Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Complete Series Box Set

by Heaton, Felicity

  Apollyon straightened, tilting his shoulders back, and cast his dark eyes over them all. “We are returning to Paris for now. We will discuss this matter further there.”

  Marcus nodded and waited to see if anyone would argue against Apollyon. Lukas didn’t seem to have the courage and Annelie was looking less certain now. Marcus smiled his appreciation when Einar came and took Amelia from him, allowing him to stand, and then handed her back to him. Marcus cradled her in his arms and looked down at her, drowning in the maelstrom of his feelings.

  He wasn’t sure who to trust anymore, but he needed answers and fast. If Amelia’s death hadn’t been his final task, then what was it? The urge to go to Heaven and question his superior was hard to ignore, no matter how many times he told himself that it was better he waited until they had more information or until Heaven called him to them.

  It beat inside him, strong and fierce, compelling him to do as his heart dictated and demand payment in blood for what had happened to Amelia.

  He wished that he could obey it and unleash his fury on Heaven but he couldn’t.

  It wasn’t Apollyon’s decision that they would all return to Paris stopping him or the pain that still beat through him as his body slowly healed.

  It was his wings.

  They wouldn’t come out.

  CHAPTER 17

  Marcus paced the small pale uncluttered bedroom in Apollyon’s apartment. The day was wearing on and Amelia hadn’t stirred. Upon their return to Paris, Marcus had placed her on top of the light blue bedclothes on the white wooden bed in the airy room and had stayed with her, leaving the others to discuss events in the other room. Serenity had checked on him twice so far, both times asking if he needed anything and if Amelia had come around. Everyone else had stayed away, although Einar and Apollyon had checked in on him telepathically, sometimes asking him questions about his mission and other things.

  Both angels were concerned about the transformation that Amelia had undergone.

  Lukas hadn’t said much since they had returned. Marcus could hear everyone in the other room and Lukas’s voice was absent from most of the conversations. Marcus could understand Lukas’s need to question Heaven about it, and even now wished that he could go there and find out from his superior just what was happening and what his final task entailed. It was the right decision to be here though and to bide their time before trusting anyone again. As difficult as it was for him, he had to endure it. He wanted to trust Heaven and believe that their plan for Amelia was worth her death, but it became increasingly difficult with each moment he spent watching over her.

  He had changed out of his armour on returning to Paris and had found himself going through Amelia’s bag before he had got the better of himself. He had touched her things, held the jumper she had worn during their flight here to his nose so he could catch her lingering scent on it, and had come close to breaking down under the strain of it all. Pain continued to beat in his heart, running through his veins like acid that ate away at him, and he knew it would lessen if he left her presence, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He needed to stay with her and guard her while she was vulnerable.

  He looked at her when she stirred long enough to roll onto her front, her legs tangling in the layers of soft white and blue fabric she wore and her silver hair splayed out across the pillows.

  Amelia.

  It killed him that she didn’t remember him or that name. She was Amelia to him, the woman he loved and needed more than anything. In the short time they had been together, she had become more vital to him than air, had given him love and awakened him to feelings he could no longer ignore. He ached so deeply for her, still craved the feel of her soft skin beneath her fingers and the warmth of her smiles. He hungered for the heat of her lips on his, the taste of her in his mouth and the smell of her on his skin, and the sound of her voice whispered in his ear. The more he looked at her, the more he could see past the changes and fool himself into seeing his Amelia.

  He stopped near the side of the bed, lowered his hand, and gently ran his left index finger down her spine. He half expected her to wake and smile at him as she had back at her apartment after they had last made love, to reach for him and slide her hand around the nape of his neck and lure him down for a long unhurried kiss. Her skin was velvet beneath his fingertip, warm and soft, soothing yet tearing at him at the same time. It was miserable torture. He replayed her smile over and over again, wishing with every drop of his blood that when she woke she would remember him and this nightmare would end.

  “Stop punishing yourself.” Lukas’s quiet voice stole into his fantasy and he frowned at Amelia, keeping his back to him. “Come and talk with the others.”

  Marcus hadn’t expected Lukas to be the first of his fellow warriors to physically check on him. It made sense in a way. Out of all of them, Lukas was the most sensitive when it came to this sort of thing. It was probably why he had been reborn as a mediator these past two lifetimes, an angel made for talking people down off ledges and making people see sense. Marcus didn’t think that Lukas could easily ease his suffering or take it away. It hurt too much. All he knew was pain.

  “I am fine,” he whispered and glanced past Lukas through the open door that led into the bright living room. Annelie was watching him with pity in her dark eyes. Everyone else seemed to be avoiding looking at him.

  That room bore more punishment than his current location.

  He smiled tightly at Lukas. “I will take first watch.”

  He walked past Lukas into the living room, turned away from the others as they looked at him, and headed straight through the kitchen to the small rooftop balcony that overlooked a leafy park. The warm light of evening heightened the verdant colour of everything and he sighed as he leaned against the iron railings.

  He could still feel everyone’s eyes on him and could hear them as they talked, discussing him in low voices.

