by J. K. Coi
Blinking, she peered through the shadows into the wild face of the beast above her. His lip curled with sick delight. He was enjoying this. If the vicious light in his eyes didn’t reveal as much, the heavy erection digging into her belly would have given it away.
Amelia needed to reach the man inside. She needed him to pull back from the rage enough to realize what he was doing and take control over Lucifer. If he could.
She opened her mouth, but couldn’t speak. Gabriel continued to crush her windpipe between his hands and no words would pass. No air entered her lungs. The spots in front of her eyes doubled, black globs that warned of impending unconsciousness—then death. She couldn’t breathe anymore either, couldn’t see anymore, but she could hear his laughter. The low-pitched, demented sound set her stomach rolling.
Clamping her hands over his wrists, she scratched and clawed up Gabriel’s arms in an attempt to get him to loosen his grip. Soon she would be too weak to do anything. All would be lost and she would have failed him again, failed everyone.
Drawing on reserves she hadn’t been aware of until that moment, her grip tightened. A hard stone formed in her stomach, weighing her down, but she fought against it, gritting her teeth. Even through her hazy, pained vision, she could see that her aura had brightened, glowing white through her skin.
Her lips began to tremble. Not with cold, but a reaction to the storm quickly building inside her. A set of fiery explosions rocked her from the inside out. Each one came with a burst of strength and a flash of power that set her entire body humming.
Gabriel’s grip slackened just enough for her to draw in a shaky breath filled with razor blades that sliced her throat to ribbons.
Amelia gasped, feeling the heat within her continue to grow, a fire rising to the surface. Suddenly she understood and was more afraid than ever.
No. Not this. This can’t be happening.
With a move born of despair and fear, Amelia stopped trying to pull Gabriel’s fists from her throat. Instead, she gripped his wrists so he couldn’t move away, then she jabbed her knee hard into his abdomen and quickly thrust her body to the side, throwing him off balance.
Taking advantage of the split second of opportunity, Amelia bashed her forehead into his already-broken nose and pushed him off her. He shouted as he fell on all fours. She scrambled to her feet, shaking off the dizziness and coughing through her aching throat.
Her vision righted itself quickly and her head stopped spinning, but her heart continued to beat erratically and much too fast. Not to mention the ebb and flow of raw power slamming through her as though she’d gotten caught in a tide of tall foamy waves and was being pounded up against the rocks again and again.
Gabriel knelt on the floor. His head drooped as he took large, gulping breaths. She went to his side. His skin was hot as she laid her palm on his shoulder, the muscles jumping at her touch. “Gabriel?”
“Get out.” His rumbled words were like a punch to the gut.
She shook her head. “I’m not leaving.”
A tic worked in his cheek. He closed his eyes tight and lifted his hand to the nape of his neck, massaging the tension in his shoulders with hard strokes.
After a long moment he lifted his head, although he wouldn’t look at her. “Damn you,” he muttered. “You know, a sane person would have run by now. What the hell are you still doing here?”
Strangely, Amelia felt a small smile tug at the corners of her mouth. If he was able to damn and berate her in that gruff tone of voice, perhaps there was still a reason for her to hope after all.
“I’m an angel,” she replied. “Nobody ever said we were sane.”
“Right.” He snorted. “Well, fuck me for thinking the goddamn devil should be the only crazy one in this room.”
She thought he meant to chuckle, but it turned into a hacking cough instead. When he was done, Gabriel pulled himself forward, turning to sit with his back against the bed. He planted his right foot, rested an arm on his knee and dropped his head in his hand as if he couldn’t have borne its weight any longer.
Sick with fear and worry, Amelia moved to join him, but he jerked away and froze her to the spot with a cold look in his eyes. “Don’t. Jesus, don’t. Just…stay the hell away from me.”
