Veiled Guardian: A Borne of Angels Novel (The Awakening Book 1)

by Leigha Wolffe

  It wasn’t fair, I know, but I was so raw when it came to Ash and this back and forth, ‘I want you but I don’t want to want you’—‘I love you but I don’t want to love you’ BS I just couldn’t filter myself anymore. He’d said it earlier. I’d just been so caught up in him that I hadn’t focused long on it, but the behavior, the jokes, the fact that he’d given in at all…

  “I should’ve known. He was way too kind and caring and funny to have been you. I should’ve known even in the face of certain death you wouldn’t pick me over your own stupid fear. You’re a coward. And I’m over this. Get off me.” I spat my anger, my frustration, and my hurt out at him with an acid that should’ve burned him where he lay.

  “Alex, please—”

  “Don’t, Ash. Just… give me a few minutes, okay.”

  I tried to get up, but he wouldn’t move. He just looked at me with those sad, sorrowful eyes.

  No. No more with the sad puppy dog that needs love to grow and thrive. He’d been offered love. He’d been offered everything, and he’d chosen fear.

  “Can’t you understand my side of this? Just a little bit?”

  I shoved him off me, harder than I intended, and our physical separation added a level of finality to the moment. I rolled over and pushed myself up off the couch, unmoved by his shocked expression as he lay on the floor several feet away.

  “Understand? What is it you’d like me to understand, Ash? That you want me and love me, and while you have for most of your life, you won’t actually be with me because you’re afraid of a part of you that’s nothing like what you thought. Should I understand that this part of you you’re so terrified of took over just long enough to ensure something happened between us? To ensure that we were mated? Because he loves and wants me so badly, his destined mate, that he couldn’t bear to risk waiting for you because you were too big of a pussy?!”

  My volume was increasing word by word, and I was quickly reaching levels of irrationality that I couldn’t navigate, but I couldn’t manage to care. He was supposed to be mine, and he was hurting me so badly, over and over and over again, that I couldn’t take it anymore. His stubbornness and his weakness were keeping me from my mate.

  “I thought we were mated, Ash! MATED! You’ve given me everything and ripped it away from me in less than twelve hours! Give me a god-damned minute!”

  “That’s not fair, Alex,” Ash began as he pushed himself up off the floor, but I wasn’t nearly done.

  “Why? Because it’s true?”

  He flinched slightly at the venom in my voice.

  “Ash, he was kind and funny and passionate, and unafraid. He was everything you’re not. He’s also not what you thought he was, so I don’t even know what it is you’re so afraid of anymore. Except actual happiness. You’re not a demon, you dumbass. You’re a nephilim, like me. He’s a fucking angel...”

  “OF DEATH!” Ash roared at the top of his lungs. His eyes glowing a brilliant gold as flames began to dance within their Light, and his voice was doing that weird echoey thing. He clenched his fists and his brows pulled together and slight sheen of sweat dampened his forehead. Death had retreated back into his cage like a good little angel, but he wasn’t going to Ash’s stupidity lying down.

  When Ash finally began to relax and spoke again, his voice had dropped to a whisper that was somehow far more terrifying. “He’s the Angel of Death. Do you really not see how much worse that is? How much more dangerous he is than any demon? Just be grateful he likes you. What if that changes?”

  “Well, it’s mutual. You, I could do without. In fact, between the two of you, I miss Death!”

  I regretted it the instant I said it. It wasn’t true. I’d fallen in love with Ash long before I’d met his other half, but I couldn’t round up the words and suck them back in. They were out there, and Ash had heard them.

  His eyes widened in shock for a moment, and I felt the waves of hurt and disappointment pouring through our connection. Then he trained his expression and abruptly erected a wall between us. His emotions didn’t stop coming through, but it was like a filter had been installed. What I was getting now were miscellaneous and watered down rather than the strong, clear thoughts and feelings I’d been privy to all night. Their sudden absence broke something inside me, and I clutched my chest.

