Messenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (33 page)

“I don’t know actually,” Juliette replied, biting her lip to hide her smile. “I think I have to go and do some strange things like get a man’s trunks and wear them and kiss ten guys or something.”

Sophie’s brows raised. She turned a doubtful expression on Juliette. “And Mr. Black is going to let that happen? The ten-kisses thing?”

Juliette blushed. Sophie had met Gabriel and was admittedly impressed with the archangel. She’d also made it very clear to Juliette that she was convinced no man had ever been more obsessed with a woman than Gabriel was with Juliette. So, she had a point there. Juliette would be shocked, too, if Gabriel actually allowed her to go and kiss ten guys. Then again—he was Scottish at heart. And this was tradition.

“Yeah, good luck with that, Jules.” Sophie shook her head, rolling her eyes. “God, I can’t believe the company you’re keeping these days,” she muttered, breathing out a sigh of utter fascination. She leaned in and whispered, “Archangels. And not just any archangels—but
the
archangels. And only Michael and Azrael have yet to find their archesses?”

Juliette glanced nervously up at the woman behind the counter several yards away, but the woman was wearing an iPod and was utterly oblivious to their conversation. The bodyguards were all outside on the street. She nodded at Sophie.

Sophie sighed heavily. “Too bad I can’t be an archess with you. Damn, it would be so cool to be able to bonk some jerk-off on the head with telekinesis or set his shoes on fire like Drew Barrymore.”

Juliette started to smile at that, but stopped. Sophie was right in a way. She was so beautiful and so special—and so
kind
, even after everything she’d been through. If anyone in the world deserved to be an archess, it was Sophie. The thought made Juliette feel inexplicably sad.

Sophie frowned as she watched Juliette’s expression change. “Hey,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m
kidding
. You can have the power, girlfriend. I’m not really into angels anyway.” She smiled wickedly, flashing those perfect straight white teeth of hers. “I’ve always been more into the bad boys. You know that.” She winked and Juliette felt instantly more relaxed.

“Fair enough,” Juliette replied, picking out a package of Parma Violets for herself. “Only a bad boy could keep you in line.”

“No one can keep me in line,” Soph shot back, giving her a impious look over her shoulder as she took her basket to the front counter. “And I’m going to prove it tonight by making sure you kiss all ten men you’re supposed to kiss, no matter what your betrothed has to say about it.”

* * *

“Are you ready for this?” Michael asked softly as he adjusted Gabriel’s collar. They were standing at the altar of a church in Cruden Bay, where they had gathered to get dressed for the wedding and sign marriage documents. Once they were finished, they would take a car just down the road to Slains Castle, where the ceremony would take place.

Juliette and her bridesmaids were there already, hidden from view inside an elaborate bride’s tent that Michael and Max had built for them.

“I’ve been ready for two thousand bloody years,” Gabriel replied, smiling as he said it. His body felt tingly; his chest felt light. He felt strange—in a very good way. “Is Az here yet?”

“I’m here,” replied a deep, melodic voice. Gabriel turned as his incredibly tall, incredibly handsome vampire brother came through the front door of the church dressed in a black tuxedo that made him look like candy for a very wealthy, very beautiful sugar mama.

“You clean up nice,” Michael teased the vampire.

Az shot him a fanged smile and then closed the distance between himself and Gabriel. “This is for you,” he said as he dug into the inside pocket of his tux jacket and pulled out what looked like a parchment rolled up and wrapped with a ruby red satin ribbon.

He held it out toward Gabriel, and Gabriel looked at it warily. “Wha’ is it?”

“Your wedding present,” Azrael replied easily. “It’s the reason I was late arriving at the scene during the battle with the Adarians the other night,” he went on to explain. It had been a while since Gabriel had heard the former Angel of Death string together so many words at once. He wasn’t a man who spoke without reason. Maybe he got out everything he wanted to say while onstage.

Gabriel raised a brow. “You got there in time,” he said. He could tell Az felt bad about having shown up after Juliette had already been taken.

