Underworld Lover (A Guardian Angel Romance #2)

by haron Hamilton

  It was the kind of erotic fog she was getting used to. She craved it. She never wanted to end.

  She still was struggling to perfect her side of things, and didn’t always understand what he was thinking, which was good, he said. Give her time to learn about how his mind worked before she would know everything, he said. Melanie thought perhaps some of this was intentional on his part.

  Today, Josh agreed to join her at noon, when Travis showed up. She felt the tingle down her spine as she thought of their night of lovemaking. I should be tired, but I can’t stop thinking about you. When she closed her eyes, she felt his mouth on her, his fingers placed just so as to cause the maximum amount of sexual stimulation.

  She was fulfilled, excited that she belonged to him, body and soul. She made a point to send that vision to him, purposefully imagined his kiss on her bellybutton, and smiled.

  As she went back and forth between the shop and the courtyard, setting out loose, long stemmed flowers in white metal cone buckets fresh from the refrigerator, she saw Felix running across the parking lot towards her. His face wore a look of distress, and she knew he did not have good news.

  “Felix. Josh’s been looking for you everywhere. Everything all right?” she asked.

  Felix grabbed her, then tugged her inside the shop, searching behind his back for a shadow. At last, he embraced her, squeezing her just a little too tight, making it difficult for her to breathe. He was shaking. She smelled the sweat of his fear. A tiny alarm went off in the back of her head.

  “Melanie. I am so sorry. I’ve been an idiot.” His rheumy eyes looked tormented and confused. He smelled like he’d not showered in a week. She noticed the red stain around his mouth. Worried for the first time today, she wished Josh were beside her, but she hesitated to call him, since he had so much to do.

  “He’s stalking me, Mel. Both of them are stalking me. You are not safe.”

  “Who?”

  “Peter, and one of his goons. Really big guy.”

  “Why did you come here, then?” she asked, glancing out the glass doors to the courtyard in front of her store. No one was there, but her unease was growing by the minute. The birds had stopped chirping in the ivy-encrusted entryway.

  “I just wanted to warn you. I’m gonna see Joshua next, warn him too. He’s coming, Melanie. And he is pissed.”

  “Peter?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve seen him today?”

  “About an hour ago. He was asking for me. Thank God I still have a couple of friends I haven’t disappointed yet.”

  “You don’t disappoint me, Felix.” She brushed the side of his face and inserted her fingers into his curly locks. She patted his cheek. “Tell me, what is going on? What do you know?”

  “He knows about the dark angels being torched. I was drinking last night and saw it on a big screen. The place literally shut down for a couple seconds when everyone saw it. Peter arrived just as they were replaying it for the fifth time. He demanded it be turned off, and he torched someone who wasn’t fast enough. He is on a terror. I watched from the storeroom where Molly and I had…” He looked down at his feet. “Molly likes me. She’s a really awesome dancer. Sorry,” he whispered. When Felix raised his eyes, his cheeks had gone pink.

  “You owe me no explanation. I’m in love with your mentor, Felix. You know this. I’m with him every chance I can get, and it still isn’t enough. I’m glad you’ve found comfort with someone. That’s the way it should be.” Melanie was pleased to see he accepted her statement without an emotional flare.

  “There was a time when I wanted to be that someone.” He couldn’t look her in the eyes.

  “Yes, but you gave me something even more. You gave me the gift of my life, and I will be forever grateful.” She ducked to capture his gaze and saw he was satisfied with her truth. “So what is it?” she asked.

  “I think he’s coming here to get you. He’s fixated on winning, claiming you as his trophy. He’s angry, ugly too.”

  Melanie had to laugh at that one. She could imagine his repulsive features, the mean sneer he was capable of.

  “And I think he’s gone over the edge—he’s not rational. Drinking gobs of RedEcstasy.” Felix searched her eyes. “Everyone down there is talking about it, how dangerous he is. After today, you must stay away from me, stay close to Joshua. He needs to protect you all the time now.”