Amelia didn’t know if he was telling her to keep her distance because he didn’t trust her anymore, or because he didn’t trust himself, but she ignored him either way. Coming forward to sit beside him, her only concession to his hoarse-sounding demand was in the small space she left between their bodies so that they weren’t quite touching.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the side of the mattress. Amelia allowed the silence to grow. She struggled to come to terms with what was happening inside her own body, at the same time she tried to give Gabriel an opportunity to do the same.
Finally, she blinked. Realizing they were still naked, she reached above her to pull down a blanket from the bed.
Throwing it over them both, she scooted closer to him.
Gabriel turned to face her. She recognized fear and loathing and exhaustion in his eyes, but at least it was him behind those dark brown irises once again.
“Christ, Amelia, what have you done?” His hands shook as he dragged them over his head so hard she worried he was going to tear the hair out by the roots.
Of course she knew what she’d done. She understood exactly what he was going through. It hurt her so badly to see it, but she still believed she’d done the right thing. She believed in him.
“Why didn’t you kill me?”
“I couldn’t do it. I was prepared to sacrifice myself to keep Lucifer from fulfilling his prophecy—and I still am—but I realized that I’m not prepared to take your life, or anyone else’s for that matter. Not anymore. I have to believe there’s another way.”
“It’s too late, can’t you see that? Once you started, you had to carry it through. You had to finish—” He ground his teeth, his face twisting. “Ah, shit.”
“No. Fight it. It’s not too late. It can’t be too late.” She grasped his hand. For a split second he held onto her as if she were his only lifeline, but too quickly he pushed her away and wrapped his arms around himself, doubling over.
“Gabriel.” She was desperate to do something for him. She couldn’t just sit here and watch him suffer. “Please let me help.”
He shook his head, seeming to shake off the pain, or at least shove it back a little. “Damn it, are you stupid? I just tried to kill you. Lucifer is now completely awake and throwing a fucking housewarming party inside me.” His gaze locked on her neck, and she could imagine the dark bruises that were already becoming visible. At least they wouldn’t last long. She healed fast. “How can you say it isn’t too late?”
“I know it’s not.” She paused. “I know. You’re still human. Which means you’re still in charge, and you can fight this. You must.”
His mouth dropped open. “You’re wrong. You have to finish what you started. Now. I can feel him. The darkness. God, it’s like nothing I’ve ever—I’m not me anymore. Lucifer’s laughing. He’s won. His power is like a growing, insidious tapeworm, eating up everything that I am from the inside out.” His eyes pleaded with her. “I can’t hold out against him for much longer.”
Amelia set her jaw. “You must. Neither of us has any other choice now.”
Gabriel hobbled across the room to the chair where he’d dropped his jeans—had it really only been a few hours ago?—but then he had to sit. He winced as he bent over to drag the denim up his thighs, and standing again to pull them to his waist raised beads of sweat across his forehead.
Everything hurt. His head, his heart, his damn nose. Inside and out. Everything. Physically and psychologically. The smallest effort—like breathing—was enough to send his already shaking limbs into full body-slamming spasms of pain.
Amelia stopped in front of him. “Can I help?”
“Fuck no,” he snapped at her. “I can get my own fucking cl
othes on.”
Swallowing past the hard, dry lump in his throat, he turned his back on her and reached for his shirt. A particularly wicked, stabbing pain speared his abdomen and he stumbled forward, crashing into the chair.
Swearing, he rejected Amelia’s assisting touch to his shoulder with a sharp brush-off and a hard glare. “Leave me the hell alone.”
Quietly, she nodded and stepped back, leaving him to his own devices just like he’d asked.
He refused to call her back. Anything he could have said would only hurt her, and even while a part of him wanted that, needed to hurt her, the words got stuck in his throat and he couldn’t do it—at least not any more than he already had.
Once he dragged his shirt over his head, Gabriel looked down at his boots on the floor. Fuck it. No way was he getting those on anytime soon. Righting the chair, he dropped into it and leaned his head back. He pretended to be resting, but from beneath shuttered eyelids, his gaze followed Amelia’s movements as she dressed.
