Archangel of Mercy

by Christina Ashcroft

  “She’s mine.” Since those words were tantamount to ownership he knew Eblis—and even Mephisto—would no longer consider Aurora fair game.

  “Hey, that’s good by me.” Eblis snapped his fingers for more drinks. “I’ve no desire to plow in your property. You should’ve said something.”

  A shudder rippled over Aurora, and Gabe waited for her outburst. He couldn’t believe she’d let that remark go uncontested. But still she didn’t utter a word, and irritation spiked.

  So now she was giving him the silent treatment? What game was she playing? He gripped her jaw and forced her to look at him. And saw her eyes.

  They were glazed, out of focus. As if she was slipping into shock. After everything that had happened, she was slipping into shock now? It didn’t make any sense to him, but one thing was sure. Her terror was real. With a muttered curse he poured her some water and forced a few drops between her lips.

  “Hell, Gabe. I would never have touched her if I’d known.” Insincerity dripped from every word Mephisto uttered. “You really should have said.”

  “I’m saying it now.” To reinforce his words, Gabe slung his arm around Aurora’s shoulders and pinned her to his side. She was annoying, disrespectful and drove him mad with her endless questions. But, bizarrely, he’d much rather face all those unpleasant aspects of her personality than this unnatural stillness.

  “If you want to keep her safe from the Guardians when she’s not on your island,” Mephisto said, “you’ll have to make it official.”

  So Aurora had told Mephisto about the Guardians. He didn’t know why that irked, but it did. What else had she told him?

  To keep her safe from the Guardians all he had to do was take her back to his sanctuary. They couldn’t touch her there. But without his personal protection any passing immortal who took a fancy to her could take their chances.

  Fuck that for a scenario.

  He’d never given his protection to a mortal. But he knew all about the ostentatious ritual involved. How the mortal had to go through a complicated cleansing ceremony and the oath of allegiance and obedience they had to give to their immortal protector. And, of course, how it all had to be undertaken on ancient, sacred ground on the night of a full moon.

  Apart from the fact he couldn’t see Aurora either prostrating herself at his feet or swearing undying obedience to his every command, there was really only one aspect of the whole thing that was essential.

  He held out his hand, palm up, to Mephisto. The other archangel raised his eyebrows but didn’t make any comment as he handed over his ceremonial athame.

  “Give me your hand,” he said to Aurora but she appeared frozen, so he released his hold around her shoulders and manacled her wrist with his thumb and forefinger. Ancient ritual dictated the lucky recipient of an immortal’s favor should smear their naked body with their mixed blood. If it wasn’t for the fact the ceremony predated Mephisto’s existence by several millennia Gabe would’ve been inclined to think the whole performance originated from Mephisto’s warped imagination.

  For one agonizing second, as the tip of the blade touched his skin, he hesitated. Logically he knew he was doing this only to ensure Aurora’s safety. But still, he couldn’t help the splinter of guilt that burned through his heart. As if by participating in such an ancient ritual he was somehow betraying the memory of his long lost love.

  Never had he imagined being in this position. But Mephisto’s mocking words had forced him to face another stark fact. If he didn’t go through with it, how would he know for sure, after he returned Aurora home, that the Guardians wouldn’t one day find her again? He sliced open his palm and before Aurora could move he drew the blade across her palm as well. She flinched and shot him a look of shocked incredulity.

  “What the hell?” Her voice was barely audible, as if she was having trouble locating it. He loosened his grip around her wrist and pressed their bloodied palms together.

  “This human from Earth, Aurora Robinson, is under my protection.” And that was it. All it took was the immortal pledge and a drop of immortal blood and Aurora was his. He saw Mephisto narrow his eyes, obviously checking her aura. He didn’t bother checking it himself. He waited until Mephisto once again looked his way. “You clear on that?”

  “Right.” Mephisto was frowning and surprisingly made no further comment on the pledge, as if something had distracted him. “So are you dumping her back in Ireland?”

