The Guardian

by Elicia Hyder

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll drink plenty of water.”

  Scowling, I put my hands on my hips.

  “We’re finally here. I want to get moving to find my sister.”

  “Not tonight.” I walked around to the other side of her bed. “Rest tonight and we’ll go in the morning.”

  “But I—”

  “No buts.” I picked up the IV line. “If you want to argue, I’ll leave you tethered to this pole.”

  “All right. Tomorrow.” She’d given up pretty easily considering she could’ve yanked the catheter out herself had she really wanted to. “Are we staying here or at the Claymore compound?”

  “Wherever you would be most comfortable.”

  “Was there real food at the Claymore compound? Azrael tends to feed his humans stuff fit for rabbits and birds,” Reuel said.

  I chuckled as I pulled on another pair of rubber gloves. “We should probably stay here then. The beds in our hooches are about the same as the Claymore beds anyway.” I sat down on the rolling stool again.

  “Do they sleep more than one person?” Reuel asked.

  “Not in the specific spot where we were, and I don’t think I saw any barracks between here and the gate either. If you think we should stay together, maybe we should go back to Claymore.” I unhooked the IV line from her catheter.

  “If we are going to sleep on those god-awful bunks at the compound, we might as well not even sleep at all,” Fury said. “The hooches are fine with me.”

  Reuel looked worried.

  “You and I can keep a lookout. We don’t need to sleep,” I said, gently removing the tape around Fury’s IV. The sight of the catheter moving beneath her skin made my stomach wobble.

  Reuel tapped his chest. “I’ll keep a lookout. I am the guardian here, after all.”

  “Suit yourself.” It didn’t really matter. I knew I wouldn’t be getting much sleep anyway, if any at all. “Reuel, hand me a cotton ball and a Band-Aid from the medical kit.”

  Fury was watching my hands carefully. “You’re not too bad at this. If things don’t work out in Eden, maybe medicine could be your backup career.”

  “Right.” I put pressure on her arm with the cotton ball, then slid the catheter out of her vein. I covered the puncture wound with the bandage. “If you only knew how hard I had to fight through this not to black out.”

  She smiled and rubbed the bend of her arm. “I appreciate you suffering on my behalf.”

  I slid back from the bed on the rolling stool. “How far does that appreciation go back then?” I asked with a teasing grin.

  “Ooo,” Reuel said.

  Fury held up her middle finger, and all three of us laughed.

  We loaded her into the Humvee and drove to the tiny trailer that had been my home for a miserable seven months. Even then there was no running water or air conditioning. Now there was no electricity either.

  Reuel stood on the porch between the hooches with his wings illuminated so we could see.

  “Fury, you can take Burch’s room. He was probably the cleanest of any of us.” I opened the door next to mine, hoping it would be intact even if she’d never been inside it. It was.

  I held the door as she walked in. Sergeant Brayden Burch had kept a tidy room, and a tidy life for that matter. His bed was made. There were no dirty clothes on the floor or dirty magazines stashed under the mattress. A photo of his wife and kids was on his nightstand. I put a few bottles of water beside it.

  On the bookcase was a small LED lantern he’d bought for reading. I picked it up, and it turned on without a hitch.

  “So batteries work,” she said, shaking her head as I gave it to her. “So weird.”

  “It’s better than nothing.” I looked around the room. “Honestly, I expected Hell to be worse. This isn’t too bad.”

  Fury didn’t comment.

  “You good?” I asked.

  She held the lantern in her hand. “Yeah. Thanks to you.”

  I gently grasped the front of my shirt she was still wearing and pulled her to me. Wrapping my arms around her, I pressed a kiss against her hair. “I’m glad you’re OK.” Then I released her and walked to the door.

  “Warren?”

  I looked back.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  I waited in case she might change her mind. She didn’t.

  “Try to get some rest. I’ll be next door if you need me.” I walked out, closing the door behind me.

  “Is she all right?” Reuel asked.

  “I think so.”

  He looked up at the black sky. “If you’ll be up for a while, I think I’ll scout the area.”

  I reached in my pocket and handed him the keys. “Be careful. I’ll keep my door open.”

  With a nod, he walked off the deck.

  I pulled open the door to my old hooch, and the familiarity of the place smacked me in the face along with the rank odor. I grabbed the small metal trashcan at the foot of my bed and put it at base of the door to hold it open. Even more than Fury needed my protection, the room needed the air. Good god.

  The place wasn’t always a filthy mess, but the day of this particular memory for Fury, I wasn’t physically up to cleaning. She’d visited the morning after I’d taken a round to my side body armor and had wound up with several busted ribs. There were still painkillers by my bed, and gear and rancid clothes piled in the corner. I gathered the clothes, toted them outside, and tossed them over the concrete walls that surrounded our trailers.

  Back inside, I searched my rucksack for the headlamp I knew was buried in it somewhere. When I found it, I switched it on and tied it around the light bulb in the center of the ceiling. It wasn’t much, but I didn’t need to use my wings.

