“No,” I whisper. “It’s as I said. I’m a fallen angel, Sophie. I thought all was lost for me…but then you came along.”
At this, I can see much of her anger dissipate before my very eyes, replaced with a look of defeat. “Am I just a shot at redemption? A chance to get your job back? Is that all I am?”
“No!” I growl through gritted teeth. She flinches underneath the heat of my glare. “I don’t give a damn about regaining my station or getting my wings back. Not anymore.”
Tearful eyes widen. “Wings? Those scars on your back…”
I heave a sigh, raking my fingers through my hair. Another law broken.
I have fucked my ward.
I’ve told her of my true nature.
I will not break the third law, not again.
“Yes, that was my punishment, Sophie. I broke one of the three cardinal rules while under contract with Elise. She perished, and I did not stop it. It’s the ultimate offense a guardian can commit, and my wings were torn from me.”
“You can’t fly?”
“I can’t fly, I’m far less powerful than that of a higher-ranked angel, and worst of all, I’m no longer immortal. I will age, and when I depart from your world, my next life will be spent as a fallen, living in torment in the Pit among the other damned angels. Rapists, murderers, thieves, I will spend eternity alongside them paying for my sins, crimes that can only be washed away with fire and brimstone from the Pit’s deepest inferno.”
She blinks, looking stunned. My nonchalance probably not helping. “That’s horrible.”
I shrug. “It’s how it is for all citizens of Paradise. That’s how it’s always been.”
“If this Paradise is anything like Heaven, shouldn’t you be forgiven for your sins if you succeed in protecting me? For keeping me safe?”
“Yes, I had a chance of restoring my station, and I admit, that was my original intention when I first met you. But in less than twenty-four hours of knowing you, I have already broken two rules.”
“Which are?”
“You’ve discovered my true nature.” I pause, scraping my gaze over the length of her divine form. She is my heaven, my hell, my ultimate temptation. My mouth waters just by looking at her body, at the memory of how she feels around me when I’m buried deep inside. Her taste, her scent, the sounds she makes when I devour both sets of lips. I love how her body responds to me, with a simple look. Her skin heats to a delicious red, her heartbeat thunders, and sweet tendrils of her arousal lace the air. I devour the space between us in one easy stride until we’re so close our mouths are nearly touching.
She looks up at me, eyes wide beneath thick blond eyelashes. Fuck me, she’s so beautiful.
“And the second rule you broke?” she whispers in quiet reverie.
My lips twist into a wolfish grin as I feather my fingertips over the milky flesh of her thigh and slowly snake them under her skirt toward her hot mound; a place to which I am quickly becoming familiar.
“I’ve entered you. I’ve ventured to your deepest depths, delighted in the spoils of your sacred temple. I’ve fucked you, Sophie. And even if that first time slips by the archangel’s watchful eyes, who’s to say he won’t come to know about the second or third or the hundred or even the thousand times I’ve reveled in your pussy? Because I promise you, there will be a thousandth time.”
Her throat trembles with a swallow and she chews on her bottom lip, a habit of hers when her mind mulls over lascivious thoughts, I’ve noticed. “They would condemn you for loving a woman?”
“They would condemn me for loving my ward in the fashion that I find most pleasing. Now that I am fallen, they don’t care if I lie with a human. But there is no hope for you to be seen as my official ward in the eyes of Paradise, not while we’re lovers.”
“You’d give up a chance to regain your wings, just to sleep with me?”
I scoff, shaking my head. “You know as well as I do that what we have runs far deeper than lust. It’s more than ‘sleeping’ with you. I give my entire soul to you, what’s left of it in any case. I want you on every single level you’ll have me. We’re fated mates, Sophie. I was made to devote my entire existence to you. I’ve been practically miserable my entire life, like a piece of a puzzle that I could never finish. You’re the missing piece of my puzzle, I’m finally complete with you.”
Sophie steps into me and allows me to draw my arms tight around her waist, pulling her flush against me. She feels so right in my arms, I feel so right with her in them.
