dark eyes. To his left was a blond man with very light blue eyes.

The men watched Gabriel carefully, not taking their gazes off him. The strange, staticlike feeling she could now sense in the air reminded her of something.

Adarians.

Her eyes widened with the realization. They made her feel the way the Adarian who had attacked her in her hotel room had made her feel. Her gaze slid from their faces to the weapons in their hands. She recognized the strange guns as the same kind that the Adarian had been carrying in Slains Castle. The shard gun. It had done horrible things to Gabriel, petrifying his body where the shots had hit home. The wounds had been very hard to heal, draining much more of her strength than she’d thought they were going to.

“The General would have been here to do this himself,” the black man said, “but he’s having trouble with the sun these days.” He smiled a secret smile, flashing white teeth. And then he was all seriousness again. “Don’t make her see you die before we take her, Gabriel.” The Adarian’s expression was beseeching, his amber eyes flashing in warning. “That’s not how you want to say good-bye.”

All three weapons were leveled on Gabriel. She could imagine the damage they would do if they went off.

There would be nothing she could do to save him then.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

S
he couldn’t let him die. Not for her. Not like this. She would turn herself in first.

“Gabriel—”

“I know wha’ you’re thinkin’, lass,” he told her without taking his eyes off the Adarians before her. “Bu’ put it out of your head, luv, because they’ll kill me whether you surrender to them or no’.”

“Now, why did you go and tell her something like that?” the Adarian asked, shaking his head.

Juliette thought about what Gabriel had said. The truth of his words dawned on her like a horrid black plague, stealing over her in a nauseating way. They weren’t going to take the chance that he would come after them. They weren’t going to allow him to go back to the mansion and collect his brothers and hunt them down.

This was it. They would have what they wanted. Why allow anyone to take it away from them?

Oh dear God,
she thought, feeling her chest tighten and her fingers go numb.
No, no, no . . .
She glanced at the guns they held, certain that at any moment they would pull their triggers—and that would be the end of her world.

“Juliette, we’re giving you the choice,” the blond man said, leveling his icy eyes on her and filling her with what felt like an arctic chill. “Come with us and we won’t kill him.” His tone sounded so reasonable. But the air was so thick with tense, pent-up magic now, it was barely breathable.

“Juliette,” Gabriel said tightly, drawing her attention to him. “Do. Not. Move.”

They’ll shoot,
she thought. It was a final kind of thought, a deciding factor in fate’s design.
I don’t have to move,
she thought next. Conscious deliberation was slipping from her, hurriedly being overrun by instinct. Something inside was taking over. She glanced up at the blue sky and thought of lightning.

But the Adarian with the ice-blue eyes was watching her. “You can’t get us all, Juliette. And those of us you miss will shoot.”

She didn’t like his eyes. They made her feel funny inside. Tired, even. Weak. When she stared at him, she felt as if she were falling. She shook her head, averting her eyes. “What are you?” she found herself asking, knowing full well that he was using some kind of power on her.

“Leave her alone,” Gabriel growled in front of her. She could feel a ripple of power emanate from him like a whip.

I can’t give myself away like that again,
she scolded herself. She’d made the mistake of looking at the sky and the Adarian had guessed that she was going to try to call lightning. She licked her lips, her legs almost buckling now, her heart racing so fast, she couldn’t tell one beat from the next. She considered her abilities. There was the lightning. But the Adarian was right. She couldn’t get them all, could she? Then there was telekinesis. But there was nothing out here that she could move. Then she could heal. That was it. That was all she had—or that she knew of, anyway. She hugged herself, realizing that she was trembling violently. She glanced at their guns again and wondered how many more seconds she had before the world would come crashing down.

The wind brushed past them, ripping another violent shiver from Juliette. She exhaled a shaky breath and ice crystals formed in the air.

What the hell?

The temperature was dropping. Juliette frowned. It shouldn’t be dropping this fast—the afternoons normally warmed up. What was happening? The cold was stealing her concentration. She glanced up at the Adarians and met the gaze of the man with the dark hair. He was watching her knowingly, noting the way she shivered. He smiled at her trembling reaction to the cold.

“You’re doing this,” she accused softly, her teeth chattering. He didn’t bother to respond. It was clear that he was.

“I’ll give you to the count of three, Juliette,” the black man said. “And then this is going down one way or another.”

It’s now or never,
she thought. If she waited any longer, they would shoot—and she would freeze. These men were beyond powerful. It had come down to do or die. And possibly both.

