Sins of the Warrior

by Linda Poitevin

  Emmanuelle cut a second strip of tape. She pressed it in place, half on gauze, half on skin. “And the rest of it?”

  “Rest of what?”

  “What happened at the bar. The…warrior and the other one. You must have questions about them.”

  “Are you going to answer them if we do?”

  Her gaze flicked up to his again. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, when you decide, you let me know. Then I’ll ask.”

  She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. But before she could formulate an answer, the back door swung open. The kitchen occupants collectively held their breath, and then relaxed as Wookie’s older brother stepped inside. From the threshold, the man they’d dubbed Preacher surveyed the damage. His gaze skimmed over Emmanuelle and settled on Wookie.

  “Has an ambulance been called?” he asked.

  “No need, big brother. Everything’s under control.”

  Wookie delivered the words in a casual, comfortable tone, but a fine tension hummed through the forearm beneath Emmanuelle’s hands. His brother had only been with them for a few weeks. So far, he’d accepted without comment the colorful backgrounds and personalities, but his loyalty was untested. Emmanuelle watched Preacher scan the room a second time. Then, his face settling into a calm determination, he rolled up the sleeves of his black clergy shirt.

  “How can I help?” he asked.

  Wookie relaxed under Emmanuelle’s hands, then he pulled his arm away from her and stood. “I’m good now. I’ll give Preacher a hand with the others.”

  Emmanuelle pushed to her feet. They were better than three-quarters done. Widow was on her last stitching job, and only the more minor scrapes and bruises remained. After that—Emmanuelle stooped to pick up the bowl of bloody water from the floor. After that, she would have to decide what she would say. If she would say anything at all. If she would do anything.

  Or if she would just leave.

  “Here,” said a voice. “I’ll trade you.”

  She looked down at the mug of coffee held out to her by the stocky Jezebel. She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m fine.”

  “It has a little something in it.” Jezebel reached for her free hand and curled its fingers around the mug handle. “For fortitude.”

  Emmanuelle traded her for the bowl of red water. She might not derive the same fortitude humans would, but a little something still sounded good. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. The others have been checking in, by the way.”

  The ones who hadn’t come back here.

  Emmanuelle paused with the coffee halfway to her mouth. “How many?”

  “All but six. They’ve gone to Scorpion’s safe house.”

  She closed her eyes. Six friends gone. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but still…six gone. Her heart twisted. A soft hand gripped her chin and gave her a gentle shake. Jezebel’s brown eyes glistened equally with tears and ferocity when she looked into them.

  “It’s not your fault, Manny.”

  But it was. She’d known for weeks now that it was time to move on. She’d felt the universe’s imbalance, sensed its shifting, known that something was happening. Just as she’d known someone would come looking for her. But she’d refused to tap into the energies in order to be certain. Refused to open herself up to discovery, and in her denial, she’d put every one of these people—

  “Hey.”

  She blinked and focused again on Jezebel.

  The unnaturally platinum blond scowled fiercely. “It is not your fault.”

  “You don’t know that, Jez. And you don’t know me as well as you think.” Emmanuelle gazed sadly around the room. “None of you do.”

  “Maybe not. But I suspect we know you better than you think.” Jezebel chuckled. “Honey, why do you think none of us is freaking about the winged guy? Or the blue sparkles? I’ll admit I was a little taken aback when you threw that fireball yourself—didn’t expect you could do that—but I’ve been waiting for a whole choir of angels to appear ever since I met you. We all have.”

  “You—I—” Emmanuelle snapped her mouth shut. Stared. “You can’t know. It’s impossible.”

  “Yet here we are.” Jezebel reached up again to pat her cheek. “Drink up. You still have work to do. And then you need to check on the poor girl you shoved into the living room. After what I overheard in the bar, I’d say the two of you have some talking to do.”

  CHAPTER 41

  ALEX THUMBED THE END call button, tucked the cell phone into her back pocket, and wrapped her arms around herself again. She’d quit counting the attempts to reach Henderson after thirty. Now she just redialed every minute or so, hoping—praying—that this would be the time he picked up. That he was all right and her next call wouldn’t have to be to Riley.

