She still wasn’t sure what had happened or whether Marcus had really been there, but it had been blissful.
Unable to resist any longer, Amelia rolled onto her front beneath the covers, the thick duvet warm against her bare flesh, and combed her fingers through the overlong lengths of his hair.
A frown flickered on his brow and then his eyes slowly opened to reveal their icy irises and he turned his head towards her. The dark blue flecks in his eyes were shifting again and the more she caressed his cheek and the cut line of his jaw, the more his eyes changed, his irises brightening until they were as blue as they had been in the stairwell during their fight with the demons.
“Morning,” he breathed, rolled onto his side, and drew her against him. His lips brushed hers in a tantalising kiss and he sighed.
“Pleasant dreams?” She drew back and he smiled.
“I thought we had established it wasn’t a dream?” he said, sending a warm wave of relief surging through her. He lured her in for another long slow kiss that had heat pooling in her belly and her mind racing back over everything they had done on the beach.
If Einar hadn’t told her that Marcus wasn’t experienced with women, she never would have guessed it for herself. The man was insatiable and she could see why Taylor had been so surprised to hear that Marcus had never been with a woman before, and could agree with her that angels were definitely chocked full of passion.
It had been fun to take command of the situation at first, but Marcus had proven to her that it could be just as exciting to let him take the reins. She had never woken feeling so sated but so tired at the same time.
Amelia kissed him slowly, savouring the quietness of the moment and some time alone with him in the flesh. It was reassuring that what they had shared together in that other world was going to continue here in the real one. When he had left her to report to his superior, she had thought that he would be different again when he returned, as distant and detached as he had often been around her. The way he was kissing her now, holding her snug against his delicious body, made it feel as though that side of Marcus had never existed and that she was crazy for thinking he would want nothing to do with her. She no longer felt like only a mission to him. What Einar had told her about him and what Marcus had told her about himself, gave her a better understanding of him and why he had always been so cold around her and others in their building. He wasn’t used to being around people and he didn’t like it here on Earth, but she was going to do all in her power to change his mind about that at least. She would give him a reason to like being here and hopefully he would stay with her when everything was over.
He rolled onto his back, bringing her with him, and stopped kissing her. He frowned at the duvet wedged between them and tugged at it. Amelia raised herself so the blanket came free and then sighed when he pulled her back against him, his bare body warming hers. It was so easy to forget everything when he kissed her. He wasn’t an angel and she wasn’t in danger. It all seemed so distant and irrelevant.
She kissed him again, teasing him with sweeps of her lips that barely grazed his. He made a short noise of frustration, snaked his hand around the nape of her neck, and brought her mouth down on his. The kiss was fierce and hungry, everything that she had come to think of whenever her mind turned to him. There was so much passion and desire in him, but such tenderness too. He had held her close to him in that other world, lying on his back with her body half on his and his fingers playing in her damp hair. She had felt so tremendously at peace with him there and she had known the depth of his feelings for her. It transcended such a simple word as care. It even went beyond what she knew as love. And it was something that burned deep within her too.
Marcus’s hands skimmed down her bare thighs and she tingled wherever he touched, sparks racing over her skin and burrowing deep into her belly where they blazed into desire.
She loosed a moan and deepened the kiss, so their tongues softly danced and their breath mingled.
She wouldn’t say no to a real-world encore to last night.
He stiffened beneath her, hands grasping her upper arms, and pushed her backwards. She was going to ask what was wrong but the way he stared at the closed bedroom door held her tongue. She listened, straining to hear what he had, if anything at all.
Marcus lifted her off him and rose from the bed, his back to her. He stood there, stock still and never once taking his eyes off the door. Had he heard something? It was probably just Taylor and Einar.
The sense of danger drifted away at that thought and she swept her gaze up Marcus, lingering a moment on his backside and the material that loosely covered it before continuing to the dimples above his bottom and finally following the strong line of his back up to his shoulder blades.
Her gaze tracked the grey-blue swirls of the wings marked on his skin.
A curse.
Someone had wanted to seal his power and he wasn’t sure why.
Did it have something to do with her, so they could take her from him? She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay with him.
She stepped down from the bed and slipped her hand into his. He looked down at her, held his finger to his lips, and then nodded towards the chair in the corner of the pale green room. His armour and her clothes covered it. She nodded, let go of his hand, and went to them. As she reached the chair, Marcus’s armour disappeared. She turned to look over her shoulder at him in time to see it materialising on his body. Was it the same power he had used to create the handkerchief for her? It certainly beat the hell out of having to manually dress.
Amelia hurried into her underwear, her pale blue summer dress, and her shoes, and returned to him. He opened the bedroom door and peered out into the hall. They were on the top floor of the building and there was no noise coming from below. Had he heard something? Did angels have hearing beyond human?
He took hold of her hand and she followed him down the stairs, their footsteps quiet on the wooden treads. When they reached the next floor, he led her into the drawing room. Taylor and Einar were standing in the middle of the dark red room, both dressed head to toe in black, and she almost said that she had known it was just them and nothing to worry about, but then Einar spoke.
