by Anne Conley
He cleaned up the mess in the living room before heading to the kitchen to heat up more of the soup. Michael ate another huge bowlful, this time with the chicken and vegetables in it. It was really good, and he was tempted to eat more, but instead he opted to look for breakfast type foods to cook for Faith when she woke up.
Pathetic.
He bathed himself as best he could in the sink before going out to get his bag from by the door where he’d dropped it last night when Faith had shot him. He chuckled in spite of himself.
She was quite a woman. If it weren’t the Deceiver who was after her, she’d be perfectly capable of taking care of herself. But she had no idea what she’d gotten into. He had to admit, she was perfection. Except for the thievery thing. That was all greed, and Michael couldn’t stand it. But she was his, regardless, and he protected what was his. It was an ingrained instinct, God-given talent of his. Literally. And he’d be damned if he’d let the Deceiver touch her delicate human skin.
He was taking the bacon off the stove when Faith stumbled into the kitchen, her now dark hair framing her face in a wild halo of ringlets. He honestly couldn’t decide which he liked better: the blonde or the contrast the dark brown held against her pale skin, now that he’d had time to examine it.
“Good morning, Glory.” Determined to gain her trust so he could protect her, he forced niceties from his lips. He handed her a cup of coffee, and she accepted it, swigging the black brew before grimacing.
“God, this is awful.” She poured it down the sink and trudged to the coffee pot to start a fresh pot.
Disappointment brushed through him, but he tamped it down. Bristling, he ground through his clenched jaw, “Is it? I didn’t know how it was supposed to taste.” It looked the right color. He shrugged.
“You don’t drink coffee?” She turned away from him. “Never mind. Weird.” Somewhere in her coffee-making proceedings, she must have remembered last night, because she dropped the spoon she was using and spun around at him. “What the hell are you doing out of bed? And where is the bullet hole?”
Michael was still shirtless, and the wound was obviously gone. She was standing in front of him, gawking at his chest, her blue eyes wide with astonishment and fear.
“I told you I would be fine.” He brushed past her. “I’ll do this. Just tell me how many spoonfulls.”
“Forget the fucking coffee. Talk.” He felt a compulsion he couldn’t understand to erase the fear flashing in her eyes.
He sighed. She would have to know. There wasn’t any way to get past this point without telling her. Maybe if she knew the truth, she would quit fighting him and make all of this easier.
“Sofa.” He followed her in the living room with the plate of bacon. He’d had plans of making eggs and fruit to go along with it, but he wouldn’t be able to hold her off that long. He could see it in those clear blue eyes glaring at him, fear giving way to disbelief and anger. At least on that, they could agree.
He watched her as she looked under the sofa, noticing he’d cleaned up the blood. The cushion with the blood soaked into it was outside after being hosed thoroughly. It would probably still need to be reupholstered or thrown out.
Neither of them sat on the sofa, both of them choosing the floor by the coffee table in front of it. When they were seated, he started, watching her reactions carefully. The brothers had agreed that women were different, and he would need to have patience. And Faith was certainly different. He had no idea how she would react.
“I am older than man. God created me and then assigned me tasks to help him. I’m an archangel, one of His chosen ones, The Four Winds. God has decided our time is over, and he’s chosen mates for us to fall in love with.” The anger he’d managed to tamp down with the domestic chores this morning had started boiling up in him again. “It will make us human, this love thing. It’s a weakness, an idiocy. He thinks love is a salvation for us.” The final words were fairly spat at Faith, and she flinched.
He dug around in his pocket for the bullet his flesh had expelled and dropped it on the table between them. The mashed piece of lead glittered on the scarred wood. “My corporeal form heals itself, it doesn’t sleep, doesn’t feel. Until last night I’d never been hungry, never felt pain.” His eyes sought hers. “I don’t want this any more than you do, but it’s inevitable. The Boss has willed it. It’ll happen whether we like it or not.” He waited for her answer, and when it came, it didn’t completely surprise him. He knew she’d fight it as much as he was.
