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.”
“I would like nothing more.” Marcus hesitated and her hope faded. “I must speak with Veiron about what he has seen.”
Amelia didn’t want that to happen. She needed to leave, to find somewhere quiet where she could be alone with Marcus and pull herself together. Her courage was spent. The events of the past day combined with the knowledge that she was going to die had her head spinning and left her quaking. She couldn’t face Veiron yet, not when she feared that what he had said would come true if she saw him again.
Running away wasn’t the answer but it would give her the time she needed to find the strength to face everything that was happening and to face her fate.
“Is it set in stone?” she whispered and he looked confused. “The future… Marcus… is it set in stone?”
Marcus lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her hair. “No. If there is one thing I have learned in my years, and during this mission, it is that nothing is set in stone. The future can be changed, and the slightest thing can avert the greatest disaster.”
That was a small comfort at least.
“I don’t want to die.” Amelia buried her head against his chest armour and wished it wasn’t there creating a barrier between her and Marcus’s warm skin. She needed to feel him.
He brought one hand up and splayed his fingers through her hair, holding her gently against him as he sighed.
“I promise you, Amelia, with all of my heart, I shall not let you die.”
She smiled at the strength in those words and the gravelly edge to his voice that left her with no option but to believe in the promise he made and his conviction to keep it.
“Is he really a demon?” She looked past Marcus’s arm to the open backdoor of the townhouse and through it to the entrance hall. She couldn’t see the porch or the world on the other side of the building from this angle. “He looked like one of you.”
Marcus stroked her hair, his movements slow and gentle, as rhythmic as his steady breathing. That steadiness flowed into her, calming her fears and settling her heart. “Veiron would have been like me once, many millennia ago, or perhaps even less. He was once an angel of Heaven.”
“Is he what happens to angels when they fall?” Amelia thought about Einar and how kind he had been to her, and hoped that Marcus said that it wasn’t because she didn’t want Einar to become evil.
Evil.
Veiron had said that he wanted to protect her. That didn’t seem like a very evil thing to do. The other demonic angels who had attacked her in the alley clearly hadn’t wanted to protect her though. Perhaps even the demon world had those who were good and those who were bad.
“Veiron is what happens when an angel’s soul is corrupted so much that the damage is irreversible. He has pledged himself to the Devil and forsaken my master.” Marcus paused and held her closer, his hand stilling against the back of her head, holding her to his chest. “I had not realised before yesterday that they had a second appearance. I had only ever heard of them, seen them, as a man with the wings of a demon.”
“Why do they use such a human form if they have that other one?”
Amelia had never believed in deities before and even with this happening to her it was hard to bring herself to believe in their existence. She had seen angels and demons though, and believed in them now. Perhaps if she saw God and the Devil, she would believe in them too. She only hoped that seeing them wouldn’t mean she was dead.
“I am not sure. Perhaps they do so to taunt us with what they have become and the fear that we too may one day be like them. They always appear to my kind in the same manner as Veiron did today, their tainted feathers disappearing to reveal their demonic wings beneath.”
Veiron had certainly seemed to take pleasure from the manner in which he had appeared to them. He had enjoyed shocking her.
“We should see what Veiron has to say.” It wasn’t what she wanted to do, she wanted to stay here in Marcus’s arms and forget the past few minutes had ever happened, but it was the right thing to do and she was starting to find her courage again. She would face whatever life had in store for her and she would survive. She had finally found a good man, a beautiful angel, and she wasn’t about to give up and throw in the towel. She was going to live through this and be with Marcus.
Marcus held her a moment longer and then lowered his hand to hers, clasped it tightly, and led the way back through the townhouse to the front porch.
Veiron was gone.
CHAPTER 12
“What happened?” Marcus hurried down the stone porch steps to Einar where he stood near the black wrought iron gate to the townhouse.
Einar looked from him to Taylor. She kept her back to them, still standing in the road close to the spot where Veiron had been.
“What happened?” Marcus tried again, growing tired of no one answering him. Veiron couldn’t have left. When Marcus had no longer been able to resist going to Amelia, he had told the man to wait and he had agreed, stating that they needed to talk. “I need to know what he saw.”
“He’ll be halfway to Hell by now.” Taylor turned to face them, an edge of guilt in her blue eyes. Had she driven Veiron away? Marcus didn’t care if she had been involved with Veiron and things had ended sourly. Amelia was what mattered now and he had thought that Taylor would see that and would have kept Veiron here while he had gone to speak with her.
