If she hadn’t just heard Uriel’s voice, she would have thought herself well and truly alone. But he told her to open her eyes and she opened them to stare across at the man she loved.
He was solid once more and at his back was a pair of wings unlike any she’d ever imagined. They were black, but tinted green, the way a raven’s feathers were tinted blue. They were enormous. Beautiful. Stunning.
As was his smile.
“Uriel?” she said, more to test her voice and the sound it made than anything else.
He laughed softly. “Are you okay?” he asked, at last cupping her cheek with his hand. His now solid touch was warm. It filled her with instant peace and reassurance.
“I’m fine.” She smiled. “Nice wings.”
“Yours aren’t so bad either,” he said, his emerald eyes sparkling. They matched his wings, she noticed. Perfectly. “Where are we?”
“Nowhere,” he said. Then he glanced to either side of him, at the wall of foggy white that encompassed them. “Not yet anyway.” He looked back at her. “I think we’re being given a choice.”
“What kind of choice?”
“To leave Earth—or to stay.”
Eleanore considered that for a moment. “You mean, we can”—she hesitated, as if saying it out loud was somehow different from experiencing it—“we can die and go wherever it is people go when they die . . . or we can go back to the way we were before?”
Uriel nodded, brushing his thumb against her cheekbone. The gesture was so tender, she closed her eyes again just to enjoy it.
“What about our wings?” she asked, her eyes still shut. She wasn’t sure why she’d asked such a thing. There was no filter between her brain and her tongue just then, and she liked the wings. They felt natural.
He laughed again, a soft, easy sound. “I honestly have no idea. I kind of like them too.”
She opened her eyes when she felt his fingers brush along the tops of her blue-black feathers. If someone had asked her to explain what it felt like to have a person touch her wings, she wouldn’t be able to. It was like asking a mermaid to describe her legs.
But it felt good. She shivered.
“Yours match your eyes,” he added.
She peered up at him and watched his pupils expand, eating the green of his irises. There was that telltale hunger again, that desire that never seemed to be far from his gaze when it came to her.
She swallowed, sensing his need and feeling it build within her own body as well.
“I have a family,” she said. “I can’t leave my parents. And knowing what we know now, we can help your brothers and their archesses if we stay—”
She broke off when he leaned in, his wings expanding, enveloping her in his tall, broad darkness. His lips slanted over hers with blatant yearning, pressing and opening and demanding. He stole her breath and, with it, every thought she had thought she possessed.
He pulled away, quickly and but for a moment. Long enough to mutter a few ground-out words between clenched teeth.
“We’ll stay,” he said.
As Ellie began to nod her assent, he kissed her again, and she felt the world change around them once more. It dissolved, shifted, and resolidified, and somewhere in between his subjugation and her surrender, sound crept in at the edges and a wet, muddy chill settled in beneath her knees.
At long last, Uriel broke the kiss.
“I thought for sure you weren’t coming back,” came a familiar voice.
Uriel hesitantly pulled his gaze from his archess and turned to see Michael and his brothers standing a few feet away. Behind them rested a tangled metal mass of fallen turbines and steel and concrete debris. The storm around them was lifting and drifting away.
The battle was over, apparently. And his brothers were still standing.
“We won?” he asked.
Max stepped up on the other side. “For now,” he said. But then he smiled and his gaze drifted from Uriel to Eleanore.
“Nice wings,” he said.
“I’ll say,” Gabriel added. “How’re you plannin’ on hi-din’ those?”
But no one had a chance to answer him before Azrael spoke up. “Welcome back, Ellie,” he said softly. The corners of his mouth were turned up in a welcoming and warm smile. Are you sure this is the choice you wish to make?
Eleanore smiled back at him. Yes, she thought. It is.
Then it’s good to have you with us. There was both relief and admiration in his mental tone.
She knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, this life she had chosen. She was still an archess and she possessed the ability to heal. The Adarians would always be looking for her. And for the other archesses, she imagined.
And then there would be Samael to contend with.
But at least she knew what she had here. She had the archangels and Max. She had the mansion. And she had her parents. Together, they would be strong. They would figure things out.
With Uriel, she thought with a smile.
She turned away from Azrael and was once more caught up in her lover’s covetous gaze.
Oh yeah, she thought. We’ll figure it out.
EPILOGUE
It was several days before the mess of the gala and its aftermath had been cleaned up and order had been restored. The battle in the turbine field had ended when Samael’s hellish army had overrun what was left of the Adarians. Though Michael, Gabriel, and Azrael had destroyed at least half of the ancient archangels with their gold weapons, quite a few still remained by the time shard guns had caused Gabe and Michael to fall.
However, nothing seemed to hurt Samael’s Dark Riders. It was only a matter of time before the general and his men, including those who had been unconscious or seemingly dead at the time, disappeared, one wounded soldier after another, all of them using some kind of recall device to pull themselves off of the battleground.
