by Sarah Gilman
Wren scoffed, grinned, and flew up to the fourth-floor flight deck, the force of the takeoff kicking dirt into the air. He called down, “We’ll talk soon about Dante.”
“Dante?” Raphael cocked his head.
“My father appeared to Wren in the woods.”
The archangel’s silver eyes widened.
“I don’t know much more than that.”
Raphael tilted his head back, angling his face to the sky. “I’d do the same thing in his position.” He glanced toward Lark, who approached from the direction of the lake. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah.”
“Good night, Jett. And thank you again.” Raphael took flight.
Lark walked a slow circle around Jett. “Good job not rescuing the teen.”
Jett cursed.
“If it was easy, anyone could be a dedicated Guardian,” Lark said. “It goes against our instincts to ignore someone in trouble. But, the archangels are the humans’ real targets more often than not, and they need this level of protection. In reality, there would have been other Guardians rushing to rescue that teen. To do this job, you need to trust them to do theirs, and focus on yours.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
Lark arched an eyebrow.
“I can trust the civilians to the other Guardians, but if that had been Lexine, I wouldn’t have been able to leave her. No way.”
“Even if, through your empathic skill, you could tell Wren was dying?”
“I don’t know.” He truly didn’t.
“Hesitation could cost the life of an archangel. Not acceptable from one of their dedicated Guardians. There is no room for flexibility here, Jett.” He sighed. “This is crucial. Do some soul-searching. We’ll talk again in a few days. Now, go run laps around the colony’s border.”
…
After the first full week of being separated from Jett, Lexine hurried out of the orchard and across the colony with a plan and a basket.
Dawn broke overhead in a dazzling display of blue and gold. Praying for good timing, she hurried around the archangel house to the garden, where Lark had a peculiar home hidden within the garden walls.
Jett sat on the grass among fallen yellow oak leaves, stretching. He wore black workout pants. Nothing else. Lexine licked her lips and made her way around the flowerbeds to get to him.
He looked her over. “Lex. Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“You don’t look fine, and your emotions have been all over the place this week. I almost came looking for you.”
“I’ve been harvesting late-season apples and making wine. It’s a lot of work.” True, but far from the whole truth. Her sessions with Raphael had begun and the archangel was taking her request seriously. Thank goodness demons healed fast—there’d be no hiding some of her injuries from Jett’s observant gaze. “I brought you breakfast. One cannot survive harsh training only on the protein bars and granola Lark likes to eat.”
Jett smiled. “You just saved my life. No lie.”
She laughed and handed him the basket.
He surveyed the contents—apple slices with honey, boiled eggs, and warm rolls—and shook his head. “I’ve never received such a gift. Thank you. Sit.”
She knelt, and he seized her in a searing kiss that curled her toes.
The sound of a throat clearing interrupted. Lexine glanced up into Lark’s scowling face.
“Good morning, Lexine.”
“Morning, Lark. I’m keeping your trainee well fed.”
“So I see.” His lips twitched, and he shifted his gaze to Jett. “Ten minutes. Meet me at the lakeshore. There’s something we need to talk about.”
Tension filled the air and Lexine glanced from one Guardian to the other.
When Lark had gone, Jett kissed her again.
“Eat,” she said.
He kept her close, one arm around her waist, and ate with his free hand.
“Will this work most mornings? They must allow you time to eat.”
That deep crimson stare burned into her. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to! I want to see you, and I want you to do well. The first step to success is a good breakfast.”
His throat worked. He ran a fingertip over a honey-coated apple slice and wiped the sweet goo on her lips. He kissed her, licking her clean. “Yes, I get a few minutes in the morning to stretch after a quick breakfast of granola inside.”
“Excellent. Forget the granola and meet me out here.”
He stared at her for a long moment, adoration in his gaze. “You’re perfect.”
“Eat!”
He obliged, finishing every crumb.
“It’s not too much? I know they push you. A full stomach might not be the best idea.”
“It’s perfect. We start with target practice in the morning.”
“Oh, good.”
“Today is the first day he’s going to blindfold me and give me earplugs. Using the dart gun, I’ll need to find my targets with my empath sense alone. I’m nervous.”
“You’ll do great.”
“I’ll do better now that I’ve been fed.” He claimed her mouth, kissing her hard enough to force her down to the grass on her back.
She tasted the honey and tart apple on his lips, which mingled with the sweet venom. His scent, honey and tea, overwhelmed her senses and left her dizzy.
He pulled back, his hands lingering on either side of her face. “I have to go.”
“Wait, one more thing.” She folded back the terry cloth on the bottom of the basket and extracted the present she’d wrapped in simple, dark green rice paper.
“What’s this?”
“Happy Birthday. I checked the date in your father’s journal.”
He blinked.
She set the gift into his hands.
“I…” He stared down at the present. “No one’s ever…”
“Happy Birthday, Juneau.”
He let out a long breath. “Thank you.”
“Well? Open it!”
The shock faded from his eyes, and he tore the paper, revealing the leather-bound journal she’d had made by the colony’s book craftsman. The dark cover had a border of inlaid white birch bark, sealed behind glass. She’d requested that embellishment with Jett’s early journaling efforts in mind.
