Messenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (29 page)

He smiled a small, strange smile that made him look poetically poignant. And then he sighed. “Very well. Wait here.” With that, he shot into the sky, leaving a burst of tailwind so strong, it buffeted Juliette, causing her to stumble.

She caught her balance and blinked up at the place where he had disappeared.
What the fuck?
she thought. Where did he go? She couldn’t even tell what direction he’d gone in.

“Wait here?” she screamed, calling into the night after him. “Like I can bloody well go anywhere!” She vaguely recognized that she’d picked up on Gabriel’s mild-mannered swearing, but mostly, she was bewildered. Abraxos had left her on an outcropping of stone, a hundred feet above the water and rocks below. It was dark and there was nowhere for her to go. Even if she ran, she would probably fall off the cliff. It wouldn’t be the first time.

And if she didn’t fall—Abraxos would catch her. Of that, she had no doubts. She was trapped.

A cold breeze brushed by her, causing her to shiver violently. Juliette shoved her hands into her pockets to warm them. Once again, her fingers brushed against the smooth gold of the bracelet Gabriel had given her.

She frowned and pulled it out, looking down at its intricately carved surface as it shimmered vaguely in the moonlight.

Trapped. Trap . . .

“. . . Just put it in your pocket. It has the power to trap a person’s supernatural abilities within their body. I want you to carry it with you. . . .”

Juliette’s eyes widened as a puzzle piece noisily slid into place inside her head. She glanced up at the empty night sky—and then looked back down at the bracelet once more. Gabriel had told her that the bracelet trapped a supernatural creature’s powers within his or her body. Abraxos and his Adarians wanted to steal her power from her by draining and drinking her blood. But if she bound her power within her body . . . maybe it couldn’t be drained along with her blood. Maybe it would stay put.

Maybe that was what the archess in the book Law had given her had done; she’d bound her abilities within herself, keeping them from the warlock in the process.

Juliette stared down at the gold wreath. She might die anyway, but if she did, she would at least deny the Adarians what they wanted and perhaps even spare the other archesses in the process.

Juliette turned the bracelet over, looking for some kind of catch or lever with which to open it. There was no way she could slide it over her hand. She was small, but the bracelet was perfectly round and smaller than the circumference of her hand. She’d never noticed before how small it was.

She held it up next to her wrist, squinting at the size. And then, as if to test it out, she bumped it against her arm. There was a quick blinding flash and Juliette jumped, squinting her eyes. When she opened them again, the bracelet was no longer in her hand. It was now on her wrist, and it seemed to wink at her beneath the moonlight.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

K
evin could feel that his men were returning to their temporary lair. It was a vibration in the air, a sense that they were no longer in danger. Long ago, Kevin had learned that he possessed the ability to recall his men to a certain location at a certain point in time.

The Adarians tried to stay out of human affairs; their wars and battles had nothing to do with the mortal world. Nevertheless . . . once in a while, fighting was necessary, for Adarians were not the only supernatural creatures to inhabit the third planet from the sun.

Seldom, those fights went south. When this happened, Kevin’s recall ability kicked in. Unfortunately, it was the only time he was able to use it. If he had possessed the power to call his men to him at any given moment, he would have had his hands on Xathaniel days ago.

The recall began when the Adarians were beaten—or when they had accomplished what they’d set out to do. In those instances, Kevin’s men disappeared one by one and reappeared at a previously decided-upon location. In this case, the location was an underground compartment that could be reached through the very cliffs he had left Anderson standing on top of. These locations, or bunkers, were located all over the planet. They’d been created by the Adarians over the last several thousand years and reinforced over time.

Kevin made his way through the caverns’ winding stone maze until he could hear his men conversing. At the entrance to the bunker, he shifted, allowing his body to turn to fine blue mist. The mist swirled, collected, and shot beneath the metal door they’d erected, into the cracks, and across to the other side. There, it collected once more, coming together in a sparkling blue dust cloud that quickly solidified to take on his familiar, tall shape.

“General,” one of his men greeted him. But the man’s voice was tight with pain and his teeth were gritted in stifled anger. Kevin let his eyes scan over the scene. Ely was there, bruised and bloodied, but standing tall and strong as ever. Mitchell was completely undamaged; he had that kind of luck in a battle. People tended to steer clear of him and his powers were immense. Luke was in the same shape as Ely—a bit worse for wear, but whole and healthy all in all.

However, all seven of the group of Adarians that had once numbered eleven were injured in some fashion or another. His vampiric hearing sensed their heartbeats. All were stable but one.

Kevin made his way to a brown-haired man who lay on a bloodied cot, his eyes closed, his handsome face pale. Kevin knew that behind the closed lids were a pair of blue green eyes so stark, they appeared to give off light even when they weren’t glowing. His name was Puriel, but he’d gone by the name Paul for more than a thousand years. Paul possessed the power to control electrical fields, and much like an archess, he could even pull lightning from the skies to strike his opponents.