In the wake of the fight, Max got busy re-erecting monstrous metal monuments, erasing memories, locating and destroying documentation, and perhaps most difficult of all, helping Eleanore smooth things over with her parents.
She had decided to come clean with them. When they heard what happened at the gala and saw footage of her racing into the building with the famous actor Christopher Daniels, they had become understandably terrified.
So Eleanore and Max were quick to locate them, get them alone, and reassure them to the best of their ability.
They took it well, considering. Her mother cried for only a few hours and her father had to have only a few drinks. In the end, they spent the better part of three days talking with the archangels, learning about the mansion and the archesses, and coming to grips with the unreality of it all.
She was proud of them. She also supposed that it was the fact that they’d been aware of supernatural things for some time that allowed them to more easily accept this new information. They had raised a daughter who could manipulate the weather, heal wounds, and will SpaghettiOs into the shopping cart when Mom strictly forbade it.
So this was just one more impossibility for them that was not so impossible after all.
For Eleanore’s part, and for Uriel’s, they had learned to manipulate the structure of their wings. It was as easy as willing them away and then willing them back. The best part about them, of course, from Ellie’s viewpoint, was that they were functional.
She could fly.
She and Uriel took their first flight together in the middle of the night, out in the vast expanse of the Nevada desert.
At one point, Eleanore landed on a cliff overlooking a canyon and sat down to simply watch Uriel fly. He was the very essence of grace. His wings were enormous, spanning ten feet in either direction, their feathers thick and dark, shimmering deep emerald like his eyes. There was just something unmentionably sexy about a man in tight, worn blue jeans, a tight black T-shirt that outlined his muscles, and a pair of massive wings at his back.
He’s mine, she’d thought. All mine. My angel, Uriel.
Now, as
Ellie sat back on the couch, alone in the mansion for the first time in nearly a week, she sighed. It was one of contentment. This was the first real peace she had known in her entire life. She understood who and what she was, and she knew where she belonged. There was definitely something to be said for certainty.
The fire in the hearth crackled and popped with a comforting welcomeness as Ellie opened her laptop, clicked on her browser, and established the familiar connection.
E: So, guess what.
A: Hey again! Long time no type! What am I guessing at here?
E: Remember that business with Christopher Daniels?
A: How could I forget?
E: I’m marrying him.
There was a long pause where nothing happened on the screen. And then, suddenly, Angel’s reply shot to life on the next line.
A: You’re shitting me, right?
E: Never, A. I’m surprised you don’t already know—it’s all over the tabloids.
Eleanore laughed and shook her head as she typed this. It was true. Instead of the stiff downturn in popularity Uriel had predicted would arise from him hooking up with someone, the public had decided to love the new couple. They’d taken to calling them “Chrisellie.”
A: Holy crap. I need to get out more. Where are you doing this? When?!?
E: Private ceremony
Eleanore was purposefully vague. She and Uriel were going to exchange vows behind closed doors. They didn’t want the Adarians showing up and ruining the ceremony.
E: But I wish you could be here.
There was another pause, this one shorter than the last.
A: I can.
E: Come again?
A: Lol. Just have someone open a chat box during the ceremony. I’ll be there in spirit. ;)
Eleanore laughed at the idea. And then she straightened. Actually, that was entirely doable.
E: You’ve got a deal.
A: Woohoo! I’ll be there with bells on.
E: ☺
A: Hasta, chica. I have to head out. Congratulations and don’t let the bedmates bite. xoxo mwah!
With a smile, Eleanore typed her own good-bye and closed the computer once more. Then she turned and gazed into the flames. She thought of the red dress Uriel had bought for her a week ago. She was going to wear a white version of it for the wedding.
A knock at the door pulled her from her thoughts.
And then it sent her heart into her throat. No one was supposed to know where the door to the mansion was, much less be able to knock on it.
She stood up and faced the foyer, beyond which the door to the mansion waited. She hesitated and pondered and curled her fingers into the material of her tunic-length T-shirt.
The knock came again.
Crap, she thought. What was she supposed to do? Max and Uriel were dealing with press releases for the sequel to Comeuppance. Michael was on duty in New York, Gabe had returned to Scotland the day before, and Azrael was in his underground chamber, sleeping.
She squared her shoulders and made her way to the foyer. She paused and called out, “Who’s there?”
“It’s Jason, Miss Granger. I’ve come to deliver a present from Lord Samael.”
What? Eleanore’s brows rose, her eyes widening. What on earth could Samael want to give her?
“I swear to you, Miss Granger, you are in no danger. You have my master’s word that you will come to no harm.”
Eleanore pressed her fingers to her eyes for a moment and considered the options. Jason wasn’t likely to go away. And if Samael wanted to harm her, he would have done it long ago.
She took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh, then opened the door.