“This will be a bit sturdier than your birch bark paper,” she said.
“Yes. Yes, it will. Thank you, Lex.”
He kissed her again, his arms around her, his grip tight enough to hurt. She squirmed and he eased off, finishing the kiss with a tender brush of his lips against hers.
“See you tomorrow,” she said, getting to her feet.
“I can’t wait.”
…
After bringing Jett a breakfast of maple oatmeal and stealing several minutes of kisses as she had for the last month, Lexine climbed into bed for her weekly sleep. Her body ached from that day’s session with Raphael, but she’d gotten better, so much better, in a month’s time. She’d even landed a strike to the back of his wings today, an accomplishment mixed with thrill and horror. But of course, her teacher had been pleased, not offended. She shut her eyes and drifted, her slumber peaceful.
Until the dream.
It started the same as it had in the past. A strong sense of love and happiness. Her mate, with the tattoo and claw marks, at her side. From there, the scene took a devastating turn. Between one breath and the next, Jett fell to the ground. Blood drenched his clothes. He held her until he lost consciousness, his hands falling from her shoulders.
Nothing could wake a demon from sleep. Even though she knew, somehow, that she was dreaming. She remained trapped in the nightmare, crying and screaming at Jett’s side as his blood spread out over an unusual mosaic floor of orange fish on a blue, green, and brown background constructed of tiny glass tiles.
When she woke, she screamed some more.
No.
No!
She fou
ght free of her tangled sheets only to collapse to her knees on the floor. No, she vowed. This future would not become reality. She didn’t care what she had to do. She would stop this.
Chapter Twenty
“Dr. Lawrence? Are you all right?”
Victor Lawrence opened his eyes, lifted his forehead from the wall, and forced a smile for the nurse. “Fine, Alice. Is he resting comfortably?”
“He’s asleep.”
“Good. Will you call me if anything changes?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
Victor left the ICU and headed for the discrete elevators tucked behind the vending machines. He swiped his key card, pressed a button, and waited until the doors opened on the research lab floor. Technicians and graduate students crowded the lounge, coffee cups in hand, arguing over the best growth medium for cell culture, or who would come in to count cells for the 1:00 a.m. time point.
If only basic experiments where his biggest problem. Victor rubbed his temples, hurried through his lab and into his office. He shut the door behind him.
He threw his marble paperweight against the wall.
He slumped into his desk chair and his fingers brushed beads of sweat on his brow. Over twenty years of research, massive amounts of groundbreaking data, yet nothing close to a treatment for the broken young man in the ICU.
If a demon had suffered such injuries, he’d be well on his way to being healed by now, twelve hours after a vicious motor vehicle accident. A high fever, a significant amount of pain, and he’d have walked out the hospital the next day. As it was, the human kid would never walk again, if he lived at all.
The rapid healing inherent in demon biology couldn’t be replicated or harnessed. He’d finally come to accept that. Indeed, there was a better way. The golden egg. The ace. The miracle.
But, it’d been fucking stolen! He slammed his fist on the desk. The damned demons had taken the archangel right before Victor’s experiments were to begin. It had been such a perfect plan. Thornton Bailey would get the son. Victor would get the father. However, the demons had taken both archangels back to that colony in Vermont.
Granted, the opportunity for newborns now presented itself. Far more preferable than an adult. The young ones could be raised to comply. They’d be much easier to handle than Raphael ever would have been. And twins, no less. Perfect for scientific study.
But, could he get them in time to help the teen and the other patients in ICU? Every day, he watched people die, people who could have been saved so easily. His own daughter-in-law was losing her fight with cancer. That such a simple cure existed, so far out of his reach…
He couldn’t stand it. He had to find a way into that colony.
The phone on his desk rang. Speak of the devil, and all that. “Hello, Miriam. How are you?”
“Andrew is missing,” his daughter-in-law said, her voice thin and raspy from months of sickness.
“What?” Lawrence got to his feet, stretching the phone cord.
“He’s been gone since this morning! He left a note saying he was going to find help for me.”
“Find help?” Lawrence paced as best he could with the infuriating landline. “What did he mean?”
“I have no idea. The counselor at his school said he’s been increasingly obsessed with cancer, reading books that are far over his head.”
Sweat beaded on Lawrence’s forehead. Miriam had been diagnosed with cancer a decade ago, then gone into remission. The cancer came back recently, not long after the car accident that killed Andrew’s dad. His grandson had taken the double blows like a rock, but recently, it looked more and more like the boy had kept the true extent of devastation hidden. Twelve-year-old Andrew wouldn’t do anything foolish, not when he still had his mother. “Well then, perhaps he came here, to the medical center. I’ll call security and go downstairs to have a look myself.”
“What should I do? Should I call the police?”
“Not yet. Let me see if he’s here. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”
…
Jett patrolled the grounds around the archangel house—the first time doing so, solo, for an appreciable amount of time—as Lark spent the evening inside with Raphael. His skin prickled. Nerves, or something more?
