There were three long gashes in the right arm of her leather biker jacket. The demon. He must have caught her with his claws.
Einar slid his arm under her back and carefully lifted it off the wet grass, supporting her. She moaned and writhed, and then stilled, sinking against him.
He stilled too.
Stared down at her pale beauty, captivated by it as much as he had been by her fighting, bewitched all over again by her.
Perhaps he had been mistaken.
Perhaps he was the one heading for trouble.
He touched the blood on her cheek and frowned.
What was trouble’s name?
Was it as beautiful as her looks and the way she fought?
She moaned, her fine dark eyebrows knitting and putting a furrow in her brow as her lips twisted.
Einar canted his head.
Was so fascinated by her that he missed the cue, or maybe she didn’t give him one.
She suddenly lurched at him and tackled him to the ground, pinning his wings awkwardly beneath him.
He grimaced, gripped her waist and tried to get her off him so he could at least get them free. She growled, shoved his hands off her and pressed her full weight down onto his stomach, groin and chest, her strength surprising and enough to keep him pinned.
“Who the hell are you?” Her dark eyes were wild, watching him without fear but with anger. She wet her luscious full lips and frowned, her eyes losing focus for a moment as she shook her head. Her left hand slid off his damp breastplate and he instinctively caught her to stop her from falling. She grabbed his hand and pushed it away, fixing him with a deadly glare. “Get off me. Bloody angels. Always interfering.”
She wavered, dipping forwards, pushing more weight down on his chest, and clenched her jaw.
Her eyes slipped shut and then shot open again.
“It’s the toxin,” Einar murmured in a low voice, not wanting to enrage her. She didn’t seem to like angels for some reason and was clearly gifted in some way since she could see him for what he was. He rested his hands beside his head on the damp grass, trying to show her that he didn’t intend to hurt her, and smiled in what he hoped was a winsome way. “I can fix that for you.”
She glanced down at her right shoulder, something flashed in her hand and he froze as she pressed the knife against his throat. It trembled, touching his Adam’s apple, and she blinked several times, as though trying to clear her head. It wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t just shake this off.
How long did she have?
Demon toxins worked fast.
“I don’t need your help.” She pushed off him, caught her boot on his hip as she stepped over him and stumbled across the grass in the empty moonlit park, half-slurring half-muttering, “Where’s my fucking sword?”
Einar stood, stretched his wings and flapped them to get his feathers back into place. He frowned down at his wet backside and legs, and then cocked his head to one side and watched her.
Regardless of what she said, she did need his help.
The most virulent demon toxin only took a few minutes to work its way into blood and only another hour on top of that to spread through the body and kill the host. It was difficult to get rid of and he was certain she knew that.
What did she plan to do?
Human drugs had little effect on such poison. It would take another demon to remove it.
Was she in league with them? He hadn’t wanted to believe such a thing when he had first seen her, but he couldn’t deny that it was a possibility.
She stooped to pick up her sword and collapsed into a heap, landing on her face with her backside in the air.
Einar was beside her in an instant. He collected her blade, jammed it into his sword belt, and then grabbed hold of her. She didn’t protest as he lifted her into his arms but she did mumble something that sounded like more cursing. He cursed himself too.
What was he doing? What if she was in league with demons, fraternised with them rather than merely hunting them?
He pushed those questions out of his head and focused on her slight weight in his arms, her rapid breathing and the way she was beginning to shake as the poison tightened its grip on her.
He didn’t care what she had done before tonight, he wasn’t going to let her go and seek the aid of demons now that he was here.
He froze.
Was he protecting her?
Why?
His gaze traversed her delicate face.
He was definitely heading for trouble.
It was forbidden for him to have any sort of feeling for her.
He stared at her a moment longer, torn between leaving her to find her own way of clearing the poison from her blood and taking her with him to his place and removing it for her. The hunter in him said to leave her. She wasn’t worth anything and would only cause him trouble.
The man in him said to save her.
Einar closed his eyes, cradled her to his chest, and took flight.
He couldn’t leave her to fend for herself. It didn’t matter that Heaven forbid him to intervene in such matters or to feel anything for her. His heart whispered to help her and he would do just that. He would rid her body of the poison and restore her strength.
If anyone asked him why he had done such a thing, he would lie and say that he had done it for information.
Not because he was drawn to her.
She woke during the flight to his hotel. He kept his gaze on the rooftops of London, charting his course and checking it for any sign of trouble. The sky was his tonight, shared only with the constant circling planes above him as they waited to land at one of the busy airports. They were too high to bother him. He couldn’t fly at that altitude when carrying mortal cargo. The air was too cold and too thin for such a fragile creature.
He glanced down at her, meeting her dark eyes.
They shone with something between confusion and anger.
“How are you feeling?” Einar fixed his gaze ahead again, sensing that if he continued to stare at her, she was likely to start fighting him and that it would only end badly.
For her.
