She didn’t look at him as she cracked one open and took a large mouthful. She needed something to take the edge off and she didn’t care if he judged her for it.
“Can we talk about something else now?” She gulped down the ice-cold beer and reached for another. “Pick a subject.”
“The dragon.”
CHAPTER 9
“No.” Emelia’s flat denial rang in the early afternoon air as she crushed the can she had been drinking and tossed it into the container beside her.
She had asked him to choose another subject and he had. He had learned more about her, had seen how her parents’ deaths had broken her, and how she had been forced to fend for herself. He now knew why she often practiced boxing.
After losing her parents, she had moved to a small apartment above a shop in Cambridge and had started working at a nightclub. In order to keep herself safe from the males who had frequently bothered her while she tended the bar, she had taken to boxing, using it both to train her body and as an outlet for her feelings.
But he was here to learn about the dragon too.
“I don’t want to talk about him.” She opened another can and took a sip, drinking it slower than the last.
He could smell the alcohol in it, and the thought he had driven her to drink didn’t sit well with him.
“So let me see what you did.”
She refused to look at him.
“Emelia, I need to know more about him. Where he lived. His powers.”
“You want to know one power a dragon has?” she snapped and her hand shook as she lifted the drink to her lips again. “They can use it to make a woman compliant by looking into her eyes.”
He reared back. “Emelia, I would not do such a thing. I cannot do such a thing. Your mind is strong, and you can easily shut me out if you want. I cannot manipulate you, so I cannot hurt you.”
“Would you do it to another woman?” She flinched at her own words and cast him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry… I just… thinking about him…”
She shook her head.
Fire rolled through his blood as he ran back over what she had said. The air around him darkened as the urge to call his blade to his hand and form a bridge to Hell surged through him. He breathed through it, taming the dark need to hunt and kill, afraid it would terrify her and she would come to view him as a monster too.
After how well he had been doing with her, such a blow might kill him.
He held back his temper so it wouldn’t affect his surroundings, but he couldn’t keep the growl from his voice. “Did he use such power against you?”
She briefly shook her head, causing that rogue strand to slip from behind her ear again. He followed her fingers as she swept it back, gently hooking it behind her ear, mesmerised by the action and wanting to know what it would feel like to do that for her.
He was glad the dragon hadn’t manipulated her in that way, but he didn’t like what he saw in her eyes as he shifted his to meet them.
She had drawn a parallel between him and the bastard, and it had rattled her, shaking her trust in him.
“You should go.” She set her can down near the container and rose to her feet. She dusted her backside down and muttered, “I need a nap.”
“You are making excuses now. If you want me to leave, just demand that I leave. Do not lie to me. I know you have not been sleeping well. I doubt you are going to have a nap.”
Her pulse went off the scale.
She twisted to face him, her green eyes widening as realisation dawned in them.
Her eyebrows dipped, a wrinkle forming between them as she narrowed her gaze on him. “How did you know where I was?”
He stood, because he could see where this was going. It had been a mistake to casually comment on the fact she hadn’t been sleeping well.
“Emelia—” he started, holding his hands up by his sides.
“Have you been spying on me?” She spoke over him, the horror that filled her eyes lacing her voice too.
Damn.
He wrestled with how to word things, what to tell her, aware that the longer he let the silence stretch between them, the angrier she would be and the less likely she was to understand.
“I do not mean harm by it,” he blurted to shatter the tense silence, and she planted her hands on her hips, an expectant edge to her expression. “I can turn my gaze to anyone, and I look at you from time to time. I need to know you are safe, Emelia… and I cannot… sometimes I cannot… I…”
He sucked down a long, deep breath.
“Seeing you calms me.”
She frowned.
He raked his fingers over his short black hair and turned away from her, needing room to move without frightening her, because he couldn’t keep still. He needed to pace, or he feared his nerve might fail.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her as he confessed this either, because there was a chance it might drive her away from him, and he didn’t want to see her looking at him as if she despised him.
He didn’t want that to be his final memory of her.
He wanted to remember her as she had been just minutes ago—relaxed, almost smiling, calm around him and trusting him.
“Sometimes I am a breath away from teleporting to Hell,” he confessed and scrubbed his left hand over his face as he stopped with his back to her, every muscle in his body cranked tight and his heart pounding. This would either be a colossal mistake, one that would destroy whatever fragile bond they shared, or it would be a good move, one that might bring her closer to him. “So I turn my focus to you… I watch you going about your life… and I see you are safe and well… and it gives me the strength I need.”
Her pulse accelerated, the acrid scent of her fear swamping her sweeter perfume.
Damn. Colossal mistake it was.
“You can’t… Sometimes I’m… I’m…” The rising note of panic in her voice had him wanting to turn towards her, to comfort and reassure her somehow, but he couldn’t muster the courage to do it. “You can’t look at me then. I’m… exposed.”
It struck him that she thought he looked at her at times when she was nude.