  “Good advice, but just a tad late.” The booming dark voice made stacked glass vases behind the cash register rattle on the shelf. Peter blocked the doorway. His lips were smeared with red; the whites of his eyes were pink, matching the puffy tissue surrounding them. Peter’s hair was pulled back tight, but he smelled disheveled and his clothes were wrinkled, making Melanie think he had perhaps slept in an alleyway.

  He grabbed Felix by the nape of the neck, holding him with such force Felix began to pee. This angered her.

  “You’re nothing but a bully.” She finally found the words.

  “Yes, and soon you’ll be my new conquest. This pathetic face is the face of failure, weakness.” His glance went from Felix’s limp frame to Melanie’s eyes. “This face,” he said pointing with his other hand to himself, “this is the face of the last man in the universe who will ever possess you. You will be mine for all eternity. I will fuck you until you can’t remember anything else.” He let go of Felix, who dropped onto the concrete floor with a loud thud in a tangle of bones, upsetting a large potted fern.

  “I’d rather die.” Melanie saw Felix was still alive and had started to stir.

  “Oh, there are things much worse than death, my dear.”

  “Yes, like pleasuring you.”

  “You want a little demonstration?” He leaned into her, and she smelled the stink of his red teeth. “I like you feisty. The more you fight, the more it turns me on. Makes the claiming that much sweeter—for me.” He grinned, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, savoring her scent. He looked into her face again as Felix began to right himself. “I told you that you have tamed the most powerful man in the universe. I ache to claim your flesh as my trophy.”

  His nearness made her dizzy. She realized his breath was being used as an intoxicant, like when she was in his car. Perhaps the RedEcstasy had reduced its potency.

  He stepped back from her. Felix was standing near the corner, shaking, as if glued to the floor. Pee continued running down his quivering leg. His mouth began to form one word. His pathetic expression melted Melanie’s heart.

  “Run, now!” Felix’s raspy voice broke. Then he turned to Peter and lunged for him, but was caught under the chin with a bony hand that squashed his windpipe, sending blood down Felix’s shirt and over the long white fingers of the director. Peter threw down Felix like a rag into a garden of potted houseplants. Several large ceramic pots overturned and broke, spewing roots and soil onto the floor. The young dark angel coughed but was barely conscious, making gurgling, mewling sounds like a wounded child.

  “Watch how I choose to dispose of people who disobey me.” Peter’s eyes were cool, but the pupils were lined in a red glow. His bloody fingers pointed to Felix’s struggling body.

  The laser light beam started to burn hole in Felix’s chest as the young dark angel gurgled a wet scream. His body bounced in the green foliage, smoking like a barbeque. His arms and legs twitched.

  She saw Felix look at her one last time, disappointment registering. She had not run to safety. She saw his last, dying thought was that he felt he’d failed, once again. And then his body went limp in eternal peace. The hole through the middle of his chest was nearly a foot in diameter.

  “I can do it slowly,” Peter sneered. “I can burn them inch by inch and take a whole day if I want to. I did him a favor and was quick. Can you imagine Joshua’s body there on the floor?” Peter leaned into her, his face almost touching hers. She raised her hand to scratch his eyes. He grabbed her wrist and crushed a bone in her forearm, a shot of pain registering through the shock of her vulnerability.
r />   “Aghhh.” Tears filled her eyes as the searing pain consumed her.

  “Go ahead, call to him. I’m counting on it,” Peter said, then grimaced as he released her.

  Melanie knew she had to keep her emotions in check. But how? She did not want to bring Joshua into the trap. She thought of her parents, of her childhood. She thought about the flower market, the coolness of the refrigerator. Creeping inside her mind was the vision of Joshua’s body burning with a red hole the size of the one smoldering in Felix’s chest. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. She focused on her hatred of the dark angel in front of her.

  “Come, we must be quick,” Peter said, as if sensing some danger.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Right,” he said. He grabbed her injured arm, sending shards of pain through her body. He pulled her to his red Maserati and attempted to deposit her in the passenger seat. She fought and kicked, scuffing the car’s frame. She tried scratching his face with her other hand, but he twisted her arm again, the pain almost making her pass out. She was dumped into the bucket seat on the passenger side.

