Warrior (Fallen)

by Kristina Douglas

  “You should have warned her.” Allie looked at up him with disapproval. The Source wasn’t the type to mince words, and she’d been against this idea from the very beginning, which should have made them allies. But she’d caved first, and he hadn’t been able to hold out against both her and her husband. Not when he knew they were right.

  “She will be facing too many things to warn her about all of them,” he replied coolly. “Are we ready for the ritual?”

  The girl’s head shot up. “What?”

  Raziel gave him a fiercely disapproving look before approaching her. “Welcome to Sheol, Victoria Bellona,” he said with great formality. “Welcome to the home of the Fallen, to membership in our family, to alliance in our war against the Armies of Heaven, to marriage with our brother Michael.”

  “Oh, hell, no,” said his blushing bride, stumbling to her feet with Allie’s help. “Nobody asked me whether I wanted to sign up for all this. I’m leaving.”

  Raziel didn’t blink. “And where exactly do you wish to go?”

  “Anywhere but here.”

  “Unfortunately, here is your only option. Sheol, or back with your mother and guardian for the few days remaining until you are twenty-five, at which point she will have you terminated.”

  “Pedersen is dead. She can’t very well toss me over the cliff herself,” the girl snapped.

  “There is more than one way to kill you. The contessa likes ritual and enjoys the cliff, but she can just as effectively shoot you and have the servants dispose of your corpse.”

  She glared at Raziel, taking some of the onus off Michael. Now that she was here in Sheol, he had no choice but to accept the unpleasant circumstance that Martha’s vision had saddled him with, and he had never been a man to waste time fighting the inevitable. There were more important battles in his future.

  “I am ready,” he said. “Though I believe the goddess must agree to this.”

  “What goddess?” the girl said.

  “He’s talking about you,” Allie said soothingly. “Victoria Bellona, incarnation of the ancient Roman goddess of war.”

  Victoria Bellona was glaring at Allie now. “Not you too,” she said in disgust. “What kind of Kool-Aid did you guys drink?”

  Her question made no sense to Michael, though Allie laughed. “You’ll see,” she said. “It takes time, but sooner or later you’ll realize this crazy world of ours is real.”

  “And you’re an archangel?”

  Allie grinned. “Hardly. In this sexist society, only men are angels, and most of them aren’t archangels. You’ve got the last one who’s single. The Archangel Michael, warrior of God.”

  The girl looked back at him. She didn’t look like a Victoria Bellona, not with her slender frame and far-too-pretty face. Victoria Bellona should be a sturdy, almost masculine figure dressed in Roman armor.

  What had she instructed him to call her? Tory? He would avoid it if he could, simply because it would annoy her. He planned to annoy her every chance he got.

  Annoyance would keep her at a distance, and he needed that. He could say he was only human, but that wasn’t true, and he could hardly blame his weaknesses on his fall from grace more than two hundred years ago, a snap of the fingers to these immortals. To him.

  She was a liability, a temptation he didn’t want to consider. He could already feel things that he didn’t want to feel. If she’d been a whiner, he could have handed her over to someone capable like Allie or Rachel and ignored her. But there was something about the way she faced things, something about her bright green eyes, that called to him. And he couldn’t afford to listen. He’d already wasted too much time on her.

  “Make up your mind,” he said. “Life with us and a formal marriage with me, or death with your mother. The contessa has never been disposed to be merciful and she was fond of Pedersen, at least as fond as she is capable of being. I do not expect your demise will be particularly pleasant.”

  She was looking at him with profound annoyance. Excellent. It would suit their marriage perfectly. “A formal marriage,” she repeated thoughtfully. “I assume that means no . . . marital relations.”

  “I told you—I am celibate.” Raziel started to say something, but Michael simply overrode him. “You won’t even need to see me.”

  “Good.”

