“All right, so we’re all here,” Michael said as he sat forward over the table and laced his fingers together. He was a tall man and his muscles stretched the material of his T-shirt taut across his chest as he leaned forward. His blond hair was probably a touch long for what they preferred on the police force, and it curled across his forehead. As with all of the archangels, his chin was strong, and his sported a five-o’-clock shadow. His blue eyes were the color of clear sapphires.
Michael glanced at the black-haired man at the head, whose gold-flecked amber eyes glittered beneath the lamplight. Azrael met his gaze and held it easily. He was the opposite of Michael in many ways. Though Michael was tall, Az was taller by several inches and his hair was black as pitch and quite a bit longer. It fell well beyond his shoulders. His face was clean-shaven and pale—a stark contrast to the darkness of his hair.
“Even the Masked One has afforded us the pleasure of his happy-go-lucky presence,” Michael said in a sarcastic tone. He turned back to Uriel. “So spill. What’s the big news?”
“I found her.” Uriel could hold it in no longer. He loved the stunned expressions that crossed his brothers’ faces in that moment.
It was unnaturally quiet in the kitchen for a few seconds. And then, in a voice so resonant and charismatic that it had won him millions of screaming fans worldwide, Azrael spoke up. “You’re speaking of your archess.” His amber eyes began to glow.
The other three looked over at him. Michael’s gaze narrowed and he turned back to Uriel. “Is he right? Are you talking about your archess?”
“Yes.” Uriel pulled out a chair and spun it around, lowering himself gracefully into it and lacing his arms over the back. “I knew her the moment I saw her.” Uriel briefly closed his eyes, recalling his first impression of the archess. Dressed in jeans and a bookstore apron, she’d appeared to him as a shining beacon clothed in a thin veil of normalcy. To him, everything about her was otherworldly. “She’s beautiful. Stunning, really,” he told them. “I caught her healing a little girl in the restroom at a bookstore.”
At this, his brothers straightened and he caught them glancing at one another knowingly.
He smiled, unable to prevent himself from feeling proud of Eleanore. “She has a kind heart.” He turned to Azrael. “Max wants you to find out what Sam’s doing right now.” Azrael was the only one among them capable of performing a scry to determine the whereabouts and actions of an individual. In fact, there was much Azrael could do that the other brothers could not. His altered form was often as much a gift as it was a curse.
Michael sat up and took a deep breath. He ran a hand through his thick blond hair and shook his head. His eyes were wide. “I can’t believe this. After so long, for one of us to actually see our mate is like . . .”
“A bloody dream?” Gabriel piped in.
Uriel glanced at him, as did the others. Gabriel was the quintessential tall, dark, and handsome. Whereas Azrael’s appearance was stark and otherworldly, Gabriel’s was down-to-earth, approachable, and laid-back. He was what more than one woman had termed “imminently fuckable.” His physique more or less matched those of his brothers—tall and well built. But he had a careless air about him, a Colin Farrell kind of vibe that hinted at sensitivity and then killed with practiced charm.
With one hand, Gabriel slowly turned a bottle of beer on the tabletop. His other lay casually in his lap. His silver eyes were stark against his handsome, tan face. That was one thing the four of them had in common, among a few other, less obvious traits: their eyes were supernaturally stunning.
“I’ll believe it when I see her,” Gabe said, his Scottish brogue not quite so heavy now since he’d had only half a beer. He was a strong and handsome man, but at the moment he looked tired.
Uriel wondered if Gabe had had a rough day. But he didn’t let his concern keep him from shooting his brother a dirty look. On the big screen, that look would have caused women to put their hands to their chests. But Gabriel, for his part, just smirked and took another swig of his beer.
“She’s real,” Uriel said. Without taking his green eyes off his brother, he added, “And she’s mine.”
Gabriel’s silver eyes flashed. “Is that a challenge?”
Uriel bared his teeth.
