Fallis turned the handle and pulled the door wide, exposing them both to the pale blue, almost white, eyes of the young woman. She stood in exactly the same place she’d been when Thoros had opened the door the first time.
Guess bad manners didn’t offend her, Thoros thought, but didn’t make a move to make amends.
“May I help you?” Fallis said, and Thoros could tell the guy was smiling from ear to ear. Total suck-up. At this rate, the guy would have the hem of her dress thrown up over her hips and introducing himself on a more personal level within the hour.
“Well,” she started, and Thoros’ head popped up in interest at the sweet chime of her voice, “I thought maybe I could help you.”
Fallis turned to follow her line of sight and stared directly into the eyes of Thoros, and then turned back to the female, confused. “I’m sorry?”
She smiled and, without an invitation, took a step inside the house. She paused only a moment to nod at Fallis and then crossed the open foyer to Thoros. Both men stared dumbstruck at her.
As her delicate hand reached up to touch his cheek, Thoros stared at it like it was a venomous snake about to strike. He fumbled back, his own feet tripping over themselves as they hurriedly tried to get him away from the woman.
Two strong hands grabbed Thoros’ biceps, standing him upright and steadying him on his feet, then they shook him a bit to get him to look up to the cerulean blue eyes they belonged to.
“What’s going on? Who is this, Thoros, and what is she doing in the house?” Baddon asked in a stern voice. When Thoros only shook his head, Baddon looked over to Fallis who only shrugged as an answer.
“Excuse me,” the girl said, and everyone’s head shot in the direction of her angelic voice. “Maybe I can tell you who I am and why I’m here.” She giggled lightly when eyes blinked and heads turned to the side in puzzlement. “I’d be happy to clear everything up. Maybe we could all go somewhere a little more comfortable.” More of the blinking, as if she had spoken a different language, one they couldn’t understand. “The living quarters would be sufficient, I believe. You have such soft cushions on your furniture here.”
Thoros’ head turned and he locked on to Baddon’s innocent expression. It was clear the guy hadn’t ever seen the female before, much less brought her home for love games. Thoros wondered which of his other demon siblings she belonged to. Certainly not Fallis; the guy was just as clueless. Damien? Coen? As far as he knew, Phoebe wasn’t interested in anyone, much less the same sex. He shook his head as Lameria came to mind; the girl wasn’t her type.
At that moment, Phoebe emerged from the basement entrance with six angels at her heel. The big guy Josselyn had been talking to at the accident scene was one of them, but… where was Josselyn?
The big angel took one look at the girl and smiled. “You’re a seer.”
Everyone in the room looked from the angel to the guest.
She smiled sweetly. “Tea would be nice, too. I take two sugars.”
***
Arms crossed over his chest and deep in thought, Thoros paced the hardwood floor of the great room. Everyone else was scattered about, standing by or sitting on the furniture the new guest had so graciously told them was comfortable, even before she had even sat on the damn thing!
Seer. So she was a seer. What did that have to do with him? And what the hell was a seer, anyway?
As if Baddon had read his mind, he spoke up. “Someone want to fill me in on what a seer is?”
Troy leaned forward to accept the glass of iced tea from Phoebe with a smile and a thank you, and then he cleared his throat as he looked over at Baddon.
“A seer is defined as many different things and, I dinnae ken what all this spring flower kin dae,” he nodded at the woman with a flash of pearly whites and the wink of an eye, “but I kin feel the energy radiating oot o’ her.” He lifted his arm and showed the room the goosebumps that had risen on his forearm. “She has wonderful control o’er her gift.”
“What is her gift?” Damien asked.
Troy motioned toward the woman. “Care tae introduce yersel’, lassie?”
She smiled as every eye in the room fell on her. “My name is Aries, and Troy is right—”
“Wait,” Thoros interrupted. “Excuse me. Sorry,” he said as he pointed at the angel in the red ball cap. “I don’t remember him ever telling you his name. Have you met him before? Is this all a game all of you are playing on me?”