  It was the logical thing to do. Now that he’d extended his official protection the Guardians couldn’t touch her, no matter where in the universe she was.

  Something dark and deadly coiled deep in his gut. Aurora now belonged to him and he’d damn well keep her until he tired of her and only then would he let her return home. “When I’m ready.”

  Aurora pulled her hand free and looked at her palm. The wound was already healing, due to the immortal properties of his blood, but she didn’t seem to find it strange.

  “The Guardians can’t get me anymore?” Her voice was husky and although he knew it was because she was recovering from whatever had almost sent her over the edge, it still managed to arouse him. He’d got the intel he needed. He’d take her back and this time nothing would stop him from finally having her.

  “That’s right. They can’t touch you without incurring the wrath of the Immortals.”

  She didn’t look suitably awed that he’d bestowed such rarely given protection her way. Instead she refused to maintain eye contact and glanced around the club in an oddly furtive manner. As if she was scoping out the place for alternative exits.

  No chance.

  “I really need to use the bathroom.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. He almost told her not to bother, that they were leaving. Then again, once he wrapped his arms around her and took her back to his island he didn’t intend letting go until he’d slaked this insane desire.

  He looked at Eblis, who jerked his head at a nearby slave.

  “Take this human to the restroom. She’s valuable, you understand?”

  The slave, a seven-foot muscular eunuch from one of the less civilized planets in Sextans, bowed. Gabe felt Aurora recoil.

  “I don’t need an escort.” She sounded outraged. Didn’t she realize that walking through this club, dressed as she was, was asking for trouble? Not everyone here could read auras and therefore know she belonged to him.

  “Would you rather I took you?” He saw the scandalized glance Eblis shot his way but ignored it. If he wanted to play bodyguard he damn well would.

  She pushed herself up and slung him a glare that should have irritated him after everything he’d just done for her, but instead caused his blood to heat further. He’d give her five minutes. And then they were leaving whether she was ready or not.

  “No, thank you.” Her voice was clipped and she edged past Eblis, who leered with appreciation at her cute ass. “I’m sure I can manage.” She then tottered on her astronomically high heels after the slave. Her jaw angled proudly and her arms were still plastered across her breasts.

  Damn leather outfit. Mephisto was a perv. What was he trying to prove by making her dress like one of his sacrificial whores? Gabe shifted on the seat as arousal thundered through his groin. On Aurora, the outfit was the sexiest thing he’d seen in centuries. He couldn’t wait to rip it off her.

  “Interesting.” Mephisto hooked one booted foot across his knee. “Never thought I’d see the day when another woman had you by the balls, Gabe.”

  At any other time he would’ve slung Mephisto across the club for daring to raise the past. But right now he was more interested in seeing whether Aurora made it across the floor without falling off her heels and breaking her ankles.

  But damn, the glimpses of her rounded ass she displayed with every exaggerated step she took were pure exquisite torture.

  “Cut the crap.” Eblis gave Mephisto a filthy look that could reduce lesser beings to puddles of slime. “Since you didn’t come bearing gifts, what the fuck
are you doing here?”

  “Just delivering Gabe’s investment.” Mephisto ruffled his feathers. “Went to so much trouble over her, I didn’t think he’d want to leave her in my capable hands for longer than necessary.”

  Air hissed between Gabe’s teeth and as Aurora finally disappeared from view he turned to the other archangel. “Shut the fuck up. Whatever interest you had in Aurora before stops right now.” And at the first opportunity he was going to smash her damn cell phone Mephisto had inexplicably tampered with.

  Mephisto shrugged, but his eyes gleamed with unholy glee. “Fine by me. I have no perverted desire to be lumbered with a human who’s obsessed with interdimensional travel.”

  “What shit are you on, Mephisto?” Eblis sounded disgusted but also . . . intrigued.

  “She’s not obsessed with interdimensional travel.” Gabe wasn’t sure why Mephisto’s accusation irritated him so much, but it did.

