Another Adarian was upon Gabriel in the blink of an eye. There were half a dozen of the powerful First Angels to contend with and Gabriel was already injured. The wounds would heal at a faster rate than they would for a human, but not fast enough to give him back the strength he needed for this fight.
A shard blast went off, striking Gabriel in the back of the leg. He roared with rage—with more anger than pain at being wounded with the formidable, damnable weapons yet again. He spun, ready to face the man who had attacked him, but Michael was already on the guilty Adarian.
Gabriel’s leg buckled, sending him to the ground in a spray of rimed mud and torn, crystallized turf. He gritted his teeth as his new opponent took advantage of his position and kicked him in the side, sending him skidding several feet across the ground.
Again, Gabriel rolled, coming to his hands and knees, but his right leg wouldn’t cooperate; it was turning to stone from the knee to the hip.
“Gabriel!”
Gabriel blinked, recognizing the voice that barked his name. His head snapped up in time to find Max coming through a portal from the mansion and stepping away from the iced-over door of the car he’d just transported through. He was dressed in the same black fatigues he’d worn during the battle outside Dallas four months ago. Gone were the suit and glasses, and he carried a satchel over his left shoulder. Azrael was not with him. How had Max been able to find their location without Az?
And then Gabriel remembered Juliette mentioning Sam. Lilith, Gabriel thought. She must have told Max where they were.
Disappointment arced through Gabriel; Az was invaluable in a situation like this. But the disappointment was quickly overshadowed by a sense of relief nonetheless. Max had something black and silver in his hand. He threw it toward Gabriel, tossing it through the air with such superhuman speed that it blurred, forbidding anyone else from stopping it.
Gabriel reached out and caught it, ignoring the intense sting it brought to his hands as he did so. He recognized the weapon instantly. When the Adarian came at him once again, Gabriel spun and leveled the gun on the man. He pulled the trigger three times.
Three gold bullets embedded themselves in the chest of the Adarian, knocking him backward and bringing him to his knees. The man threw back his head in rage and pain, clutching at his chest with clawlike fingers. He bellowed his agony into the night as the gold bullet ate him up from the inside.
Gabriel leaned forward and tried to stand. Pain shot through his body from the shard-blast wound; his leg literally crackled when he put weight on it. He grimaced and shifted, placing his standing weight on one foot. There was a flash of light and he looked up to see the Adarian he’d been fighting disappear. The light swelled and then receded and with it went the injured man.
Gabriel’s eyes widened. Another flash of light took one of Michael’s opponents. Michael spun, ready to face the one behind him—but the Adarian stood back from Michael and allowed his hands to fall to his sides. He wore an enigmatic look on his handsome face, a knowing smile. His stark eyes flashed with secrets.
Another blinding flash and he disappeared as well.
“No,” Gabriel muttered. No, no, no. They were leaving. They’d come for Juliette—and now they had her. Their task was done.
The Adarians were all stopping now, ending their struggles. The four remaining stepped away from the archangels and Gabriel’s heart hammered painfully. He knew, in his heart, that as they dwindled in number on that rain- and ice-soaked field, so did his chances of finding Juliette again.
A fourth Adarian vanished in a flash of light. The temperature began to warm back up. Gabriel looked at Michael and their gazes met. As one, they ran toward the nearest Adarian, intent on trapping him there. However, the Adarian flashed out of existence before they’d made it halfway.
Gabriel had no idea how they were simply disappearing as they were. But he vaguely recalled them doing something similar after the battle in Texas. One by one, they had been recalled from the field—even the injured and unconscious. As they were doing now.
Desperation clawed at him. These vanishing men were his ticket to finding Juliette. And then a familiar sound had him whirling around to face the two cars that lay, almost forgotten, in the passing space beside the road. The door to the nearer car began to swirl, warping and vanishing behind an opening portal.
Gabriel froze, hope stubbornly burgeoning to life within him once more.