“Be quiet and listen, Thoros. Nobody knows the girl,” Baddon said calmly.
Aries took a sip of her tea, and then set the glass on a coaster that was placed on the coffee table in front of her. “I do not need him to speak his name aloud for me to know who and what he is. I am a seer, Thoros.”
Thoros’ mouth fell open in astonishment and he dropped into the chair closest to him. “So, you can read our minds?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s quite different. It’s more like I can feel everything about a person, almost like I am that person. I know their present and their past, and sometimes… well, sometimes I can see their future.” She averted her gaze from the other eyes in the room and picked up her glass again. She sat there a brief moment before looking back up. “I’ve known most of the people in this house for a little over three months now. Others have been added just recently—”
“Are you a psychic?” one of the other angels Thoros didn’t have a name for asked.
He stared at the guy a minute, remembering Josselyn saying his name at the accident scene. He was the guy that found the bashed-up survivor. Maybe Paul or Marcus or Joshua. Ah, who gave a rat’s ass? Thoros turned his attention back to the freak-show in a sun dress.
“Of sorts,” she said with a nod.
“I don’t believe it,” Thoros said menacingly, and got to his feet to pace off the sudden uneasiness that was creeping into his mind.
“You don’t have seven dead bodies and a comatose Marshal in your basement?”
Thoros gasped in horror and backed over an end table that had sprouted out of nowhere, landing none too gently on the wood floor, and hitting all the pointy parts of his body in the process. He rubbed his elbow and knee, and then got to his feet when it appeared nobody was going to offer a hand to help him up.
Embarrassed, he scooted the table back in its rightful place, and then walked back to the chair. Sitting on the edge of the cushion with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together safely in front of him, he ignored the paranoid feeling that everyone was staring at him. Of course they were looking at him! He was a bloody idiot!
“How much do you know?” Damien asked from his perch by the door.
“Well, I know that even though the female angel found a way to extract the souls from Thoros, the spirits of the human lives that were taken are still lost and need to be reclaimed by them in order for their souls to properly rest—if their fate is that they rest,” she added on quietly.
Thoros placed a single hand over his eyes and leaned back against the backrest. “Anyone else feeling dumber the longer this witch talks?”
Aries shot to her feet, an angry scowl covering her face as she shouted at Thoros. “I’m not a witch! Take it back or I will leave here and let you continue to run around like chickens with no heads!”
Thoros flung his hand through the air, uncaring. “Go—”
“Thoros!” Baddon thundered. “Apologize to her now or I will lock you in silver chains for the remainder of your eternity here on Earth! We need all help that is offered and you can’t go around offending people because your ego has taken a punch.” When Thoros only sat, glaring at him, Baddon jumped to his feet and grabbed Thoros by the throat, and then commenced to haul his friend out of the room at a rapid pace.
“Wait,” Thoros choked out, and gripped Baddon’s wrist. “I’ll do it. I’m sh-orry. I yam show sh-orry, Ar-ri-es.”
Baddon dropped him to his hands and knees as Lameria walked into the room. Her long legs stepped over him, and then she
knelt down and smiled. “Hurts like hell, doesn’t it? You’re looking much better, by the way. Did the angel put out?”
Swallowing hard, Aries’ eyes fixed on the newcomer and moved until she was standing behind Troy. “Her aura is dark,” she whispered. “She is troubled and I can’t get past her magic to see her intentions. That makes me nervous. She feels like a ticking time-bomb to me. I fear for anyone she comes in contact with.”
“You and me both, but are you sure you’re not getting her aura confused with Thoros’ aura?” Fallis asked, and then chuckled lightly. “He’s the one eating the souls of mortals.”
Ignoring the remarks of Lameria and Fallis, Thoros glanced up to Troy, and then got to his feet, rubbing his throat. He walked toward them, but Troy had his eyes glued on the smirking Lameria, doing his duty in protecting the mortal at all costs.