Having her here was both a torture and a relief. In a way, her presence helped him focus, helped him remember why he needed to persevere and win this battle.
At the same time, just looking at her heightened his rioting emotions. Feelings of sorrow and failure, greed and desire. A tidal wave of intensity he couldn’t stem, all of it flowing right to Lucifer, feeding him and giving him life, substance. Blurring the edges between human and angel.
Who was he anymore? Lucifer. Gabriel. Which one of them hurt? Which one of them raged? Which one of them burned with lust?
It was all Gabriel could do to hold himself in this chair when what he really wanted was to tackle Amelia back down into the carpet and make her scream as he filled her. Hard and deep. Over and over again until the torment stopped and he felt nothing.
Gabriel shook his head and cleared his throat. He needed a distraction.
“So what brilliant idea have you come up with to prevent this angel apocalypse now?” He curled his lip. “If you don’t kill me, you can’t kill Lucifer, right? So what? You’ve just decided you’re going to flip over to the dark side and to hell with the world as we know it?”
She didn’t answer him right away. In fact, Gabriel became suspicious as he watched her meticulously adjust the fit of her sweater, take her time pulling on each of her boots. She stood up to smooth the sheets over the bed…
“Oh, hell. You don’t have a plan at all, do you?” He slammed his fist into the table and surged from the chair. “You’re the one who insisted the world was going to end if this very thing were allowed to happen. Goddamn it. You had a chance to stop—”
She spun on him, her beautiful eyes flashing with a crystal fire he’d never seen before. “At the expense of your life!” she shouted. “Because you’re so perversely honorable, you wouldn’t let me do this in the only way that would have saved everybody.”
“Everybody but you,” he snarled.
She shrugged.
Gabriel moved to take another step toward her but thought better of it. He didn’t want to kill her anymore, but he couldn’t trust himself to stay in control for long. “You little idiot. How could you think I’d be willing to let you take my place? That I could let Lucifer invade your soul, hurt you, kill you?”
Amelia snorted. “Then you know how I feel. How could you expect me to let the same thing happen to you?”
“I expected you to—” He paused. “Wait a minute, damn it. Are you actually arguing with me because you care?”
“Care? No.” Her hollow laughter twisted Gabriel’s heart in two. “I may be new at recognizing emotion—especially in myself—but I know what I feel for you isn’t caring.” She maintained a physical distance, but gazing into his face, for the first time her feelings were absolutely plain. She didn’t try to hide them from him, and he was rendered speechless by the depth of emotion she revealed.
“My God.” Some of his anger and pain faded. He couldn’t hold on to them, not when confronted with the shining proof of so much love.
“It’s too much. Too hard,” she admitted with a rueful smile. “I’m not cut out for this turbulence, this instability. Just days ago, I would have said my duty must always come before anything else. But you’ve made me question everything. The Archangels. My past. My own motivations. If you’re no longer you, then that makes us even, because I’m not the same angel I was, either.”
He sighed. “So then, what are we going to do now? Time is short. I’ve got a ticking bomb inside me, and I can’t afford to lose control again like I just did. Once more, and the small piece of me that remains will be gone.”
“I know.” Squaring her shoulders, Amelia started pacing the floor. “My first instinct would have been to call Michael and ask for help, but that’s not an option anymore. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t come after us already.”
“That’s great. Is there anyone who doesn’t want me dead?”
Stopping in front of the fireplace, she turned and smiled. The soft light outlined her slim form in gold. “If it makes you feel any better, at least you’re not alone on that list anymore.”
It didn’t make him feel better. In fact, it only made him more crazy with fear and worry. Her refusal to carry out the Archangels’ orders ensured her a spot on their most-wanted list. His stomach flopped. He was damn sick and tired of these bastards thinking they could dictate his fate, and by God, they would not do the same to Amelia.
