Perhaps she should have tested the limits of her power before going all out.
Amelia fell backwards, expecting to drop from the sky, but she hung there instead, suspended by her waist with her wings streaming out below her.
“Not so much next time. Leave some for yourself,” Marcus said with strain in his voice and Amelia felt his arms around her as the world slowly came back into focus.
He flew downwards with her and her eyes widened when she saw what she had done.
She hadn’t only taken out the angels.
The orb of power had cut through the ground too and the thick white stone wall, and even the shimmering blue shield over the entire area.
She might have killed Marcus.
He pulled her closer to him as they descended through the huge hole she had created in the grounds and then tucked his wings against his back once they were on the other side. They shot downwards together.
Marcus flew hard and the wind numbed her face, feet and fingers. Droplets of moisture coated her skin as they dropped through the clouds, freezing against her flesh and soaking her flimsy dress. The clouds thinned and then cleared, revealing the world below them. They were almost home.
“Tell me again,” Marcus whispered into her ear and she looked up at him. There was so much pain in his eyes and such tiredness that she reached up and touched his cheek. His skin was hot against her palm. He had risked everything for her and was still fighting himself.
“I love you so much.”
He smiled but there was such sorrow and hurt in it. “Catch me.”
She didn’t understand.
He stopped with her, held her against him with one arm and took hold of her hand. His smile faded and he pressed a kiss to the back of her hand and then stared into her eyes. His irises burned bright blue and he grimaced, screwed his eyes shut, and then looked back into hers. His hand shook against hers, the trembling relaying his fight to her. Heaven was trying to seize control of him again.
Marcus brushed his lips across hers, so softly that her insides flipped, and then drew back and smiled at her.
“I renounce my master and my duty… I love you, Amelia.”
He closed his eyes and then they were dropping fast. Marcus turned with her and her eyes shot wide when she saw his wings were gone and so was his armour and weapons. He slipped from her grasp and dropped further from her. Amelia’s heart slammed against her chest and she reached for him, tears stinging her eyes and blurring her vision. He shot through the patchy clouds ahead of her and she came through it with him, out into warmer air high above the Earth.
The distance to the indistinct green and blue world below turned her stomach.
It dropped along with her heart when she saw that Marcus was even further below her now.
Amelia sucked in a sharp breath and focused. Catch him. He had renounced everything for her and had fallen. She had to catch him. He had placed his faith in her and she wouldn’t fail him, not as Heaven had.
She tucked her wings against her back and rocketed towards him, cutting through the air so fast that it froze her damp skin. Closing. The ground was coming at them fast now and she recognised the area they were over. Europe. Home. It seemed surreal to see it like this. She beat her wings and gritted her teeth, using everything she had to go faster and close the distance between them.
Warmer air buffeted her, sending her silver hair flying across her face and tugging at her clothes.
Marcus continued to fall below her, his legs and arms bent towards her, his back taking the brunt of the wind as he plummeted to the ground.
Amelia growled and focused everything she had, everything she didn’t understand herself, into one last attempt to reach him. She beat her wings and then tucked them right against her back and shot towards Marcus.
And straight past him.
Damn.
She opened her wings enough that she shot upwards, back past him, and then dropped again. She stretched her hands out to him and caught hold of his, and then inched her grip on him to his wrists, tightly grasping them so he couldn’t escape her.
“Marcus!” she yelled over the wind but he didn’t stir.
The ground was closing in fast now.
They shot past a passenger plane and she hoped that she was invisible to human eyes just like an angel could be and that the people onboard hadn’t just seen an angel falling holding a naked man.
Amelia struggled and pulled Marcus closer to her, fighting to get her arms around him. He murmured something and relief briefly touched her heart but then the world below started taking on shape and colour, and she could distinguish cities and towns. Not good.
With a low growl of effort, she yanked Marcus up to her, wrapped her arms around him and then spread her wings. They shot up again but she was still coming in too fast and her grip on Marcus was tenuous at best. He was heavy in her arms, slipping through her grasp and dragging her down.
Amelia desperately beat her wings and tried to slow her descent. The cities took on more shape and she recognised one.
Paris.
Marcus murmured something that sounded a lot like ‘pull up’ and she tried to but he was so heavy and she wasn’t accustomed to flying. She wasn’t sure how to pull up. He leaned into her, forcing her shoulders back, and her feet came down.
Trees.
She was heading straight for them.
This was not going to be a good first landing.
Amelia shrieked when she hit them, her feet catching the highest branches, and then screamed when she was flipped head over heels. She spun through the air and came crashing down into a green field on the other side of the clump of trees. Marcus hit the dirt first and she followed him, tumbling and bouncing along, her wings twisting underneath her and snapping into painful positions. She stopped rolling but the world didn’t stop pitching.
She lay there a few seconds, staring at the dirt, grass in her mouth and pain blazing through every inch of her, and then closed her eyes.
“No rest.”
Those two words forced her eyes open and she looked across the grass to Marcus where he lay sprawled on his back, naked and covered in green stains and dirt.