“Get the fuck out of my cabin. Now.” Her eyes flashed wildly, fear and anger, and something else. Betrayal? What the fuck did he do?
He forced calm into his voice, not wanting to escalate her anger with his. “I’m here to protect you from the Deceiver. He’ll be coming soon.”
Her voice rose to a yell. “Get out! If you have to protect me, go protect me from out there! You aren’t sleeping under my roof again.” Her voice lowered as she spoke to herself, rising from her seated position. “…crazy son of a bitch….”
He could understand, so Michael left without another word. She would either come around, or she wouldn’t. Either way, he was stuck with her.
Chapter T en
The cabin was on a small lake, and Michael stowed his bag in the boat house before scrounging up enough firewood to last Faith the night, stacking it neatly by her front door. He could see her watching him out the windows, fear evident on her face.
Of course she was afraid of him, but he wasn’t the one to fear.
He watched from the woods around her house while she busied herself inside. He watched as she dug around in closets for sheets and set out recovering the sofa cushions. She’d used an old pillow to redo the stuffing, which was totally soaked in blood. He watched as she examined the bloodied innards of the cushion, feeling it, rubbing it between her fingers, smelling it, before finally burning it in the fireplace. She swore a lot during the process, but by the time she’d finished, it was almost the same shape as the others. She went about recovering the other cushions with the sheets. That evening, she re-heated the soup and set some outside for him.
“I know you’re out there. You’re not going to fucking starve to death because of me.”
That’s my girl…
He watched as she looked around the yard, seeking him out. But she wouldn’t see him. He knew she didn’t really want to. She just wanted to know where he was. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. He may have surrendered the last battle, but he would win the war.
That evening, he watched her bedtime rituals. She may have even wanted him to. As much time as she spent recovering the sofa, she hadn’t pulled the drapes. The soft light from her bedroom illuminated everything inside perfectly, so he watched her from the trees where he hid.
He watched as she closed the door to take a bath but opened it so he could see her brush her teeth and wash her face, wrapped in her towel. She had to be letting him watch purposefully. The total intimacy of her actions without actually showing him anything nearly brought him to his knees. She slipped panties under the towel and turned her back to the window to put on her nightshirt. Seeing her backside clad only in the thinnest of cotton, all that smooth creamy skin, made his balls ache. That was a totally new sensation.
He knew the hunger last night was indicative of God’s grand plan, but this achiness in his balls? What the hell did that signify? Lust. Weakness.
Was that what all the love stuff was about? Lust? Oh, his brothers had it all wrong. Lust was powerful. He’d seen it lead many a great leader to their downfall. Was that what The Boss was doing to them? And the others didn’t even realize it; they were so blinded by the intensity of the feeling. He scoffed a laugh in the darkness of the woods at the idea. Pure, abiding love was so rare it was almost an illusion, its main component being lust. That’s what was making his cock so hard he could knock down one of these trees with it. Not love. Although whenever The Boss decided to make Michael human, he would go along with it.<
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The harsh laughter stuck in his throat as he watched Faith slip under the covers of her bed and snap off the lamp. He knew as soon as she slept because he was a dreamwalker. It had always been easy to slip into dreams for him. Gabriel had to learn how to do it, but not Michael. It was his first gift.
Images of himself filled his mind, coupled with massive amounts of blood… Faith was dreaming about him again.
Michael was bathed in blood, blood everywhere. It dripped from the sofa he laid on, and his skin was an ashy gray color. He laid still as death except his eyes were open and shining bright with desire. He wanted her with every cell in his body. She drew closer to his eyes, and suddenly she was falling, the sensation nearly jarring her awake, but she stayed asleep, falling into his eyes. The sensation of falling persisted but lightened a bit when she hit the actual membranes surrounding his eyes, and she felt a peculiar twisting sensation in her gut as she shrank and went through the membranes.