“Enough, you two.” Michael’s voice boomed across the kitchen. “With brothers like you, who needs enemies like Samael?” He shook his head and then gazed once more across the table at the most enigmatic of his brothers.
“And speaking of Sammy,” he said, “Max is right.” Michael nodded at Azrael. “We need to know where he is right now and what he’s doing.”
Azrael cocked his head to one side and studied his brother. Then he looked at Uriel. “You remember that the scry is two-way, I assume.”
Uriel nodded. He knew.
“Bloody hell.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “If Joe Black over here scries on the bastard, then Sam’ll know some-thin’s up.” He shook his head. “No’ a good idea.” The brogue was deepening.
“What do you propose, then?” Michael asked calmly.
Gabriel shrugged. “We protect her ourselves until she decides to join with Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous over here.” He gave Uriel a sideways, meaningful glance. “Or whoever it is she chooses.”
Uriel was up and out of his chair in the next instant, and Gabriel followed suit, both men moving with blinding speed. But before the two of them could meet, Michael was standing between them, one hand on each of their chests. Uriel could feel his heart pounding beneath his brother’s palm.
“I said, that’s enough.” Michael spoke through clenched teeth, his blue eyes glowing dangerously. Then he turned to Gabriel. “You know that isn’t how this works, Gabe. We will each recognize our archess. Your saber-rattling is inappropriate right now. Don’t forget that your own archess is still out there somewhere,” he warned. “And Uriel has a taste for vengeance.”
Gabriel glanced back at Uriel.
Uriel smiled. It was one of those wholly unkind smiles that made people shiver deliciously in movie theaters around the world. And it was filled to the brim with unspoken promise.
Behind them, Azrael stood, slowly pushing his chair out so that it scraped against the tiles beneath it. The other three turned to face him.
He was already taller than the others, but his penchant for black somehow made him appear to tower over them. His long, wavy black hair was the calling card of the Masked One. On the stage, the singer remained masked to millions. No one but his brothers—and Max—knew who he really was.
“I’ve done the scry,” he said softly.
Michael’s hands dropped from his brothers’ chests. “Already?”
Azrael stepped away from the table, his black combat boots resounding loudly on the tile as he made his way from the kitchen to the living room and the double glass sliding doors that led beyond. “It turns out that our guardian’s concern is warranted,” he told them as he used telekinesis to unlatch the lock and open the doors before him. “The easiest way to find honey is by following the bees. Samael keeps as much of an eye on us as we do him. He already knows who and where Miss Granger is, and he’s planning to collect her as we speak.”
“What?” the three of them asked at once.
“And Max is coming up the front drive,” Azrael finished before he stepped out onto the balcony and gazed down three floors to the massive courtyard below. He turned and nodded once at the others. “Give him my best. I’m going to find breakfast.”
With that, Azrael smiled, flashing sharp white fangs. Then he dissipated into a cloud of gray smoke and was lifted onto the wind, where he disappeared entirely into the darkening night sky.
“Bloody showoff,” Gabriel muttered.
Michael shook his head and manually slid the doors shut again. Uriel silently agreed with Gabriel. Azrael was certainly the most . . . interesting of the four of them and he’d obviously gotten used to flaunting the theatrics he displayed onstage.
Michael t
urned to face them and sighed. “We’re about to have a fight on our hands, boys.”
Uriel gazed out the double glass doors behind him and into the black unknown beyond. The green in his eyes grew dark. “So be it.”
Samuel Lambent, better known as Samael to a certain crowd, slowly rose from his massive desk and paced to the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him in his opulent office. The windows reflected his image back at him—a tall, sleek man in an extremely expensive gray tailored suit. Ash white–blond hair brushed the collars of his shirt and coat and a platinum wristwatch gleamed in the overhead lights. From a nearly painfully handsome face, charcoal-gray eyes gazed indifferently down at the world that continued to bustle sixty-six floors below. His reflection smiled a small, pleased smile that bespoke of intense charisma—and a touch of cruelty.