  “Can you even comprehend the ramifications of the damage I could cause. It’s a fucking miracle Henry never found out or the whole Goddess-damned world would have burned at his whim.”

  Henry… Something tickled at the periphery of my mind again. Something I should remember about Henry? And earlier when I’d thought about…

  “Andrew…” I gasped as my visit to the Shadow realm came rushing back to me. The conversation with Andrew. How could I not have remembered? What had I done?

  “What?!” Ash practically roared, and I rolled my eyes.

  “No, Ash…” I began, but it came out more impatient than I intended. I got it, I really did, but I didn’t have time to navigate the winding corridors of his many insecurities. I just didn’t. “While I was passed out, after the hellhounds, I had another dream or vision or whatever it was of the Shadow realm. Andrew came to me. The Veil. He said they were getting closer to him every time and that we didn’t have much time before they caught up to him, and—” The words had been pouring out of my mouth until that second, but suddenly, I couldn’t work my vocal cords.

  “And what, Alex? Please… Share with the class. This isn’t exactly something we should have ignored!”

  I couldn’t form the words. Everything about that dream was going to hurt Ash. Everything. And while I hadn’t kept it from him on purpose, and he didn’t have any right to be angry, I also knew what I was about to tell him and the devastation those revelations would inflict. In light of that knowledge, I just couldn’t bring myself to be angry with him for his tone.

  “Henry…”

  “What about Henry?” Ash’s entire demeanor had changed in the blink of an eye. He was suddenly alert, agitated, every trace of anger dissipating.

  He strode across the room, catching me up by the shoulders. “Alex, what about Henry?”

  I looked into his eyes, seeing the same terror I’d felt initially, before the anger had kicked in, before the desire for vengeance had burned my fear away and replaced it with a bloodthirsty rage. The broken look on Ash’s face and the pure unadulterated panic written in every line of his expression had me seething all over again.

  This was Henry’s fault, this brokenness. Henry was the one who had destroyed him so completely he couldn’t accept love, even when it came with no strings attached. Even when it was completely unconditional, Ash could never believe it was real, or that it would last. I felt the avenging angel inside me rise up in all her glory, whispering of vengeance and justice as she found the true culprit keeping her mate from her, the one who was threatening the world she’d been charged with defending. Whatever I had been before, whatever we had been before, in that moment, I truly became the Guardian.

  And the threat to my world was Henry Tennyn.

  “He’s alive,” I hissed, eyes glowing, wings unfurled, tail twitching madly. Even Ash took a small step back. “And he’s responsible for this.”

  “For what, Alex?”

  I shot him a meaningful glare as I responded, “Everything.”

  “Um... Hey guys. What’s shakin’?” Both our heads snapped to the side.

  “Jade?” we both asked in unison.

  “Yeah. It’s almost dawn. We need to go pack and get to Germany, remember? World hanging in the balance and all.” She looked back and forth between us, then propped her fist on one hip. “But it seems like there might be some goings on here that require our attention first. I thought I told you guys to work all this out last night. And what the hell happened here?”

  The office was fairly destroyed. All the odds and ends from the desk were scattered across the floor, several wall hangings were crooked, smashed, or on the floor, and several blinds ha
d been partially removed from their window frames. The signs of our nighttime activities should have given me a warm glow and a slight blush, but instead they just fed the flames of my fury. The look on my face when I glanced her direction made Jade take a reflexive step back. At least until she saw the bite mark over my collarbone.

  “What the actual fuck is on your shoulder?!” Jade screeched so loudly as she rushed toward me that it actually hurt my ears. “Is that a mating mark? Did you two... No. Cuz what is this? Some kind of fucked up foreplay? I would’ve thought banging it out might have calmed one or both of you down—and don’t tell me you didn’t cuz this room reeks of sex—but here you are, at each other’s throats again. What gives?”

  “Jade, I saw Andrew again.”

  She stilled, “Here?” I narrowed my eyes at her, and she continued immediately, “Right. Not here. Go ahead.”