Travelling into the silvery blindness, she continued on until all was red, and she realized she was inside his circulatory system, travelling toward his heart, toward where he’d been shot. Where she’d shot him.
When Faith made it to his heart, the damage was obvious. The red color was deeper, almost purple, and everything had jagged edges to it. She realized she was small enough she could fix it from the inside, so she got to work. Pulling a sewing kit out of her pocket, she threaded a needle and started sewing the jagged edges together as neatly as she could. Her heart swelled as she worked, an enormous sense of pride in her accomplishment – helping him heal. She worked steadily, wiping sweat from her brow occasionally, but not stopping in her endeavors. Finally she was finished, but she realized she hadn’t given herself a way out.
She’d trapped herself inside his heart.
Michael’s eyes snapped open with a start. Watching her in the darkness, he could see her thrashing in her bed, so he went back to her dream state.
Eli! Eli help me! Help me! She needed out. She couldn’t stay here, she had Eli. She needed Eli. Eli was hers, not Michael. She couldn’t be here, not without Eli.
She turned in helpless circles, trying to find a way out. There was nowhere to go. Her conscious mind told her there were ventricles and things for her to use to get out, but she couldn’t find them anywhere. She was stuck inside another man’s heart.
She wasn’t in Eli’s anymore.
Who the hell is Eli?
Faith collapsed on the floor of Michael’s heart, sobbing heaving sobs that wracked her body. She needed Eli, not Michael. This was wrong. All wrong.
Michael felt a lone tear track down his cheek, and he swiped at it in confusion. He’d never cried before. Why was he crying now? He got that he was turning human, but was it because he was feeling empathy for Faith’s sorrow? Or was it because her heart obviously belonged to another? Why did he even care?
Michael’s rage broke past the other, unnamed emotion, and he let fly with a punch to the tree nearest him, listening with satisfaction to the wood crack under the force of his blow. He wanted to knock down the entire forest if it would make her stop having this dream.
Apparently, the crack was loud enough to wake her, as she sat up in bed, and looked out the window.
Looking for him.
Michael was surprised to learn that Faith spent a large portion of her mornings outside working drills with the long swords he’d seen on her wall in her living room. It must have been some sort of exercise for her, and he watched mesmerized as she held two heavy swords aloft, and spun around, cutting and slashing in the air. They were practice swords, unsharpened, but still lethal in their weight and material, the heavy iron being able to deliver fatal blows in the right hands.
And Faith looked like she could handle herself.
Her movements were aggressive, like she’d been trained well by someone who knew what he was doing. Was it that Eli character? Had he been her trainer, her lover, her master?
The sheer concentration on her face spoke of a strength, surprising Michael. Strength was something he hadn’t acknowledged in humans in centuries, but Faith was exhibiting it with the fluidity of her movements, her control, and her total lack of restraint with the blades.
Without realizing exactly what he was doing, he advanced from his cover and approached her, making himself visible.
Faith’s movements didn’t cease. She spun around, both blades spinning, and tossed him one without looking at him. Michael caught it, surprised at the ease with which she moved, the hilt landing in his palm like a bombshell.
“Want to play?” She asked him, still spinning and thrusting at the air in front of him. If she hadn’t spoken, he wouldn’t have thought she knew he was there. Except for the perfect toss of the sword to him.
Seamless in her movements, she attacked. It was aggressive and brutal, the way a true Renaissance swordsman attacked, not the way the re-enactors did it. She sliced at his neck with the sharp edge of her blade, and Michael blocked it with his flat edge, deflecting the blow. She never stopped moving, continuing her advance, using her body’s momentum to spin around under his arm and attack again.
Faith’s violence was surprising, and Michael wondered briefly if she was really trying to kill him. Deciding to see what she could do, he watched her take a step back to regroup. Without giving her a chance to do so, he lunged at her, arcing to her side.