  That he would be able to tell her what had happened to Michael.

  She stared out the window at the gray stretch of beach, the darker gray water beyond, the sullen sky that dipped down to meet it. A bellow of pain came from beyond the closed kitchen door, followed by Emmanuelle’s voice, threaded with both compassion and impatience. It had been almost an hour since she’d refused Alex’s offer to help patch up the bikers who had trickled into the beach house in their wake. An hour since she’d ordered her from the kitchen with a look of such venom that Alex half-expected to be turfed out of the house altogether.

  Alex sighed and fished the phone from her pocket again.

  One ring. Two rings. Three…and voice mail. She ended the call.

  Christ, Henderson…where the hell are you?

  The faint crunch of tires on gravel heralded the arrival of a vehicle at the rear of the house, too heavy and quiet to be a Harley. Alex turned toward the sound as the door between the kitchen and living room opened, and a frowning Emmanuelle strode into the room. Her hair was back in its ponytail again, and she’d shed her leather jacket. Blood streaked the plain white t-shirt she wore. Her shimmering gaze zoomed in on Alex.

  “That’s a car, not a bike.”

  Alex stuck her right hand into her jacket pocket. She curled her fingers around the handgrip of the pistol Henderson had given her. “I heard.”

  “Not your doing?”

  “No.”

  Glancing over her shoulder past the door she still held open, Emmanuelle jerked her head at someone Alex couldn’t see. Booted feet clumped across the kitchen floor and the back door creaked open.

  “Stay here,” she ordered Alex.

  “Wait. Have you heard what happened to Michael yet?”

  The other woman’s scowl deepened. “Mika’el,” she emphasized, “can look after himself. Right now I’m busy cleaning up the mess you and he brought with you.”

  She turned to go back into the kitchen but stopped short. The hand she’d wrapped around the doorknob went white at the knuckles, and her quick inhale was audible clear across the room. Alex crossed the room in two strides.

  Without so much as an excuse me, she shoved Emmanuelle aside and barged into the kitchen. Her gaze swept the company there. Half a dozen bikers with varying injuries sat along benches flanking a worn wooden table, another half dozen sat on the countertops, several more stood in clusters around the big room’s perimeter. All of them stared in silence at the newcomers to the party: Hugh, sporting a baseball-sized purple lump on one temple; and Michael, swaying on his feet and looking stunningly, sickeningly bedraggled.

  For a moment, she couldn’t move. Could do no more than take in the exhaustion and pain etched into his face, the blood-matted feathers of his left wing, the battered armor clinging to him by unseen threads. She’d seen his power. Seen him stand against a dozen Fallen and emerge without a scratch. For this to happen, for him to have been hurt to this degree…

  Training took over. She rushed forward to take Michael’s arm, her heart dropping when he let her drape it over her shoulders. Christ, how injured was he to accept this kind of help? She shot a look at Hugh, who tightened his lips and shook his head.
/>   “I scraped him off the parking lot when the flames died down enough to get to him,” he said. “He hasn’t said a word beyond ordering me to find you.”

  Alex hobbled toward the table, straining under Michael’s weight. Emmanuelle’s biker friends cleared the way for her without being asked, sidling to the farthest reaches of the kitchen but not leaving—and not once taking their eyes from the fully exposed angel in their midst.

  Maneuvering Michael around, Alex backed him up against the wood, and he collapsed onto the edge of the table. Pain-filled emerald eyes met hers, then drifted closed. Alex turned her mind away from the panic that desperately wanted to set in. She set about figuring out his armor.

  “How did you find me?” she asked Hugh, running her fingers along the edges of the shattered breastplate, probing for some kind of release.

  “GPS. In your phone.”

  Of course. “Is anyone else coming?”

  Hugh shook his head and winced. “No. They’re pretty busy with the scene, and I’ve been granted certain…latitude where you’re concerned.”