A black mass shot through the portal, creating a blast of wind that nearly knocked all three archangel brothers and Max to the ground. Gabriel could have shouted with joy as he straightened and tried to follow Azrael’s streaking form. He would recognize the feeling of Az’s power anywhere. It was like his signature—dark, potent, and fierce.
Az came to a sudden stop, hovering in the air before Gabriel.
“Abraxos took her,” Gabriel told him without preamble. Azrael’s golden eyes were glowing like fire, brutally stark in his perfect, angelic face. His long black trench coat hung around him like a holocaust cloak and blended with the pitch blue-black of his shoulder-length hair. He was a living shadow, punctuated by the intense, turbulent light of twin suns.
Gabriel looked him in those glowing golden orbs and whispered, “Please find them. Before it’s too late.”
Azrael did not waste time replying. He simply shot through the night with a second blast of wind so strong, it knocked Gabriel backward and temporarily blinded him. Gabriel lowered his arm and turned, looking in the direction that his brother had disappeared. There was no sign of him, of course.
He glanced around the road and its adjoining field. Michael, Max, and Uriel stared back at him. There was no sign of any of the Adarians either. The three archangels and their guardian were alone.
* * *
Their flying speed was dizzying—impossible. The wind was immense, buffeting her so hard she couldn’t breathe unless she kept her head ducked and her face hidden in the curve of her captor’s neck. He was holding her fast and firm against him, his right arm around her waist, his left hand behind her neck, bracing her almost gently. His thumb and fingers pressed threateningly to her pulse points.
This was Abraxos. She knew this now. It could be only he—the leader of the Adarians. But none of the archangel brothers had warned her that he’d become a vampire. And he was very much a vampire. She could feel the dark essence of his transformation like a label: “I am vampire.” He wore it well. His tall, black-haired, blue-eyed badness was effortlessly scaring the shit out of her.
Juliette tried not to tremble. She tried not to break down and cry. But she didn’t want to die. She had lived so many lives—and all of them had been wasted. Because not until now—not until this one—had she finally come to realize who and what she was. Why she was. Not until now had she found Gabriel.
And now she was ensnared in the arms of her killer. Before her was the evil vampire. Behind her was a thousand-foot drop into the unknown. She was trapped.
Trapped.
. . . she willed her magic to remain within herself. She trapped it there, deep inside, forever denying the wizard her essence. . . .
Juliette frowned where she pressed her forehead to Abraxos’s shoulder. Why was this line replaying in her head? Why now? Ever since Samael had leaned over to whisper in her ear, she’d been recalling the short paragraph she’d read in the history book Law had left in her cottage. What could it possibly mean?
Abraxos slowed, still clutching her tightly in his arms. Juliette chanced a look up, lifting her head. They were landing. The wind was changing. Juliette’s hair whipped about her face for a moment as they descended and her stomach leapt up into her throat. She held her breath and hid her face again, unwilling to watch the ground come up to meet them.
In a few seconds, she felt the tips of her boots touching down and she braced herself. But Abraxos brought them in gently, setting her steadily on her feet before releasing his grip around her waist and neck.
“You can look now,” he t
eased her softly. His voice was deep and pure and powerful and Juliette recognized that kind of resonance. The Masked One had it as well. Azrael. It must come with vampirism, she thought. Still, she’d heard Azrael say only a few words before he’d disappeared to “get dinner” after kidnapping her from the elevator in Sam’s hotel, but from what she’d heard, Az was special even in this. The former Angel of Death’s voice was literally mesmerizing.
Juliette took a shaky step back from Abraxos and glanced around. They were standing on a craggy, moss- and grass-covered cliff overlooking a turbulent North Sea. “Wh-where are we?” Her mouth wouldn’t move quite right. She was either still very cold or terrified out of her mind. Probably both.
“We’re on the cliffs just south of Stonehaven,” he told her calmly. He gestured to the land behind him. “There’s a golf course just over that rise.”