  Marcus watched the world below, eyes tracking couples as they walked through the park, or families as they played together. Even this was torture. The sun slowly sunk towards the horizon until it disappeared from view behind the trees and buildings, and the sky began to darken. Marcus remained there, standing sentinel with his senses on high alert in case something happened.

  The conversation died down inside the apartment and gradually the streetlights came on, illuminating the road below that ran alongside the darkening park. Someone entered the kitchen, Serenity judging by the sense of power, and hesitated a moment at the door behind him before leaving again. He heard cupboards open and close, and what sounded like crockery being piled and cutlery gathered.

  His stomach growled at the thought of food but he ignored it and remained where he was, part of him afraid of facing the others. He didn’t want their pity and couldn’t bear the way they looked at him as though he would break under the slightest breeze. He was stronger than that, or he would be if they gave him time. These feelings were new to him but he would master them.

  The moon rose and his gaze followed it, watching as it changed from deep orange through to white. Stars began to appear but only the brightest ones. The yellow haze from the streetlights drowned out the rest. He would have given anything in that moment to fly away until he was high in the sky, far from Earth, between it and Heaven, and could see the stars properly. He couldn’t leave though, and it wasn’t his wings stopping him this time. He had to remain here and watch over Amelia. Even if she didn’t remember him right now, there was a chance that she would regain her memories. He couldn’t be weak and run away from her. She needed his protection now more than ever.

  His resolve to face everything crumbled when he sensed someone step out onto the balcony behind him, their footsteps silent on the terracotta tiles, and then they stepped into view.

  Amelia stood beside him, a vision in her sheer white flowing dress that barely concealed her body and her silver hair shining in the moonlight. Her eyes were still a shade too close to silver, brighter and more oth
erworldly than his Amelia’s had ever been. He quickly cast his gaze downwards to the hem of her dress where it turned blue and her bare feet, staring at them in order to avoid having to look into her eyes and torture himself with the differences between this woman and his lost love.

  A breeze blew the hem of her dress against her legs, revealing the cherub tattoo on her ankle. Marcus frowned at it, pain spearing his chest as he remembered the first time he had noticed it. She had been in the hall outside her apartment, wearing that plum coloured slip that had left little to his imagination and had sparked the awakening of his suppressed feelings for her. He could still remember the warmth of her hand on his as she had iced his knuckles, and the heat of her gaze on his bare back. Everything between them had started that night. It had been their beginning, and now they had reached their end, and he would give everything to go back to that moment and do things differently so she didn’t have to die.

  So she didn’t have to leave him alone in the world with only an eternity of suffering and loneliness ahead of him.

  He tore his eyes away, skipped over her and stared at the moon.

  The bright orb held his eyes but not his attention. That wandered back to Amelia where she stood beside him and he ached inside. He wished that everything would end so he no longer felt the pain burning in his chest. The past day had been a nightmare and he hated what had happened and hated that Einar had saved him. He would rather be dead than face this torment. He couldn’t bear it. He tried so hard to cope with everything and to be strong, to find his resolve to continue his mission and protect the woman now standing beside him, and when she wasn’t present, he could find it and some sense of peace. The moment he set eyes on her again, it shattered, leaving him weak, and his heart cried out for Amelia to return to him.

  He drew in a slow deep breath and then forced himself to look at her.

  Amelia.

  His heart still called her that even when he knew she was no longer that soul.

  What was she now?

  Not an angel, that was certain.

  Was she still Amelia?

  The temptation to raise his left hand and gently brush the backs of his fingers across her cheek was overwhelming. If he did, he wouldn’t get the reaction he expected. She wouldn’t lean into his caress or look at him with love in her eyes as she used to. She would remind him that she didn’t know him and his heart couldn’t bear to hear it again.

  He shut down his emotions, forcing them away until he was cold inside, as empty as the silver eyes watching him.

  “What do you want?”

  CHAPTER 18

  A deep sense of pain in her heart woke her and it wouldn’t be ignored. She stared down at her chest, confused by the feeling burning inside her, trying to understand it. She knew nothing of emotions. Not positive or negative. What sort of feeling was this? It drove her to leave the bed although she wasn’t sure why and then led her from the room. She regarded the mixture of mortals and angels gathered in the next room with cold eyes, unaffected by their presence. They watched her and when they looked as though they might speak, she turned away, following the pain in her heart into another room.

  She looked ahead of her and raised her eyebrows when she saw that her knight was alone and the pain in her chest began to lessen. Was it his doing? She didn’t understand it at all. How could laying eyes on him alleviate the strange hurt inside her?

  The air was cool outside on the small balcony and she walked forwards, desiring to see what it was that held her knight’s attention so intently. The moon. It hung above them in an inky sky, surrounded by bright pinpricks of stars. She stared at it, bathing in its strong light, and then looked at her knight.

  He avoided her, choosing to look at her feet instead of her face, and she recalled the pain that had been in his eyes and his heart when they had met in that field.

  He had called her Amelia.

  She wished that she recalled that name but it was foreign to her, as mysterious as he was and the others too. While she knew what they were, she didn’t know who they were, and she had no desire to either. They were instruments to her, three angels who would eventually do her bidding or would die.