Was there a level above colossal mistake?
He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, and forced himself to face her, because he needed to fix this, couldn’t let her imagination run wild and paint him as some kind of pervert so she could draw another parallel between him and the dragon.
“I have never seen you like that, Emelia,” he murmured, hoping the softness of his voice would calm her as it had before and make her listen to him. “I would never—”
“You can’t know what I’m doing!” She picked the can up in a lightning-fast move and hurled it at him.
He grimaced as it hit him square in the chest, splashing the sharp-smelling liquid all over him so his T-shirt stuck to his skin.
He sucked down a subtle breath to keep his temper in check and held his hands out in front of him, because she was in a full-blown panic now, her green eyes wild and pulse off the scale as she faced him.
“The process of turning my gaze to someone is twofold, Emelia.” He kept his voice calm and even, somehow managing it despite the turbulent emotions that battered him, ones that were strange and powerful, had him desperate to make her listen. She couldn’t breathe because she was panicking, and he couldn’t breathe because he feared she was going to tell him to leave and never return. “I connect with you in a way that allows me to sense the way of things before I connect in a visual manner. Think of it as a sixth sense angels possess.”
It didn’t calm her as expected.
“So you know when I’m naked?” She backed away from him and looked ready to pluck another can from the container and launch it at him.
He shook his head and clawed his hair back with both hands as frustration got the better of him. “No… I am not explaining this well. I am not aware of exactly what you are doing or how you are dressed. It is not like that. I can feel… your mood, per
haps. I can feel what you do—”
“And what do I feel in the times when you don’t look at me?” she interjected, a flicker of fear in her eyes now that made him want to brush his fingers across her cheek in a touch she wouldn’t welcome.
One that would only make things worse.
He swallowed and murmured, “Vulnerable… and it angers me now that I know the reason for it. I hate that you feel at risk whenever you are undressed.”
She cast him a black look, one laced with hurt, and shook her head as she turned towards the house and walked away from him, her hands balled into fists at her sides.
“I am sorry, Emelia.” Pointless words, ones that would get him nowhere, but ones he needed to say.
She stopped.
“I will not turn my gaze to you again,” he said, the last threads of his hope hanging on her believing him and accepting that, and allowing him to visit her again because of it.
She hesitated.
Murmured.
“You can look.”
Surprise washed through him, carrying away some of his fear, and he stared at her, unsure what to say.
“Why?” It fell from his lips, filled with the need burning inside him, a desire to understand why she would allow him to watch her whenever he needed the sight of her to soothe him after she had reacted so violently to the thought of it happening.
“Because the alternative is something I don’t want.” She shyly glanced over her shoulder at him. “I don’t want you to go to Hell.”
That touched him, together with the fact she would allow him to do something that unsettled her in order to keep him away from a place that might be the death of him.
“But I do really want you to leave… because I have a lot of work to do and I’m getting nothing done with you around.” She smiled faintly. “Unless you want to pitch in with the gardening?”
If it made up for upsetting her, he could get his hands dirty, although he didn’t know what he was doing. He hoped she was a good teacher.
“What would you like me to do?” He ventured a step towards her, trying not to look too eager to hear his punishment for upsetting her.
She walked to the house and picked up a tool that was leaning against the creamy stone. He wasn’t sure what it was. A long pipe attached the bulky end she held to a flat plastic disc at the other. She checked that end, did something that allowed her to tug more thick red string out of the device, and then walked to the table, where she picked up another item. She waved the padded semicircle with two weighty-looking plastic cups attached to each end at him.
“Since you slowed me down, and might have pissed me off, you pulled strimmer duty.” She strolled over and shoved the tool at him.
He took it, careful to avoid brushing her skin with his so he didn’t spook her. It smelled strongly of gasoline to him. He was still inspecting it when she tossed the other item at him, and he reacted with all the speed of his kind, easily snatching it out of the air without even lifting his head.
“Those go over your ears.” She pointed to the cups, and then at the tool. “And that… well… you don’t get to leave until this lawn is tamed.”
He looked around at the enormous expanse of tall grass he had presumed was a meadow. With such a paltry tool, he would be here all night. It would be quicker to burn it with the flames of his sword, although he doubted Heaven would approve of him using angelic fire to tame a wilderness. He also doubted Emelia would approve.
Although it saddened her, this place meant a lot to her, and she would be distraught if anything happened to it. The fact she hadn’t sold it in the years since her parents’ deaths was proof of that.
When she moved closer to show him how to use the tool, her scent invading his senses and filling his lungs, he forgot about doing things quickly.
If it took days to cut the grass, he wouldn’t care.
Because being near her was fast becoming his own personal heaven.
CHAPTER 10
It had been three days since Emelia had last seen him. What was he doing? She couldn’t keep her thoughts away from him as she packed up her gardening tools, tossing them into the large purple plastic bucket she had bought on her last supply run into the nearest town. Was he alright?