An archess, he thought. Finally.
The first of four.
Life was about to get a hell of a lot more interesting, wasn’t it? At that, he gave a full-fledged grin, flashing straight white teeth.
He’d felt Azrael’s obnoxious tickle of an intrusion, but he’d been expecting that, of course. Samael had men, both human and otherwise, working as informative agents all over the world. They were good at what they did; Samael never had to wait on his intel. And as soon as he had received word from one such agent that Uriel had located his soul mate, he’d been waiting for that scry.
The issue now, however, was how much time he would have to act before the archess accepted Uriel as her mate. With that thought, he turned and picked up the manila file folder that had been laid upon his desk. With long, dexterous fingers, he flipped the folder open and peered down at the photograph.
“Eleanore Elizabeth Granger,” he whispered aloud, his dark gray eyes sparking red at their centers. “A lovely name for a lovely creature,” he added.
Of course, he knew everything about her now. He hadn’t chosen his earthly profession lightly. He was the founder, president, and CEO of the largest media company in the world. At the heart of media was information; and he was its king. Over the years, he had amassed enough power through its deep, multitudinous channels that he could now glean knowledge about anything he wished—or anyone he wished—at a moment’s notice. Any intel he could not gain through these normal channels, his agents quickly discovered on the side.
He continued to gaze at the woman’s photograph. Her parents and friends called her “Ellie.” He laughed at that, the sound melodious and deep. If anyone had heard the chuckle, they would have been entranced. He had an intoxicating voice, the likes of which had only ever been matched by one other being on Earth. The Masked One, also known as the archangel Azrael, possessed a powerful voice as well, but it was deeper than Samael’s. The Masked One had a voice that sounded like a foreboding premonition. Like a fire—welcoming yet dangerous.
Like death.
Samael’s, on the other hand, sounded like seduction.
Samael tossed the folder back onto the desk and turned toward the windows once more. Then he pulled a slim, silver phone from the interior pocket of his expensive gray suit. He flipped it open and his hand glowed momentarily. He placed the phone to his ear and waited. It picked up after the second ring.
On the other end of the line, Uriel said nothing. The handsome movie star had learned long ago that it was best to let the bad guy speak first.
So Samael smiled and indulged him. “You have a choice to make, my friend.”
Uriel remained silent, but Sam could feel the archangel’s anger even across the distance. He wasted no time. “Give her up or lose her altogether.” He chuckled as he thought of young Eleanore and the drastic way in which her life was about to change. “Time is short.” He closed the phone again and repocketed it.
“Mr. Lambent?”
Sam turned to face the young man in the doorway.
“Your jet has arrived, sir. And your car is waiting.”
Samael nodded, picked up the file folder, and followed the young man out of his office.
Uriel stared at the phone in his hands and could feel his green eyes glowing.
“Well, we knew that was comin,’ didn’t we?” Gabriel said. He brushed past Uriel to make his way to the marble staircase landing. Michael followed him. They’d both watched him take the call.
Uriel continued to stare at the phone. Then, very slowly, he flipped it shut and repocketed it. He’d never felt so angry.
“Max, any news?” Michael asked as he descended the stairs to meet the guardian at the bottom.
Uriel paced to the landing and peered over the railing. Max Gillihan was just shutting the front door behind him, three stories below. With a blast of superhuman strength, Uriel leapt over the balcony railing, dropped the three stories to the marble foyer below, and crouched to absorb the impact as his boots slammed down. He turned to Max. “He knows.”
Max paused, his eyebrows raised. “I’m assuming Samael contacted you.”
“Uriel just got the call,” Michael told him.
Max glanced at Uriel, noticing the glowing eyes. He sighed heavily. “I see.” He shook his head and stepped past Uriel to make his way up the stairs and back into the kitchen. “We don’t have much time, then.” He glanced over his shoulder at Uriel. “What did he tell you?”