  “Tell him, Melanie. Tell him how much it hurts,” he said before he slammed the car door at her.

  Melanie glared at Peter coolly as he danced around the hood of the car, then got in beside her and behind the wheel. He gave her his deathly red smile, not trying in the slightest to be winsome. He brought the beast to life with a roar and punched it forward.

  He drove through town, ignoring traffic lights, other cars. His reflexes were quicker than some of the unlucky drivers who happened to come near. He left a trail of smoke and other vehicles, mangled and smashed, in his wake. Melanie watched as he seemed to take pride in it.

  “You know, my pet, I was not sure until today Joshua had penetrated you. I asked him to deliver you to me as a virgin.”

  “I am not your pet.”

  “Oh? We’ll see.” He chuckled with inner glee. “I have a studded collar I’d like you to wear.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down, then whispered, “And nothing else.”

  He was disgusting. Melanie stared straight ahead, trying to figure out where they were going to give Josh a clue. The red beast headed to the outskirts of town.

  She tried to summon strength to lessen the pain and diminish her fear. “You think of love as penetration? That all it means to you?”

  “My dear, I think the idea of love weakens the penetration.” He raised his eyebrows as if in response to the shock Melanie felt at his coldness.

  “But I think I am fine with the path he has blazed in your body.” Peter mused. “I hate being gentle.” He looked at her with his steely red-tinged eyes, squinting.

  “And I should care about this because?” Melanie found the strength to ask.

  “Because he will know what he has lost. That’s better than I had planned. Much better, don’t you think?”

  “I will never stop loving him. Nothing you can do will make me stop loving him.”

  “Yes, I can see that. I don’t care who you think about while I take you. Maybe he should watch.” He grinned again. “But Melanie, my pet, I will take you. I’ll do it so many times you’ll beg me to end your miserable dark life.”

  Melanie was losing her resolve. She felt outmatched, sinking into a sorrow of her own creation. She didn’t want Joshua to be killed, but wasn’t sure what she could do to stop it. The pain in her wrist was confusing her. She had let him breathe over her and the effects were subtle but growing.

  They arrived at a warehouse district in front of a long corrugated metal building. A few hundred yards away was a modern building with tall windows framed in red metal balconies. The place overlooked a dismal gravel yard of a place abandoned and left to ruin. He pulled the Maserati through a roll-up metal door and killed the engine as soon as the door closed behind them.

  “Home. My home, at last.”

  Opening her door, he pulled her good arm forward. When she stood, he pulled her body into his chest. “Nice,” he whispered. “Warming to me already?” He looked into her eyes and she spit at him.

  He twirled her around, pushing her forward, sending her to the concrete garage floor. He watched as she began to get herself up. He wiped his face and licked his lips. “I’m going to enjoy fucking that ass of yours.”

  Melanie’s knees were scuffed. She had landed on her wrist. She was certain a bone had been broken and lodged somewhere it didn’t belong. The pain almost caused her to black out.

  “Unfortunately, that will not heal right away,” Peter said, pointing to her wrist, and then wrenching it to help her up. “I can’t wait until it does. Consider the pain a reminder of what else I can do to you, and to him.”

  He pushed at her back as she stumbled up the stairs and through a metal door to a large living room with tall ceilings. It was sparsely decorated with steel furniture, accented by black and red leather cushions. The floor was made of black seamless granite, perfectly polished to a dull glow.

  Through the window, he searched the graveyard of buildings and railroad tracks; his eyes did not focus on anything in particular. He grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck and pulled her into a bedroom chamber. He pushed her onto the bed. His bed. It stunk of him.

  “Now I will explain the ground rules, so pay attention. Joshua was to bring you to me. He was sent to do this, did you know?” He smirked.

  “Of course I know. We have no secrets between us,” Melanie responded, bitterness in her chest. Just talking to Peter made her feel unclean.