“I’d feel a lot better if you put me down.” She pushed his chest so quickly that he almost lost his grip on her. A heartbeat later, she was clutching the edges of his deep brown breastplate and curled up against him, fear pounding in her veins so strongly that he could sense it as though it was his own. “Christ Almighty, we’re flying.”
He smiled.
It touched his lips before he could even think to contain it.
She had made him smile.
Not a forced one as he generally managed, but a real smile.
He tightened his grip on her knees and her ribs, and swooped lower with her, so she wouldn’t be afraid. He levelled off just above the hotchpotch rooftops and narrowed his eyes on the spot in the distance where the hotel was located.
“Keep going, Romeo, all the way down.” She hooked her fingers over his breastplate near his shoulders and tugged at it, as though she could control his descent by doing such a thing and force him to land.
“I do not think so.” Einar glanced at her again. “You are particularly resilient to demon toxin but you are in no fit state to be left alone. I will tend to you once we are somewhere safe.”
“There’s nowhere safe in this city,” she mumbled softly, her eyes leaping around over the rooftops below them.
She twisted out of his arms.
Einar went after her on a curse. She turned and twirled in the air like a cat finding its footing during a fall and landed soundly on her feet on the flat roof of the building. Stupid woman. She made it ten steps before collapsing.
“Shit.” She got to her feet and tried to run again, this time reaching the edge of the roof and balancing there, staring down into the street below.
“Where do you intend to run to?” He landed behind her and caught her arm, afraid that she would fall if he didn’t do something and willing to risk her wrath to keep her safe.
She turned to look at him with wide eyes that spoke of fear, her lips parted and teasing him with temptation.
Desire tugged at his gut, foreign and powerful, a need he had to fight hard to deny and suppress.
He pulled her back into his arms, lifted her again and cradled her close to his chest.
His eyes fell to her mouth, the fire he had just vanquished blazing through him again as he stared at her lips, urging him to give in.
He forced his gaze up to meet hers. “You are in no fit state to run.”
“I felt better.” She frowned, looked herself over, and then met his eyes again. “And then I felt terrible.”
He smiled for a second time. “It is my presence that staves off the toxin. The moment you were away from my touch, the infection returned. I do not intend to harm you... whoever you are.”
She swallowed, blinked, and then rallied and looped her arms around his neck as she smiled saucily. “You don’t get my name that easily, Romeo.”
Einar looked down at her arms, a hot achy shiver burning down his spine when she tangled her fingers in the short threads of his ponytail. Her fingertips grazed his neck, sending another wave of tingles trickling over his skin, and her breath washed his face as she leaned in close, pulling herself up and pressing her cheek to his.
Her lips grazed his ear and he was lost, empty inside, unable to focus on anything but the feel of her against him and the anticipation of hearing her speak.
“You’ve got to tell a girl your name first,” she whispered into his ear. Was it the toxin making her act so strangely, or was she always like this with men, so forward and teasing? “It’s considered polite.”
He closed his eyes, swallowed to ease his dry throat, and resisted his desire to clutch her to him, to hold her where she was so he could feel her body against his a moment longer.
“Einar.” He breathed his name on a sigh, unable to find his voice for some reason.
What was she doing to him?
Was she temptation sent by the Devil to test him?
“Mmm, that’s a strong name for a strong boy.” She ran her hands down his biceps and they trembled under her soft touch. He shook when she cupped his cheeks, sending warmth racing through every inch of him, and drew back to look into his eyes. She smiled. “Now... put me the hell down!”
Her forehead cracked hard against his and he stumbled backwards, losing his grip on her.
Before he could grab her, she leaped to the next building and was running again.
Einar touched his forehead and frowned as his skull ached. Why was she running from him? Was she afraid that he was going to harm her? He had no intention of hurting her. He only wanted to help.
He stretched his wings and flew after her, keeping his distance this time. She would falter soon enough. He hadn’t lied to her. It was only his touch and presence that slowed the effects of the poison on her body. He gave her a minute before she collapsed again and became compliant once more.
She didn’t even last that long. Before she was halfway across the rooftop, she tripped and fell flat on her face. She didn’t get back up. She lay there on the damp black tar roof, breathing hard.
Einar landed close beside her and she grabbed his ankle and looked up at him out of the corner of her eye, ribbons of her long hair cutting across her cheek.
She said something he couldn’t make out. He crouched close to her and her hand skimmed up the gold-edged brown greave that protected his shin and settled on his bare knee.
“Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer.” Her words were so quiet that he barely heard her. She closed her eyes and sighed. “Not feeling myself today.”
Einar was sure that when she was feeling herself, she was a force to be reckoned with. She had proven that much to him.
He carefully lifted her back into his arms, not surprised when she didn’t fight him. She was limp in his embrace, lax against him, breathing softly and slowly. When he focused hard on her, he sensed her fatigue and how close she was to the edge now. She had only made things worse by trying to escape. Exerting herself had quickened the process of spreading the poison through her body.
She shivered and moaned.
“Taylor.”
He frowned.