“Something is wrong.”
Taylor looked worried too. She stared at the windows and the fading night beyond. It was earlier than Amelia had thought. The sun hadn’t risen yet and the world outside was bathed in hues of grey, blending everything together in the strange pre-dawn light.
“What’s happening?” Marcus said.
Einar shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“I am.” Taylor frowned and then stalked past them, heading out of the door and down the stairs at a quick pace.
Both men looked at each other and then Einar hurried after Taylor. Marcus drew Amelia closer to him and they followed his friend down the rectangular staircase to the lobby. It was dark without the lights on but Taylor took care of that by yanking the front door open.
An angel stood in the middle of the empty road in front of the building, his long flame red hair falling down around his shoulders and his crimson wings tucked against his back. The long flight feathers grazed the greaves of his obsidian armour.
Was this an angel of death?
“Wait!” Einar said and Taylor was out of the door, storming down the steps towards the angel. Einar raced after her.
Marcus was more cautious. He slowly walked out onto the porch with Amelia and stopped there. She wasn’t sure why either man was making a fuss. It was an angel. One of them.
The red-haired angel spread his wings and her eyes slowly widened as the colour began to drain from their tops, revealing black feathers beneath. She followed the crimson as it flowed down and then took a step back when she reached the bottom of his wings. The red dripped from them like blood, creating patches on the tarmac beneath him. Her eyes widened further as the black feathers began to slide off, falling in clumps into the pool of blood surrounding him, revealing leathe
ry wings beneath. A grin slowly widened the angel’s mouth, turning his handsome face cruel and dark.
His eyes burned vivid red, flashing brightly. The wicked edge to his smile reminded her of those creatures Marcus had fought but this man still looked human, or at least like some sort of vicious angel. He didn’t have black skin or red teeth.
That soon changed.
Marcus dragged her close to him, his arm tight around her, as the man’s skin darkened and he grew taller, his body filling out until his breadth was the same as Einar and Marcus standing shoulder to shoulder.
Taylor didn’t stop at the sight of him.
She didn’t even slow when two more angels with red wings and black armour appeared, ascending out of hellish cracks in the ground that burned orange and black like lava. The tarmac hardened again and they landed there, flanking the one who had turned into something sinister.
Taylor strode right up to the demonic angel at the front.
He towered over her, his red eyes locked on her in a predator’s stare, cruel and evil, and utterly shocked as Taylor leapt and landed a firm resounding slap on his cheek.
“Bastard,” Taylor shouted and went to hit the demon again, curling her fingers into a fist this time.
He held a hand up, halting her, and changed, transforming back into the rough handsome man that had first appeared but retaining his leathery bat-like wings. His irises darkened but there was still a trace of red to them. Marcus’s grip on Amelia didn’t loosen and she was glad of it.
“Taylor?” The man raised an eyebrow and ran a glance over her, and then looked past her. Amelia backed into Marcus when the man’s red-ringed eyes briefly settled on her.
Einar stepped forwards and drew a long steel blade out of thin air.
The man’s eyes shifted to him, unconcerned, and then back to Taylor. “You know them? You’re with them?”
Taylor shrugged.
“She’s with me,” Einar said and the man looked at him again and frowned.
“A fallen angel?”
Taylor walked back to Einar and looped her arm around the thick length of his. “He wasn’t always fallen.”
The man smiled but it was grim. He seemed even less pleased to know that Einar had once been an angel of Heaven like Marcus. He laughed derisively. “It makes sense now at least.”
“What does?” Taylor said and the man waved a hand at the two men behind him. They nodded and the ground around them bubbled, burning red and orange again, and they descended back into it. Back to Hell, Amelia presumed.
She was so busy staring at the tarmac as it cooled again that she jumped when Marcus moved with her towards the edge of the porch and placed his hand firmly on her arm, as though she needed to be held in place. She had no intention of going anywhere near this man if that was what he was worried about. She was fairly certain that he was one of those Hell’s angels that Einar and Taylor had mentioned last night. She just wasn’t sure how Taylor knew the man.
Marcus stared at the man, his expression one of confusion.
“Do you know him?” she said and he looked at her, his eyebrows high and eyes wide, as though she had startled him.
“No.” The conviction in his tone and the way he shook his head said that he definitely didn’t, but the uncertainty that crept back in as his gaze returned to the man left Amelia wondering if he did know the newcomer.
“I found out about you and Villandry and went to lay into him, and he starts spouting shit about not being with you anymore. So this is… unexpected… but V makes sense now.” The man shrugged, lifting his black leathery wings with it, and sighed. He rubbed his cheek and frowned. “You could have offered me a better greeting though.”
“I was with Villandry over a year ago.” The frustration in Taylor’s voice made it clear that she knew this man intimately. An ex? Was Taylor as bad as she was at picking out the good men amongst the bad? “Bugger me… have you always been this slow? Christ only knows how I put up with you for so long. I’ve been with Einar for months!”
