“It’s okay! We’re fine,” she shouted over the din. “Let him go.”
Heavy boots stomped down the stairs and Alec and Mac appeared, holding Gatewick by the arms between them, with Galen bringing up the rear. No one looked happy, least of all John Gatewick, who, when Dimitri considered it, had really had one hell of a day.
“He’s cool,” Dimitri confirmed, coming to stand behind Elle and wrapping his arms around her. “I’ll explain everything later, but for now, put the guy down, huh?”
“Yeah?” McAllister arched a brow but looked to Elle for permission rather than Dimitri.
She looked into Gatewick’s pale face for a minute before nodding decisively. “Yeah.”
As soon as his hands were free, Alec stepped forward and grabbed Elle by the shoulders, giving her a little shake despite the growl that rumbled out of Dimitri.
“You just stuff it for five,” he snapped at the bigger man. “She scared a century off my life and if she wasn’t your mate, I’d put her devious little butt right over my knee. The plan, Elle. Remember the plan? What happened to the freakin’ plan?”
“I, um, changed the plan?” Elle squeaked.
“Do you have any idea what went through my mind when I couldn’t reach you? Then an animorti walked in the door. We all know they never travel alone. I took care of him, put the receptionist out, and came looking for you. And do you know what I found? Do you?” Alec was shouting loud enough to shatter glass, yet Elle didn’t as much as flinch. She simply rested her back against Dimitri and waited as the tirade wore one.
“I would imagine you found a vestibule with two locked doors and a faint trace of evil in the air,” Elle replied quietly.
“Damn straight I did! What in the hell were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t.”
“What?” Alec stammered, letting his hands drop back to his sides at her honest admission.
“I said I wasn’t thinking. I was feeling. I knew Dimitri was here as soon as the door opened and I was afraid to wait. I realize I should have at least let you know what I was doing, but frankly, I wasn’t sure how. I’m sorry I worried you. But everything turned okay in the end, right?”
“That isn’t the point, Elle, and you know it,” Mac interjected. “You can’t just twist situations in real life to suit yourself and count on controlling the outcome the way you do in a book. What if there’d been another animorti down here?”
“There was.” Dimitri grinned over Elle’s head. Oh sure, he’d give her a good talking to when they got home. Seeing her in Jebe’s clutches had probably taken a century off of his life, too. But right at this moment, he couldn’t help bursting with pride at her resourcefulness in taking down the animorti. “She killed it.”
“She…how?” Mac’s brows flew into his hairline and he nearly choked on his words.
Elle tipped her head back to grin at Dimitri. She may have winked but with one eye sealed tightly closed, he couldn’t be sure. She looked back at the others and hefted her ruined shoes in the air with a grin.
“Jimmy Choo, not just for fashion anymore.”
Epilogue
“What do you think?”
Dimitri surveyed the honey-colored hardwood floors running the length of the open space and the wall of windows allowing the bright afternoon sunlight to spill into every corner and simply shrugged. Elle twirled around happily in the center of the empty condo like a manic ballerina before skidding to a stop in front of him and wrapping her arms around his waist.
“Well?” she persisted.
“It’s a little too uptown for my taste, but it’s definitely got enough space and that’s the whole idea, right?” He wrapped his arms around her and drew her closer, resting his chin on her head. Frankly, he thought the less space they had between them, the better.
“Well, yeah,” she replied in a doubtful tone. “But if you don’t like it, I could just as easily set up a desk in the corner of your studio and work from there.”
“And have Jim-by-the-way traipsing in and out with notes and questions and worshipping you with his big puppy eyes a hundred times a day? No thanks.” True to his word, Jim had remained in the cell exactly as Dimitri instructed until everything had been resolved. Once Dimitri was able to convince Elle the kid really was just an overzealous fan, and an aspiring romance author himself, she’d softened toward him and decided to try him out as her personal assistant and protégé. Dimitri was okay with that, but the unadulterated adoration with which the kid looked at Elle got on his last nerve after about five minutes. Dimitri had tried staring daggers and even occasionally growling at him, but like Elle, he appeared completely unintimidated by the leather-clad giant and nothing deterred him from his steadfast devotion, not even the reams of research Elle assigned him now that she’d decided to branch out into historical fiction. She’d concluded that between Dimitri’s impressive library and the firsthand information she could tease out of him and the others, she’d be able to write the most painstakingly accurate historicals on the market.
“Jealous?” Elle propped her chin on his chest and looked up at him with a saucy grin.
“Hardly. I just prefer he worship you from afar. Or at least from a different room where I don’t have to be subjected to it,” Dimitri chuckled, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “So what do you think? You want this place or what?”
Elle blew out a long breath and her brows formed an inverted V.
“Well, the terrace seems awfully small. I know how much you enjoy the one you have now.”
“True, but there’s room for a couple of chairs and the park is right on our doorstep.”
“We’ll have to hire someone to build some bookcases. We do have more than a couple of books between the two of us, you know.” Elle frowned, examining the long wall opposite the windows. “It’s a shame the ones at your place are built-ins and we can’t bring them along. They’re gorgeous.”