Thoros dropped to one knee in front of Aries and bowed his head. “Please accept my sincere and heartfelt apologies. I’m sorry for offending you. On the half soul I still possess, I can promise you that it will never happen again. I would like you to stay and help us in any way you can.”
Aries nodded, but kept her eyes fixed on Lameria. “Thank you,” she said in a quiet voice. “I will stay… as long as she goes.”
“Done,” Thoros said as he got to his feet, and then flipped his fingers through the air at the wide-eyed ex-Princess of Greed. “Go to your room, Lameria. You are not to come out until Aries has gone.”
“What did I do?” she exclaimed, walking farther into the room, but Baddon put his arm out in front of her, stopping her quickly in her tracks.
“Go!” Thoros boomed, and then threw a gust of power from his palms, knocking her into the wall behind her, where she left a body-sized imprint in the sheetrock.
As soon as she recovered, she retaliated, throwing her own magic into the room. The walls rippled and vases shattered as her unnatural forces touched on everything, including the living, breathing immortals and mortal in the room.
Aries grabbed her head and screamed in pain.
“Cover her!” Thoros shouted to Troy who was struggling through what appeared to be his own headful of demons.
Troy growled, but threw himself over the girl, cloaking her body with an invisible shield to protect her from harm until someone got the demon princess out of the room.
Thoros could feel Lameria’s dark magic flowing freely through his brain, but she could only prey on the greed that was already within the mind. He wasn’t a greedy person by nature. Actually, the one and only thing he wanted out of life, Lameria wouldn’t be able to trick him and make him think he had again: Josselyn. He knew she wasn’t here—she was probably playing with the souls she had taken from him while he sorted his own mess out; he couldn’t honestly say that he blamed her.
As he glanced across the room, he spotted Baddon on his knees with his head tilted up to the ceiling. Vertical wet lines graced his cheeks where tears had fallen from his eyes; the guy was desperately trying to fight an internal battle of his own. Thoros rushed and grabbed his friend’s face between his palms. “Baddon, look at me…”
Baddon’s eyelashes fluttered open and then he looked around frantically. “Where did he go? He was just here—”
Thoros took him by the shoulders and shook him hard, but it didn’t seem to faze him. “It’s not real! Lameria is playing with your mind. Snap out of it! I need you to take her out while I distract her.”
“He said he was going to take me. Father said I could go with him this time. Has he left me here?”
Thoros stared at him another moment, and then shook his head, growling as he stood. He immediately jerked back and winced; a scream tore up his throat before he even knew the cause. It took him a moment to realize twelve inches of an arrow were sticking out of his chest.
He touched it with shaky fingers, and then just left it alone, as the pain was too fierce to attempt to pull the arrow out without drinking at least two bottles of liquid courage first.
Glancing up from under his brow, he noticed Damien had another arrow in his bow, the string taut and ready for release. Thoros put his hand out to stop him, but didn’t have a chance to speak before the second arrow left its cradle.
Everything seemed to slow down after that. The sun through the window glinted off the metal tip of the arrow as it spiraled through the air at him. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would sure slow him down for a while. And, just like the other one, it would hurt like a son of a bitch!
It was obvious: Lameria had won this round.
He felt a hard blow to his right shoulder, but knew it wasn’t the pain of an arrow hitting home. He’d been knocked out of the way, and a writhing Phoebe, gripping the feathers of the arrow sticking out of her shoulder, let him know she had taken the shot for him.
He would thank her and personally tend to her wound later, but at the moment Damien was advancing on them both and reaching over his shoulder for another arrow.
“Damien, no! Lameria has control over you. You have to fight her!” Thoros threw himself over Phoebe and waited for the piercing impact he knew would soon follow.
It never came.
There was a bone-cracking sound and Thoros looked up to see Marcus with his hands still on each side of Lameria’s head. They made eye contact and then he let her broken body fall to the floor.
“Put… that…” a breathless and very Scottish accent came from behind him, and Thoros turned to see the extremely tall and broad shouldered angel stumbling up to Marcus and pointing at Lameria, “…somewhere far away fae me. The female is dangerous.”
