Red Angel (The Angels of Paris Chronicles Book 2)

by Anna Santos

  I hadn’t expected her to reject me. We were good together. If she hadn’t been kidnapped, we would have bonded further—we would be caught up in our sexual attraction, in our heat, and Aria wouldn’t even remember that Philippe existed. If she’d fully accepted her angel, nothing would have come between us. We would be a couple now, and I wouldn’t be here in my father’s office moping and drinking my sorrows away. I didn’t like to drink, yet I didn’t know what else I could do. Maybe alcohol would numb my pain. It wasn’t working, though. I was getting more and more upset and annoyed with the whole situation. Also, I had an attack to lead that night.

  Vampires, gargoyles, angels, and wolves were going to join forces to bring down the evil that was lurking in the city. Specters and warlocks were using the city’s sacred place to plot and gain power. They were behind the making and distribution of Clarity and my mate’s kidnapping. Aria wouldn’t be my mate for long. I had asked her to wait a few more days, enough time to deal with the uprising problem. But, as soon as the enemies were cleared from the graveyard and the city was peaceful once more, I would have to take Aria to my palace and reject her while holding the sacred orb. Only a miracle could make Aria change her mind now. I believed in miracles. Maybe Jo was right. I shouldn’t put my life at stake because of a girl who was clearly falling in love with the guy who didn’t deserve her. I had to sit and watch Aria make the worst decision of her life. She was going to suffer and there was nothing I could do about it. Not anymore.

  “There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Camille said, appearing in my father’s office. It was one of the highest places in the palace.

  “I’m kind of busy,” I grumbled.

  “Well, I’m kind of busy, too, and you don’t see me in a corner getting wasted,” she snapped at me.

  I arched a brow. She was a short-tempered angel, always saying what was on her mind and not taking bullshit from anyone. That might be one of the many reasons why Jacob loved her.

  “I’m devastated!”

  She crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Oh, are you going to make it snow again? It is pretty cool, but I think the queen wouldn’t be pleased by the change of weather during her daughter’s birthday party.”

  My eyes widened and I overlooked Camille’s attempt to be funny. “Queen Maybel—I’d totally forgotten about her. I was supposed to give her the key to the ballroom and…”

  “I have that covered. I was sure you’d forget anyhow.”

  I relaxed in my chair. “So, what did you have to tell me?”

  “Jo is outside. She’s worried about you. I’m worried about you. We are both extremely worried about you.”

  “And?” I asked, not impressed by her statement.

  “She wants to talk to you.”

  “I’m not in the mood,” I said, drinking a bit more of that nasty transparent stuff that looked like water but burned like hell.

  “Is that Jacob’s vodka?” Camille asked, pointing her finger at the bottle. “Oh, he’s going to be pissed!”

  “I need it, and it was the only thing I found here to drink,” I explained.

  “He uses that to clean the floor.”

  I frowned, unsure if she was joking or not.

  She burst into laughter.

  “I’m not in the mood to laugh,” I said, my voice stern and my face serious. I even folded my arms in front of my chest to make my point.

  “Well, Jo wants to talk to you. Philippe also wants to talk to you.”

  “And Aria?” I asked, my voice hopeful.

  “She’s sleeping. She’s tired and sad.”

  “I tried to explain my reasons.”

  “You should let her rest and talk to her again tomorrow. Can I tell Jo to come inside?”

  “I don’t want to talk to people.”

  “That’s why you should talk to her.”

  “I appreciate her help, but I want to be left alone.”

  “You’re so damn stubborn!” Camille complained. “That’s why you pushed Aria away. You don’t let anyone in, Cedric. You need to open up. Stop being hardheaded and pushing people who like you away.”

  “Jo doesn’t like me. Jo’s just… I don’t know what she wants. She’s a nice vampire, I‘ll say that much. She’s also helping me a lot with the vampires. She knows all the leaders, and she can convince them to do whatever she wants. That’s kind of scary.”

  Camille laughed. “She’s beyond gorgeous and surprisingly nice. Also, clever. Men would die to…” She shut up and stared at me for a while. “Too bad she can’t date you.”

  “She’s a vampire,” I muttered.

  “Yes and she was one of us, too.”

  “Briefly,” I said, underscoring the brevity of that part of her life. “And we can’t date like humans do,” I reminded her.

  “Yes, true. But she would make a nice girlfriend for you.”

  “Don’t be silly. She’s a vampire and she loves someone else.”

  Camille’s face lit with curiosity. “Who?”

  “None of your business, blonde hazard.”

  “Do you want me to hit you?” she asked, hands on her waist.

  “You’re not that fast,” I teased her, cracking a smile.

  “Are you going to be okay here, all by yourself, drinking…that stuff?”

  “Not really, but I’ll manage to survive,” I said, dismissing her with a wave of my hand.

  “I like Aria a lot. She became my best friend. Are you going to give up on her so easily?”

  “She made up her mind.”

  “You…are really stupid.” She sighed, turned her back on me, and left.