“Gold bullets, sir,” another of his men informed him as he gazed down upon the fallen soldier. Kevin noted three entry wounds in Paul’s chest. The archangels had learned to fight back, it would seem.
Almost too late,
he mused. As a newly formed vampire, Kevin found that gold had no caustic effect on him the way it had before. His Chosen would eventually possess the same immunity.

However, for the time being, his men were vulnerable to the metal, and one of them was dying due to it. But this was why he had come down here. This was why Kevin had left Juliette Anderson alone up top on the cliffs. He’d known there was a chance that someone in his party would need healing, and because he wasn’t certain whether the healing-power transfer would work with an archess, he’d wanted to make sure his men were stable before he allowed Mitchell to have his way with the female archangel.

He’d left her up on top of the cliff because he hadn’t wanted to subject his men to the danger of a terrified archess unless absolutely necessary. Archesses were far from helpless damsels in distress. If anything, they were more dangerous than their male counterparts.

Kevin turned and waved the locks off the metal door. It swung outward, opening up to the damp, salty air and the moonlit darkness of the night. There was no time to waste now. Paul’s life force was fading.

Kevin shot through the exit and into the underground tunnels like a blue comet, and then burst through the opening beneath the cliff and up into the darkened sky. The blast of wind blew Juliette’s hair into her eyes; he watched her where she sat against an outcropping of stone as he approached.

She’d curled in on herself, her knees to her chest, and now she slowly lowered her hands from her face as he touched down and strode toward her, his boots crunching on the rocks beneath him. She flinched when he lowered himself to one knee in front of her so that they would be eye to eye.

“Juliette, you are going to do something for me,” he told her, allowing his vampire influence to pour over her.

She glared up at him, defiance oozing from her archess pores. He was impressed; any human on earth would have been coaxed into a state of mesmerism by his mere presence. But Juliette Anderson was an archess—and a pissed-off one, at that. She felt she had nothing to lose. There was no reason for her not to disobey.

But now was no time for her rebelliousness. “If you don’t do this thing for me, I will go after your family,” he told her calmly. She tried to look away from him, tried to break eye contact, but he grabbed her chin and turned her to face him once more. “And then I will go after your friends. And when I’ve finished with them, I will choose ten children and kill them off one by one in your name.”

Kevin noted the fear sparking to life in her eyes. She felt good beneath his touch, reminding him of how perfect she was. She was an archess; no one had ever been created to more perfect specifications. Her skin was soft and warm and she trembled beautifully. Her straight white teeth were clenched in resentment and her hazel eyes flashed green with fury. He stared down into them and felt himself harden. He could hear her ragged little breaths and smell the adrenaline lacing her powerful blood. His teeth began to ache in his gums.

Somewhere close by, lightning crashed into the North Sea and thunder rolled closely after it. Kevin released her chin to let his hand slip to her throat, where he gripped her just tightly enough to drive his point home. “None of that, little one,” he warned, knowing full well that the weather was responding to her anger. “If you so much as send a single spark into any one of my men, I swear, I will make those children suffer. Do you understand me?”

She nodded, her luminescent eyes wide, her pained expression exquisite to behold.

“Good.” He nodded his approval, his gaze boring into hers. “Good girl.” He stood, taking her with him, his hand still around her throat. She gasped and her hands came around his wrist instinctively. Kevin noticed something gold flash around her left wrist. He frowned, narrowing his gaze. He hadn’t noticed it on her before. The surface of the gold wreath bore intricate engravings of wording that looked familiar to him. Ancient wording . . .

But there was no time.

Kevin pulled Juliette to him with his hand at her throat, and wrapped her tightly in his embrace. Once more, he took to the skies, diving over the cliff to the sound of her breath catching and her heart hammering wildly. He shot through the tunnels beneath the ground, one hand over her head to protect it from any near misses.

And then he was coming through the giant metal door and into the bunker. With a vaporous flourish, he landed at the center of the group of men and released Juliette, allowing her to stand on her own.

He steadied her with one hand on her shoulder as she pulled away from him enough to see that she was surrounded by Adarians. The five of his men who could stand slowly came to their feet, their stark eyes glued to the promising young woman who had been deposited into their ranks. Kevin recognized the emotions crossing their faces. They were angry, injured, in pain. They were hungry for revenge—and for other things.

Juliette spun a slow circle in their center, no doubt feeling she was surrounded by sharks. She was defenseless as long as she remembered his warnings. And his men all but knew it; the looks in their eyes were darkly promising. Juliette saw it, too; she did so unconsciously, he knew, but she backed up against him, her pulse so fast, he wondered if her little heart would simply give out.

He took advantage of the situation and bent over her until his lips were next to her ear. “Heal him, little one.” She stiffened in front of him as his words whispered across her skin, but he gestured over her to Paul’s prone body and once more took her neck in his fast grip. “I will only tell you once,” he added. And then he let her go.