“I don’t care.” Marcus stepped towards her, anger rising within him, and stared her down. She cast her gaze downwards. “I want to know why he left!”
“Marcus.” Einar caught Marcus’s arm, his grip so firm that Marcus wouldn’t easily be able to shake it. “Taylor will try to get a message to him, won’t you, Taylor?”
>
Taylor nodded.
It was too late now to argue about what had happened, but it wasn’t too late to find Veiron and he wasn’t about to wait around while Taylor tried to contact the man. He could find a way to go to Hell and track him down. He needed to know what Veiron had seen. He couldn’t let anything happen to Amelia. It was more than duty driving him now and he couldn’t fail her when he had promised that he would do all in his power to protect her.
Marcus looked skyward. The lightening vault of Heaven was turning blue as the sunrise wore on and it looked as though it was going to be another hot sunny day. Not a cloud marred the sky.
He called on his wings and stretched them, preparing himself for flight. He couldn’t easily enter Hell to find Veiron, but he could enter Heaven and face his superior. This time he wouldn’t leave without discovering what they had seen and why he had to protect Amelia.
“Where are you going?” Amelia said from behind him, her soft voice lined with fear.
Marcus tucked his wings against his back and turned to face her. Just as he did so, her hand slipped into his, fingers pressing into his palm, and a desire to remain with her battled his need to leave.
What if he left her and something happened?
What if Veiron returned and took Amelia, claiming that he wanted to protect her?
Marcus couldn’t bring himself to trust a Hell’s angel. Three of them had already come after Amelia and they hadn’t done so to protect her. For all he knew, Veiron could be lying so he would hand Amelia over to him, believing that she would be spared a terrible future if he did so. Veiron or another demon might be the one who killed her. He had only said that Marcus was there when she died. That didn’t mean that Marcus or anyone from Heaven was responsible for her death.
He made a short noise of frustration and looked at Amelia, deep into her grey eyes. The fear in them spoke to his heart and he couldn’t bring himself to leave her side, not until she wasn’t looking as scared. Veiron hadn’t said when the event would take place, but it couldn’t be soon or he wouldn’t have left without a fight for Amelia. There had to be time before her death and Marcus would use it to find out what was going to happen so he could avert it.
First he needed to ease Amelia’s fears.
“Taylor… please try to contact Veiron or anyone who might know about this,” he said without looking at her and then took hold of Amelia’s hand and led her back into the townhouse and through it to the small garden.
The patch of sky between the backs of the tall buildings that formed a quadrangle around him was already turning deeper blue, calling to him with promises of warm sunlight on his feathers and a cool breeze to chase away the heat of day.
It was soothing being surrounded by quiet with Amelia and the longer he stood there clasping her hand tightly in his, the more he shared her need to escape everything for a while and just be alone with her. It wouldn’t solve anything but it would give him time to answer Amelia’s questions, and perhaps find answers to his own, and would ease the fear in his heart and hers.
Marcus leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Put something warm on and come back here.”
He released her hand and nodded towards the door. Amelia walked over to it and then looked back at him, uncertainty written in the beautiful lines of her face. When he smiled, she went inside and through to the foyer. Taylor and Einar were arguing outside. He could hear them and was certain that the neighbours could too. They fell silent a few seconds after Amelia had left him and he heard their low-spoken conversation and Amelia’s request for warmer clothing.
Marcus tilted his head back and looked at the sky. Everything that had happened this morning ran through his mind and he analysed it, searching for clues and inspiration. He would take Amelia away for a few hours but that was all he could spare. He needed to find a way to uncover what Veiron had seen or discover what Heaven had witnessed about Amelia’s future.
Heavy footsteps alerted him to someone’s presence but he didn’t take his eyes off the sky. It wasn’t Amelia.
“I know you’re angry with her, but cut Taylor some slack. She went through a lot of pain because of Veiron. He hurt her and it was the first time she had seen him since he broke up with her.” Einar’s tone was soft, careful and each word felt measured, as though he had put a lot of thought into what he had said.
Marcus sighed.
He hadn’t realised that Veiron had been the one to leave Taylor. The way they had reacted to each other and the fact that Veiron had gone looking for her when he had heard about her being with someone else had led Marcus to believe that she had been the one to break things off between them. If Veiron had hurt her, she had hidden it well, but not good enough that Einar hadn’t noticed.