  I followed her with my eyes, unsure why she left on that sudden insult. Why am I the one being stupid? I’ve done nothing wrong.

  “Can I have some of that awful stuff you call booze?”

  I looked at the door and watched Jo come in and sit on the opposite side of my desk. She looked relaxed.

  “I told Camille not to let you in,” I muttered.

  “I heard. But she didn’t let me come in. I let myself in.”

  I sighed at her reasoning. “You disobeyed my orders.”

  “And since when you have any power over me?” she asked, leaning forward, finding my words amusing, by the look of it. “I’m not one of your angels. I’m not a gargoyle. I’m a despicable vampire, and I can do whatever I want.”

  “I could force you out of here, you know?” I told her, wanting to see her reaction.

  She waved in dismissal as she leaned back on her chair. “You could, but then you would have to get up, leave the booze behind, and actually do something other than think about your misery.”

  “Nice pep talk.”

  “Stop being an ass and let’s get out of here.”

  “And do what?”

  “Philippe wants to talk to you. He says it’s important.”

  “I have nothing to say to Philippe. All I want to do to Philippe…isn’t doable right now, and I’m afraid I would break Aria’s new toy.”

  “You lied to the girl. What did you expect?” Jo asked, folding her hands on her lap.

  “I expected her to love me enough to forgive me,” I told her, raising my voice. “I expected her to choose me and not Philippe.”

  “You’re asking too much of her. She’s only a kid,” Jo mumbled, an edge of sadness in her voice.

  “You know nothing about Aria. She’s strong-willed and smart, and she’s not a kid. She’s more mature than some.”

  “Maybe, but she’s also a young girl who didn’t ask for the responsibility of being a Red Angel and marrying a prince. You should understand that. You should have been more supportive, and you shouldn’t be blaming all your problems on Philippe and her.”

  “I’m not!” I complained, exasperated by her accusations.

  “You kind of are.”

  I glared at her. “Go torment someone else,” I ordered her, pointing to the door.

  Jo smiled, as if I weren’t intimidating enough.
Then she crossed her legs. She was wearing one of Aria’s dresses. A red one that I loved and made sure Aria would pick to wear. She’d never worn it. She would rather wear her old clothes and look like a teen instead of a woman. I had nothing against her old clothes, but she needed to understand that she was growing up and her new position required her to be more sophisticated.

  Jo arched an eyebrow. “What?”

  My stare wandered down her dress.

  “Don’t you like the dress?”

  “It looks good on you.”

  “Thank you. I was suddenly afraid that I’d made a mistake in choosing this dress from the wardrobe. It had the tag on it. A lot of them did. Aria didn’t wear them much, did she?”

  “No, she has simpler tastes than you do.”

  “It depends on the occasion,” she said, looking around the office, distracted by the décor. “This is quite charming. Do you spend a lot of time here?”

  “Not really. But it’s quiet.”

  “I like it here. I love books,” she said, staring at the shelves. “Too bad I’m not going to have any more time to read them.”

  “You could give up on your quest to save Oliver.”

  “And do what? Live happily ever after alone?”

  Her words found a way to my heart. I understood what she was saying all too well. I leaned back in my chair and gazed at the painting behind her. It had an angel fighting a demon and vanquishing him. It was a rather old painting. I used to spend hours staring at it for no apparent reason.

  “Once I reject Aria, I’ll be alone,” I said.

  “You can have another chance at love. They can give you another mate. Someone who isn’t in love with someone else. Like that silly princess I saw downstairs with her mom. I thought angels were less shallow and, well, less annoying.”

  I laughed, amused by her complaints, and relaxed a bit. “Charlotte isn’t that bad.”

  “She’ll probably be your new queen,” she pointed out.

  “I don’t know. After I reject Aria, I’ll become a gargoyle again and the quest will start all over. I’ll have gargoyle girls wanting me to marry them. I’ll probably have Charlotte’s parents forcing me to date their daughter and try to see if we match. Nevertheless, you’ll miss all that fun stuff. You’ll be a rock.”

  “Thanks for reminding me about that,” she said in a shocked voice, although she was smiling. “Sometimes, I think you like being evil to me.”

  “I don’t. I assure you. I was trying to make you see that you aren’t going to lose much by departing from this life,” I said, choosing my words carefully.

  “Maybe.” She gave me a lopsided smile. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll never spend time with the queen and the princess. They invited me to their party tomorrow. It’s funny, though.”

  “What’s funny?” I asked, focused on her smile. She seemed so relaxed, without a care in the world.

  “Tomorrow is my last day. Don’t you remember?” She became serious. “The day after, at dawn, I’ll say the spell and exchange places with Oliver. You can’t forget about that. You have to take me to him to perform the ritual.”

  “It slipped my mind that the day was already upon us,” I said honestly. I thought about what I was going to tell her next. I felt like I should reassure her or, at least, say something to make her feel better. I preferred to change the subject. “So are you coming to the party tomorrow night?”

  “It looks like it. Aren’t you bringing Aria to the party?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”

  “Maybe you should bring her. It would make her feel better.”