So, Juliette visualized a hand reaching down within herself and delving into a dark, secret abyss. From there, it ripped up something magical, something that shimmered and glowed in the otherwise stygian darkness. The hand tossed that shimmering magic hard into the air and it scattered, leaving her body and entering the real world.

In that moment, she focused the tiny motes of light, the sparkling, glittering tendrils of her power, and told them to take over.
Do what you have to do,
she thought.
Save us.

Behind her, the ancient stone of the Callanish formation shifted. For more than five thousand years, it hadn’t moved. But now the erected, weathered rock budged, moving in the earth behind her so that she gasped and lunged forward, at once terrified that she would be crushed.

Crushed.

Gabriel lunged for the biggest Adarian, the leader who was less than three feet away. A shard gun went off, its blast rippling through the air along with the sound of the earth moaning as the stone behind her continued to awaken in its ancient grave.

Juliette forced her fear for Gabriel to a back burner and continued to allow her instincts to rule. The weather she had contemplated earlier was suddenly there, racing to meet her demands. The clouds moved in at apocalyptic speed, darkening the sky above them at a frightening rate. There was a hand on her arm, its grip bruisingly tight, and she yanked hard, thinking only of escape.

But her power was still in control. She had given it free rein and it had responded with a roar of triumph. The stone behind her ripped from the earth with a horrid, monstrous sound, and the grip on her arm lessened.

Again, she yanked away, this time freeing herself from her captor’s grip and stumbling sideways to tumble to the cold, hard earth. It had frosted over with rime from the Adarian’s power, and ice crystals sliced into the palms of her hands and dampened the knees of her jeans. She ignored the sting, shoving herself to her booted feet in time to spin around and focus.

Him,
she thought, narrowing her green gaze on the blond with blue eyes. He’d been the one to try to get into her head—to put her to sleep. He’d also been the one to grab her. He was the one she wanted to fry.

The sky responded, opening up with a vengeance as lightning crashed to the ground, cascading over the Adarian’s tall form like a white-hot blanket. The sound was deafening, forcing Juliette to her knees once more. She pressed her hands to her ears, but it was too late. A ringing followed the blast and she rocked back on her heels in time to see something dark and ominous float over their heads.

She looked up. The Callanish standing stone was no longer standing. It was hovering above them, a massive rock spaceship, heavy and menacing, a portent of certain death.
My God,
she thought numbly, knowing that it was her own power that held the ancient stone aloft.

Several yards away, one Adarian lay facedown in the grass, his body smoldering slowly, his clothes blackened by the lightning blast. Gabriel and the big Adarian were fighting in horrid, painful hand-to-hand combat. Gabriel threw the giant black man against a stone, the stone shifted ever so slightly, and the Adarian came after Gabriel in turn, grasping him around the neck.

The third Adarian stood still and somber, his black hair stirring in the crazy wind that tried futilely to balance out the heat from the lightning and the cold from the Adarian’s earlier use of his power. His black eyes studied Juliette closely, carefully, his expression unreadable. Juliette glared back at him, no longer in control of her emotions or the magical mayhem they had wrought.

The Callanish stone answered her hatred, shooting forward through the sky to rush his tall form. The Adarian ducked and rolled, moving with inhuman speed so that the stone crashed to the ground in a spray of dirt and rubble that forced Juliette to shield her eyes.

A few seconds later, she lowered her arm again. The dark-haired Adarian was rolling and rising, his narrowed, angry gaze turned on Juliette. She swallowed hard, feeling the familiar, insipid weakness steal through her as her powers continued to run rampant and drain her. She glanced up at Gabriel and the Adarian he was fighting.

Where’s the gun?
she thought, noting that neither of them held a weapon. The Adarian must have lost it at some point during their struggle. She tried to search the icy ground for the gun, hunting for a hint of black or silver amid the white and brown. She found it lying in a patch of weeds several yards from Gabriel, but the dark-haired Adarian that she had attacked was standing now, capturing her attention once more. He got his legs beneath him and began to stride toward her.

Juliette’s magic instantly responded to the renewed threat. The stone that had dropped into the earth shifted once more where it lay in the cold ground. The Adarian slowed, his dark gaze cutting to the immense slab of rock. And then she felt more of her strength rip away from her like the peeling of an onion as the stone lifted and tilted menacingly, a massive beast once more free of the bonds of gravity.