She displaced his cutting blow, her counterstrike timed in the middle of his attack so that her flat slid down his edge and she spun for a hard jab to his gut with her fist.
Nice.
She gripped her sword again, turning her right hand upside down above the hilt for leverage. Whoever had taught this woman was good. She used the blade like a true warrior.
“Who taught you to fight?”
Sweat soaked through her t-shirt under her arms and between her breasts, drawing his attention away from her next attack. The edge of her sword caught his side, knocking the wind from his lungs, and she continued her advance, grabbing his forearm and spinning around as she dropped her weapon. He leaned forward to try to grab her waist, but her speed was impressive, and she used his slightly off centered position against him, leveraging his body over her shoulder as she grunted and flipped him.
She flipped him.
He was stunned. He weighed twice what she did, and she was smart enough to use that against him.
Time to end this.
Without thought, he grabbed her ankle and dropped her to the ground, rolling on top of her, pinning her. “Who taught you?”
“Does it matter?” she gritted out between clenched teeth.
“I guess not.” He let her up, and she brushed her jeans off, breathing heavily. “But it’s damned impressive. Nobody fights like that anymore.”
“Yeah, Hollywood fucked it all up. Whatever.” She bent at the waist and picked up her swords before turning to leave the clearing.
The next few days passed in much the same manner. Each morning they “played” as Faith put it, and Faith used moves on Michael he hadn’t seen in centuries, if ever. His admiration for her grew, as well as his need to protect her. She wasn’t playing swords as a hobby or for fitness reasons. She was serious about protecting herself with them if need be. Her concentration was impressive, evident from her furrowed brows, the set of her luscious lips, and the tightness of her lean body. Her entire body practically shimmered with it. The sweat glistening on her chest showed her strength, the power she wielded when she lofted the swords.
It was all done wordlessly, and Michael knew she was allowing this. It wasn’t her choice to spend time with him, but was using him to hone her skills. He wondered if she even knew what she was preparing for. But he found himself treasuring the time with her nonetheless.
After the first day, she wasn’t constantly attacking him. She’d anticipated some of his more basic moves, and when he threw something different at her, he could see the gears shift in her mind as she memorized the motion and tried to figure ou
t a way around it. By the third day, their sparring had taken on a less antagonistic feel, with her moving along with him instead of against him the entire time.
Michael realized he wanted her so badly at times it was hard to breathe through the sheer need coursing through his veins. Their morning workouts should have been a way to get it out of his system, but he found it backfiring.
Michael found himself eagerly anticipating their morning sparring sessions. Afterward, Faith puttered around the house, cleaning, and instilling order. He knew now why she craved order and control so much. Just like the days passed the same way, so did the nights. He’d been walking in her dreams.
And now he knew who Eli was.
He’d left her to read alone and gone to the boathouse. He’d walked the perimeter, searching for signs the Deceiver had found her. Seeing none, he felt like she could truly be alone for a while. Since she’d seemed to long for some solitude, tossing casual glances out the window, coupled with unconscious eye-rolls, he’d figured she probably sensed him watching her.
He stretched out on the bedroll in the corner of the boat house, staring at the ceiling. He’d never felt so weak in his life, and it wasn’t just the physical weaknesses he’d noticed. All these emotions roiling through him, fighting for dominance, were tearing him apart. He almost couldn’t even think straight.
He felt pity for Faith, and he knew deep in his heart she would hate him for the pity. He also felt empathy for her and understood why she hated him so much. In her mind, he should have stopped the bullet that killed her husband.
Because she knew the archangel of war was supposed to protect the chosen ones.
How was he supposed to tell her Eli had to die to make her Michael’s?
He couldn’t. She wouldn’t understand. Her dreams showed him a love so deep he couldn’t totally fathom it, although he felt like he was pretty close to understanding what she’d felt for her fiancé. In the last couple of days, he’d begun to get an inkling of the difference between lust and love.