Azrael’s smile turned warm. He obviously appreciated the sentiment, but again, it didn’t require words to express as much.

Gabriel gently took the rolled parchment from his brother’s tapered fingers and pulled the ribbon loose. It fluttered to the ground in a crimson flurry. Gabriel unrolled the tall piece of paper and began to read.

His eyes widened and his heart skipped a beat. He read it again.

And then he looked up at Azrael to find the vampire archangel watching him with twinkling golden eyes. “You’re welcome,” Az said softly. And then he turned and strode across the church toward the door once more. Michael followed him, a knowing smile on his face. Apparently, the Warrior Archangel had been in on the secret.

The two men were joined by Uriel, who appeared in the moonlit entrance, his green eyes taking in the scene. “You ready?” Uriel asked, his emerald gaze settling on Gabriel, who yet stood stock-still, frozen in shock at the front of the church.

Gabriel closed his mouth and swallowed hard. He glanced back down at the deed in his hands. He was now the proud owner of one Slains Castle on the coast of Cruden Bay, Scotland. That was, if his eyes weren’t deceiving him and he wasn’t dreaming. He exhaled a shaky breath and half smiled, half laughed.

He thought of the castle and he thought of his soon-to-be bride. And then he thought of how she would react when he told her the news.

“Yes,” he said, nearly breathless with happiness. “Yes, I am.”

EPILOGUE

T
he pipers played clear and true that night. The notes filled the sea air with a purity befitting the occasion. The crowd grew silent and stood as one as the first bridesmaid appeared at the end of the row and began to make her way down the aisle of crumbling castle walls and strewn rose petals.

Gabriel nodded at Eleanore, who smiled back warmly. She was stunning in the lavender bridesmaid gown they’d chosen, but Gabriel doubted the archess could look anything less than stunning, no matter what she wore.

She took her place on the left-hand side of the priest, across from Uriel, and turned to gaze down the aisle as the maid of honor came around the corner. Juliette’s best friend, Sophie Bryce, was wrapped in pale lilac, the color of a Scottish thistle. Her fair golden skin and long golden hair were offset by the color to stunning effect. Gabriel had to admit that Juliette’s friend was an incredible beauty.

She nodded at Gabriel, smiled warmly at Eleanore, and took her place in front of the other bridesmaid, across from Azrael, who acted as best man.

Gabriel nodded back at her, and some tiny part of him noticed that as she looked up and over his shoulder, something strange flashed in the depths of her sun-colored irises. But he could not concentrate on it; he was unable to. At the moment, his entire body was wound tight as a drum. His heart beat for only one woman that night, and if he had to wait much longer for her to walk down that aisle, he was going to break rank and leave the altar to find her himself.

At last, the pipers crescendoed and he felt his chest open up and his eyes nearly water with emotion as Juliette and her parents rounded the castle corner. “My God . . . ,” he whispered, unable to help himself. He gazed at his chosen bride, his living, breathing angel—his archess—and felt his breath leave him. She smiled at him, her cheeks flushed, her hazel green eyes flashing with warmth and promise, and Gabriel Black knew then and there that he was forever ruined to find as much beauty in anything else in the world—ever again.

* * *

Azrael forced himself to remain where he was, standing there at the front of the wedding party behind his brother. He forced himself not to move. Not to speak. He was constrained to compel himself to do these things with every single inhuman fiber of his supernatural being, and it was one of the most difficult tasks he had ever undertaken. He had to rein himself in as he had never imagined he would have to. The vampire archangel called upon two thousand years of training on Earth and countless thousands of years of existence as the Angel of Death to find within himself the strength he needed to allow Gabriel to have the wedding he deserved.

Azrael marshaled himself to stillness.

But what he wanted to do was step around the groom, grab the golden-haired, golden-eyed maid of honor, and take to the skies with her.

Because she was the one. She was the woman he had been waiting for—looking for—night after night, for the last twenty centuries. Sophie Bryce was an archess.

And she was his.