“Thanks, I always was good with my hands,” he waggled his brows suggestively and walked his fingers down her back to cup her buttocks through her jeans when she turned back to him with a look of astonishment.
“You built those?”
“Galen helped.” He shrugged. “Much beer was consumed.”
Elle shook her head. “I still feel like there’s so much about you I don’t know.”
“You know the important stuff,” Dimitri smiled. “The rest is just excess baggage acquired while trying to fill the emptiness of too many years alone.”
“Hmmm. Well, I hope you won’t be wishing for a little emptiness in a couple of decades when you find you’re still stuck with me.”
“Doubtful.”
“Well, it certainly seems to have everything we need. Even if we used that entire wall for books, there’s still plenty of wall space to display your paintings.” She snagged her bottom lip between her teeth and looked around slowly before returning her gaze to his face. “I assume we won’t be hanging your impressive portrait of a certain general?”
“So you’ve decided to abandon all attempts at subtlety?”
He’d had little to nothing to say about settling the grudge he’d been nursing for seven hundred years. Elle had been tossing out hints for weeks, trying to get him to open up.
“Subtlety is highly over-rated. Besides, it wasn’t working. You finally found and killed the man who cost you your family, your friends, everything you loved and you haven’t had two words to say about it. You must feel something? Whatever it is, it’s okay. Don’t you understand by now you can tell me anything? There’s nothing that could ever diminish my opinion of you. It isn’t good to keep things bottled up inside, Dimitri.”
“Fine,” he sighed, touching his forehead to hers and looking into her eyes. “You want to know why I haven’t said anything? Basically, because I didn’t have anything to say. You’re right. I should feel something. I expected to feel something. Some sense of a weight being lifted from my shoulders, some sense of satisfaction. Something. But I didn’t. I don�
�t feel a damn thing. There’s never any peace in killing, Elle, no matter how much someone deserves to die. Besides, his death doesn’t really change anything, you know? It doesn’t bring anyone back. Not my family, not yours. Not anyone.”
“Really?” Elle’s finely arched brows drew together in a frown. “Nothing at all?”
“Don’t think so.” He shrugged. She continued to regard him with a worried, skeptical expression. “Oh for the love of…all right, if you insist I have to feel something, maybe I do feel a little bit of relief knowing he won’t be destroying any more lives. Yeah, maybe a little relief.”
As he said the words, he realized it was true. Relief. It wasn’t the profound, earth shattering emotion he expected to feel, but he’d finally gained justice for his family, for his losses. And he’d ensured that at least one Fallen could never inflict that same grief or terror on anyone again. Relief. He guessed it was something.
“Satisfied?”
“It’s a start,” she smiled, stretching up on her toes to plant a kiss on his jaw. He looped an arm around her waist and hauled her against him for a much longer and more satisfying kiss. Maybe revenge really was a dish best served cold. Or maybe, he thought as Elle melted against him, it had been so anticlimactic pulling his boots free of the bitter muck of the past because he now found it a lot easier to leave it behind and contemplate stepping into the future.
“So, do you want to make an offer on this place or do you want to keep looking?” He asked as he raised his head at last. “Mac and Katrina are expecting us for dinner and we’re going to be late, so make up your mind.”
“I don’t know. You hate it, don’t you?”
“I don’t hate it,” Dimitri replied mildly. “I just don’t love it as much as you do.”
“But it will be your home as much as mine, so I want it to be a place you love, too.”
Dimitri tipped his head back, looked up at the fifteen-foot ceiling, and counted to ten. Then he dropped his chin to his chest, buried his fingers in Elle’s hair on either side of her head, and cupped her face in his hands, tilting her face up to his.
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?” Elle crinkled her nose at him in that adorable way that made him lose his train of thought. In fact, just about every time she looked directly into his eyes it made him lose his train of thought, or at least diverted the train onto a completely different track. It was an ongoing problem, but one he found he didn’t mind in the least.
“As long as you love it, I don’t have to. I can, and have, lived just about anywhere and frankly, most of the places weren’t nearly this appealing. If you asked to me to live in a refrigerator box under the Brooklyn Bridge, I’d be on board as long as you were right there in that box with me. Four walls don’t make a place home, people do. I haven’t had a real home in centuries, but I do now. I can live anywhere, Arabella Penelope Gatewick, as long as it’s with you.”
“Oh,” she sighed into his mouth as his lips covered hers again.
****
By the time they faded into the hallway outside the McAllister’s penthouse an hour and a half later, they’d not only put in an offer on the condo, they’d christened nearly every room in the place.
Elle pressed the bell, leaned back against Dimitri, and wondered for the thousandth time what she’d ever done to deserve such happiness. The feeling of complete and utter bliss lasted right up until the moment the door opened and she found herself looking into the big, blue eyes of Callista McAllister, the woman she’d buried alive in the catacombs of Rome.
“Elle!” Callista twisted her thick braid nervously, then smiled warmly and opened her arms. “We thought you’d never get here. I’ve been dying to see you.”
Elle leaned away from the intended embrace and burrowed further into Dimitri.