  “While I was passed out in the street last night. I just remembered the vision or dream or whatever it was. He said he doesn’t have much time. The Veil will fall and soon.” And the worst part. Don’t forget the worst part. “And Henry’s still alive.”

  Her eyes shot to mine as she was already moving. “We need to go.” Three steps and she was to me. “Clothes? I doubt you wanna fight this psychopath naked.”

  She had a point. We gathered our clothing and dressed, our personal problems forgotten for the moment, when a thunderous roaring sound hit our ears, preceding a loud cracking sound by only a second. Everything began to tremble and shake. We all kept our footing, but not without some effort, which said a lot.

  “What is that?” I asked loud enough for them to hear me over the rumbling.

  Jade’s face told me before she had a chance to answer. Fear, grief, they were laid out across the lines of her face like a map as she turned to me.

  “We’re too late. The Veil is falling.”

  26

  Alex

  An unearthly scream cut through the silence in the office, followed by more screams. Human screams. Jade and Ash both tried to grab me as I bolted to the window and dove through the glass. My wings held me aloft as I searched the city around me for the disturbance. I heard screams to my left and immediately rushed that direction, but then I heard a monstrous roar and more screams behind me. As I hesitated, it was followed by a guttural cry that sounded like a mutant hyena to my right and further away. Second after second ticked by and I heard more and more screams, sirens, unearthly hellish sounds. There were clouds of smoke rising in every direction. This was it… the end.

  I chose the closest voices and dove. Around a corner a few blocks away, I saw a group of screaming people running from a monster I couldn’t imagine in my worst nightmares. It’s eight jointed legs were thick, smooth, and black, and they were attached to a wide, ridged body that had patches of hair here and there interspersed with bone-like protrusions. Its human-like skin, which was covered in boils and sores, was stretched and pulled too tight over a grotesque, elongated snout similar to an alligator, with three rows of teeth.

  I watched as it ripped the entrails from its very human kill, then lifted its unnatural snout to the wind and scented the air. Oh God… It had no eyes. It sniffed the wind, then let out a disturbingly human laugh and scuttled forward after the fleeing humans.

  I broke through my disgust, vaguely registering my name being screamed from a distance, and flew into the fray. The humans screamed as I neared them. “Run!” I yelled down to them as I passed overhead, and once it was obvious I wasn’t coming for them, they quieted and focused on running. Thank God.

  I saw the thing sniff the air in my general direction and steeled myself against the horror in front me. I didn’t even slow down as I plowed into it, wrapping my arms around its massive neck. I flipped in midair and tugged hard as I landed on its other side, throwing the monster over my head as hard as I could against the closest building. The wall crumbled beneath the force of the impact, and an avalanche of bricks landed on top of the hellish escapee. I wasn’t satisfied that it would be that easy, so I went over to check. I found the beast still twitching and wiggling, trying to navigate its way out of the pile of bricks. A voice inside roared, Behead the beast! Burn it!

  Instinctively, I grabbed the beast’s massive jaw, pulling it from the rubble. I climbed on its back, turned away and pulled as hard as I could. The monster’s thick build was no match for my new strength, and with a horrific scream and a sickening tearing noise, its flesh tore away. The foul odor of its rotting insides burst out of its open neck, infusing the air with its scent, and I had to fight back the bile rising in my throat. I heard the crack of bone as its spine snapped and its head came flying off its body.

  I threw it down on the ground, not looking too closely at the edges and turned back halfway to the body. I felt the heat in my eyes spread rapidly down my neck to my arms, the voice in my mind whispered Fire, and bright white Light exploded from my hands.

  The weight of a huge energy expenditure hit me hard, catching me off guard, but the creature immediately burst into bright white flames. Actual white flames, not just white hot but white flames, consumed everything they touched and reduced the abomination to ashes, then nothing, in a matter of seconds. There was nothing left. I stared at the ground in shock for a moment, then at my hands.

