Angel Unleashed

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  “You think what?” he prompted, urging her to finish her remark. “What were you going to say?”

  Fear of needing to place her trust in one of the same creatures that had been born as a direct link to her captivity kept the quakes coming. However, the belief in new possibilities had taken root, and the rightness of the path ahead had taken on a silvery sheen.

  This had to be the way. He would accompany her on the path she was to take.

  “I believe,” she said, “that I might have found you for this reason. And that reason is to help me see this quest through.”

  For once, the man holding her there with his almost mystical allure had no question in response, which might have been another freaking miracle in a long line of them.

  The centuries-old soul didn’t back up or move a muscle. He was breathing as hard as she was, breath being one of those strange anomalies that had been returned to him after Death had stolen it. Avery wondered if he remembered the details of the night he had surrendered his life. Did the pain of those moments live within him also?

  There was no way she could have asked him about that, or told him about her own fight for fresh air and freedom from the castle. She didn’t tell him that she had caused the destruction of Broceliande after escaping from her iron shackles, dismantling it stone by stone so that no one like her or Rhys could ever be hurt again.

  “What do you need me to do?” the gallant Knight asked, as if centuries had not caught him up and then passed him by.

  “Find what was taken from me,” she said.

  “Taken, as in stolen?”

  “Yes.” That word didn’t begin to describe what had taken place in that castle’s dungeons. Some things were better left in the dark.

  Avery felt his gaze slip to the base of her neck. Each inch that gaze traveled brought more heat. It was odd that she couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Those two scars,” he said. “The deep ones. That’s where your wings were?”

  “Yes.”

  “How could you not know who took them?”

  “I know.” You can bet your ass on that.

  “Those people are here in London?”

  “Those creatures might no longer exist. I can’t be sure.”

  “This happened recently?”

  “A very long time ago.”

  “So, you believe someone else has your wings?” He shook his head. “Hell. You think they are in the hands of dealers from the black market? Is that where the rumors are leading? Those wings exist, and you trust the vibration in your gut to lead us to them?” He hesitated before adding, “You can believe I’m going to help you get them back.”

  He’d said us. Lead us to them. An electrified thrill passed through Avery. Her need to get away from this man disappeared, replaced by another emotion that centered on hope. In that moment, all of the years behind her simply faded into one stark realization that she might actually, finally, get what she had prayed so hard for. And, startlingly, that those prayers hadn’t only been for the retrieval of her wings.

  The new thoughts made her dizzy, needy. Casual sex with Weres was one thing. An attraction this strong to an immortal Knight was another thing altogether.

  Her Blood Knight moved, turning her around with a gentle tug. Her back hit the brick. She relished the brief sting of discomfort. The hard body of the man in black pressed against her again before Avery looked up to meet his eyes.

  She wanted to drown in those eyes. That had always been the danger.

  Whatever ideals about angels she had once possessed dropped away, replaced by a molten tide of oncoming fever sparked by the knowledge that he was going to kiss her again.

  Maybe he thought she owed him that as a down payment for his help. And maybe she had willed this moment into existence because dreams were trespassing on reality’s turf...and because she wanted what he had to offer so damn badly.

  Chapter 10

  Rhys saw the flash of light in her eyes that told him she wanted the same thing he did. Her liquid blue gaze never once left his as he gave in to his overwhelming need to kiss an angel. And, in doing so, take away some of her pain.

  Admittedly, this probably wasn’t the time or place to question the bond between them that she’d mentioned. Who the hell cared, when desire ruled his actions and she looked at him like that?

  His mouth on hers was hungry. Get from me what you need. I can take it.

  Deeply, aggressively, with an almost angry intensity, they went after each other, perhaps looking for a more current physical link to the connections she’d told him about.

  Rhys took her mouth in the name of passion and one hell of a long stretch of loneliness dating way back. As an immortal, she couldn’t really be hurt by the brick at her back, though he did care about that. Her beautiful skin had been damaged again tonight by ink and needles, and she acted as if nothing had occurred.

  Hot, moist, sweet...this little sample of intimacy didn’t satisfy him as much as Rhys had hoped. He wanted more of this. More of her. Right now, preferably.

  The first indication of trouble came when she turned her head, backing off those brief moments of what had been so incredibly rich.

  Breathlessly, she said, “Now you can say you’ve had it. Had me. A goddamn angel. You can chalk this up, mark it off your to-do list, use those bragging rights.”

  Rhys studied her closely, aware of her inner agitation. “You think that’s what I wanted by kissing you?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Not even close.”

  Blue eyes searched his face. Bruised lips, nearly as blue as her eyes, parted. “My needs both attract and repel this kind of thing. If staying away from you was hard before, it will now be impossible.”

  “Good. That suits me just fine. But what do you mean about staying away from me before?” Rhys asked.

  Confessions were difficult for this angel, it seemed to him. She took her time.