  “That’s not precisely true,” Allie broke in. “Granted, according to Martha this doesn’t have to be a true marriage in our sense, but you’ll still—”

  “What my wife is saying is that you’ll share quarters with Michael, but there will be plenty of room to keep your distance from each other if that is what you wish,” Raziel cut in smoothly. “We can work out the other details later. In the meantime, we are ready for the ceremony.”

  Michael’s unwilling bride was looking mutinous. “So soon? I’m still jet-lagged. Wing-lagged. Whatever.”

  “The sooner the better,” Allie said with great sympathy after casting a glare Raziel’s way. “Once it’s over, you can settle in and rest.”

  The woman looked up at him, measuring. “I don’t really have a choice in this, do I?”

  “No.” Michael did nothing to make it sound more palatable. She was better off knowing exactly what she was getting into.

  “It’s not as bad as you might think,” Allie said. “I promise you.”

  Victoria Bellona might not be disposed to believe him, but he could tell she was beginning to trust Allie. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get it done.”

  Michael watched her disappear with Allie and the others. Raziel’s wife wasn’t the most docile of females, but if they brought Azazel’s Rachel into the mix, it would help. Rachel could calm the most distraught of females, and even Allie must see the benefit of having Tory agreeable.

  Raziel was looking at him, with Azazel, their former leader and now his second-in-command, standing behind him. “She is . . . not what I imagined,” Michael said finally.

  “No.”

  There was a long silence, and then Azazel stepped forward. “I’m surprised you were forced to kill Pedersen. He should have known his job.”

  “He had grown too attached to her. But in fact I didn’t kill him. She did.”

  Another silence. “Interesting,” Raziel said eventually. “Did he deserve it?”

  “Ten times over. He trained her well—so well, she outsmarted him. She will serve.” He said the words reluctantly. He had agreed to this—he’d had no choice—and in the end he’d seen the wisdom of it. But part of him was still fighting.

  “You look tired,” Azazel said. He was the closest friend Michael had among the Fallen. The former Alpha, he had returned a few years ago with his wife, Rachel, who had powers even she didn’t know about. They would need her, as well as his own unwilling bride, in the upcoming fight. They would need everyone they could muster.

  “I am tired,” he admitted.

  “Walk with me.” It wasn’t a request, but it was what Michael needed, and Azazel knew it. They started down the pebbled beach, slowly leaving Raziel behind. The sound of the surf soothed him, the sough of the wind and the gulls that wheeled and cried overhead. The ocean, the place of healing, the place of origin. Humankind had first come from the water. He had no idea where his kind had come from, and there’d been no one to answer his questions. Uriel, guardian of heaven, would spin any lie that served his purpose, and the Supreme Being was gone. Once he’d given free will to the humans he’d simply stepped back, leaving his most trusted archangel in charge.

  Unfortunately, that archangel had been Uriel, not Gabriel, Raphael, or even himself. That unwise choice had echoed through the millennia, bringing plague and disaster upon humankind. Uriel had to be stopped, before he destroyed the world completely.

  Azazel broke their comfortable silence. “She’s very pretty.”

  “Is she?”

  “You know she is. Don’t play the fool, Michael, it doesn’t become you. This vision of Martha’s came for a reason, and it was to help our cause, not hind
er it. If I can feel the power of attraction between you two, then you certainly can’t be unaware of it.”

  He didn’t bother denying it. “It’s an unpleasant fact of life, I admit it. She . . . calls to me. I have no intention of doing anything about it. This will be a marriage in name only. Anything else would only complicate matters.”

  Azazel shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what the vision meant.”

  “That’s the thing about visions—you can interpret them any way you wish. I prefer to think her presence and her joining to me are all that is necessary. After that is done, she will simply be one of the soldiers.”

  “You need her blood.”

  “I’m not taking it. You know that—I won’t take blood from a mate. The Supreme Being may have cursed us to be blood-eaters, but I can refuse to give in. I will make do with what Allie can provide.”

  Azazel frowned. “You know as well as I that her blood is weaker. The Source is for the Fallen who haven’t mated. Even if you don’t bed her, you will still have mated the goddess, and her blood will bring you back to full strength.”

