Once she reached the pub, she pressed nervously against the wall and scanned the room’s interior, trying to gain her bearings. For some reason, her heart was hammering. Maybe she was tired or maybe hungry or maybe it was a combination of the two, but she actually felt panicky there, plastered to the warm stone like some kind of selkie statue.
There were so many people. . . . Juliette could hear so many different conversations going on at once. The couple nearest to her were speaking in an accent so deep, she barely understood a word or two here and there in the stream of nonstop chatter between them. The smell in the room was hot and stank of perfume and liquor and the smoke from the hearth in the corner.
Juliette’s eyes trailed nervously to the hearth, as if to confirm her suspicions that the fire was roaring in its stone setting. It was a little bigger than she liked a hearth fire to be, but it seemed to mirror the mood in the tavern, boisterous and fueled. People moved about in front of her, blocking and unblocking her view, but something caught her eye and she craned her neck to get a better look.
The profile of the man was arresting. He looked so tall. . . . His black hair looked like thick waves of silk and curled where it brushed the collar of his button-up black shirt. His shoulders were enticingly broad, superhero-like. She watched him raise a mug to his lips—perfect, kissable lips with a slightly cruel tilt to their corners—and take a drink. The muscle in his forearm flexed, growing taut below his rolled-up sleeve.
Juliette’s mouth suddenly felt dry. She swallowed and blinked and found herself hurriedly craning her neck the other way when someone rudely stepped in her line of sight.
Again, her eyes fell upon his profile and locked on as if her life depended on it. He was sitting with an old man, listening as his white-haired friend expostulated about something humorous. The man with black hair smiled at something his companion said, flashing straight white teeth.
Again, she swallowed, almost coughing. His eyes, she thought. She had yet to see his eyes. She needed to see his eyes!
Why? a little voice asked dimly, as she absently licked her lips, utterly distracted by this unbelievably perfect man. Why do I care? Why do I need to see his eyes? She ignored herself and continued to stare.
And then he stopped laughing and froze in the middle of raising his mug once more to his lips. He seemed to stiffen in his chair, cocking his head slightly to one side. In the next moment, he was leaning forward and gracefully coming to his feet.
So . . . tall . . .
He turned to face her.
The man’s platinum silver gaze speared through the space between them and pinned her to the wall behind her. He stood stock-still, a formidable study in black and gray, and in that strange moment that his eyes held hers, he seemed to nail her to the floor. His expression was unreadable but for the hint of what could only be shock that registered across his rugged, handsome features.
She was unable to move. There was a roar in her ears then that had nothing to do with the cacophony of the room around her. Her skin felt prickly. She felt dizzy.
It’s him, she thought. The angel. Those are the eyes from my dream.
And then he was leaning down and placing his beer on the table, his gaze never leaving hers. Juliette tried to move; she really did. But she couldn’t so much as budge when the man stepped around his chair and began to walk toward her. The crowd seemed to part to make way for him; he strode with nearly inhuman grace and a determined sort of purpose and Juliette wondered, for just a moment, whether she were still upstairs in her bed and only dreaming again.
And then he was standing before her and she was nearly gasping for breath.
Outside, a gale began to grow. Rain started pelting the windows and very distant lightning illuminated clouds miles away.
“I canno’ believe it,” he whispered. Despite the whisper, she heard him over the noise around them. The milling crowd could not diminish his presence before her in any way. His eyes trailed over her face; Juliette watched him as he seemed to take her in, from the top of her head to the tips of her boots, and his expression became more and more bewildered with each passing second. “It’s you.”
Juliette had no idea what to say to that.
But she was spared any words she might have muttered anyway, as in the next instant, he was moving forward, his left hand slamming against the wall to her right, his right arm snaking around her waist. She inhaled quickly, as if readying for a dive, and then was crushed against his hard body as he trapped her beneath him and claimed her lips in a kiss.
Lightning struck somewhere nearby, followed closely by a peal of thunder that effectively overrode every other sound in the pub.
Reality took a backseat in the heat of the kiss; its magic seared through her muscles and bones, boiling her blood in her veins and curling her toes in her shoes. Her hands found their way to the rock wall of his chest and she felt the bass-beat drumming of his heart as he devoured her and she melted beneath him. Time ceased to exist; she could almost hear it winding down and dying. Sound faded and her world tunneled until only she was left standing. She—and this stranger who was kissing her as if she were his wife and he had not seen her in a thousand years.
Stranger . . .
Lightning struck again and the band stopped playing. A few couples stopped trying to talk.
Reality nudged at Juliette. But she heard someone groan, helpless and wanting as the heat that had invaded her body coiled and pooled beneath her belly. And she knew that she was the one who had groaned.
He’s a stranger.
He tastes good, she thought, utterly distracted. Like licorice and mint and really dark ale . . . She was lost, floundering in some kind of pleasure-induced labyrinth of which she had no hope of finding a way out. She had never been kissed like this. No man could kiss like this. It was the stuff of fantasy.
What am I doing?
The storm outside picked up in strength and wind began to rattle the windowpanes.
Christ, he feels good.