  “You sure about that?” Mephisto said. “What do you think she was doing on the astral planes the moment before you arrived on her land, Gabe?”

  An unwelcome memory stirred. When he had taken her to his island the first thing she’d asked was if he’d pulled her through the astral planes. And then she’d asked if the Guardians came from another dimension.

  Was Mephisto suggesting Aurora had attempted inter-dimensional travel while she was on the astral planes? It didn’t even make any sense. Assuming someone was crazy enough to try and breach dimensions in the first place, why would they want to without their physical body?

  Mephisto lied as effortlessly as he breathed. But Gabe had the uncanny certainty that he wasn’t lying this time.

  “How do you know all this?” The words grated his throat and he glared across the club in the direction Aurora had taken.

  “I’ve been tracking her for the last couple of mortal years,” Mephisto said. “Through her cell phone.”

  “So that’s why the Guardians are after her.” Eblis sounded fascinated.

  “The second she breached dimensions,” Mephisto said, “she gave them the perfect excuse to hunt her across the universe.”

  Fury erupted and Gabe shot to his feet, adrenaline pumping with murderous intent. He’d given Aurora his protection and it meant nothing. If she had breached dimensions she had given the Guardians, the self-appointed keepers of laws so ancient their reasoning was lost to the fog of time, carte blanche to exact retribution and his protection was void. She would only be safe from the Guardians within the protective barrier of his island.

  Only the beloveds of Immortals were immune from the Guardians’ grasping claws, no matter what the provocation. Unlike bestowing protection, that inevitably created a status of one-sided dependency, a beloved was their Immortal’s equal. There was no need for archaic rituals or a blood exchange. It was love that granted the same immunity. And Aurora wasn’t and would never be his beloved.

  “You bastard.” He glowered at Mephisto, who remained reclining on the sofa as if he was enjoying rare entertainment. He’d known from the start a pledge of protection was meaningless.

  “So what’s your next move, Gabe? Taking her back or leaving her here? I bet Eblis could sell her no problem before the Guardians come knocking again.”

  All Gabe’s half-baked plans of how he could put up with Aurora for a few weeks—months, even—so long as she agreed to a few ground rules disintegrated. The Guardians hadn’t randomly picked on her for one of their distasteful abductions. They wouldn’t move onto another victim when they got tired of looking for her. They would hunt her down until they found her because they were vindictive, tenacious fuckers. The moment she stepped outside the protective barrier of his island she was vulnerable.

  Unless he wanted to take responsibility for Aurora experiencing the Guardians’ unimaginable version of justice then leaving her anywhere wasn’t even an option.

  “Tell me one thing.” Not that he expected Mephisto to but he had to ask because the blank fragment in his mind was eating him alive. “How did you wipe my memory of leaving Manhattan and arriving in Ireland?”

  Confusion glinted in Mephisto’s eyes for one fleeting microsecond but it was enough. Gabe’s unexpected transportation had nothing to do with the other archangel and more than that—Mephisto had no idea how it had happened, either.

  “I never,” Mephisto said, “share the secrets of my success.”

  Gabe swung around, kicked the table from his path and stormed through the motley crowd. He’d always been so convinced Mephisto was the one behind his arrival in Aurora’s life that he’d not considered any other possibility. What other possibility could there be? But if Mephisto hadn’t dumped him in Ireland then who—or what—had?

  The eunuch was standing guard outside the bathroom door but instantly stepped aside at Gabe’s approach. He shoved open the door, dislodging the spindly chair that Aurora had obviously used as a puny barrier, and saw her sitting cross-legged on the floor of the gaudily mirrored powder room.

  Her eyes were closed, her breathing so shallow as to be all but nonexistent. She didn’t stir at his entrance, and appeared oblivious when he kicked the door shut and it was then the truth hit him.

  She was ascending into trance. Entering the astral planes. And although he couldn’t fathom why she’d want to do such a thing now, he’d be damned if he was going to hang around and wait for her to return in her own sweet time.