“Gideon, you’ve called me your fated mate. I know enough about werewolves to know that means that I am your soul mate and that you intend to be with you forever.”
My inner protector tenses. I don’t like that word, intend. “It’s not just werewolves, all shifters have a mate the fates determined for use. Few are fortunate enough to find their destined mate. In fact, it happens so little to angels that Paradise excuses the lucky few who do run off with their spouse as sinners, pawns of the devil who have fallen into temptations grasp. Most among my kind refuse to acknowledge angels as shifters, that we’re somehow better than those with animal forms. I almost believed it myself, until I met you. ”
She rests her head against my chest and releases a weighty sigh. “I’m frightened, Gideon.”
“Don’t be. I will shoulder your fear. I will be your strength. I will be whatever you need.”
“What have I done to deserve your devotion, your love?”
I stroke her cheeks, my chest bursting with adoration for this perfect creature. “You’ve banished the darkness in my soul. You freed me from the prison of my own torment. You have given me the ultimate happiness. We belong together, surely you feel it.”
“I do.” There is no hesitation in her voice. The fire has returned to her eyes. She’s a fighter. She’s good. She’s loyal.
“Then you’ll accept me as your one true mate?”
Her lips stretch into the most glorious of smiles, one that lights up her entire face. “I do.”
My heart swells with joy, with pride. And she’s my mate. Mine.
It’s like the world has pushed two broken people together, and now we’re complete in each other’s arms. Our lips clash together in a heated, passionate, thrilling kiss that tastes of honey and fire and fury.
“Oh, Sophie,” I murmur against her, pulling her so tight against me there isn’t any space between us. At this moment, nothing deserves to be between us, not even our clothing. I want to feel her against me, skin against skin. I want to make my home in that lovely cunt of hers until I wither and die and spend the rest of my eternity dreaming of it.
But right now, there’s no time for that. I break the kiss and hold her back in my arms to look at her. “You have a drug deal tonight.”
My mate’s cheeks flush to an even deeper shade of red, like she allowed herself to forget about what she had agreed to with the werewolf she had suddenly called on a whim. My fierce, delectable human. I wasn’t sure if she was completely mad, or if she was a pure genius; most likely both.
“Oh, I guess I do. I don’t have 25,000 dollars.”
“And you wouldn’t give it to him even if you did. All that murderer deserves is a beating so brutal it will send him straight to the Pits of Hell.”
She swallows so hard I can practically hear it. “I’m not supposed to bring you.”
“The Half Moon is a werewolf bar, Soph. You’ll be outnumbered. They’ll kill you when you show up without the money, and they’ll most certainly kill you when they find out you’re not Elise. And I shudder to think what they would do to you before they put that bullet in your head. Hell, even if you had the money, I bet Revolver would finish what he started. A guy like him strikes me as a man who likes to prove himself. He’ll want to prove you’re little statement wrong when you told him he was too stupid to use a gun.”
Sophie has gone from red to sheet white. I regret not pulling the punch of my words.
“Suddenly I’m not feelin
g so sure about this. What was I thinking, I don’t have a plan.” Her voice grows shrill and her eyes wide. Her rapid heartbeat pounding in my ear confirms that she’s completely panicking.
“Shhh, It’s alright. I have the beginnings of a plan.” I pull her back against me, tucking my chin over her head.
“Where does it start?”
I grin at myself in the mirror, my smile looking far more diabolical than it should, thanks to the shattered glass.
“It starts where we met. The Guardian. I have a friend I’d like you to meet.”
Chapter 17
Gideon
The bell attached to The Guardian’s front door gives an obnoxious ring as Sophie and I enter the dingy watering hole. A few heads turn to look as we push through into the dark bar, squinting at us through the neon haze. They don’t seem surprised to see me, but several sets of eyes widen as they fall to the beautiful woman at my side; a woman wearing the same face as my deceased ward.
Damien pauses his task of wiping down a spill and shouts from behind the bar, slapping a rag against the worn counter surface. “God damn it, Gideon. You promised you wouldn’t be back today!”