  I didn’t know how I had done, or known to do, or known how to do anything I’d just accomplished. I still didn’t know how, at least not consciously. I trusted my Guardian angel enough to let her drive if necessary, but apparently, she trusted me enough not to take over. We trusted each other completely now, and she’d told me once that when I truly accepted her, we would become one, that I would know everything she knew. That process had begun last night on the lawn at Ash’s, and we had come a long way already, but I had the feeling this journey to self-discovery was nowhere near over.

  This was what that new normal would look like, I guessed, but in the relatively little time we’d been together, I had grown accustomed to the sound of her purring voice in my mind. I would miss it if it was gone, but I didn’t have time right now, and she knew that, so I knew that.

  I didn’t spare the concrete where the monstrosity had burned another look. I simply took to the sky with a great flap of my midnight wings and headed over the buildings to the next closest screams. I landed with a thunderous boom, cracking the cement around me and strode into the middle of the chaos. Several people were trapped in an alley between two creatures equally or more terrifying than the last.

  I don’t even know how to compare splitting, leaking bananas and rancid, rotten apples. While each was different than the last, they were all horrifying, all disgusting, and the smell of sulfur was turning my stomach.

  Where the last creature seemed to have had too little skin stretched over too large a body, these seemed to have an overabundance of flesh. It was draped over their skeletons, hanging and folding around their slight frames and pooling on the ground beneath them. Initially, I was thankful for the lack of pus, then I got a good look. It appeared something, or several somethings, had been eating them until recently. Chunks of flesh were missing, partially hidden in the folds of their copious amounts of skin.

  The people trapped between them were huddled together, clutching each other for comfort. For all our inequity, it seemed that, at the end, faced with a truly horrific death, we could put aside our differences and find solace and strength in one another. Many of the people in the alley were muttering prayers or had closed their eyes, desperate for these monsters not to be the last things they saw before they perished.

  The creatures… no, creatures were earthly. These were demons. They weren’t large or menacing in their size, and they didn’t look particularly strong, but the people facing them were utterly terrified and not even trying to push past them or fight their way out. I didn’t understand until I saw the bodies littering the ground.

  Pieces. Pieces of bodies littering the ground. Each piece looked like the flesh had been eaten away from the wounds. An almost
surgical removal, but the edges were ragged and covered in a yellow dripping substance which sizzled every time it hit the ground. I looked back at the creatures and saw the razor-sharp teeth in their slightly elongated, but very human mouths. A bit of saliva dripped out of the mouth or the one closest to me and landed on the ground with a sizzle and a bit of smoke. So that was it. Acid. Acid for saliva. Maybe even for blood. How do I kill them?

  It’ll hurt, whispered delicately through my mind and gave me the confirmation I needed. It didn’t matter how. They had to die. I plunged to the ground, landing like a meteor behind one of the creatures and cracking the concrete.

  “Hey!” I screamed at the closest abomination. “Hey, Ugly! Care to taste angel? Come on, you nightmarish Shar-pei. I know you hate my kind. That’s it you tangle of sweaty pits! Bring it this way. Angel meat has got to be sweeter than human.” My taunts were working, luckily. I just hoped the trapped humans would be aware enough and smart enough to run for it once this end of the alley was clear.

  I managed to catch the eye of one of the men trapped inside. He was still in uniform. No doubt an officer responding to the initial calls who had chosen to help rather than run. Protect and serve, and boy was he living up to that motto today. He nodded at me, ever so slightly, and gathered the others. As soon as the alley path was clear, they all ran, the second demon charging into the alleyway after them. The entire group escaped the alley with the second demon close behind them, but both demons were now focused solely on me and the angel meat I’d promised. The cop got the others clear, then turned back to me, looking back and forth between my wings and the two monstrosities now circling me.

  “Go! Now!” I screamed just as the first demon launched itself at me. I could have slid deftly out of its way, but that would have sent it flying straight at the now fleeing officer, so I gritted my teeth and leapt forward meeting it with as much force as I could muster in a few feet. We slammed into each other, folds of skin billowing around me. My elbow slipped inside one of its wounds, and I fought the urge to vomit, instead focusing on extricating myself from the trap of its ample hide.