“Veiron left because Taylor said that she wouldn’t let him take Amelia, and that she believed that you were able to protect her and change her fate. She told him that he wasn’t needed and that we wouldn’t entrust Amelia to him.” There was an edge to Einar’s tone now, a note that warned of his increasing anger over how Marcus had reacted to the fact that Veiron had left. Had Einar been able to see his doubt about Taylor’s desire to protect Amelia?
It shamed him that he had. He didn’t know Taylor but he shouldn’t have believed her capable of doing something that would endanger Amelia. Just because she was half-demon, didn’t mean that she would side with another demon over an angel. She was in love with one after all.
It was difficult for him to see past his prejudice towards her kind though. He had never worked with a demon before. They had always been his enemy in the past and now he was expected to view one as an ally. It was going to take time to adjust and come to trust her.
Marcus looked across the yellow stone patio at his friend. The hardness in his rich brown eyes dared Marcus to say another word against the half-demon he loved. He sighed again, exhaling long and slow, and let his shoulders drop. The tension in them faded. He couldn’t hold on to his anger towards Taylor now that he knew Veiron had hurt her and knew that she had defended both Amelia and him. Her actions went some way towards gaining his trust but he still needed more. If she tracked down Veiron, she would have his trust completely.
“I’m sorry,” Marcus said and held Einar’s gaze, hoping that he could understand what had driven him to suspect Taylor wasn’t wholly on their side. Einar had once been one of the leading hunters for Heaven and had regularly been sent to the mortal realm on missions to destroy demons who were dangerous to humans. He had to understand because he must have struggled to overcome his hatred towards demons in order to love Taylor.
Einar’s look softened and he crossed the patio and placed a hand on Marcus’s shoulder. “I know how you’re feeling. We were all shocked… but this cannot be completely unexpected. If Heaven has seen her demise, then it is likely your mission to change something so it won’t happen. Heaven has ordered you to protect her, haven’t they?”
Marcus nodded, a glimmer of relief swelling inside his chest as he considered his mission. Einar was right. Heaven wanted him to protect Amelia and he wasn’t going to fail her. They would find out what Veiron had seen in Hell, even if he had to find a way down there so he could confront the man himself.
His eyes widened.
Hell.
“Apollyon.” Marcus’s eyes darted to meet Einar’s. “Veiron saw what happened to Amelia when he was in Hell. Apollyon used to guard the pool there that records history for Heaven, didn’t he? What if that pool could be used to see the future?”
“Yes, but Apollyon gave up his duty a few years ago in order to be with Serenity.” Einar didn’t look sure now. “I doubt he would help.”
“It’s worth a try. I have to try, Einar… I only need him to gain me access to Hell. I can handle the rest myself. Do you know where he lives?”
Einar still looked uncertain but nodded. “He lives in Paris. I think it’s best if I go with you. I have seen him recently, plus I only know the way to his home, not the address. I
t will take some time to arrange the travel details.”
Marcus had forgotten that Einar couldn’t fly. It would slow them down but he was thankful for Einar’s support. He couldn’t do this without him. There was strength in numbers and he needed to protect Amelia. Einar and Taylor could prove crucial in any fight that might arise if Veiron or more Hell’s angels came after them. They could at least protect Amelia while he fought.
“Arrange travel for yourself and Taylor. I’ll handle getting Amelia there and we will meet you at the tower.”
“I’ll let Taylor know the plan and we’ll get on it.” Einar looked out of the corner of his eye and Marcus followed his gaze.
Amelia stood in the doorway, her hands twisted in front of her.
The dark jeans and dark jumper she wore suited her, although both were a little tight and she’d had to turn up the bottom of the jeans. His destination for some quiet time with her changed. She would need clothes for their trip and so would he. The danger of returning somewhere so familiar was present in the back of his mind, but taking her home for a few hours before they departed for Paris would alleviate her tension and go some way towards making her feel safe with him again.
Marcus stretched his silvery wings and then beat them a few times, not enough to lift him off the ground but enough that he felt comfortable with them and his flight feathers realigned. He frowned at each of his wings in turn and ran a hand along their length, preening them.
“Something wrong?” Amelia said and he shook his head.
“Just wanted to be sure they weren’t going to act up before we got going.”
“Going where?” She stopped in front of him.
He answered her by scooping her into his arms, cradling her like a princess, and giving one single hard beat of his wings. She shrieked as they shot into the air and then gripped his neck for dear life when he beat his wings again and they were suddenly high above London.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Complete Series Box Set Page 15