She knew where that was. They were on the mainland now. Somehow, in the space of a few short minutes, Abraxos had crossed not only the water that separated the Hebrides from the rest of Scotland, but most of Scotland as well. They were now in the heart of eastern Scotland, a short drive from Aberdeen.
She felt her jaw drop open as she looked up at the Adarian vampire. Three hundred and fifty miles in five minutes. If he could do that—what else was Abraxos capable of? And how the hell was she still in one piece? Shouldn’t the trip have ripped her hair out or frozen her solid or something?
Abraxos threw his head back and laughed, the sound deep and wonderful despite Juliette’s fear and disbelief. “It is rather fascinating, isn’t it, little one?”
Juliette blinked. “You’re r-reading my mind.”
“Of course,” he admitted easily, shrugging his broad shoulders. He was dressed in a navy blue thermal shirt that set off the color of his eyes and black jeans with a black leather belt. To hear Eleanore speak of him, he’d always been the military type. But it would seem that turning into a vampire had brought out the GQ side of him.
Again, he chuckled, and the sound wrapped around Juliette like invisible velvet. “Are y-you gonna k-kill me or wh-what?” she stuttered, hating the way she couldn’t stop trembling. She was about to die. It was a hard realization.
Abraxos watched her for a long, silent while, his sapphire eyes sparking with blue fire. “Why so eager, little one?”
“I don’t l-like being tortured.”
Abraxos raised his head in understanding, nodding to himself. “Something of which you would know much about.”
So he knew about her past lives. She didn’t know why, but for some reason that brought her some small sense of satisfaction. She wanted someone to know—to recognize all that she’d been through. Even if it was her killer who vindicated her.
“I am truly sorry for all that the Old Man and his four favored have put you through, little one. And I am sorry that it has to end this way in this life. You have something I very desperately need.” He shook his head, shrugging as if helpless. “There is no other way.”
“So do it, then,” she hissed at him. She was growing tired of being told she was going to die. It would almost be better to just get it over with.
He smiled a small, strange smile that made him look poetically poignant. And then he sighed. “Very well. Wait here.” With that, he shot into the sky, leaving a burst of tailwind so strong, it buffeted Juliette, causing her to stumble.
She caught her balance and blinked up at the place where he had disappeared. What the fuck? she thought. Where did he go? She couldn’t even tell what direction he’d gone in.
“Wait here?” she screamed, calling into the night after him. “Like I can bloody well go anywhere!” She vaguely recognized that she’d picked up on Gabriel’s mild-mannered swearing, but mostly, she was bewildered. Abraxos had left her on an outcropping of stone, a hundred feet above the water and rocks below. It was dark and there was nowhere for her to go. Even if she ran, she would probably fall off the cliff. It wouldn’t be the first time.
And if she didn’t fall—Abraxos would catch her. Of that, she had no doubts. She was trapped.
A cold breeze brushed by her, causing her to shiver violently. Juliette shoved her hands into her pockets to warm them. Once again, her fingers brushed against the smooth gold of the bracelet Gabriel had given her.
She frowned and pulled it out, looking down at its intricately carved surface as it shimmered vaguely in the moonlight.
Trapped. Trap . . .
“. . . Just put it in your pocket. It has the power to trap a person’s supernatural abilities within their body. I want you to carry it with you. . . .”
Juliette’s eyes widened as a puzzle piece noisily slid into place inside her head. She glanced up at the empty night sky—and then looked back down at the bracelet once more. Gabriel had told her that the bracelet trapped a supernatural creature’s powers within his or her body. Abraxos and his Adarians wanted to steal her power from her by draining and drinking her blood. But if she bound her power within her body . . . maybe it couldn’t be drained along with her blood. Maybe it would stay put.
Maybe that was what the archess in the book Law had given her had done; she’d bound her abilities within herself, keeping them from the warlock in the process.
Juliette stared down at the gold wreath. She might die anyway, but if she did, she would at least deny the Adarians what they wanted and perhaps even spare the other archesses in the process.