“Didn’t come for a drink today, Dame.” My old friend blinked at me from across the bar, his mouth slightly ajar. His attention drifts to Sophie.
“Holy shit. Tell me I’m not seeing straight.”
I clasp Sophie’s hand, pulling her along with me to the bar. She’s wearing a polite smile but looks almost as dazed as Damien. She’s looking at all the bar patrons, and they’re all staring right back at her. I’m sure she’s wondering if they’re all angels, and they’re likely wondering what year it is, if the boss upstairs has taken up resurrection again.
“You’re seeing just fine. This is Sophie, Elise’s twin sister.”
“Didn’t know Elise had a twin.” The bartender’s brow pinches together, eyes narrowing as if he’s trying to see past some dark illusion.
I start to reply but Sophie barrels forward, rushing the bar like she’s a mad bull chasing red. “You knew my sister?”
Damien jolts back, nearly knocking several bottles of booze from the counter. “Shit, Christ above woman. No, I didn’t know your sister, not personally anyway.” The fallen shot a sour glare at me. “You know the rule about bringing w- ladies in here.”
Damien had caught himself just in time. He had nearly said wards, and I’m sure Sophie picked that up as well as her lips stretch into a hard grin, and her eyes flash, challenging him on the claim. She turns and points to a rather striking fallen in the corner, a beautiful blonde woman by the name of Heather. She had propositioned me once during a drunken night several weeks ago. At that time, I wasn’t really sure why I had turned down such an angelic creature. Something in my mind immediately shut down the possibility of being with a woman like that.
Now I know why.
“What about her? She looks like a lady,” Sophie says with a jab of her finger in Heather’s direction.
Damien snorts. I don’t miss the weight of his eyes upon me, boring holes into my skull. “Trust me, she isn’t.”
I lean forward on the counter, digging my elbows into the very spot at the bar that I had sat at for years. I had worn patches in the veneer, I had leaned here so much, chatting and boozing and baring my wretched heart to Damien.
I was a different man the last I sat here.
“She already knows, Dame.” I drop my voice to a whisper so low, it’s unlikely Sophie can hear standing right next to me. I doubt any of the higher-ranked angels in here would go as far to snitch on me, hell, they can probably smell my scent all over Sophie. But I decide it’s best to air on the side of caution. I haven’t made enemies here, say for maybe Gabriel, but that guy was too busy buried hilt-deep in his own ward to rat me out.
Maybe Gabriel was one of the few who’d actually understand.
“Are you a fucking idiot?” Damien leans in, our forehead’s nearly bumping together. “This is your shot. If you do right by this girl, the archangel might give you your wings back. You’re going to fuck it up. And that better be the stench of someone else’s seed she reeks of.”
A horrified little choke escapes Sophie’s throat, and I don’t dare meet her gaze.
“Let’s go to your office to talk in private, shall we?”
Damien grunts, nodding towards Sophie. “Can I get you a drink while you wait for us?”
The first meeting isn’t going as smoothly as I had hoped, but no matter how disgruntled he is, no matter how foul his mouth, at least there is always a drink to have.
Sophie manages a weak smile. “Oh, um.”
“Sophie is a bartender in Portland. If you let her make her own drink it might actually taste half-decent,” I joke through a straight face.
Damien blinks, then chuckles. “Yeah, okay. Help yourself.”
I follow the fallen to the back corner to the office, and as soon as the door is shut behind me, he whirls around, flashing me a glare sharper than shattered glass. “Have you gone crazy?”
I pause, contemplating his question for a moment. Damien knew me, the old me. The alcoholic, the depressed brute who didn’t give two shits about anything really, much less women. All I ever romanticized was the fantasy of getting my wings back. Now here I was, twenty-four hours after the last I’d seen him, with a woman in his arm, aware of my true nature, and smelling of my seed.
It’s a forbidden union that would undoubtedly destroy any hope of regaining my previous rank and regaining my wings, and Damien knows this and is worried for me.