“What happened?” She pushed herself onto her knees and crawled across the knobbly ground to him.
“Must go.” He nodded upwards.
Amelia looked there and she didn’t like what she saw.
Angels.
They were tiny dots in the sky but they were coming at them fast.
She didn’t have the power left in her to take them down. Even if she did, she couldn’t unleash it on Earth. It had caused so much devastation in Heaven. She didn’t want to imagine how many it would kill if she used that same attack down here.
Amelia struggled to her feet, pulled Marcus onto his, and slung his arm around her shoulder.
“Hold on,” she said and ran with him, trying to gain speed so she could lift off.
She beat her silver wings and rose into the air with Marcus, holding him close to her, but could only manage to fly a few feet off the ground. How the hell did he fly with her so effortlessly? He was a dead weight in her arms and she was tiring.
Paris loomed ahead of them, the Eiffel Tower her beacon of hope. If they could reach civilisation, surely the angels wouldn’t attack her. They wouldn’t harm the mortals. Would they?
A dark spot appeared on the horizon.
Another angel?
She kept flying. If it was, then she would deal with it, but she couldn’t slow down now. She had to get Marcus to safety. She wasn’t sure what damage he had done to himself by renouncing everything but she had certainly broken him with that landing. He was bleeding and hurt, and he felt weak to her.
Was he mortal now?
Did that mean he could die?
She prayed that their crash wouldn’t kill him and redoubled her effort, determined to get to Serenity so the witch could heal him.
The dark dot grew into a man that she recognised.
Veiron.
Had he come to finish her off?
She braced herself for his attack as they neared and then frowned when he nodded at her and shot past her, heading for the angels. A loud explosion rent the peaceful summer morning a moment later. She looked over her shoulder at him. He was fighting the horde of angels, holding them back for her. Was he on their side now?
Amelia flew onwards, heading over the city. Marcus came around again and tugged on her shoulders, steering her right.
“Others,” he whispered and she nodded.
She knew where to go only she didn’t know the way. She was relying on Marcus to remain conscious long enough to guide her to Serenity and Apollyon’s home.
A brighter spot appeared on the horizon above the grey slate roofs of the city and came into focus.
“Lukas!” She couldn’t contain her relief. While she barely knew the angel, she knew that he could lead her to Apollyon’s home and that he wouldn’t harm her.
He halted in mid-air and she almost collided with him. Clearly she needed to practice stopping as well as landing.
“What happened?” Lukas said with a look over Marcus and then took him from her.
“Renounced.” It was the only word she could get out between breaths. She felt faint again and wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep flying.
“Hurry. We shall leave the angels to Veiron. He will keep them busy long enough for us to reach safety without them seeing where we went.” Lukas turned and flew back in the direction he had come from.
Amelia followed him. Another explosion shook the air and she looked back towards where Veiron was battling the angels. He was on their side. She found that hard to believe but she wasn’t going to complain. Veiron was lighting up the sky with his attacks and she could feel their strength regardless of the great distance between them. He was a powerful ally and she needed all she could get right now.
She had escaped Heaven but she hadn’t won yet.
Amelia touched down on the tiled balcony of Apollyon’s rooftop apartment and followed Lukas inside. She frowned when something washed over her and looked back at the French doors. Purple light shimmered there. A barrier?
“You are alive!” Serenity’s high squeak, still laced with her thick French accent at such a pitch, brought a smile to Amelia’s face.
Amelia went to step towards her but her wings shrank and disappeared into her back and the last of her strength left her.
Einar caught her around the waist and she tried to thank him but couldn’t find her voice. She looked across at Marcus in Lukas’s arms and reached for him.
“Take them into the room,” Serenity said and then looked at Lukas. “I will need you back here right away.”
Lukas nodded and carried Marcus into the room where Amelia had slept before. He laid Marcus down on the white wooden double bed there and covered him with a pale blue blanket. Einar helped her onto the bed beside him and she leaned back into the pillows. They were warm against her chilled skin and comforting.
“Angels are coming,” she whispered and Einar nodded.
“It’s under control. Rest now. I will see to Marcus first.” Einar smiled at her and then rounded the foot of the bed to the other side.
Amelia tracked him with her gaze and then watched him as he pulled the covers away from Marcus and held his hands out above him. Pale light filtered down from his palms, washing over Marcus’s bruised and dirtied skin.
“Will he be alright?” Amelia tilted her head to one side and took in Marcus’s profile.
“He’ll be fine.”
Those words brought comfort to her heart and seemed to give her leave to surrender her fight against the tiredness running through her aching body. She slipped her hand under the covers and into Marcus’s, locking their fingers together.
“Let’s send you to sleep, shall we?” Taylor’s voice cut into the darkness of her closed eyes and Amelia sighed out her breath and sunk into the pillows as a warm hand came to rest on her forehead.
Sleep sounded good.
She wanted to sleep forever in Marcus’s strong arms.
Safe at last.