He shut his eyes and inhaled through his nose and his mouth, tasting the scents of the forest on his tongue. The scent of pine overpowered everything else. Damn, are those trees always so strong?
They sure as hell hadn’t been that potent every other time he’d been at the house, he decided. Or even five minutes ago.
“Scent is your best tool,” Lark had lectured. “No matter how skilled a human is, they leave a trail. They’ve tried to mask their scent. Never assume unusual odors in the woods are benign.”
Keeping to the darkest shadows, Jett closed the distance to the stand of young, puffy pines that hugged the lawn below the west-facing flight decks. Light spilled from the wraparound windows of the house. Anyone hiding in the trees would have a clear shot if one of the archangels came out. Hell, with an excellent weapon and aim, they could try to shoot through the windows.
He drew his combat knives. Damn it, he should have scented them before they got this close. Should have heard something.
Pausing at the base of the first balsam tree, he heard breathing. Rapid, shallow panting. Not a calm professional, then. Interesting. An amateur with enough dumb luck to get this far?
Guided by the sound, Jett sprang ahead. The human, who lay on his stomach between two trees, dressed in green camouflage, rolled over just in time for Jett to bring the blade down toward his throat.
The human screamed. The honest-to-God terror in the sound brought Jett’s hand to a halt, the blade an inch from the jumping pulse in the poacher’s throat.
No, not a poacher. A kid. A short, bright-eyed, human kid, the ample freckles and reasonable build marking him as the bike-riding, baseball-playing variety of human child. Jett withdrew the blade. “What the fuck are you?”
The human teen—he couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen—tried to scramble backward. Jett pulled the kid to his feet by his collar. He reeked. He must have rubbed pine oil all over himself.
“I-I’m not armed! I surrender!”
Lark arrived then, two blades drawn. He cocked his head when he saw the kid.
“This happen often?” Still holding the child by the shirt, Jett arched an eyebrow at the other demon.
“This is a first.” Lark stepped closer and lifted the boy’s chin with the tip of a blade. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Drew.” His face had paled at the touch of the weapon and he spoke in a whisper.
“Short for Andrew?”
“Yeah.”
“You stink, Andrew. Like one of those nasty car air fresh-eners.”
“Drew. And everyone knows demons can smell a human a mile away.”
“Everyone?”
“The older kids at school.”
Jett surveyed the ground where the human had been lying. One candy bar, one empty wrapper, and binoculars. He held Drew in place as Lark frisked him. Another candy bar. Two more wrappers.
Lark shook his head. “Human nutrition at its best.”
“It was a long walk,” the boy muttered.
“Bring any friends, Drew?”
“No.”
“We’ll see.” Lark turned to Jett. “You got him?”
“We’re fine.”
“I’ll check the woods.” Lark disappeared.
Jett assessed the child. Though he looked pale enough to faint, determination filled his eyes. “What brings you out here, kid?”
His hands trembling, Drew lifted his hands to his neck. He pulled a gold necklace with a large, clear diamond surround by a bunch of smaller diamonds out from under his camouflage jacket. “I brought this to give to the archangel Raphael.”
What the fuck? “Not his style.”
Drew’s chin jutted out. “It’s worth a lot. He has
to take it.”
“Why?”
“Can I talk to him?”
“No.” Jett got onto his knees to look the kid in the eye. “Why are you here, Andrew?”
“My mom’s dying. They said it’s an inoperable tumor.” The kid’s hands balled into fists, and he spoke in a rush. “My pastor says Raphael the archangel is a healer, but this Raphael isn’t the same one as in the Bible. I don’t believe that. He has to be. He has to help my mom.”
Well, shit. Jett had experienced Raphael’s healing talent firsthand the day they’d escaped Thornton. The archangel had healed the gunshot, even in the near-death condition he’d been in himself.
But humans died every day, and healing took energy from Raphael, limiting how much he could do in a given period of time. Even if most humans didn’t want him dead, he’d never be able to save humanity from the ways of nature. Armies of healing archangels would be needed for such a Herculean task.
If Raphael helped this woman, word would spread, and before long, the colony would be fighting to keep out poachers and hordes of people looking for a miracle. Fuck.
But Jett couldn’t make this decision. “Stay right here. Do not move.”
Drew nodded, chewing on his lower lip.
Jett stepped a few yards away, keeping the kid in sight, and flipped open his cell phone. Keeping his voice low, he relayed the kid’s words to Raphael. “What do you want me to do?”
Moments ticked by before Raphael answered. “Take him to the patio.”
“Are you sure—”
“Yes. I’ll talk to him.” The archangel disconnected.
Sensing Lark’s presence, Jett sought out the other demon’s gaze among the trees.
“I heard,” Lark said. “Go ahead. I’ll keep watch out here.”
Jett returned to the boy and led him across the lawn.
“Really?” The word came out of the human’s mouth as a squeak.
“He’ll see you. I can make no other promises.”
They entered the garden gate and the boy tried to run ahead. Jett held him back by the sleeve. Spunky little shit. “Please take off your shoes and your jacket.” Though Lark had searched the kid, he had to check and recheck. “I need to search you again.”