Because he still thinks I care about getting my wings back.
But now, none of that matters.
“Maybe. But if this is insanity, suits me fine.”
“Maybe?” Damien collapses into the worn office chair behind a desk covered in papers and receipts. The Guardian’s back office is small, too small even. It’s more like a spacious closet, with a filing cabinet, a safe, and a desk, there isn’t much else that fits in the space.
I lean against the desk, my elbow resting on the yacht of an old PC Damien inherited from the old owner when he bought the building; I doubt it even turned on anymore.
“I did it, Dame.”
The Fallen lifts a brow, lips pressed into a hard line. “Did what?”
“I found something better.”
My friend’s expression shifts as he recalls some of the advice he had given the sorry drunk that had worn my shoes yesterday, drowning in whiskey and misery. “So you did, but an opportunity to get your wings back. I can’t believe you’re blowing it. For what? To get your dick wet? If you needed that, you could have hit Heather up. She practically reeks of lust every time you so much as glance at her. Stinks up the whole bar.”
“That isn’t it. I don’t give a damn about getting my wings back. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
The bartender looks at me like I’ve grown horns, shaking his head with a disapproving sigh, slicing the awkward tension in the air. “Oh yeah, flying, immorality, to hell with all that right?”
Damien’s irritation with me and my sudden lack of interest in what most angels think make guardians whole, is understandable. He’s like me, fallen from a place in which neither of us will return. Forced to live in a world not our own with scars on our back to serve as a reminder of what we had, and the dark memories of what had passed to lose all of that.
“Yes, to hell with it. And you know why?” I lean forward, palms pressed flat against the desk with a fiery grin plastered on my face. “I found her.”
“You found who? Elise’s twin sister? How did you find her anyway?”
I could regale him on the specifics of our meeting, but there was no time for that. “We found each other, Dame. She’s the one.”
“The one? You mean…” He leans back in his chair, midnight eyes growing wide. “No.”
“Yes. She’s my fated mate, made to hold my heart, my cock, my love.”
“You don’t sound like yourself, Gid.”
> “I’m not myself, not the sorry asshole you’ve had the misfortune of serving the past few months.”
The angel goes quiet, and for a time, neither of us says anything. The seconds seem to crawl by on hands and knees as we stare at each other through the poorly-lit bar office. He regards me first with pity, then understanding, respect, and perhaps even a shred of envy.
“I’ve heard of our kind falling so desperately in love that they leave duty behind, in pursuit of something…” He pauses, and I finish his sentence.
“Something better.”
“Yeah, something like that. Of course, Paradise has always painted those sorry bastards as weak sinners who succumbed to earthly pleasures.”
“Our kind’s disturbing obsession with duty is a pillar in Paradise’s culture, as it’s a means to control its citizens and assure an archaic system that keeps the people with a sense of true importance, down in the gutters.”
“Who knew a taste of human cunt would make you so damn philosophical.”
My gaze hardens. “It’s more than that Damien. You’ll understand when you find yours.”
At this, the angel snorts and flicks his hand to dismiss the thought. “The only lover I’ll likely ever have is the run-down bar. And that suits me just fine. In fact, she’s perfect. She might not be the prettiest to look at, but she’s pretty rich from all the drunks suckling whiskey and gin from her teets. But I am happy for you, old friend.”
“Happy that I’m finally weaned from The Guardian’s whiskey tits, no doubt.”
Damien grins at me. “Well, it’s not like your broke ass brought in much money to begin with, and with your frame, you take up too much space in the bar anyhow.”
We’re back to our usual game off poking fun at the other. The past three months following Elise’s death, Damien took great care when it came to handling me in my depressed, wallowing state. I’m glad he can see me like this.
“Thank you, Damien. You don’t have to run this bar for our kind. Regardless of rank, you welcome us with open arms and allow us all to hope even when there is none to be had.”
Claimed by my Dark Angel: A Forbidden Paranormal Romance (Saints to Sinners Book 1) Page 11