  I kicked off my boots, took off my sword and Cassiel’s bag, and laid down on the bed, bending my arm behind my head. The memories of that day so long ago replayed in my mind with vivid clarity. The blinding pain in my side. The shock of Fury at my door. The pressure of her lips on mine. “Damn,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Warren?”

  I popped up on my elbows. Some protector I was; I hadn’t even noticed Fury step into my doorway. “Hey. Everything all right?”

  “I’m kind of afraid to fall asleep. The nightmares…”

  “They looked pretty intense earlier.”

  “They’re awful.” Emotion choked her words. “To be honest, I don’t think I can do this alone.”

  “You don’t have to.” I moved my legs toward the side wall. “Come in, if you can stand it.”

  She walked into the room and stood beneath the dim light overhead. She still wore my shirt, and she was barefoot. “It smells like something died in here.”

  “Yeah, I know. Want to sit down?”

  She hugged her arms. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Do you have to talk standing up?”

  She didn’t move.

  “OK.” I pushed myself up and leaned against the back wall. “Talk.”

  Fury took a few deep, shaky breaths. “Abaddon said he’d trade your daughter for my sister.”

  “What?”

  “When I refused to help Abaddon, he took my sister and said the only way I’d get her back is if I cooperated.”

  “I thought he took Anya so he wouldn’t be tied to Earth anymore and could use the spirit line again.”

  “I’m sure that was part of the reason, and that’s what Azrael assumed. I never corrected him because I couldn’t without telling him everything.”

  “Why couldn’t you tell him?”

  “If I had, I would have become a liability. And if he’d had me killed or locked up, there would be no one to save Anya.”

  “Maybe in the beginning, but not now. You might have been a total bitch to Sloan, but you certainly proved your allegiance to her. To us.” I crossed my arms. “Why would you be afraid to tell me the truth?”

  Fury was visibly trembling again. “Because I was going to try.”

  Chapte
r Twenty-Four

  “You what?”

  Fury was wringing her hands. “I agreed to help Abaddon take Sloan and Iliana.”

  Her words went up like a wall between us.

  Fury took a step toward me, but I put up a hand to stop her. “Please let me explain,” she begged.

  I ignored her. “My god. That’s how Chimera knew you wanted to find Sloan. You were searching for her through the Claymore servers.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And when Chimera sent you the video of Sloan on the news, you sent it to me, knowing I would seek her out.”

  “Yes—”

  “Then you waited until I was happy. Getting married, about to be a father…And you were going to turn my whole world over to the demons.”

  “No!” she cried.

  “No?”

  She took another step toward me. “No. I was sorry as soon as I heard Sloan was pregnant. Before even. I couldn’t believe what I had done.”

  “Sure you were sorry.” I shot off the bed, ready to throw her out my front door.

  She grabbed hold of my shirt. “I swear I was. I even told Abaddon I couldn’t do it, and he almost killed me. He probably would have if he’d been able. That’s how I knew somehow his powers no longer worked around me.

  “He gave me one hell of a beating though. You can ask Azrael. He visited me in the hospital.”

  I remembered the blood stone in the pocket on my thigh. I’d never seen a memory of Fury being in the hospital, but knowing my father, that probably didn’t mean a whole lot.

  “I came back to Claymore when I found out Sloan had the power to kill angels. I thought maybe I could undo some of the damage I knew I’d caused if I could help train her to kill Abaddon and the Morning Star.”

  I blinked. She had trained Sloan to use Iliana’s power to kill demons while she was pregnant.

  “And I knew she’d be safer from Abaddon if I was around. My presence affected his powers.”

  “Why should I believe you?” I asked.

  “Because you know I could have let the demons take Sloan in Chicago, but I didn’t.”

  That much was true. She’d been our sniper in the cemetery in Chicago when we were first attacked by the Morning Star and his demons.

  “Warren, I made a mistake—I made a million mistakes—but everything I did was only because…” Her voice cracked. “I’d rather die than let anything happen to you.” When her hand touched the collar around her throat, I realized she was quoting me.

  That had been my thought when I’d worn the blood stone she was wearing now. She could see and feel that memory of mine.

  My heart shattered, and all the hurt from all my moments with Fury bled out. “You threw me away, and then you used the first woman who ever loved me to—”

  “Not the first.” Tears erupted from her eyes. “I loved you, Warren.”

  I gripped my forehead for fear it might explode. “I can’t do this.”

  “Please believe me,” she cried.

  “Just go.” I couldn’t even look at her. I pointed past her toward the door. “Get out of my room.”

  She left, and I stood there frozen, staring at the spot on the floor she’d vacated. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe after everything she’d put me through there could possibly be any more.

  The door to Burch’s hooch slammed, and through the walls, I heard her crying. I sank onto the edge of my bed, slumping forward to cradle my spinning skull in my hands.

  Another thought occurred to me. We were in Hell. And Hell was subjective, meant to torture and break humans.

  Fury was broken.

  And this was her worst nightmare. The place where she met me was the one place in all the universe that could torture her the most.

  Shit.

  I was making it all come true.

  But she deserves it.

  I sat upright. Where had that thought come from? Not from me, certainly. I shook my head to clear it and felt a buzz overhead.