“Is that supposed to be some kind of double entendre? You don’t have to remind me I tried to kill you, Callista. Believe me, no one knows it better than I do.”
“You said they’d gone back to Rome. You lied to me, you stinking bastard.”
“You needed to face her sooner or later.”
“Later would have been my preference had you bothered to ask.”
“Which is why I didn’t.
“If my uncle is in there too, you are toast, Sir!”
“No, he really did go to Switzerland with Michael and Alec to retrieve the contents of the ampule. You’re off the hook with him for the moment.”
Dimitri’s loving laughter invaded and wrapped around her mind. And then the big lug shoved her right into Callista McAllister. As the other woman’s arms came around her, Elle forgot to breathe. And when she finally sucked in a breath, it caught on a sob. Before she knew it, she was bawling like a reformed sinner at a revival meeting.
“I’m so s-s-sorry, Calli. I would never hurt you intentionally. N-n-never.”
Calli gripped Elle by her shaking shoulders and pulled away, looking directly and earnestly into her eyes. “Please believe me that it never even entered my mind that you would. We all know that wasn’t you. Let’s face it, Elle, it’s a pretty good bet if you came to Rome in your right mind, you wouldn’t be caught dead in some dusty old catacomb. You’d have headed straight for Via Condotti.” Calli laughed, referring to one of the most exclusive and expensive shopping streets in Rome.
“Good point,” Elle sniffed, dabbing at her eyes with the cuff of her sweater. “You’ve actually forgiven me, haven’t you?”
“There was never anything to forgive. Look at me! I’m fine. I’m happy, I’m madly in love, and…” Calli glanced around at Luca who reclined in an armchair with one long leg slung casually over the other watching his wife like a cat watches a canary. Calli gasped as though the mere sight of him still took her breath away, then looked back at Elle with a brilliant smile and a becoming flush staining her cheeks. “And I’m having a baby.”
“You’re…oh gosh! That’s wonderful!” Elle simply stared, dumbfounded, until Dimitri leaned around her to kiss Calli on the cheek.
“Congratulations, kid.” Callista stepped back and Dimitri gently shoved Elle through the door and closed it behind them. Luca rose to his feet and offered his hand to Dimitri who yanked him forward to pound him on the back.
“Congratulations, brother.”
“Thanks.”
Stepping back, Luca grabbed Calli’s hand before turning his attention to Elle.
“You’re looking well. I was worried. Well…anyway, I’m glad you’re okay,” he mumbled before dropping his gaze.
“Of course, I’m okay,” Elle said glancing between Luca and Calli with a puzzled frown. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
Calli piped up when Luca remained silent. “Luca has been a bit worried there might be lasting damage. You know…from his dagger in your chest.”
“Seriously?” Elle’s jaw nearly hit the floor as she turned wide eyes in Luca’s direction. “You were worried about me? You would have been well within your rights to kill me outright if that’s what it took to stop Azakriel, Luca.”
Luca glanced up slyly from beneath his lashes. “So you agree it was the demon who was responsible for everything?”
“Of course it was the demon! I know you never would have tried to kill me, otherwise,” Elle agreed emphatically.
“And you never would have buried Callista in the catacombs otherwise,” he announced in a tone of finality. “Now can we eat? You’re late and I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving,” Calli laughed, dragging her husband toward the table.
“You tricked me. You all tricked me.”
“Yep.” Elle detected the satisfied amusement in Dimitri’s voice as his arms came around her from behind.
“Thank you,” she sighed happily, leaning back into him and drawing on his strength. The strength he never failed to offer and she’d come to easily depend upon.
“My pleasure.”
“Is it safe to come in, yet?” Kassian McAllister called fro
m the kitchen.
“Depends,” Elle called back. “Do you have clothes on this time?”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Kassian,” Kat grumbled as she shouldered past him in the doorway carrying a platter of balsamic chicken which she set on the dining room table. She turned to Elle with a bright smile. “Did Calli tell you I’m going to be an auntie?”
“Yes.” Elle grinned back and stepped forward to hug her friend. “It’s wonderful news.”
“We have some news, too,” Dimitri offered, pulling out a chair for Elle before dropping into the one next to her. “We finally put an offer in on a place.”
“That’s great,” McAllister said. “Took you long enough to find one you liked.”
“Well, Elle loves it, and it’s got plenty of room, three baths, five bedrooms, so I figured, what the hell. It’s only money, right?” He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed.
“Five bedrooms? What exactly do you need five bedrooms for?”
“Well, of course five bedrooms,” Elle held up her free hand and ticked them off on her fingers. “One for us, naturally. One for Dimitri’s studio, one for my office, and one for guests. I mean, when he gets back from Switzerland, I might want to invite my…uncle for a visit. Eventually.”
“So you’ve forgiven him?” Kat asked, plunking down a wicker basket filled with warm bread and slapping Luca’s hand as it snaked forward to snag a piece of chicken before they were all seated.
“Not entirely, but I’m sure I’ll come around at some point. I mean, I definitely don’t agree with the way he handled things, but…”
Angel in Waiting Page 19