Read on for a look at the new installment in the sexy and enthralling Lost Angels series,

DEATH’S ANGEL

Available in January 2013 from Signet Eclipse

H
e’s an archangel,
Sophie told herself sternly as she tried with all her might not to fidget. She stared up the long aisle of decorated chairs to the altar before Slains Castle. Azrael stood there beside the groom, and to her, he was the epitome of everything desirable in a man. His incredibly tall, imposing form was draped in the color of night, and the suit was tailored to fit his extraordinary physique with absolute perfection. His sable hair fell in gentle waves to his shoulders and made Sophie’s fingertips itch with the need to touch it. His skin was so fair, it was nearly translucent. He honestly looked like a vampire lord in that expensive tux, his gold eyes nearly glowing in their intensity, and it was making her a little nuts.

Juliette Anderson, Sophie’s best friend, was getting married, and Sophie was the maid of honor. It was her job to stand there and be supportive, to take the bouquet and carry the train and all of that business. But as the vicar gave his Gaelic blessing to the gathered members of the wedding party and the pipers poured their bittersweet music across the castle grounds, Sophie could concentrate on nothing but Azrael.

Azrael the archangel.

Juliette had told Sophie all about him. He and his three brothers were the four favored, the Old Man’s favorite archangels. Jules had hammered Soph with the news about them short hours after Sophie stepped off the plane in Edinburgh. Sophie had her own news that she’d been wanting to share with Juliette for the last three weeks, but when she’d seen the look on Juliette’s face and caught the frantically anxious tone of her voice, Sophie’s affairs had instantly taken a backseat to Juliette’s and they’d remained there ever since.

Gabriel and his brothers were none other than the four most famous archangels in existence: Michael, the Warrior Angel; Uriel, the Angel of Vengeance; Gabriel, the Messenger Angel; and Azrael, the Angel of Death.

He looks the part,
Sophie thought now as she again stole a surreptitious glance at the gorgeous man. He was too handsome. It was that kind of handsome that was difficult to look at.

According to Juliette, the four favored had come to Earth two thousand years ago in order to find something very precious to them: their mates. It sounded like something out of a werewolf romance, but there it was. Apparently the brother archangels had been given gifts by the Old Man in the form of four perfect
female
archangels, whom he called archesses. Before the archangels could claim them, however, the Old Man sent the archesses to Earth, and there they were scattered—lost to their mates for centuries. Until now.

For some reason the archesses seemed to be popping up all at once.
Well, maybe not all at once,
Sophie reasoned as she dutifully lifted the train of her best friend’s gorgeous wedding gown and followed her down the aisle toward the altar. After all, Juliette was only the second archess to be found out of the four that had been created. Maybe it was only coincidence that she and the first archess had both made their appearances within months of each other. Still . . . two thousand years without anything, and then in the course of a few months, two archesses appear?

Sophie glanced furtively toward Uriel, the first archangel of the four brothers to have met his archess. He looked incredibly handsome in his fitted tux, with his piercing green eyes and wavy dark hair. Uriel had been surprising enough for Sophie to take in because he was also Christopher Daniels, the famous actor who played Jonathan Brakes, the “good” vampire in the hit movie
Comeuppance
.

Azrael was harder for Sophie to take in. Not only was he literally the most handsome man Sophie had ever laid eyes on, he was supposedly the lead singer for Valley of Shadow, which was at that moment the most popular rock band in the world.

Once she’d processed the information, she realized it made a lot of sense.
‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .’
How fitting,
she thought.

As the enigmatic lead singer of Valley, Azrael always took to the stage wearing a black mask that hid half of his face from his fans. His voice crooned and hypnotized, pouring out over his audiences with immense influence.

Sophie had been a breathless, swooning fan of Valley of Shadow since its inception. She’d been as mesmerized by the Masked One’s physique, charisma, presence, and ethereal voice as every other woman in the world. When she streamed his songs through her iPod, she was able to close her eyes and pretend that he was singing to her—and her alone. Hell, she even dreamed of him.