Her eyes fluttered open, their dark depths capturing his attention and holding it. She almost smiled. Her lips wobbled weakly.
“My name... it’s Taylor.” She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against his shoulder and biceps.
Einar held her close to him and looked at her. Taylor.
A strong but beautiful name for a strong beautiful woman.
He took flight with her again, heading for the hotel and pondering this strange twist of fate that had brought her into his life. She was turning his world, distorting its axis, and he was sure of only one thing.
He was heading for trouble.
CHAPTER 3
Taylor shivered against Einar’s broad breastplate as he carried her into the brightly lit cream foyer of a grand hotel. She peered through the dark curtain of her hair, keeping her face obscured to hide the blood on it. There were several humans in the room, and only the clerk glanced at them from behind his large polished wood and gold desk as Einar moved between the elegant cream marble columns, his boots loud on the pale floor as he headed towards the man.
The three who were sitting in one of the groups of plush dark red armchairs to her left, beyond the columns, paid them no heed.
She waited as they drew level with the group, sure someone would look her way.
They didn’t even glance at her and Einar, which meant two things.
This was the sort of upmarket hotel where staff didn’t ask questions, not even when a guest walked in at gone midnight carrying a woman as though she was a damsel in distress, and they couldn’t see his wings.
He had paused outside and she knew he had been changing his appearance. When he had looked at her, she had feigned surprise, afraid that he would realise that she could see through his glamour and could still see his armour and his tawny wings.
Nothing good would happen if he knew his glamour didn’t work on her.
She needed to get the poison out of her system, and this angel wasn’t lying when he said that he could do such a thing for her. It was quicker and easier to let him tend to her than trying to find the local demon medic to get rid of it for her. She wasn’t sure she had the luxury of time anymore.
She had been foolish.
Trying to run from him had quickened the spread of the poison through her body and it was on the verge of entering the final phase and killing her.
But fear had propelled her, pushed her to flee from him before he realised what she was and condemned her for it.
It still pushed her to flee.
Einar looked impatient as he stood in the wood-panelled elevator, heading upwards. His dark eyes remained locked on the numbers on the gold panel as they changed and she found the courage to study his face, the urge to flee fading now that his focus was away from her.
Did he know how deep the poison was in her body now? Would it be too late to save her?
Would it be?
Panic sparked to life inside her, gripped her in icy talons that felt as if they were squeezing the life out of her.
She couldn’t stop herself from seizing hold of his chest armour, couldn’t stop herself from gripping it as tightly as those talons of fear gripped her. Her breath rattled in her lungs, heart pounding as her head filled with images of her end, of the horrific way she was going to die. She had seen what demon toxins could do to people, had witnessed their terrible demise, and she didn’t want to go through that.
She didn’t want to die.
Einar slowly lowered his head, his eyes calmly locking with hers, and the moment they met, a strange sense of relief washed through her, loosened the grip fear had on her and chased away the terrifying visions of death. She focused on him, seized his gaze as fiercely as she had his breastplate, desperate to drive o
ut the fear again.
“Just a few moments longer,” he whispered, the soft deep sound of his voice soothing her. “Hold on.”
His rich brown eyes held hers, as if he knew she needed him to keep looking at her, needed the distraction from what was happening. The flecks of gold in his eyes shifted in that way an angel’s irises always did, but for once, it didn’t frighten her.
It mesmerised her.
When she had met her first angel, their eyes had scared her more than the wings. Nothing about them felt real. It never had. They weren’t of this world. They were something else.
Taylor looked deep into Einar’s eyes.
He seemed real though, and looked handsome with his eyes brimming with concern and his grip on her tight and reassuring. He smiled when the lift pinged and the doors opened.
“Keep holding on,” he said and she nodded, lost in his gaze.
He walked down a warmly-lit cream corridor with her, taking turns she didn’t notice as she held on to him. When he stopped, she gripped him harder, as firmly as she could with her hands shaking so violently as he fumbled with the door, struggling to open it while holding her.
Her hands ached, muscles threatening to turn to water, so she moved them up and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Her fingers brushed his nape, grazing the strands of his short mousy ponytail, and she cursed herself for the way it affected her, had heat pouring through her as she recalled how she had teased him earlier. It was his fault. He had surprised her when she had pulled back and had seen in his eyes that it had affected him, had stirred desire in him.
She knew angels weren’t saints, and that they were as frivolous and passionate as the next man when given the chance, but she hadn’t expected him to be affected by her attention and touch.
Unable to resist seeing if it had just been a momentary slip on his part, Taylor pushed her fingers into his hair, loosening it from the band that kept it tied back at the nape of his neck.
The waves of golden brown fell down to caress his jaw and he stilled.
His gaze burned into her and she shyly met it, afraid of what she would see.
His eyes were brighter, golden like a raptor’s, and fixed intently on her. His pupils widened when she curled his hair around her fingers and his lips parted. Desire filled his eyes again. She was affecting him.
Warrior Angel Page 2