  “We wait to search for my wings until they’re sure I’m here,” she said, avoiding his last question.

  Rhys thought it best not to ask her how a pair of detached wings might know anything about who was seeking them. The idea that wings could be alive, on their own, was both eerie and incomprehensible.

  Besides, the parts of the story she had already shared created the agitation he saw spiral through the line of the angel’s delicate jaw. He wasn’t going to let up this time, however. His mission had become to get a straight answer from her about the other issue on the table.

  “You said staying away from me was hard before. Have you been watching me? If so, for how long?”

  She said, “On and off for a while.”

  With both hands on her bare shoulders, Rhys held her to the wall, stalling his need to look at the rest of her glowing white nakedness, stifling the inclination to lift her in his arms and take her someplace more private than a dingy street corner. Somewhere they could settle this crazy physical thing between them, once and for all.

  “How long is that?” he asked.

  Confusion crossed her features. She was shaking again, as if answers were the enemy instead of the cold.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “Since the beginning. And whenever I could.”

  Rhys tried hard to understand what she was saying. Surely angels had to tell the truth when confronted, the same as with him and his brethren. Truth was a side-effect of being one of the good guys.

  “What beginning are you referring to?” he asked.

  “That damn...”

  Her anxiety was contagious. Rhys felt cold seep into his stomach. His body was gearing up for a big reveal, hardening, stiffening, the way it always did when he was about to go into battle. All of this in anticipation of an answer to a simple question.

  What the hell is so ha
rd for you to say?

  “That bloody castle,” she said.

  Rhys blinked, not sure he had heard correctly. His hands slipped from her shoulders. He stared at her intensely.

  “Castle?” he echoed.

  The reference could have been about any castle he’d been to over the centuries. He had lived in a few, fought for a few and protected several of them. Just because she had told him she knew about Blood Knights through rumor and secretive legends passed on by a select few, she didn’t have to be alluding to the specific castle he dreaded to think about, even in speculation. Broceliande, the white-walled, windowless fortress with its garden of bloodred roses that bloomed only after nightfall. The place where he had offered up his mortal life to honor a higher cause.

  Anxiety was nothing compared to sudden fear that Broceliande was, indeed, the castle she was referring to and that an angel might have seen it for herself. No legend he knew of mentioned the place by name. No one knew of its existence, other than the castle’s original occupants and the Knights the Makers had created, and then sent out on what had turned out to be so much more than a single golden Quest.

  “How...?” Rhys muttered, half to himself, sensing something else was wrong.

  When he looked up from his descent into the past, it was to discover the beautiful enigma he’d begun to believe actually might be a real angel had used his thoughts about the past to beat a hasty retreat...for the second time in an hour.

  * * *

  Avery ran, accustomed to using her feet for travel and escape these days. She moved fast, though her heart was heavy. She raced from one alley to another without paying much attention to direction or the fact that Rhys would find her anyway, sooner or later.

  What she needed was time to think.

  She had given up too much information. She’d had to. Witnessing the change in the Blood Knight’s expression when she’d mentioned the castle had made her heart sink.

  For sure now, she knew Rhys also held no love for Broceliande. That realization brought her more discomfort. While she had wanted to repay the Knights for what she had gone through in that terrible place, meeting Rhys in the flesh had managed to change that plan. In just a few hours, and in only one night, he had become the single creature in all the world she’d hate to hurt.

  Big change of plans.

  What to do with these new feelings was the current problem. How to react when her entire thought system had been rearranged. Given that she actually no longer sought revenge on the Knights, her main objective for coming to Earth had been made clearer.

  Was he behind her already?

  How far was far enough to clear his reach, and to get him out of her thoughts for a while longer?

  Climbing to the rooftop of the old warehouse building beside her, Avery paused for a look, sensing visitors on her trail. The wrong ones.

  “Damn Shades are everywhere.”

  The moon was low in the sky and mostly covered by clouds, but the streetlight below her showed shadows passing in and out of its yellow light.

  “Have you brought your friends, Shade?” she muttered, angry over losing alone time.

  Beyond those slithering shadows, she detected no other presence. No special beat moved the still, stale air. Was it possible that Rhys had let her go?

  Avery closed her eyes. “Need time,” she said to Rhys, as though he stood beside her. Another thing she needed was to shed the excess energy built up by allowing that kiss—and the desire she felt for having more just like it. All in all, facing the approaching Shades would have to do, for now, to calm her jangling nerves.

  “Sorry, boys,” Avery whispered as she headed back to the street. “It’s not going to be your night.”

  * * *

  “I should let you go until you realize I can help,” Rhys said to the empty street beside him, thinking hard about how eager the female whose name he didn’t know had been to get away from him.

  “Or I can follow the parade of ghosts to your doorstep, if you’ve chosen a doorstep, and help you extricate yourself from their sudden affections.”