“To let her go or lose her altogether,” Uriel repeated. He could hear the grating wrath behind his words.
“He wants her for himself, doesn’t he?” Michael suggested, his tone tight. He and the others followed Max up the stairs.
“It stands to reason,” said Max. “It’s why he followed us down here all those years ago.” He pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen. “But that’s better than wanting her dead straightaway.”
“How the bloody hell do you figure that?” Gabriel asked as the three of them followed their guardian to the island table and took seats to watch as Max proceeded to make himself a sandwich.
“If Samael wants someone dead, they end up dead in short order,” Max told them, setting the mayonnaise and mustard out beside two slices of whole wheat bread. “If he, instead, plans to seduce her, then . . . well—”
“He’s fair good at that too, isn’t he?” Gabriel said.
“Gabe’s right. We still don’t have much time,” Max said. “There is little Samael excels at more than seduction.”
Uriel watched Michael’s expression of worry deepen. He knew his own eyes were shooting daggers. He was pissed and didn’t bother hiding it. Samael’s track record with the ladies included nearly every famous beauty that had existed in the last two thousand years of human history. Wars had been started in the aftermaths of his seductions.
“We’ll ask Azrael to watch her tonight,” Michael assured him. “If Sam goes anywhere near her, we’ll know.”
“It’s time you had this, then,” Max said.
They all turned to the guardian to watch him pull a single gold bracelet from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He placed it gently on the counter in front of Uriel and then returned to his task of making a snack. They all gazed at the bracelet and a hush fell over the trio.
The archangels recognized the bracelet even though they hadn’t seen it in thousands of years. The gold wreath was one of a group of four. The Old Man had given them to Max long, long ago, when the archangels had first decided to come to Earth to look for their archesses. There was one bracelet for each of them.
The bracelets were meant as added protection against the plethora of preternatural, spectral, psychic, fairy, ghostly, and otherwise unpredictable—and dangerous—creatures the Old Man had created along with the humans that inhabited the mortal realm. The archangels could most likely have handled anything they encountered on their own, but the Old Man was indeed fond of his four favorites. The bracelets possessed the magic to lock a being’s supernatural powers within his or her body, thereby rendering that being more or less powerless.
If Max, the bracelets, and the mansion hadn’t been lost to the archangels during their descent
to Earth two thousand years ago, Michael would have been able to slap one of the gold bands on Azrael. It would have trapped both his archangel and his vampire powers within himself and given him the breathing space he needed to cope with his change. As it was, however, Max and the archangels hadn’t found one another for quite some time after their descent. And Azrael had been smothered in both need and power, ruled entirely by the turbulent magic coursing through his veins.
But since nothing supernatural had seriously threatened them in centuries, they hadn’t seen the bracelets in as long. It had been thousands of years since those first tentative steps upon the mortal realm, and the archangels hadn’t had need for the bracelets for the last several hundred. It had been a while since any other supernatural creatures had put in an appearance, so the archangels had more or less forgotten about the bracelets.
After a few moments, Uriel cleared his throat. “What are you suggesting, Max? That I use this on Eleanore?”
Max stopped what he was doing, placed his hands on the counter, and sighed. “Play nice first. But realize that, if she even believes you in the first place, she may not take kindly to the idea of being created solely for the satisfaction of another being—much less a male. What will you do if she decides to continually blast you with lightning?”
Uriel didn’t have an answer to that.
Max continued. “Remember that Samael is about to make a move. You need to protect Eleanore from him. You need to bring her here to the mansion. If she doesn’t come willingly, you won’t have any choice but to take matters into your own hands.” He glanced at the bracelet and nudged it closer to Uriel. “Think of this as a precaution. As a plan B.”
Uriel stared down at the gold band. It was a stunningly beautiful piece of jewelry. But the most impressive thing about it was the intricacy of the magic woven within it. Once donned, only the one who placed the bracelet on a being’s wrist could remove it. Otherwise, the being was bound to wear it always.