The Adarian ducked as the stone soared toward him, but Juliette knew ahead of time what he would do. Her abilities were adjusting, and so was the Callanish stone. It lowered as the Adarian did, and Juliette shut her eyes tight, unable to watch when it trapped him beneath its dense mass in a second spray of dirt and grass.

“Juliette!”

Juliette opened her eyes and spun at the sound of Gabriel’s voice. “Get to the door!” he commanded harshly, gesturing to the door of the tourist shop at the top of the hill. Behind him, the Adarian he had been fighting was just pushing himself up from the ground once more as Gabriel dove third-base style for the shard gun his opponent had dropped. Before he could reach it, the Adarian lifted his right hand and the air rippled before him, a strange iridescent wave of force that draped itself over Gabriel’s prone form and clearly began to crush him beneath it.

Juliette cried out in fear, unable to stop herself from rushing toward him. At the same time, she called the fallen shard gun to her, willing it into her grasp as if she were using the force. It responded, shooting up into the air and throwing itself into her hand. She gripped it hard, ignoring the sting its impact had caused, and aimed it at the Adarian. His amber eyes widened, only for a moment, and then she pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

She pulled it again, just as the Adarian was beginning to relax, his shocked expression melting into one of smug relief. Again, nothing happened.

The Adarian stood slowly, his amber eyes glowing, and moved toward her in easy, purposeful strides. The wind howled, and she groaned as the Adarian she had crushed with the stone began to shift beneath it, very gradually hauling the monstrous rock off himself.

Her heart hammered. She knelt beside Gabriel, but was unable to touch him; a field of hard air had wrapped itself around him, suffocating him and pressing him relentlessly into the ground.

“Let him go!” she screamed at the black man. She knew it was his magic that was doing this. “Let him go and I’ll come with you!”

But the Adarian only smiled and shook his head. “It’s too late for that now, little archess. You’ll come with us anyway.”

A roar of rage worked its way up her throat. Her body felt wrung out by the exorcism of power she’d suffered, but there was enough left there somewhere. It kept her breathing. It made her heart pump blood. It was there—and it rallied at the injustice, focusing on the large man and his ancient, horrible magic.

The sky split open a second time, the wind parted, and white-hot electricity shot through the air, filling it with the heat of a thousand suns. Juliette ducked, hiding her face as the bolt of lightning encompassed the Adarian, enveloping him in a whiteout of cacophonous rage.

She screamed when the sound ripped through her ears and the rumble tore through her body like a cosmic thump. But her hands sank through the now-free air where they had been resting on the Adarian’s force field, and she was once more touching Gabriel’s jet-black hair.

“Gabriel!” she screamed, barely hearing her own voice through the numb ringing in her ears. “Gabriel!” she cried again, not knowing what else to say. But he was breathing; she could see his broad back rising and falling. He slowly heaved himself up with one arm and rolled over, gasping for air. She hurriedly brushed his hair off his forehead with the hand that didn’t hold the shard gun.

She was going to ask him if he was okay, but the earth groaned again and her gaze cut to the large stone slab several yards away. The Adarian she had crushed would be free any second now.

“We have to get out of here,” she said. Her voice still sounded far away, hollow and strange. And weakness was stealing over her now, nearly as potent as a drug.

A few feet away, in the opposite direction, a blond figure stirred on the ground, moaning low and then grunting in pain.

They hadn’t much time.

“Get to the door,” Gabriel repeated between shaky, ragged breaths. He sat up and shot her a fierce look. “Like you should have done,” he reprimanded her.

Juliette ignored the scolding and rose to her feet. A wave of horrible weakness nearly took her out. Spots swam before her vision and her hand came to her forehead. She closed her eyes, wondering if she was going to faint.

But Gabriel was standing then, his presence warm and solid beside her. He bent and lifted her, grasping her firmly in his strong arms. And then he ran, carrying her swiftly over the hill toward the wooden building at the top.

She knew what he was going to do. There had been only one figure milling around behind the windows when they had arrived earlier. The salesperson would be alone inside. Gabriel was going to have to trust that the man wouldn’t see him open a portal through the building’s front door.

Juliette felt strange. She raised her hand to her stomach, allowing it to go limp there so that she wouldn’t drop the shard gun she’d stolen from the Adarian. And then she let her head drop against Gabriel’s shoulder. The world was tilting around her. She felt weightless and empty. She’d never felt like this before in her life.