Baddon got to his feet with a groan. “I’ll take her. Aries is going to need a pair of healing hands over there. I think she sprained her ankle when she fell to the floor. Lucifer made sure mine were only good for destroying things. A lot of good it does me; I couldn’t even take Lameria down.”
“Marcus must be immune,” Thoros said as he helped Phoebe sit up and then looked over at the angel with a smile. “You’re one lucky bastard to be able to deflect Lameria’s tricks.”
Thoros sighed, and then looked over as one of the other angels helped Phoebe to her feet, miraculously healed and ready to face the world. “Thanks, Phoebe.”
She smiled down at him. “Hey, no worries. You saved me, too, so… we’re even, right?”
Thoros snickered. “Yeah—yeah, I guess we are.”
He had a lot of apologies and thank yous to make in the immediate future, but the one person he wanted to forgive him—loved another.
There was only one way to make it up to her for all he’d put her through: help her find her happiness.
Hot tears stung his eyes and he blew a big breath out of his lungs as the realization that she would never love him hit home. He swallowed the lump in his throat and massaged the ache in the center of his chest, before going over to make sure the rest of the people affected by Lameria’s gift were all right.
Chapter 16
Josselyn
The last time I was in front of the Council had been over three months ago. It hadn’t been a good visit then, and I didn’t expect this one to go in my favor, either; things had just not gone the way I planned, of late.
“You can’t talk to the head guardians about this, Josselyn,” Isaiah said.
I didn’t bother glancing over my shoulder at him as I responded to his rather ridiculous statement. “Watch me.”
“Their minds are already made up—”
“Well, then I will just have to change their minds.”
“Preposterous,” he grumbled. “You are a very stubborn young lady. Are you aware of that fact?”
“Yes, I am. Being stubborn turns a lot of noes into yeses.” I glanced over my shoulder then. “You’re stubborn, too. I figured you would have known that already.”
He frowned. “Very funny,” he said, and then turned his expression to pleading. “Please, at least just tell me you have a plan. You can’t walk in there unprepared. They will eat you alive!”
He dropped his chin and just stared at his feet, obviously choked up and not sure of how to phrase his words. “I suppose losing my soul has made me a bit insecure. I just fear you barging in there without thought as of what you will say to them will cause their decision to be even more final. You are very reckless, child, but I trust your judgment for some reason. I pray we are not both wrong.”
I took his hands in mine as I sighed. “I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions when it’s possible you could have another plan to fix this. What is your plan, Isaiah?”
His forehead wrinkled in frustration as he scowled at me, and then he finally reached for the handle of the Council room door with his left hand, jerked the door open and motioned for me to walk ahead of him. “After you, my dear.”
I rose up on my toes to kiss his cheek. He grinned and a blush colored his cheeks. “They may not change their minds, but if we do or say nothing, then we are only waiting for the inevitable to happen. I know you would have my back if I was in your shoes, so please don’t deny me the right to have yours. You don’t deserve the fate they are sentencing you to, and I will argue that point until the moment of condemnation.”
With tears in his eyes, Isaiah smiled as he threw his arms around me. “Bless you, child. I already feel saved.”
I hugged him back, realizing I needed the comfort just as much as he obviously did.
The clearing of a throat robbed me of my happy time, and I looked over—then down—to see the snot-nosed little brat that had interrupted my hug with Troy the day I was told by the Council that Malcolm had dropped his soul and left Heaven, willingly.
The kid’s hair was longish and fell in front of his narrowed, baby-blue eyes. He gave a jerk of his head to fling it out of his way, to undoubtedly make sure I felt the full intensity of his stare. This kid was beginning to rub me, and not in a good way.
Being as his soul was probably centuries older than mine, as he was evidently the beck-and-call boy for the archangels, a task that was even more important—according to them—than my position on the Line of Defense team, being anything but courteous would be really stupid on my part.
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