  “Yes, well, he failed. Failed miserably. Just like he’s been failing regularly as a dark angel. His punishment would have been death. And I could—just end him right now.” Peter stepped closer to Melanie, then sat on the bed. All of a sudden, he kneeled, as if making a marriage proposal. “But, if you will join with me, become mine, I will spare him.” His pink eyes moved back and forth as he searched her face. “I can do that. Only I have the power to do that.”

  Melanie felt her chest muscles constrict. She was suddenly out of air. Her vision began to go dark, with black blotches passing across her view like she was going to pass out. Was the pain tainting her judgment? She knew she couldn’t trust Peter, but the alternative was even worse. Joshua? Dead? No, my love. I cannot live without you.

  Peter held up a small black box. “Consider it like an engagement gift. In this box is the only solution to your problem, if you truly want to spare his life.”

  Melanie took hold of the box. With shaking fingers, she removed the top and found a small black pill, looking like a black pearl, resting on a piece of fluffy white cotton.

  “This is what Felix took, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  Peter nodded, his eyes eager and hungry. “With an extra dose of Sexual Apricot, just to help you through the jitters. Once we get started, I’m thinking you’ll enjoy the whole experience.”

  “I don’t trust you.” Melanie was staring down at the pill, not into Peter’s eyes.

  “Good. You shouldn’t. But consider your options, my dear.”

  “Options? What options?”

  “You think I would stop with Joshua? How about Daniel and Claire? James and Angela? The little spitfire Doris? You think I would spare them?” His gleeful grin, exposing his red teeth and awful breath, made her stomach lurch. “I could make a picnic of destroying all your little friends and their pathetic lives.”

  “How do I know you’ll keep your part of the bargain?”

  “You don’t. But, isn’t it worth the risk—the price of your own pathetic life? You want to live knowing you caused the death of all these people you call friends? Are you that dark you could live with that?”

  Melanie looked at the pill. One of her tears fell onto it and she noted the purplish-black stain in the cotton.

  “So, how is this supposed to work?” She raised her tired eyes to his.

  “You make the deal with me. I make sure you come through the Readers and are mine. I will protect you for all eternity. And Me
lanie,” he said as he touched her chin delicately with his thumb and forefinger, “you will get to see your angel alive and thriving in our world. You will see that I keep my promises. Unless of course, you start pouting around and refuse me. That isn’t part of the deal.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows, perhaps in time we will find we are not enough for each other. Perhaps then I’ll let you have your angel. But your primary job in the Underworld will be to convince me how utterly devoted you are to me. Isn’t this a fair trade to keep him safe and alive? To keep them all safe from harm’s way?”

  As much as she hated to admit it, he was right.

  “Come, my pet.” He removed the pill from the box in her hand, holding it up to her face.

  “I am not your pet.”

  “I concede.” He was staring at her lips. “Put this in your mouth and you and your angel will live forever.” He blew on her eyes as she inhaled, opened her mouth, and waited for him to insert the pill. “Very clever, my dear, but it must be by your hand,” he said softly.

  She used the wrist that hurt so painfully, as a last act of defiance. The black splotches were coming back. But the pain in her wrist wasn’t nearly as strong as the desire to save her angel.

  I love you, Joshua. Goodbye for now.

  She tossed the pill through her lips and felt herself become lighter than air, falling back onto Peter’s bed. The last thing she saw was a gleeful dance from the man she would spend eternity trying to murder.

  Somehow.

  Chapter 41

  The first of Melanie’s frantic thoughts hit Josh like a spear through his chest. He arched up suddenly. Daniel noticed his reaction first and alerted James and Angela, who were talking quietly by the fireplace in Daniel’s living room.

  “Fuck! I knew it was a mistake to send her to the shop,” Joshua shouted. Just then, another bolt hit him. He grabbed his car keys. “I can’t wait any longer. She’s trapped. Peter has her!” His stomach lurched and his mouth went dry. A vein at the side of his neck felt like it was going to burst. He could feel the muscles of his shoulder clamping down tight.