  “No.” It was his only weapon against the forces that had molded him into an instrument of justice and terror, wielder of the flaming sword, smiter of enemies who’d done so little to deserve their punishment. No, he refused to let them play with him any longer. He would take no blood but from the wrist of the Source, and all of them be damned.

  They were already damned.

  “You can’t fight it forever,” Azazel said. “Sooner or later you will have to accept that the Fallen are doomed to be blood-eaters. If it’s a test of wills between you and the Supreme Power, do you really think you have a chance of winning?”

  Michael looked out at the sea. “You fought your prophecy,” he said. “You almost killed your wife, you were so determined to prove it wrong.”

  Azazel flushed. “Indeed. I don’t recommend it. Women have long memories. In the end the prophecy was correct, even if we misunderstood the details. I’ve learned that visions don’t lie, Michael.”

  “But they can be changed, and sometimes they’re merely a warning of what to avoid.”

  Azazel shook his head. “You’re a stubborn bastard, aren’t you?”

  “I have no idea whether I’m a bastard or not.”

  Azazel’s laugh was short and humorless. “By the legal definition, I would think we definitely qualify. If you’re talking about character, then there’s no question.”

  Michael wasn’t in the mood for Azazel’s mind games, any more than he appreciated his unlikely good cheer. The Azazel he had known was sharp and cynical, even when he’d been joined with his beloved Sarah. Yet the appearance of a demon in his life had made him almost sanguine. It annoyed Michael.

  “Just because your despised prophecy turned you into a revoltingly sentimental creature doesn’t mean that mine will be similarly benign. And if it is, we will all be in trouble. If I start looking at the world with that sappy smile on my face, Uriel’s army will surely destroy us. I’m our last, best hope to beat them, and the only reason I agreed to this ridiculous farce was because all of you were convinced we couldn’t win if I didn’t bring her back.”

  Azazel appeared unperturbed at his attack. “And you’re not similarly convinced? Then why did you agree?”

  “Simple. I understand warfare, and battle. If we believe we will prevail, we will. If Victoria Bellona’s presence convinces us that we will win, then I’ll happily put up with her, just to give us that edge.”

  Azazel surveyed him coolly. “I don’t think there’s anything happy about it. You can take her back if you really believe her presence here is useless.”

  “I can’t. The contessa will kill her.”

  “And why do you care?”

  “I don’t,” Michael snapped.

  “Then . . .”

  “Leave me be, Azazel. I have enough to deal with as it is.”

  Silence stretched between them, and then Azazel nodded. “We’d best go in. Presumably they’re ready for us.”

  Michael took one last longing look at the sea. He couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that he was about to take a step that would change the rest of his existence—a step he was being forced into.

  But his entire existence was about duty and honor, fighting for what was right. Sacrifice meant nothing—there was no reason why this particular sacrifice should be anything but another annoyance. He would marry her. And then put her away in the farthest corner of the house and retreat to the training compound, and he would never have to see her.

  “I’m ready,” he said, turning his back on the ocean and looking up at the strange building that had housed the Fallen for eons. “It’s time.”

  THEY HAD PUT me in flowing white clothes, stripping off my black turtleneck and pants, unplaiting my long black hair. The woman named Allie had chattered nonstop, her soft, soothing voice helping to ease some of my tension. The crown of wildflowers they put on me was ridiculous, but a glance in the mirror kept me from ripping it off. I was no Botticelli goddess rising from the sea, but with the black hair rippling down against my pale skin, I wasn’t half-bad. I didn’t want to consider why it mattered. Presumably nothing more than natural vanity. However, vanity had never mattered to me before, even when I thought Johann loved me. Before he’d delivered me to Pedersen and pocketed a healthy reward.

  The women led me through the wide hallways to a garden where dozens of similarly garbed people were waiting for us, and I tried to ignore the clenching in my stomach.

  Until I saw my husband-to-be.

  He stood at one end, his face cool and impassive. Such an arresting face on the man. Angel. Whatever he was. Exquisitely beautiful. Exquisitely cold.