Reality now honked the horn in Juliette’s fevered brain and the world crashed in around her. Sound was the first thing to return: the hushed music, the rolling thunder, the nervous laughter and stilted conversation that was slowly working its way back to normal. She blinked—
And then she realized where she was and jerked in the man’s tight grasp. With as much force as she could muster, she shoved against his chest, catching him off guard. He moved—a little, but his arm was still a band of steel at her back as he broke the kiss enough to stare down at her once more.
She instantly missed the feel of his lips. The intensity of the impossible, molten mercury in his eyes made her feel even smaller than she normally did. She was positively tiny in his grasp. She knew damned well that if she hadn’t caught him off guard with her shove, he would not have moved at all. He was a rock wall.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, hissing the words through lips she could feel were swollen from his kiss. Lightning struck again, drawing a nervous gasp from a woman nearby. Juliette ignored it. She had no choice.
His kiss . . . Her gaze flicked to his mouth and back again. Sweet Jesus, his kiss . . .
“Wha’ am I doin’?” he asked, his brogue beautiful and deep and perfect. “I’m doin’ wha’ I’ve waited centuries to do,” he told her. What little bit of her had not melted beneath his passionate embrace now liquefied at the sound of his voice.
But there was enough reason still making a righteous racket inside of her now to know that what he said made no sense. He was drunk. That explained the taste of ale on his tongue. He was drunk and he was taking advantage of her in the worst possible way.
“Get off of me,” she told him firmly. “And step back.”
He smiled an utterly roguish smile, making Juliette’s breath catch. Omigod, he’s beautiful. Another flash of lightning lit up the darkness beyond the tavern’s windows and thunder made the lights flicker.
“Aye? And wha’ will you do, lass,
if I don’ step back?”
I’ll die. . . .
“Please,” she added, a little too softly for her own liking. She’d tried appealing to his rougher side, but it hadn’t worked. Maybe good manners would get him.
No such luck. He stayed where he was and the silver in his eyes darkened as if sheltering storms. “Is that wha’ you really want, then, luv?” he asked softly as his hand spread where it grasped her waist. She felt his thumb slide beneath the filmy material of her blouse to caress a bare strip of her flesh.
She was trembling now. She could feel it in her legs; her knees were growing weak.
This is ridiculous, she thought. I can’t let him do this to me.
“I said get off of me!” She hauled back then and balled her hand into as tight a fist as she could make. If her shove hadn’t taken him by surprise enough to move him, the punch she landed on the side of his face just then sure as hell did.
A bolt of lightning sent the pub’s electricity into recession, causing the lights to flicker and die as the man’s head snapped to the side and his grip on her waist slackened slightly. She used the momentum to shove at his sculpted marble chest once more, affording her a precious half foot of space. It was enough.
Instantly, she was dodging to the side and racing for the staircase she had just come down. She could barely see it in the temporary darkness, but its outline was clear enough.
Well, that went well! she berated herself as she took the stairs two at a time, a feat made possible only by the extra inches her boots gave her. By the time she reached her floor, an emergency generator had kicked on and the lights were back. Juliette kept running and didn’t stop until she was standing before her door and fumbling for her key. She’d never let someone scare her like that before.
“Jesus H. Christ, Jules,” she muttered, her voice shaking as badly as her hand, which was also feeling more tender by the moment. She’d never punched anyone before; she’d probably broken a knuckle. She focused on the key and tried desperately to slide it into the lock without scratching off all the paint on the sides. “You’re a piece of work.”
The electric wiring in the building crackled through the walls, fizzling for several seconds before it once more went dead just as Juliette wrenched the door open and flew inside.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Daniel watched the meeting of the archangel and his archess through narrowed, angry eyes. This was why he’d felt so nervous, so wrong, all afternoon. It was this. In the back of his mind, he must have known it would happen.
He shouldn’t have taken the time to rest. But then again, even if he hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered. There would have been no way for him to get Juliette Anderson’s unconscious body out of the hotel without being seen.
This couldn’t be helped. And the fates truly did hate him.
He would never have believed that he would enter the tavern and turn around to find the archess pinned against the wall, stuck between hard rock and an archangel. Even the sudden storm, which he knew must be the archess’s unwitting doing, matched the mood that had come over him in that moment. It was all so dramatically perfect—and perfectly horrible.
Gabriel had kissed her. He’d barely spoken a word to her—and then he’d simply moved in, as if for the kill.
Daniel’s vision was now tinted ever so slightly red. Of all the nerve. Of all the shitty luck. The anger that coursed through his veins like lava was taxing him. It wasn’t helping with his invisibility. He’d rested, but he hadn’t yet eaten, and though he’d regained some of his strength, he was not at all certain how much longer he could maintain a body seemingly without substance.
With gritted teeth and a mind bent on murder, Daniel watched the archess fly up the darkened stairs, leaving a stunned Gabriel Black rubbing his jaw and looking after her.
Daniel pushed off the wall on which he’d been leaning and silently slid past several revelers to race up the stairs after her. As he passed by Black, a strange vibration thrummed across his skin. It was power, raw and awakened, and the sixth-sense part of him recognized its source. Black had found his archess.