  “Good.” She jerked her chin to indicate the lump on his forehead. “What happened?”

  Mouth twisting, he touched the bruise. “Seth. It’s my own fault. I saw a cab following us, but it never occurred to me it could be him.” He dropped his voice. “I mean, the son of freaking Lucifer. In a cab. Really?”

  “It would have been his only way of following me. He would have wanted me away from Michael.”

  Hugh snorted. “That worked out well.”

  Alex shot him a look, and he touched fingertips to the lump on his temple.

  “I didn’t realize he’d even gotten out of the cab until he was beside the car. He smashed my phone, then whacked my head against the steering wheel. I didn’t wake up until the whole place was in flames and everyone was gone. Well, everyone who could move, anyway.”

  “You’re lucky you’re alive.”

  Henderson scowled. “I’m aware of that, thanks.”

  Alex realized she’d made zero progress with the armor. She took a step back and glowered at it. “For chrissakes! Is this stuff glued on?”

  “Here,” said Emmanuelle. “Let me do it.”

  Alex glanced back to find the other woman’s closed, unreadable gaze fixed on Michael. She moved aside, and Emmanuelle stepped forward. With the nimble fingers of someone who had done the task many, many times before, she stripped the armor from the Archangel’s body, leaving the most damaged—the breastplate—for last. Her gaze flicked to Alex’s as she took hold of its edges.

  “It’s fused to him,” she said quietly. “He may pass out when I remove it.”

  Alex’s heart shriveled. Her breathing stopped. Fused…? She stared at Emmanuelle, horror and disbelief vying for top billing in her brain. Then, grimly, she stepped in to brace Michael’s right side with her body so he wouldn’t pitch forward.

  She looked around the room for help. With that lump on his head, she didn’t trust Henderson not to pass out in Michael’s wake. She singled out the least damaged of the bikers, a bald man with a flaming red beard and tattooed sleeves covering both arms.

  “You. On his other side. Don’t let him fall.”

  For all the bulk he possessed, the man moved fast. All the way to the door and out to the living room in the blink of an eye. Alex opened her mouth to bellow after him, but another voice interjected before she could.

  “I’ll do it.”

  A man she hadn’t noticed stepped out from a corner, clad entirely in black but for the rectangle of white at his throat. Her jaw dropped further. A priest? What the hell was a priest—

  “Marcus?” Hugh demanded.

  Alex narrowed her eyes at the name, unable to place it despite the familiar ring. “Who?”

  “Marcus,” Hugh repeated, disbelief chasing confusion across his face. “Father Marcus. With the scrolls. You remember.”

  Michael swayed against her and she shifted her stance. She remembered, all right. Especially the part about the scrolls having gone missing at the same time Marcus had, but now wasn’t the time.

  “Fine,” she said. “Get over here.”

  The priest—no small man himself—settled against Michael’s side, braced against the table. Faded blue eyes met hers over Michael’s head. He nodded.

  “Ready,” he said.

  Emmanuelle took a deep breath. Alex watched her fingers flex, then curve around the edges of the breastplate. Her hands and forearms went taut with strain. A look of intense concentration settled over her features. Sweat beaded at her temple. Her eyes glazed over, closed for a second, then flashed open again. The breastplate tore free.

  Michael’s roar of pain filled the room, landing like a sledgehammer against Alex’s skull. He lunged forward, and she gritted her teeth, straining to keep him from falling to the floor, Father Marcus doing likewise on his other side. The agonized bellow went on and on, until big, tough bikers tumbled over themselves in their haste to escape the kitchen. Until Hugh followed, and Father Marcus, eyes streaming, released his hold and stumbled after them, hands pressed over his ears. Until only Alex remained to hold Michael upright while Emmanuelle looked on, hands still gripping the armored breastplate, a thousand agonies at war in her face.

  At last Michael’s voice, hoarse by now, trailed off into silence. Battered, bloodied wings hung limp from his back, shedding feathers in their wake. His head rested against Alex’s chest, shuddering breath warming her arm beneath her sweater. She stifled the urge to stroke the dark hair back from his forehead and glanced up to find Emmanuelle watching them, her gaze hard.