  She betrayed you.

  Reaching behind my feet, I grabbed my sword and eased it from its sheath.

  She doesn’t love you. No one does.

  I picked up my feet, spun the sword forward underneath them, then stood and drove the blade straight up over my head. With a piercing shriek, the demon hovering above me erupted in a shower of sparks.

  Next door, Fury’s door flew open, and she ran into my room again. “What happened?”

  I jerked the sword free from the ceiling tile. “A ministry demon. It must have slipped into the room when we were fighting.” I raked my hand through my hair. “I think this place is affecting me more than I thought.”

  She looked up at the hole in the ceiling. “Do you think there are more?”

  “Yes.” I leaned the sword against the wall. “But not close.”

  “OK.” She turned to leave again.

  “Fury.”

  She stopped and looked at me. Her face was red. Her eyes swollen.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Abaddon said if I wouldn’t help him, then you and Anya were worthless. He said he’d kill you both if I didn’t.”

  My head dropped under the pressure of my racing mind. She’d only agreed because Abaddon had threatened me.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I was afraid, and then Theta warned me the other night not to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “She guessed what had happened between us. She knew what I’d done, and she worried…” Fury’s dry voice cracked.

  “That it might be the reason I would take pleasure in your death?”

  Fury lifted her shoulders.

  I crossed my arms. My jaw shifted, and my eyes glazed as they stared past her. She took that as her signal to leave. Her bare feet turned on the dirty old floor.

  With a long step, I closed the space between us and pushed the trashcan outside with my boot. Then, standing at her back, I reached over her shoulder and pressed my hand against the closing door. “You did it for me?”

  She didn’t respond, but her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

  “Turn around.”

  She stiffened.

  I pulled her hair back off her shoulder. “Fury, turn around.”

  Slowly, she turned and looked up at me, fear now in her mismatched eyes. Fear that she’d gone too far. Fear that I’d never forgive her. Fear that I would dismiss her again.

  “Did you mean it?”

  “Yes. I tried to—”

  “No. Did you really love me?”

  Her lower lip trembled. “Warren, I love you still.”

  My stomach clenched, every emotion known to man and angel surging inside me. My heart thumped so hard, I wondered if she could hear it.

  “Please say something,” she whispered.

  I swallowed to wet my dry throat.

  “Warren, please.”

  My eyes fell to her chest. “Take off my shirt.”

  Her lips parted, and she took a shallow breath. Then, with trembling hands, her fingers worked the top button. I took a step forward, backing her against the door. My right hand twisted the lock on the handle before flattening on the door beside her head.

  Pinned between my arms, she freed all the buttons, then pulled the fabric back off her shoulders. The shirt dropped behind her, sliding over her arms, and over the wrist cuffs before finally falling to the floor.

  My breath stopped dead in my throat as I took in the sight of her standing naked before me.

  Unwilling and unable to stop myself, I let my right hand glide down the side of her neck. My fingers traced the curve of her collarbone, down the center of her chest, to her taut stomach. Every inch of her tightened at my touch.

  Her hands curled around the hem of my shirt and pushed it up. When she had it around my chest, I reached behind my shoulder blades, grasped a handful of the fabric, and yanked it over my head. Her fingers found my belt next, then the button and zipper of my jeans.

  My hand ret
urned to her waist, pulling her against my body as she freed me from the denim. Then I slid my palm over her ass and down the back of her thigh until my hand curled behind her knee. I pulled her leg up over my hip and buried myself inside her.

  And right then, nothing else mattered.

  Not the past.

  Not the future.

  Not the hell that surrounded us.

  “Fury,” I breathed.

  Her hand tangled in my hair as she rocked into me. “Call me Allison.”

  I took her to my bed after that. The same bed where, during my time in the desert, I’d dreamed for months of what I wanted to do to her. I did everything and more.

  Much more.

  As always, the sex was mind-blowing. Hot, toe-curling, and desperately raw. It was the only part of “us” that had never been shrouded in mystery. And our bodies picked up right where our relationship had ended, reflexively knowing where to touch, where to taste, and when to absolutely unleash.

  But one thing was wildly different. The knowledge that Fury loved me. That she’d always loved me.

  All my life on Earth, people had feared me. Or, at least, they feared the death they could sense inside me.

  But not Fury.

  Never Fury.

  Despite everything I was created to be, everything that made me inherently rejectable—Fury loved me.

  In the tiny twin bed, she’d fallen asleep with her head on my chest. I held her naked body against mine until the sun came up. We’d never done that before.

  There was a light knock at the door.

  “Allison,” I said softly, stroking her arm with my fingertips.

  “Hmm?”

  “It’s morning.”

  She stretched her arm up my chest and curled it around my head on the pillow. “Mmm-hmm.”

  I dragged my fingers down her ribs and over the curve of her hip. “How did you sleep?”

  “There’s a puddle of drool on your chest, Warren. How do you think I slept?”

  I smiled. “Any nightmares?”

  “Not one.”

  I kissed her forehead. “Good. You need water.” Reaching to the nightstand, I grabbed a bottle. Then I twisted the cap off behind her back.