When he had confessed the reason behind why he watched her sometimes, she had seen the strain in his eyes, how the need to go to Hell and fight on her behalf weighed on him. She had seen it whenever she had looked into his striking silver eyes since then. He could smile, frown, glare, and even laugh, and she would still see it, lurking in the depths of his eyes, a need he couldn’t shake.
Could only deny.
Had he watched her since leaving? She tilted her head back. Was he watching her now?
She stilled and stared at the porch that stretched the length of the rear of the sandstone mansion.
At the steps where they had sat and talked.
He had come back to finish the task of strimming the lawn the day after, and had even mown it without complaining, stopping from time to time to make a passing comment or enquire as to what she was doing. He had a keen mind, seemed to enjoy learning new things, and she appreciated that he had kept things light between them, especially since she had seen in his eyes that he wanted to ask her again about Zephyr.
She rubbed her right shoulder where her T-shirt concealed the worst of her scars, a habit she couldn’t quite shake. Cold slithered down her spine as she brought her fingers away and risked a glance at them, and she gritted her teeth as she mentally berated herself. She wasn’t there now. Blood wouldn’t be staining her fingertips. It was over.
She was home.
She lifted her head and took in the building that held her favourite memories, the best days of her life, using the sight of it to purge the fear that still gripped her from time to time.
She didn’t dream of the dragon anymore.
She dreamed of the angel.
And each dream was hotter than the last.
Emelia grabbed the two handles on the soft plastic bucket and carried it in front of her as she ambled across the neat lawn.
A sigh escaped her lips.
She wasn’t sure what to do.
There was no denying she was attracted to the angel, felt a pull towards him whenever he was near, and found it difficult to keep her eyes off him. There was no denying he felt that same pull towards her. He had tried to gloss over his reasons for wanting to hunt Zephyr and avenge her, giving her a multitude of excuses that she had seen straight through.
She knew the truth.
He needed to kill the dragon because he had hurt her.
“What am I going to do with you, TeeDeePee?” She shook her head, and a faint smile danced on her lips. “We need to give you a better name, that’s for sure.”
But not George.
And definitely not Jorge.
The way he had said it, rumbling ‘hor-hay’ in his delicious deep voice, had stirred a wicked and shocking heat in her that had made her curse him in her mind. It had sounded far too sexy, something an angel shouldn’t be.
Although, there was no denying he was sexy.
Handsome.
Charming in his own strange way.
She had learned things about him in the two days he had spent with her at the mansion. He liked new challenges, was devoted to his duty, and could burn a demon to ashes with a mere touch thanks to the fancy black cross on the inside of his right wrist that had been there since birth. The last one was getting filtered straight to Sable, just in case her friend didn’t know the power of her mark.
He didn’t have a family that he could recall, and had worked with the Echelon for most of his life, having spent his formative years learning and carrying out other tasks before ascending to the rank of Echelon in order to replace an angel who had fallen in combat.
His mention of an angel falling had distracted her enough that she had forgotten to ask him about his age and had instead asked if he had meant fallen, like the Devil, or fallen lik
e dead, which had prompted a conversation over a cold soda that had stuck with her, haunting her at times when she was alone and her mind drifted to him.
Echelon could fall.
In Hell, she had heard the rumours of fallen angels. The demon king, Thorne, had tried to prepare the Archangel hunters who had assembled under Sable’s lead to assist him in his war. He had told them there was a chance the Fifth Realm, their enemy, might have employed fallen angels in their ranks, and that if they saw one, they were to immediately retreat to the castle.
Apparently, fallen angels were extremely powerful and even demons didn’t like to tangle with them.
TeeDeePee had gone one further and told her they weren’t only extremely powerful, they were the most powerful beings in Hell.
“I really need to give you a better name,” she muttered. “You’re tall and dark, and were a little pompous… but TeeDeePee sounds stupid.”
EffSee for Fourth Commander didn’t sound much better.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and she glanced in the direction it had come from. Black clouds filled the horizon, slowly rolling towards her. For a moment, she had feared he had heard her and had come to argue with her again about his name.
For a moment, she had hoped he was back.
There was a flash this time, and she counted the seconds in her head between it and the next ominous growl of thunder. It wouldn’t be long before it reached her. It looked like she was calling it early today, and it was only just past four. She had hoped to get at least some pruning done in the tangle of thorny brambles that had once been the rose garden.
She sighed and let her mind run with finding him a suitable name she could call him, at least in private, as she dumped the bucket near the back door of the mansion, tipping it upside down to provide some shelter from the rain for her tools. She made her way along the rear of the building, heading towards the east side, where her father had constructed a more modern pool house.
Her current home until Archangel called her back into service.
Mark had allowed her all the time she wanted on the proviso that if they needed her, or if she felt she was ready, she returned to London. She had agreed, because she wasn’t ready to leave Archangel. It was still her family.
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