Time had officially run out.
* * *
Gabriel couldn’t believe what he was feeling. What he was seeing—what he’d just done. He felt stuck in a dream. Maybe he’d had too much to drink and passed out in front of the fire. Maybe this was a fevered nightmare brought on by one of those damned Adarians Uriel had told him about who could control dreams and visions. Maybe . . . maybe it was a thousand things that it wasn’t. Because it was actually something else.
It was real.
“Well, it seems yae found ’er after all, Black,” came a scratchy voice behind him. Gabriel turned slightly as Stuart approached, the old man grinning ear to ear. “What did I tell yae? An angel, isn’t she?”
Gabriel felt his sore jaw drop open. “Tha’ was her?” That was the girl Stuart had been talking about earlier?
“Aye.” Burns nodded and slapped a hand on Gabriel’s back and shook his head. “She’s go’ a good arm on ’er for such a wee lass.” He chuckled to himself and looked up toward the tavern’s roof. “Och, I’m glad Will go’ that generator, bu’ ’e could’ve at least made sure it wouldnae blow the power all tae hell. Ruddy weather’ll turn on yae like a Campbell, it will.” He turned to head to the bar for another drink.
Gabriel let him go. He was still in shock; he couldn’t really move.
Parma Violets . . . She’d tasted like flowers and candy. Juliette, he thought next. Burns had said her name was Juliette.
He had never felt as he did in that moment. He’d been sitting by the fire, one moment feeling nothing but slight boredom. And then, suddenly, he’d felt feverish and the air around him was filled with a strange tension that arrested his breath. And then he’d stood up—and turned around to find her staring at him across the room.
A thousand thoughts had raced through his mind in that moment. A thousand thoughts—and none. There was nothing but a roar and a silence as time both sped up and stood still.
Two thousand years. Twenty centuries. It was a long time to search for something. When he’d looked up and met her green brown gaze and beheld, in the flesh, the image he had dreamed of for the last seven hundred thousand nights, he knew at once that his searching was over. He couldn’t let her go. Especially not when she’d walked into his bar wearing those painted-on jeans and leather boots and that shirt that exposed the creamy flesh of her shoulders . . . Och, hell no, he thought. There was no way he was going to lose her again.
Gabriel frowned at the sudden friction in the air around him and turned back to face the staircase. It was empty.
His archess had run from him. He couldn’t blame her. She most likely thought he was a callous, drunken rake. And rightly so.
But he wasn’t going to let that stop him.
“Yae plan on goin’ up there, don’ ya?” Stuart asked. He’d returned from the bar with a fresh mug of something darker than the last drink.
“Aye,” Gabriel said.
“Might want tae apologize, then,” Burns warned. “Yae scared the hell out of ’er, yae did.”
Gabriel already knew this. The sudden appearance of his archess had thrown him for a loop. Kissing her had all but driven every last sane thought from his brain. He was no stranger to the ladies, but he’d never wanted to bed one so badly nor so quickly before in his very long life. He wasn’t at all sure he could trust himself around her at that moment, and God knew he didn’t need any help further messing things up.
“I’m aware,” he said, still gazing steadfastly up the stairs.
“An’ one more thing, Black,” Stuart continued, his tone low. Gabe glanced at him as the old man swigged a big swallow and lowered his mug again. “Ye’re wastin’ precious time.”
Gabriel gave the old man a devil-may-care smile and shot up the stairs like a light.
* * *
Juliette slammed the door shut behind her and leaned up against it, trying to c
atch her breath.
“I can’t believe what just happened.” She shook her head, ran her shaking hand over her face, and stopped at her lips, her quivering fingers rubbing the sensitive, puffy flesh. “I just got kissed by the most gorgeous man ever to walk the face of the earth.”
Juliette closed her eyes and let her head drop back. Her body felt as if it were humming around her soul. She recalled that he’d said something to her, but as she tried to think back on it, all she could remember was the kiss and the heat it awakened within her. And his eyes . . . those molten silver eyes. The eyes of the angel in her dream.
Juliette frowned when she felt a sudden stirring of the air in front of her. She opened her eyes and gasped. She had only enough time to give a short scream before the man who had not been there a second before was upon her.
The stranger rushed her like a dark blanket, smothering her with his hard presence as he twisted her around. He wrapped his arms around her and pinned her back to his chest. At the same time, his hand slammed down upon her mouth, bruising her already swollen lips. She felt cloth over her nose and mouth and was hit with an acrid stench and knew, instinctively, that he was trying to poison her.
She couldn’t even breathe. Her thundering heart demanded oxygen, but if she dared inhale, she would take in the chloroform and it would be over. She had never felt this afraid. Now she knew what real fear felt like.
Through the haze of her terror, Juliette noticed that the objects in the room had begun to rattle. The lamp shook on the tabletop. Juliette’s brand-new hardback suitcase slid along the wooden floor. The doors of the wardrobe opened and closed. Her already wide eyes widened farther. A phantasmal nightmare had been unleashed inside of the hotel room, and the lightning that crashed just outside her window only lent credence to its monstrosity.