Gabriel sat again. He wished he could pull Amelia onto his lap, but it wasn’t safe for either of them to become distracted, and denying himself was harder when she was within touching distance. The closer she got, the more desperate Gabriel/Lucifer became, and the closer he was to losing the pissing match still taking place in the depths of his soul.
“The first thing we have to do is find another way to deal with Lucifer that won’t kill you in the process.”
Leaning back in the chair, Gabriel stretched out his legs and lifted a disbelieving brow. She avoided his gaze, turning to stare into the fire. She was deluding herself. They both knew there was no way—
“Wait a minute. Donato wants Lucifer for himself, right?”
Amelia turned back around, looking at him with a wary expression. “Yes.”
“Then why don’t I give him to the bastard.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Are you certain you can do this? It sounds…reckless. To say the least.”
Amelia hated this feeling. Worry. She’d spent the rest of the night with it rolling in her stomach, making her physically nauseated. Right now, she desperately wished for her familiar, emotional curtain to come back down. She didn’t know how she was going to go through with this plan of Gabriel’s otherwise.
Gabriel shrugged on his jacket and faced her with a lopsided grin. “What could possibly go wrong?”
“The list is endless.”
“Well, when you put it that way…” His devilish smile only increased her fear. If they were wrong about this, there would be no turning back.
“Gabriel—”
A muscle pulsed high in his cheek and his expression darkened. “Don’t,” he warned. “Don’t overthink it. We don’t have the luxury.” His hand clenched at his side. He hadn’t touched her since they’d almost killed each other.
The rational part of her understood that he needed to focus, that all his strength had to go into staying in control of Lucifer. But his purposeful distance hurt, and Amelia was no longer a rational being when it came to Gabriel—another reason why this idea of his was a terrible one, even if it was the only chance they had.
He opened the door to the cottage and waited for her to precede him outside. Amelia stepped ahead of him, shaking her head. “But—”
“No ‘buts,’” he interrupted, closing the door behind them. “Do you have a better idea?”
“I had a better idea,” she shot back, starting down the porch steps. “If you weren’t so impossible…”
He reached for her elbow and pulled her to an abr
upt stop. “If I’m destined to go out, then let me do it with some self-respect. With some control over the how, even if I can’t control anything else.”
Amelia didn’t know what else to say. She’d made her choice. Gabriel was making his.
The only thing either of them could do now was wait for the end to come…and fight like hell.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Readjusting the pack on his shoulders, Gabriel pushed himself harder up the rocky incline to keep up with Amelia, who’d scooted ahead of him at the last bend in the trail.
He hadn’t intended such an arduous excursion when he proposed the hike this morning, but after they got started he was glad for it, realizing just how much he needed a physical outlet—other than the kind that made it even harder to hold out against Lucifer, the kind that involved pinning Amelia naked and squirming beneath him and releasing himself into her sweet warmth.
The exertion seemed to be doing him good. It was helping him stay in control of the chaos raging within. His breathing was quick, his muscles loose, and his energy was focused where he needed it to be. At least, that had been the case until Amelia passed him on the trail. Now, with her tight backside at constant eye level, his focus had definitely altered.
She stopped and Gabriel came up beside her. Her shoulder brushed his arm and he forced himself to put a step between them. He looked over the edge of a crumbling cliff. Below, a silvery stream trailed a thin path to the small lake they’d passed on the way up.
“Gabriel, this is so beautiful.” Amelia’s eyes widened in wonder. “I could never understand why humans speak so wistfully of heaven when you have such heavenly places right here.”
“If only we took better care of them.” Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. It was too bad that natural, untouched places like this, where the air was clean and healthy, had become the exception in most of the civilized world rather than the rule.
Amelia reached for the blanket Gabriel had flung over his shoulder and spread it out on a small patch of dead leaves, grass and dirt a few feet back from the edge of the embankment. Sitting down, she reached out to finger a leaf of the overgrown fern sprouting beside her before picking up a pink stone and turning it around in her hands.