Juliette took a slow, stumbling step forward, closing the distance between herself and the cot on which Paul lay. Kevin watched her carefully, ready to react should she try anything dangerous. The other men stepped back a bit, giving her room. But their eyes followed her like the eyes of wolves on little Red.

She knelt beside Paul’s body and pressed her fingers to his throat.

“He lives, but barely,” Kevin supplied, saving her the trouble.

She nodded her understanding and placed her hand palm down upon his chest. Several seconds passed and nothing happened. He could hear Juliette’s pulse quicken once more. Kevin moved up behind her and knelt down. He placed his hand over hers and felt nothing. No heat. No warmth. No healing energy at all.

Wrath rushed through him, hot and red, and he stood once more, grabbing her with a fist in her hair and yanking her up with him. She gasped in pain but remained otherwise silent. He spun her around and brought his face to hers. His hand remained fisted at the back of her head, holding her immobile. “What have you done?” he demanded, hissing the words across her lips.

Juliette did not answer. Her eyes were fully green now, flaring with emerald fire as she glared up at him in utter defiance. Kevin grabbed her once more by the throat with his free hand and she again wrapped her fingers around his wrist.

He caught the glint of the gold band and paused. It seemed to shimmer more brightly than before.

He glanced up into her eyes and saw the answer there. She couldn’t hide it from him. He took the thoughts from the surface of her mind as if skimming a small pond for lily pads. He bared his teeth, flashing fangs, and then squeezed the hand around her neck. With his other, he released her hair and curled his fingers around the gold band, giving it a good yank. It was warm in his grip, but when it didn’t burn, he could feel his men shift in stunned silence.

Still, the bracelet remained attached to her wrist, bruising her where he’d pulled against it. It wasn’t going anywhere. He had to fight his own strength and his own anger now to keep from killing her outright. “Take it off,” he commanded, growling the words through a clenched jaw.

“Bite me,” she said, echoing the thought she’d hurled at Mitchell earlier that night.

“Fine,”
he replied, and without pause he fisted his hand in her hair once more in order to yank her head back, exposing her throat. He’d learned over the last few nights that there were two ways a vampire could bite an individual. He could just do it—and it would hurt, as if two fork prongs were being embedded into the side of the victim’s neck. Or he could do it and flood his victim with an influence that took away the pain and substituted pleasure.

Kevin wasn’t in a generous mood. And so as his fangs delved into the side of the archess’s throat, he was struck with two things at once. One was her scream as the pain overtook her, buckling her knees beneath her. The other was the rush of pleasure he received at having her flesh between his teeth and her blood across his tongue. He swallowed, holding her limp body against him, and his pleasure spread, arcing through his entire body.

But by the time he’d swallowed his third or fourth mouthful, he was beginning to realize that there was something missing. It was blood and it was the sweetest blood he had ever tasted—but it was just blood. There was no magic in it.

He concentrated more deeply, willing her power to leave her body and enter his own. There was no change. Nothing happened and the archess was growing weak in his grasp. He felt her heart flutter and heard her moan in helpless pain, and he frowned against her neck. This wasn’t right.
I’m killing her,
he thought.
And it’s pointless.
The bracelet obviously kept her powers within her and prevented him from taking them through her blood.

With that bitter realization, he reined himself in and pulled his fangs from her throat. She was limp in his arms. He bent and lifted her, gazing down at the side of her neck where it was marred by two deep, angry red holes that dripped precious archess blood. “Take her,” he told Mitchell, handing Juliette to the tall, dark-haired Adarian she’d been promised to.

Mitchell took her from Kevin’s arms and Kevin turned and knelt beside Paul’s prone form. His gut clenched; his heart ached.
Too many,
he thought. He’d lost too many lately. One of them by his own hand.

And the world was getting smaller.

But Paul’s heartbeat was barely discernible now. He was nearly gone. It was do it this way—or lose all of him forever. Kevin bent over his fallen soldier and whispered into the man’s ear, “Forgive me.” With that, he turned Paul’s head to the side and sank his fangs into the man’s throat.

The Adarians around him were silent. It was as if they understood. Or maybe it was that they were too shocked—too afraid—to say anything at all. Whatever the reason, the room became a mortuary as Kevin drank Paul’s blood and absorbed his power along with it. It was over in less than thirty seconds. Paul’s heart stopped beating altogether and his life force slipped away.

Kevin extracted his fangs from his soldier’s neck and stood, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He could feel Paul’s power there residing within him now—ready for the taking. He turned and looked at the archess in Mitchell’s arms. Her eyes were open beneath half-closed lids; she was weak but conscious.

She watched him warily, hopelessly, and he approached like a wolf fresh from the kill. “How do I get the bracelet off?” he asked, allowing his power to pour over her. He didn’t hold back. He bombarded her with its potency, wanting the truth and wanting it now.