Oh jeez,
she thought as that memory flushed her with both embarrassment and baffled anticipation. The bride took her place at the front of the altar, and Sophie held her bouquet as the ceremony began. Sophie couldn’t believe she was actually standing there, a few feet away from the Masked One. To say nothing of the fact that he was also an archangel. The Angel of Death, no less! Her mind spun with the implications.

He’s looking at me
. She could feel the archangel’s golden gaze searing into her from where he stood opposite her beside the altar. She forced herself not to meet his gaze. She couldn’t do it again. Every time she glanced up at him, she felt that he was staring right through to her soul, reading her from the inside out, absorbing her very spirit with those piercing orbs of his. It was too much. And yet, even as she knew she shouldn’t look at him again because of the way it made her feel—she wanted to.

She was a moth to the flame.

The vicar called for the rings, and Sophie actually felt Azrael’s gaze lift. He gracefully pulled the set of heavy gold bands from the inside pocket of his black tux and handed them to the handsome groom. Gabriel took the rings with a very real smile and turned to face his bride.

Sophie found herself transfixed by the image of Gabriel sliding the band onto Juliette’s slim finger. The knotted gold Celtic design winked in the moon- and candlelight, fitting Juliette’s finger perfectly. It rested on her hand like a brand, final and complete, and Sophie imagined the tall and enigmatic Azrael sliding a ring on her own finger in the same fashion.

And then she blinked. Her heart thudded hard behind her rib cage. Where the hell had that image come from? It had appeared out of nowhere, clear as day, and now it was refusing to fade away. She could almost feel the physical weight of the metal on her finger—and the heat of Azrael’s touch on her hand.

Sophie felt her face flush with embarrassment. If he only knew what she was fantasizing about in that moment!

With a small start, she realized that the ceremony was over. The pipers began to play “Amazing Grace,” and Juliette and Gabriel kissed. The vicar said a few more words in Gaelic—which Juliette seemed to understand—and then she and Gabriel turned to head back down the makeshift aisle.

The moon was in its last night of being full above them. Its blue-white light cast the decorated castle and its grounds into stark, beautiful contrast. Streamers and ribbons of lace and satin had been strung between stone columns and draped over the battlements of Slains Castle so high above them. The waves of the waning tide crashed against the rocks far below, and seagulls sang the last, piercing notes of their nightly lullabies.

Roses and lavender scented the air, which was unnaturally warm for this time of year. While the rest of the people who had gathered to see the wedding—namely, members of Gabriel’s clan—were unaware of the reason behind the unseasonable pleasantness, Sophie knew that the warm weather was due to Eleanore Granger, the first archess to have been found by the four favored.

Eleanore was Uriel’s archess. As an archess, she possessed powers much like Juliette’s—a fact that Sophie was still trying to wrap her head around. Ellie and Jules could both control the weather to some extent, throw things around with telekinesis, and manipulate fire where it already existed, and most important, they could heal.

It was this power to heal wounds and sicknesses with no more than a touch that really set the archesses apart from every other supernatural creature in the world. And that was another thing Sophie had been forced to take in rather quickly. Apparently, archangels and archesses were not the only ones to inhabit the planet alongside unsuspecting humans. There were others out there—other beings with powers.

Still, none of the other paranormals possessed the ability to mend injuries and pain. This power belonged to the archesses and to Michael and seemed to be limited solely to them.

Juliette had sprung a lot on Sophie, to be sure. But luckily for Jules, Soph could handle it. She didn’t have a lot of memories from her early childhood. But what she did have from those precious days, she held on to with an unequaled fierceness. She had had six precious years with her parents. They’d died in a car accident a week before her si
xth birthday. Until that day, Sophie had been in paradise.

Her mother was an assistant curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Her father had been a pilot. When he was out of town on a job, Sophie’s mother would take her to the museum after hours and the two of them would explore ancient Egyptian tombs and tell ghost stories in what Sophie called the Whale Room.