  Three?

  Four angels.

  She looked at her knight when her heart hurt again and the pain eased. Why couldn’t she think of him as one of the rest? Why did she want to set him apart from them?

  “What do you want?” he said in a deep voice and she wasn’t sure how to respond to such a demanding question. She wasn’t sure yet what she wanted or what she needed to do. It would come to her in time. She was sure of that much at least. “You should remain indoors where it is safe.”

  She looked back into the apartment and through it to the living room where the others waited. There was truth in his observation. He was a single angel and there were three in the other room, one of which was superior in strength, power and experience. Logically speaking, she was safest there, surrounded by three angels.

  But logic didn’t seem to matter much in this instance. Something overruled it.

  “There is nowhere safer than near you.” It was an answer she derived from the fact that her pain had eased when she had laid eyes on him and that it was almost gone now that she was close to him.

  She was certain that was what the feeling was about. She wasn’t safe without her knight and he hadn’t been in the room when she had awoken. It had shocked her and she had felt the need to find him.

  He turned to regard her with startled eyes. “Why?”

  His silver-blue eyes were warmer for a moment and then turned hollow again.

  Amelia touched his hand and felt his pain. “You are sad.”

  “I am,” he said without inflection, cold and emotionless.

  “Because I do not recall you?”

  He exhaled slowly and looked at the moon again. “Something like that.”

  She felt different inside again, no longer cold or empty, and struggled with the new feelings as she looked at his profile, her gaze tracing it. The more she looked at him, the stronger the feeling became, spreading through her until she could no longer bring herself to see him as nothing more than a creature that was beneath her, one who should sacrifice himself to protect her. A sense that she knew him flowed through her in the wake of the first feeling and she tried to grasp it but couldn’t.

  The sight of him in pain moved her to go to him and comfort him. She stepped around him, a trickle of fear running along her nerves, confusing her further, and cupped his cheek, her eyes meeting his.

  “Did I do something to upset you?” she whispered and his eyes widened. “Is it the mortal soul that shared this body with me?”

  His face darkened and he pushed her hand away from him, scowling at her. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

  Amelia frowned back at him. She wanted to put him in his place for speaking so disrespectfully to her but she couldn’t bring herself to go through with it. She had never witnessed such suffering. It filled her with a sense that she should feel something for him or do something to help him.

  “There must be something I can do to ease your pain,” she said and he looked at her again, eyes soulful and full of hope.

  “Do you remember me?”

  Amelia thought about it as she stared into his eyes, searching her fragmented memories for knowledge of him and his kinsmen. A flicker of something beat in her chest again as it had done in the field when he had posed that question to her before.

  “I know you… in here.” She touched her chest and then her head. “But not in here. I wish that I knew more about you than just this sensation within me. You are familiar to me.” She curled her fingers up and then touched her chest again, focusing there. “Dear to me… or perhaps I was dear to you. I wish I remembered you.”

  “Why?” His voice cracked and the pain in her chest increased as his eyes searched hers.

  Amelia touched his face again and he closed his eyes and leaned into her palm. She sensed t
he moment his pain eased because the ache in her heart eased too. Whatever connected them, it was strong and fierce, a bond that couldn’t even be undone by death.

  “This is not Amelia touching me now,” he whispered to himself and frowned, his eyes still closed. The sense of sorrow and hurt in him increased. “Whatever this divine being before me is, it is not the woman I was falling for.”

  “I wish that I remembered you because then your pain would cease. I want to ease your suffering.”

  He opened his eyes and looked so deep into her eyes that she felt as though he was trying to see the answer to his question before he posed it. “The others believe that in time you will remember things… will you?”

  The pain that beat in her heart now was so intense that it stole her breath and hot liquid rose into her eyes, threatening to spill onto her cheeks. The feelings awakening inside her both confused and surprised her. Whatever this angel had felt for the mortal soul within her body, it had been strong. She had meant a lot to him.

  She didn’t understand the emotions involved, struggled to grasp their meaning, and had thought that angels didn’t bear such mortal feelings.

  They had changed since her last life. She didn’t recall exactly what they were like before, only that they were cruel beings fit only for destruction.

  Marcus was anything but cruel. There was such warmth in him and affection, and she honestly felt safest around him, as though they still shared a bond.

  He looked at her, his icy eyes full of turbulent emotions that she could feel through the point where she was touching him. He lowered his head, causing his overlong black hair to fall forwards and caress his forehead, and a desire to brush it back again so she could see his face momentarily burst into life inside of her.

  She raised his head so he looked at her again, leaned in and tiptoed, bringing her mouth up to his. He knocked her hand away and stepped back before her lips could touch his.

  “Don’t!” he snapped and the anger that radiated from him and flowed into her gave her a sense of the true depth of his power and how dangerous he was. She had underestimated him. The dark angel wasn’t the most powerful after all. There was something about Marcus, a hidden strength that she hadn’t noticed before. Did he even know that he had it? “It doesn’t work that way… you can’t just do something like that.”