CHAPTER 26
Marcus’s head felt heavy and his limbs weak, drained of strength and limp at his sides where he lay shrouded in darkness. His soul was in agony, torn at and beaten, and it was a struggle to breathe through the pain. He hadn’t considered the consequences of his actions. He had thought only of ending his duty and saving Amelia.
She was a divine being, made of God and the Devil, and he had heard the strength of her voice when he had cut her loose from the chains that had bound her. It had reached deep inside him, filling him with the images of countless deaths they had shared and with her fear of dying again. She had wanted to live with him. She had wanted this to end and for them to finally be together.
He had wanted that too.
It had taken only a handful of words from her to give him the strength to fight Heaven’s rule over him and then only a small amount of his power to change the course of his spear so it struck the chains, smashing them instead.
But Heaven hadn’t relented.
It had pushed him throughout their escape into the open gardens surrounding the white fortress and then when they had been flying back to the mortal realm, and he had known that they would never give up. They would continue to push and send that same command to him until he was too weak to fight back and would succumb again.
His strength and power had left him just moments before he had made his decision, and he had realised that he would no longer be able to fight the command that Heaven was hammering into his skull. It had driven him to do the only thing he could in the hope that it would work and it would save her.
He had sacrificed everything for her.
His wings had disappeared in an instant.
His armour and weapons taken from him.
Yet he didn’t feel mortal.
He had none of the weakness he had felt during the times when Heaven had limited his power.
Was this being fallen?
Einar would know but Marcus didn’t have the energy to open his eyes and seek the former angel out.
A cool breeze washed over him, sweeping upwards from his toes.
“Marcus.” Her voice was soft, as though the wind had carried it to him, restoring his strength with its sound, and he slowly opened his eyes and looked for her.
She descended from the inky moonlit sky above him, her arms outstretched and a smile curving her sweet rosy lips. Her silver hair caught the moonlight and shone brightly as it fluttered out behind her. Her wings beat the air but they were changing, some of the long silver feathers falling away to reveal leathery membrane. She looked at them with concern and then her gaze met his again, shier this time.
“Marcus.” Amelia drifted down and halted barely a metre above him. He closed his eyes at the first touch of her hand on his face, and then leaned into her caress.
“Amelia,” he whispered and sighed as her touch sent warmth flowing through him. Wherever it ran, his strength returned. The pain in his soul began to lessen when her hand came to rest above his heart and she landed beside him, kneeling between his right arm and his side. “I am so tired.”
He opened his eyes and sought hers. The smile was still there, heating his chest through and stealing his heart. It was hers anyway. He had forsaken everything for her, so they could be together, free of the game Heaven and Hell had played with them. He only hoped their time together lasted more than a few moments. He wanted it to go on forever.
“Rest then, my love.” She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his lips and the ache in his soul disappeared. “My guardian angel.”
Marcus closed his eyes and mourned the loss of her mouth on his when she drew back. She draped herself over him, curling up with her head on his bare chest, and placed her hand over his heart.
The ground shook and she tensed.
“What is happening?” He stared at the black expanse of sky above them. Stars twi
nkled at him and the full moon was so bright that it was dazzling. This wasn’t the real world.
“We’re safe here, I think,” Amelia whispered and traced patterns on his chest, following the lines of his muscles and then circling his right nipple. “Taylor has sent us to sleep again.”
“We are in Paris?” Relief beat in his heart when she nodded against his chest. He couldn’t recall much after choosing to fall. The immediate drain on him had rendered him unconscious and then he had come around to find them close to crashing. They had crashed. He looked down at Amelia. She lay with her head on his left pectoral and her eyes closed. There was a cut across her left cheek and he gently touched it. “You are hurt.”
“Only a little,” she said and opened her eyes, meeting his. They were dark in the low light but didn’t seem silver. Was she back to his Amelia again now? He still wasn’t sure how it worked but there seemed to be two sides to her, the angel and the mortal. Right now, she looked like a mixture of both, as though those two sides had merged into this one beautiful being lying with her head on his chest. “Are you alright? You look so tired.”
He nodded to stop her from worrying.
“We should go back, shouldn’t we? Everyone is fighting because of us.” The worry didn’t leave her eyes.
Marcus shook his head this time and realised that he was laying on something soft and warm that moved with him. He scrunched up his free hand where it rested at his side. Sand. Taylor had sent them to Amelia’s inner world again.
“The fight will not last,” he said with a soft smile aimed at soothing her. “This world keeps us hidden from Heaven and Hell.”
“They won’t stop until they have me. I can stop this. I don’t want anyone else to be hurt because of me.” Amelia pushed herself up until her breasts pressed against his stomach and she was looking down at him.
“I cannot let you do that… and they won’t either.” Marcus brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek, sweeping the long strands of her silver hair from her face. “They fought for you, Amelia. I fought for you.”
“You fell for me.” She looked away and tears filled her eyes. “That’s what you did, wasn’t it? You gave it all up for me and I don’t deserve it… I don’t deserve someone like you.”
Her Guardian Angel Page 29