Jason stood there on the doorstep, dressed in suit and tie as usual. A Carpathian mountain range stretched out behind him.
“Miss Granger.” He addressed her formally, nodded once, and held out a small black box with a red bow.
Eleanore took the box. “Okay, now you can leave.”
He said nothing, but the corners of his mouth curled up ever so slightly. “As you wish.” With that, he took a step back and vanished.
Eleanore quickly closed the door and then on impulse, she slammed the dead bolt home. She returned to the living room and set the box down on the coffee table, eyeing it warily.
She continued to eye it warily for several long minutes.
And then, able to wait no longer, she knelt down in front of the coffee table and pulled the ribbon loose. The top came away easily, revealing a black velvet interior—and a gold binding bracelet.
It was the binding bracelet that Eleanore had placed on Samael’s wrist during the battle with the Adarians.
Ellie gingerly lifted the smooth gold ornament from its casing and turned it over in her hand, confusion marking her features. She’d been told that only the one who placed it an archangel’s wrist could remove it. Yet here it was.
She gazed down at it for several more long moments—and then she blinked.
The entire time, she thought, the realization stunning her to the core. Samael was never bound by the bracelet. He helped them in that battle of his own free will.
There was a note on the bottom of the box. Ellie put the bracelet down and unfolded the note.
Dearest Ellie,
Congratulations on your engagement.
Consider this my gift.
—Samael
P.S. Love the wings.
Read on for a sneak peek at the next novel in the Lost Angels series,
MESSENGER’S ANGEL
Available from Signet Eclipse in June 2012.
It was early Sunday morning and not a high-travel time; her car was empty but for her. She felt like Harry Potter when the trolley came by with teas and soups and biscuits for sale. There were no Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, but with a little effort it was easy to imagine that when she turned around and looked out the window, she would see the towering spires of Hogwarts rising over the hills in the distance. It was enough to take her mind off the attack she’d suffered and her burgeoning powers and what the hell they could possibly mean. At least for a little while.
But the sense of bereavement and haunted remembrance she experienced while traveling across Scotland was stronger on the train than it had been in the car. Perhaps it was because she had nothing to do but stare out the window at the passing countryside and its crumbling castle walls. Whatever the reason, though, Juliette remained nearly motionless as the world passed her by, and memories she knew she couldn’t have assaulted her mind.
A flash of an ancient church, and a chill ran down her spine. A shadow fell across a painted red door, and Juliette felt sad. A path beckoned into the darkness through a tall wood, and she had the sudden urge to jump off the train and run down the trail. It was almost frustrating, the way the land made her want to remember.
“I see you feel a kinship with our bonnie Caledonia,” came a deep brogue from behind her.
Juliette jumped just a little, and turned in her seat to find herself staring up at the man who had kissed her in the pub. The man who had saved her from the stranger. The man who had, until only a few hours ago, been in police custody.
Gabriel Black. True to his name, he was dressed in head-to-toe pitch, his wavy, raven locks blending in with the leather collar of his jacket. His silver eyes sparkled with secrets as they locked onto hers.
Juliette’s jaw grew slack, and her tongue found itself knotted, useless, and mute. She caught a whiff of him, a scent like sandalwood and cedar and hearth-fire smoke, and images of her dream flashed before her mind’s eye. Her fingers went limp on the tabletop, her legs pressed themselves together self-consciously, and her bottom lip began to tremble.
“B-Black,” she whispered.
Gabriel smiled, and then, without being asked, he lowered himself into the empty space on the seat beside her.
His solid nearness washed over her like a blanket of intoxicating sexuality, and Juliette hurriedly scooted back a bit on the seat. She could go no fart
her when her left arm pressed against the cold metal beneath the coach window.
Gabriel watched her retreat, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “We need to talk, lass,” he said. His accent had so much more of a brogue than that of most of the people on the Western Isles. By and large, Hebrideans sounded Irish and Gaelic. Black, however, sounded as if he’d come from all over Scotland; it was the timbre and lilt of his tone that bespoke of the land.
“A-About what?” Juliette asked. The kiss? The man in my room? The fact that you were arrested?
Gabriel’s smile broadened, his silver gaze flicking to her lips and back again. Casually, he turned toward her, caging her with the hard mass of his body as he reached across the table and picked up her cup of tea. It was still steaming. Without taking his eyes off her, he placed it to his lips and took a sip. “You’ve go’ good taste,” he said as he put the cup back down. “Bu’ then, you’re a Scottish lass by blood, so I’m no’ surprised.”
“Look,” she said, feeling a little dizzy. “I’m grateful to you for saving me from whoever it was that came into my room last night, but . . .” She lost track of what she was going to say when he reached over and nonchalantly took a lock of her long, thick hair and began rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. “But . . .” She licked her lips, utterly distracted by the scent and sound and feel of him so close. The air around her felt too thick, too charged.