  “We’re going to…break up,” I reminded her. “She’s furious with me.”

  “You can still be her friend.”

  “I don’t know if I can see her make the mistake of…”

  “Choosing Philippe?”

  “Yes. I know that he’s like a son to you.”

  “He’s not that bad. You might be surprised how different Philippe is from the image he shows to the world.”

  “He’s a vampire, a murderer, a… He rejected her and tried to kill her,” I said, losing my serene face and frowning with annoyance.

  “Gerard was the one who told his goons to disobey Philippe’s order to take Aria home.”

  “Is that the excuse he’s giving now?” I asked, unable to conceal my sarcasm.

  “It’s the truth.”

  The certainty in her tone disconcerted me. “Still, she almost died because of him.”

  “True.” Jo sighed. “That doesn’t change the fact that he loves her. If she by any chance accepts him back, he’ll do everything in his power to fix their bond. She won’t go to Hell. He’ll make sure she won’t.”

  “He’ll turn her into a vampire,” I retorted.

  “Not all vampires are bad. And nowhere is it written that vampires go to Hell by default.”

  I couldn’t deny her reasoning. “If they kill for pleasure, if they… You know perfectly well, Jo, vampires have instincts that make them become predators. She’s afraid of her gift, so she’s rejecting her angel. Yet she lacks the understanding that choosing Philippe over me is the same as choosing to be the monster she’s so afraid of.”

  “You’re basing your assumption on the fact that you think Philippe will turn Aria. For your information, Philippe doesn’t enjoy being a vampire.”

  “He’ll fall into temptation. They always do. Or she’ll ask him, beg him, to spend eternity with him.” Leaning forward and resting my arms on the desk, I added, “It’s hard to believe that he doesn’t enjoy being a vampire.”

  “It took him a lot of time to accept what he is. His first decades of being a vampire were tainted by his need for revenge. Everybody assumes that revenge will fix their pain. It doesn’t. He had to live with what he had done, with the loneliness and the bloodlust. Yet I know him. He’s not bad in his core. He just pretends he is. I turned him and lived with him for a long time. He’s my favorite child for a reason.”

  Hearing Philippe being praised wasn’t my idea of having fun, so I changed the subject. “Do you have other children?”

  “I have two more,” she said. “My other son is a real idiot. My daughter is sweet, though. I turned her a while back. She had a terminal illness and… Why do you want to know that?”

  “I’m curious.”

  Frowning, she asked, “Are you going to talk to Philippe or not?”

  “What does he want? My blessing?” I asked ironically, leaning back in the chair and caressing the stubble that was beginning to grow on my chin.

  “I don’t think so. It seems important. He was anxious about it.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll talk to him if you come with me to the party tomorrow night,” I said, plotting an evil plan.

  “What?” She blinked several times. “And Aria?”

  “She can come with Philippe since they’re so close now. I’ll invite him. Besides, you’ll love the birthday surprise I got for Charlotte.”

  “What is it? Not having a fiancée anymore?”

  I smirked at her attempt at a joke. “No. Camille is excited about tomorrow. Ask her what it is.”

  Jo frowned. “Why would I ask her? I don’t care about the party. You know what I care about is what will happen when the night is over.”

  “One more reason to come with me to the party and enjoy yourself.”

  She pursed her lips and rubbed her hand against the fabric of the dress. “What’s the surprise?”

  “If I tell you one of the surprises, will you come with me?”

  “Maybe…”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you. I’m going to play the guitar and sing tomorrow.”

  “That may be an even worse idea than inviting me to go to the party with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re singing to the birthday girl, who happens to be a suitable candidate for kissing you if Aria wants to break your bond. That’s not a good way to please Aria and ask for her forg
iveness.”

  “I did nothing wrong,” I mumbled.

  Jo sighed deeply and massaged her temples. “I don’t want to get caught up in this drama on the last day of my life.”

  “I don’t want to go on my own if…we break up.”

  Jo scrutinized my face. “How about, if you promise to talk and listen to what Philippe has to tell you, I’ll go with you to the party. But only if Aria and you aren’t together. I’m old enough to know that jealousy is never a good way to win back someone we love.”

  “And how does one do that?”

  “You talk to them and tell them how you feel. Being honest is the best policy.”

  I mused over her words. “I need to prove to her that I can protect her and that she doesn’t need to fear her powers. If I do that, I know she’ll reconsider.”

  “You should listen to what she has to say about what happened. You need to talk to Philippe.”

  I clenched my teeth. The Vampire King was the last person I wanted to see right now. Yet war was coming against the specters and the witches. I needed his support.

  “Why so serious?” Jo asked.

  “Whatever happens tonight will dictate whether we’ll celebrate a victory tomorrow or be tormented by a defeat. Either way, you’re a wise woman, Josephine. Philippe is lucky to have you.”

  Jo smiled, showing me her perfect white teeth.

  “We should go to the hospital and talk to your beloved son.” I got up, circled the desk, and offered her my hand, so we could teleport out of there.

  TO BE CONTINUED

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