  “Are you all right?” Alex asked.

  Emmanuelle looked startled by the question. Then annoyed.

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. She set the breastplate aside and reached for Michael, easing him back until his chest was visible.

  Or what had once been his chest.

  Alex bit down and swallowed hard against the roll in her belly. Holy hell, how was he still alive? She cringed at the morass of raw, bloodied flesh, at the splinters of bone remaining from a ribcage torn away, at the rhythmic, steady pulse of the exposed heart, still purple with the lifeblood pumping through it. Her gaze flicked to the breastplate and the missing pieces of an Archangel forever fused to it. Then she looked to a grim Emmanuelle and swallowed again.

  “Will he—?”

  “His immortality is intact, but he’s badly damaged. I’m going to—”

  “Don’t you dare,” Michael whispered. Emerald eyes, dulled by pain and shock, glared at Emmanuelle. “If you heal me, you expose everyone here.”

  “Everyone? Or just her?” She jutted her chin at Alex.

  Alex gave a start. Whoa. She thought—?

  “It’s not like that,” she began.

  “Everyone,” Michael’s voice overrode hers. “Seth lives, Emmanuelle. Any display of power on your part will tip him off, and I’m in no shape to fight right now. Especially if he returns with reinforcements.”

  “Which is why I need to heal you.”

  “No. I’ll return to Heaven. I’ll heal faster there. I’ll be gone a few hours—a day at most. If you lie low, you should be safe.”

  “I should be safe?” Emmanuelle arched a brow.

  She and Michael locked gazes for an uncomfortable few seconds, and then Michael reached up to cover Alex’s hand, still resting on his shoulder, with his own.

  “Give us a minute.”

  Alex stared at him, the events of the afternoon filtering out from the chaos and falling into place. She’d found Emmanuelle, brought her and Michael together. He didn’t need to protect her anymore. And if this was what Seth was capable of—her gaze skimmed the battered flesh and broken bone of his chest again, and she shook her head. “Michael—”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “I said no. It’s not an option, Alex. Not right now.”

  “You don’t even know—”

  “I do know what you’re thinkin
g, and the answer is no. You’re still needed.”

  “Bullshit,” she said. “I knew going into this—”

  “No.”

  “Will you please shut up and let me finish a goddamn sentence?”

  He squeezed her hand lightly, and his grip trembled. “We’ll talk later. Please.”

  Alex looked at the lines of fatigue and pain carved into his face. She bit back the arguments piling up in her throat, and blinked away the tears prickling behind her eyes. Then she scowled her capitulation and tugged her hand from his, heading for the living room.

  Goddamn stubborn Archangel.

  Emmanuelle’s voice followed her. “The bathroom is down the hall, first door to the left. You can find a clean t-shirt in the bedroom across from it. Middle drawer.”

  Alex pushed open the door without pausing.

  “Five minutes,” she told Michael. “Then I’m coming back.”

  CHAPTER 42

  IN THE SILENCE THAT followed Alex’s departure from the kitchen, Mika’el closed his eyes against a pain so intense that, for a moment, it became his entire existence. He ground his teeth together, riding it out, waiting for it to recede, his breathing ragged in his own ears. Seth’s final blow had very nearly been a killing one—would have been, if the Appointed hadn’t still been weakened by the injury inflicted by Alex.

  Mika’el had been lucky to escape with only his chest ripped out.

  A throat cleared. He took another cautious breath around the agony that had replaced his breastbone and half his ribcage. He’d have to make this fast, before he passed out and had to do his healing here. The process would take far longer on Earth than in Heaven, and it would leave all of them vulnerable for the duration.

  He looked up to find his soulmate stationed a few feet away, arms crossed. Guarded eyes, so like her mother’s in expression, watched him.

  “Is it true?” she asked. “The One is gone?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I felt—thought I felt—” Emmanuelle pressed her lips together. Her eyes hardened. “The woman confirmed it for me.”