  He crouched, gripped her shoulders and glared into her calm face.

  “Get the hell back here, Aurora, or I swear I’ll follow and flay your soul until you scream for mercy.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  HE followed her anyway because the chances of Aurora obeying him without question were remote. As soon as he entered the astral planes instead of the tranquil realm he recalled from millennia ago, echoes of chaos vibrated. Unnatural, unprecedented, but he didn’t have time to wonder, didn’t have time to investigate. Because Aurora was before him, glowing with pure energy, and before she had time to do any other godsdamned stupid thing he smothered her with his spiritual essence, intending to catapult them both back into their physical bodies.

  In that second as they merged an overwhelming sensation of déjà vu rippled through him, body and soul. An unsettling, impossible certainty that he had been here before, done this before, with Aurora. And when his cock thickened, when his blood thundered he was so infuriated at how easily she could arouse him that he slung her from him and they collided on the cold tiled floor of the bathroom.

  Panting, Aurora faced him on her hands and knees, her hair tumbling over her shoulders. She looked feral and furious and infinitely fuckable.

  “You could’ve killed me doing that.”

  Right now, he didn’t much care if he had. “What the hell do you think you were doing?” He knew what she thought she was doing. Escaping. But her logic made no sense. Sooner or later she would have needed to return to her physical body.

  “What do you think I was doing?” She bared her teeth like a rabid dog. His hands fisted on the scratched floor. Her subservience, such as it was, hadn’t lasted long. “Getting away from you.”

  “You thought I wouldn’t be able to follow you? Bring you back?” He leaned closer until their erratic breath mingled. “What was your plan? To stay in the astral planes indefinitely? What about your body? Hadn’t thought that far ahead, had you?”

  Something flashed in her eyes, something angry and proud and he had the strangest sense that whatever she had planned, she imagined she’d solved the problem of her soul and body’s division.

  “I knew exactly what I was doing.”

  She no longer smelled of apples. Her scent was of him, his soaps and shampoo. He drew in a deep breath, savoring, and the evocative flavor of supple leather and sensual woman mingled with erotic enticement.

  He would not be distracted. He would discover her truth. But damn, it was hard to concentrate.

  “That’s a matter of opinion.” He glared into her flushed face, her over-bri
ght eyes, and struggled to comprehend how this fragile human could possibly have committed the crime Mephisto accused her of. “Tell me what you were doing in the seconds before I awoke on your land.”

  For a second, confusion clouded her eyes, as if his shift in focus made no sense to her. But it was gone in an instant and she lifted her chin in a defiant gesture. As if his demand was unreasonable.

  “I was meditating.”

  Suddenly aware he was on all fours, he reared up onto his knees. She followed, a mirror image, but had to crane her neck to maintain eye contact. The creamy swell of her breasts was barely contained within the tight scarlet leather, and her erect nipples goaded him with blatant invitation.

  “Meditating?” His voice was harsh and he dragged his mesmerized gaze up to her face. “Is that what you call it? How about we go for the truth? You were screwing with the laws of nature and thought you’d get away with it.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  He gripped her shoulders and whatever other lies she’d planned on spewing vanished into a seductive gasp. She smashed her palms against his chest then curled her fingers so her nails dug through his shirt and into his flesh.

  “You weren’t attempting to breach dimensions?” Mephisto had to be mistaken. There was a reasonable explanation for whatever she’d been doing.

  She hitched in a shallow breath but he refused to be enticed by the way her breasts quivered. Refused to acknowledge how she palmed his nipples or the fact her eyes were so dark the blue was all but obliterated.

  Refused to respond to the lust thundering through his veins. And failed on all counts.

  “Yes.” She sounded defensive and for a second he simply stared at her, uncomprehending. Had she just admitted her guilt? Did she imagine it was a minor misdemeanor instead of a major infraction of universal proportions? “But you don’t understand. The thing is—”