  In the bright sunlight I could see him clearly for the first time. He was wearing white as all the others were, a loose open shirt, though he’d rolled up the sleeves, as if even a so-called wedding required hard work. I looked at his strong forearms, and for the first time I noticed tattoos snaking their way up beneath the white cloth. The shirt was loose at the neck as well, and there were more markings on his chest, his throat, twining around to the back of his head, markings I hadn’t seen before. I halted, momentarily fascinated, and then Allie caught my arm and gently urged me forward.

  Did they expect me to love, honor, and obey? I thought dizzily. And weren’t they Old Testament angels—shouldn’t there be a chuppah or something, a glass of wine to smash?

  Allie took my hand and placed it in Michael’s outstretched one, and his long fingers tightened around mine before I could pull it back. His skin was cold. There were tattoos on the back of his hand, and now that I was closer I could see them clearly. Symbols from every culture imaginable—Celtic knots, Native American glyphs, Asian kanji, Arabic calligraphy. They circled his hand and arm, disappearing into the sleeve like a serpent, and I had the sudden odd feeling that the line of markings could move, could slide along his skin onto mine, marking me as his.

  There was no escape. Raziel moved in front of us and spoke in a language I had never heard, a beautiful, silvery sound that made my skin tingle. Allie had left me, and suddenly I felt abandoned, until the woman named Rachel took her place, clasping my other hand in her strong, calm one, soothing me.

  My mind drifted in the bright sunlight. This was too strange, too bizarre to take in, and I let the words flow over me, dazed, until the sound of Michael’s deep, rich voice startled me into paying attention again. He spoke in the same language Raziel had, and then Michael turned to me. If there was mercy in his dark eyes, I couldn’t see it.

  “You have a choice,” he said. “You can stay with us, help us fight. We are at war with a force so evil that if we lose, the world will be destroyed. If that happens, you will die anyway. If you go back now, you may manage to survive the rage of the woman who raised you, but that is unlikely, as your twenty-fifth birthday approaches. But it is your choice. Do you choose to stay here, to become my bonded mate, or do you wish to return to yo
ur old life?”

  It really was no choice. Even if death didn’t await me there, the thought of being locked in that room for even an hour longer sent horror through me. Here was sunshine, and other women, and freedom such as I’d never known.

  “I choose you,” I said, meeting his cool, enigmatic gaze.

  “Then let it be done,” he murmured.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  THEN LET IT BE DONE,” HE’D SAID. I’d spoken no vows other than my agreement, and there’d been no exchange of rings. Was that the equivalent of “I now pronounce you man and wife”?

  Apparently not. Allie moved forward between us and pushed her flowing sleeve up past her elbow, exposing a pale arm and blue-veined wrist. Michael took her arm in both hands, then glanced up at me out of his dark, implacable eyes. “Should she not hold on to the Source as well?”

  Rachel moved up beside me. “Put your hand on Allie’s arm, Tory,” she said, soft but determined.

  What the hell was going on? I tried to back away, suddenly more uneasy than I had been since Michael had appeared in my life—and given the craziness of the last day, that was impressive.

  “No.” A woman I hadn’t met spoke up from the group of people surrounding us. I was vaguely aware of a young woman in her thirties, a troubled expression on her face. “That’s not the way I saw it. I don’t think—”

  “Martha, let be,” Michael said, his rich voice an incompatible mix of kindness and irritation. “If there is more we need to do, we can address that later.”

  “But—”

  “Later, Martha.” Raziel’s voice finished the conversation, and the woman subsided reluctantly. Martha. I remembered the name from the chatter of the women. She was the seer who’d sent Michael on his ridiculous mission in the first place. Except this ridiculous mission was going to keep me alive, when Pedersen and my mother would have been certain to kill me.

  Rachel took my cold hand and placed it on Allie’s elbow, holding it there. Allie flashed me a reassuring smile. “Keep an open mind, Tory,” she said quietly. “It will be all right.”