Juliette turned the bracelet over, looking for some kind of catch or lever with which to open it. There was no way she could slide it over her hand. She was small, but the bracelet was perfectly round and smaller than the circumference of her hand. She’d never noticed before how small it was.
She held it up next to her wrist, squinting at the size. And then, as if to test it out, she bumped it against her arm. There was a quick blinding flash and Juliette jumped, squinting her eyes. When she opened them again, the bracelet was no longer in her hand. It was now on her wrist, and it seemed to wink at her beneath the moonlight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Kevin could feel that his men were returning to their temporary lair. It was a vibration in the air, a sense that they were no longer in danger. Long ago, Kevin had learned that he possessed the ability to recall his men to a certain location at a certain point in time.
The Adarians tried to stay out of human affairs; their wars and battles had nothing to do with the mortal world. Nevertheless . . . once in a while, fighting was necessary, for Adarians were not the only supernatural creatures to inhabit the third planet from the sun.
Seldom, those fights went south. When this happened, Kevin’s recall ability kicked in. Unfortunately, it was the only time he was able to use it. If he had possessed the power to call his men to him at any given moment, he would have had his hands on Xathaniel days ago.
The recall began when the Adarians were beaten—or when they had accomplished what they’d set out to do. In those instances, Kevin’s men disappeared one by one and reappeared at a previously decided-upon location. In this case, the location was an underground compartment that could be reached through the very cliffs he had left Anderson standing on top of. These locations, or bunkers, were located all over the planet. They’d been created by the Adarians over the last several thousand years and reinforced over time.
Kevin made his way through the caverns’ winding stone maze until he could hear his men conversing. At the entrance to the bunker, he shifted, allowing his body to turn to fine blue mist. The mist swirled, collected, and shot beneath the metal door they’d erected, into the cracks, and across to the other side. There, it collected once more, coming together in a sparkling blue dust cloud that quickly solidified to take on his familiar, tall shape.
“General,” one of his men greeted him. But the man’s voice was tight with pain and his teeth were gritted in stifled anger. Kevin let his eyes scan over the scene. Ely was there, bruised and bloodied, but standing tall and strong as ever. Mitchell was completely undamaged; he had that
kind of luck in a battle. People tended to steer clear of him and his powers were immense. Luke was in the same shape as Ely—a bit worse for wear, but whole and healthy all in all.
However, all seven of the group of Adarians that had once numbered eleven were injured in some fashion or another. His vampiric hearing sensed their heartbeats. All were stable but one.
Kevin made his way to a brown-haired man who lay on a bloodied cot, his eyes closed, his handsome face pale. Kevin knew that behind the closed lids were a pair of blue green eyes so stark, they appeared to give off light even when they weren’t glowing. His name was Puriel, but he’d gone by the name Paul for more than a thousand years. Paul possessed the power to control electrical fields, and much like an archess, he could even pull lightning from the skies to strike his opponents.
“Gold bullets, sir,” another of his men informed him as he gazed down upon the fallen soldier. Kevin noted three entry wounds in Paul’s chest. The archangels had learned to fight back, it would seem. Almost too late, he mused. As a newly formed vampire, Kevin found that gold had no caustic effect on him the way it had before. His Chosen would eventually possess the same immunity.
However, for the time being, his men were vulnerable to the metal, and one of them was dying due to it. But this was why he had come down here. This was why Kevin had left Juliette Anderson alone up top on the cliffs. He’d known there was a chance that someone in his party would need healing, and because he wasn’t certain whether the healing-power transfer would work with an archess, he’d wanted to make sure his men were stable before he allowed Mitchell to have his way with the female archangel.
He’d left her up on top of the cliff because he hadn’t wanted to subject his men to the danger of a terrified archess unless absolutely necessary. Archesses were far from helpless damsels in distress. If anything, they were more dangerous than their male counterparts.
Kevin turned and waved the locks off the metal door. It swung outward, opening up to the damp, salty air and the moonlit darkness of the night. There was no time to waste now. Paul’s life force was fading.