The man growled, stepped up to Taylor, and towered over her. The skin around his eyes darkened and they burned bright red, fixed intently on the woman in front of him.
“Word doesn’t exactly travel swiftly to the lower reaches of Hell!”
“Back off.” Einar stepped between them, pressed his sword to the man’s throat and forced him away from Taylor.
“What in Hell’s good name are you doing here anyway, Veiron?” Taylor touched Einar’s shoulder but he didn’t relent. He remained between Taylor and the man she had called Veiron, his sword at the ready.
Veiron’s crimson eyes shifted coldly to Amelia. “I have come to stop her from dying.”
“What the hell?” Marcus stole the words right out of Amelia’s mouth. “What do you mean, stop her from dying?”
Veiron regarded him and then looked back at her, his eyes boring into hers in a way that made her feel intensely vulnerable.
“I thought the meaning would be obvious.” Veiron shrugged easily again. “I have seen it in Hell. She dies. You’re there when it happens so you must have known about—”
“You knew?” Disgust rolled through Amelia, burning in her heart, and she broke free of Marcus’s grip and turned to face him.
His silver-blue eyes met hers and she couldn’t bring herself to look into them.
“How could you lie to me?” She stared at her feet and then ran into the house, needing space and air that she couldn’t find whilst standing so close to Marcus.
“Tetchy little thing, isn’t she?” Veiron said and she had half a mind to head back and imitate Taylor by hitting the demon as hard as she could. It wouldn’t get her anywhere, but it would certainly make her feel better and she doubted he would hit her in return.
He wanted to stop her from dying.
Marcus was going to be there when she died.
What the hell was going on?
Amelia hesitated in the entrance hall when she realised that she was trapped and Marcus would catch up with her, if he came after her at all. Hers were the only footsteps ringing out on the chequered marble floor as she paced it and she could hear him arguing with Veiron about what the man had seen. The way he was speaking made her want to believe that she was wrong about him and that this news really had come as a shock to him too, but the hurt in her heart was too great to ignore.
Instead of heading upstairs where she definitely wouldn’t be able to escape, she ran down a corridor next to the staircase. It led to a kitchen at the back of the house and a door to what looked like freedom to her. She tried the handle, silently praying it wouldn’t be locked. The door opened and she burst out into a small courtyard garden. It was chilly in the shade but it didn’t bother her as she paced the cream York stone patio, treading across the narrow space from one tall wooden fence to the other, trying to gather her scattered emotions and gain control over them again.
The silence was just starting to become soothing when another set of footsteps met hers.
“I didn’t know,” Marcus said but she refused to look at him.
Even if he hadn’t known that she would die, he still knew something and she wanted to know what that something was. She needed to know whether she was better off with Veiron, a demon, than she was with an angel.
“You knew something was going to happen to me though.” Amelia kept pacing back and forth across the small space, too agitated to remain still. The constant motion helped her think and stopped her from lashing out at Marcus. She could easily hit him right now. She could hit them both for how they had tied her in knots inside with only a few words and scared her more than the fight with the demonic angels on the rooftop had.
He was silent for a moment.
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing.” Amelia swept her hand sharply downwards through the air and drew in a deep shuddering breath as she came to a halt facing one of the wooden fences.
She had been fine when this had all been about protecting her.
No one had mentioned death or anything like that. Just a little danger. Marcus had said things in a way that had made her feel as though he just had to keep her safe for a while and it would all blow over. Now she had a demonic angel telling her that it was his mission to keep her alive and that Marcus was going to be there when she died.
She wasn’t sure who she was supposed to believe. Why would a demonic angel want to protect her? Why would he know that Marcus was going to be there at her death?
Amelia met his gaze. Was he destined to fail in protecting her?
She turned away from him and dug her fingers into her hair, clutching her temples. She didn’t want him to die. She didn’t want to die. She wanted all of this crazy shit to go away and wanted her life back.
“Amelia,” Marcus whispered and she listened to his footsteps as he crossed the courtyard, undoubtedly coming to her.
She tensed when he lightly placed his hands on her shoulders and closed her eyes. No matter how much she told herself not to take any comfort from him and to remain angry, his touch began to calm her and chase her fury away, until she wanted to lean back into him and feel his arms around her.
“It came as a shock to me too.” His low tone stirred warmth inside her, smoothing out the rough edges of her feelings as much as his touch.
She knew that. He had been genuinely surprised to hear what Veiron had said and had sounded horrified when confronting him. She should have stuck around to hear what the man had to say on the matter but she hadn’t been able to ignore her need to escape it all. The feeling had been building inside her since the alley attack and she had reached breaking point.
“Will you look at me?”
Amelia shook her head. She wasn’t strong enough to do such a thing. If she did that, her resolve would crumble completely and she would fall into his arms in search of the comfort she so badly needed. She wanted to hear him say that Veiron was wrong and that she wasn’t going to die, and he wasn’t going to fail her. They would get through this.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Romance Series Complete Series Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 14