  Maybe she didn’t need his help and didn’t really want his assistance, but dark things in this city would want to steal her light. Rob her of what made her unique. As for himself, he didn’t plan on pressing her to do anything other than cough up a few more truthful answers.

  His sigils burned as if the damn symbols were his personal conscience. This was because he had just lied to himself about merely wanting answers from the pale enigma, when he also wanted so much more. If the lie had been voiced, he’d be on his knees, bent over by a terrible, racking pain that one of his brothers had described as similar to the sting of a hundred scorpions.

  Rhys rolled his shoulders to ease the discomfort. Okay. I want more from the angel than a few answers. I admit it.

  The unforgiving marks etched on his back eased only slightly with that declaration, pulsing as if they truly understood those words. Hell, he thought now, maybe her wings were the equivalent of the symbols on his back.

  This angel was a puzzle that needed solving. One he looked forward to solving.

  His head came up as the scent of Shade slid by him. The creature was using the shadows for cover and had gotten close, when most of the anomalies in this area avoided him, aware of the power he possessed. Some of them went long distances out of their way to skirt the areas he patrolled. Tonight, the damn Shades were coming out of the woodwork, attracted to a kind of being they didn’t yet understand.

  Hell, he was no better. Leaving the angel alone with her quest was apparently not an option since he was already moving after both of the filmy creatures. He felt he had an obligation to deal with them, one way or another...and they were after her.

  An angel had landed in London, and that angel knew too much about him. A damaged angel, hurting, keening for her wings. Rhys hurt for her, on familiar terms with the concept of loss. Setting things to rights for others was his only purpose for getting through his extended existence, the only way Rhys knew of to wade through the ever-expanding lineup of years both behind him and ahead.

  He stopped walking.

  “Angel,” he whispered.

  The word caused the rise of a hazy internal warning because an idea was springing to life, along with a possible reason for this angel knowing about Blood Knights.

  Could she, having mentioned the word castle, be connected to the Knights’ original Quest? Could she possibly have anything to do with the holy relic that he and his six brethren had hidden from the world? A relic with strong ties to religion and the vast idea of a Great Beyond? A golden relic that an angel might know about?

  Why else would one of Heaven’s creatures have known about that blasted castle?

  Rhys’s heart responded to that idea with a kick. He swiped at the back of his neck, dispersing the fresh wave of chills before glancing to the sky in search of the last remnants of the moon. Dawn would arrive in a couple of hours. Vamps would now be heading back to their nests. Shades had to be careful about traveling too far from their basements and caverns... Which meant that his angel was still relatively close.

  But then, he already knew that. He was able to feel her, smell her. Tasting her light had been like capturing the essence of starlight on his tongue.

  It was a fact that he had liked that kiss way too much for his own good when he should have been finding a way to help her.

  “Too many questions left,” Rhys noted, standing on a corner where three narrow streets converged.

  “Not enough time,” he added with a sense of urgency, though in truth, he and others like him had all the time in the world at their disposal. And so, it appeared, did she.

  Chapter 11

  Dispensing with five Shades had been a breeze. The rest of them had bailed after witnessing what a silver blade in an exp
erienced hand could do. But Avery was so very tired of fighting. Her entire existence had been moving from one battle to the next, driven by the need to get back what she had lost. What she wanted tonight, more than anything else, was peace, breathing room, and to be whole again.

  She wasn’t an idiot. Running away from Rhys had been the wrong move. Unused to kindness and sincere offers of aid, she had acted like a child. It didn’t matter how addicted to him she might become. Once she had her wings, she’d be out of here, off this angry planet and back where she belonged. Rhys would go on as he had before, only without her watchful gaze. He would no longer be her concern.

  Waving the blackened blade in the air to dry it, Avery stood on the deserted street waiting to see how long it would take for Rhys to find her. Minutes? Seconds? He’d have the word castle stuck in his mind now that she had put it there. That couldn’t be helped. She’d had to give him something. He was so very convincing about wanting to help.

  Morning was on its way. The approaching scent of dawn left a warm sensation in her chest. Thankfully, this long night was almost over.

  Where was Rhys? Seconds had gone by without him showing his pretty face.

  She might take Rhys up on the offer of shelter at his friend’s flat, since anyone a Blood Knight trusted had to be worthy of a secret or two. That friend could run interference between her and Rhys. She could rest.

  She turned slowly as a wave of familiar heat returned.

  “What took you so long?” she asked.

  “I had some cleaning up to do.”

  Her Blood Knight stepped from the shadows as if he, like the Shades, had been part of them.

  “Ghosts?” she asked.

  “Among other things.”

  They faced each other without daring to breach the gap of separation. He was as anxious as she was, but wore it better.

  “What now?” he said. “Why did you run?”

  “I needed to stretch my legs.”

  “Were you waiting for me?”

  “I was thinking about it.”