Sophie’s mom, Genevieve Bryce, had been a unique woman possessed of an open mind. Nothing was impossible to her. “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,’” she would quote to Sophie. It was one of the few things she could remember her mother saying. Such things as magic and miracles were not pipe dreams upon which to fantasize, but very real possibilities to Genevieve. This respect for a world greater than human knowledge was passed on to Sophie, even in the six short years she had been with her parents.

It was enough, luckily, because otherwise, what Jules had told her over the last few days would have sent Sophie to the loony bin. Or convinced her that
Jules
belonged in one, anyway. If Sophie hadn’t been the person she was, Juliette would have had a much more difficult time bringing her best friend into the circle of archangel knowledge.

Now that she was here, witnessing the archangels’ immense physical presence and stark gazes firsthand, she was definitely convinced that magic could exist. To say nothing of what Ellie was doing with her powers.

There was also the small fact that Juliette had actually shown Sophie her wings. Real honest-to-God wings. Apparently, Juliette could control when they appeared and when they didn’t, which was fortunate, because the wings were massive and stretched to a good seven or eight feet on either side. Most impressive of all, perhaps, was the fact that the wings were actually
functional
.

That one hurt a little. Sophie was happy for Juliette and all that she’d found in the last few weeks. Jules deserved the best. She was a kind soul and always had been. She was empathic, understanding, and giving, and Sophie was lucky to have her as a best friend. That Juliette never judged Soph for her past or her lack of a family or “proper” education was like a gift from the Fates to Sophie. She didn’t know what she would do without Jules.

And yet, when Juliette had spread those magnificent wings of hers and beat the air with them and risen from the cliffside where they’d been standing, Sophie had experienced a pang of something she’d never felt before toward Juliette. Jealousy. Envy.

It was a sour, bitter kind of feeling that left a bad taste on her tongue and coiled tightly in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t help it. She would give anything for the ability to leave the Earth’s bonds and escape all that there was while she was trapped there on the ground. To rise above it all. She would give
anything
.

Gabriel and Juliette reached the end of the aisle and all of Gabriel’s clansmen and clanswomen began tossing flower petals upon the couple. Hundreds of white rose petals cascaded down upon the bride and groom amid shouts of congratulations. It was a heartwarming scene, especially when combined with the gorgeous music pouring forth from the pipers, who stood like sentinels along the castle walls.

“My best friend’s getting married,” she whispered to herself, in awe of the event, the importance of which was finally hitting her as Juliette laughingly pulled rose petals out of her mass of beautiful hair. And then Sophie watched as Juliette’s new husband leaned over and kissed her tenderly on the cheek. He closed his eyes, seemingly lost in the wonder that was his new bride.

And Sophie smiled. “Congrats, Jules. You deserve him.”

* * *

Azrael stood still in the men’s restroom of the portable guest- and bathhouse that had been erected outside of Slains Castle for his brother’s wedding. He was alone, and the air was filled with the hollow sense of foreboding. There was a storm brewing. It was a hurricane, hot and windy and destructive, and it was ripping through Azrael’s insides, begging to be released. He exhaled a shaky breath and pressed his forehead to the mirror in front of him, glancing up at his reflection as he did so.

Another human myth gone horribly awry. Vampires did indeed have reflections. It was the wraiths that didn’t. Azrael bared his teeth and laughed a cold, hard laugh at the thought. The most asinine things were going through his head at that moment. The thoughts were like fireflies on a pitch-black night, chaotic and useless and utterly distracting.

Sophie’s whispered thoughts echoed through his mind, taunting him:
I would do anything.
She’d been thinking about Juliette’s wings and wishing she could fly. If she’d had any idea how dangerously tempting her thoughts were . . . to say nothing of her reaction to the image he had so carelessly planted in her mind of the wedding ring sliding onto her finger. He hadn’t even meant to do it; he’d simply imagined it. However, he’d been in her head at the time, thoroughly rapt in all that she was, and she’d caught the impression clear as a bell.

Her heart had skipped, her cheeks had flushed, and her lips had actually grown fuller as blood rushed into them. Her eyes had become glassy and unfocused. Her breath had hitched. And Azrael lost a little of his sanity then and there at his brother’s wedding.