He stood behind Eleanore and scanned their surroundings. He had been all over the world countless times, but he had to admit that this beach was beautiful beyond description. He couldn’t blame Eleanore for loving it as she did. A quick glance at her rapt, jubilant expression and he knew he’d made the right choice.
“I’ve got a lighter,” he said. “Help me gather some wood and we can start a fire.”
A few minutes later, they’d gathered a good amount of driftwood and piled it in the middle of a circle they had created out of worn, shell-fossiled stone. They stacked it from the tiny kindling-sized sticks, up to a handful of larger pieces at the top. Uriel took out the lighter and held it near the smaller pieces until a few of them caught flame and sputtered to life. The driftwood was still a little damp and his ability to manipulate the flames was currently trapped by the bracelet he wore. The fire would have sputtered into embers and then gone out altogether if it weren’t for Eleanore’s ability to control fire as well.
She caught the flame and concentrated on it, forcing it to eat the ends of the other pieces of wood until they dried out and the fire was well on its way. By the time she released it from her control, it was clear to him that she was feeling a tad drained and more than a touch hungry. He heard her stomach growl.
“Sit down,” he told her, wrapping his arm around her waist and gently drawing her down on top of his lap as he lowered himself to the sand. “Are you okay?” he asked her then, wondering if she’d truly worn herself out with the fire.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I’m just a little drained.”
Drained . . .
He couldn’t help it that the first thing he pictured was his own teeth sinking into her neck. And speaking of drinking blood . . .
“You’re starving,” he told her then, whispering the words so close to her ear that she was helpless to stop a shiver.
It would have been impossible for Uriel not to notice. She was sitting between his legs and her back was pressed up against his chest. His arms were wrapped gently—but firmly—around her. He could sense everything about her now. He could hear her heartbeat as it sped up at his nearness. He could smell the shampoo in her hair and the slightest tint of adrenaline in her blood.
The image of him taking her was back, but stronger this time, and he felt a warning throb in his gums. “I know of a place not far from here. I can take you to eat. They’re open late.”
“We can walk?” she asked.
“No.” He paused, considering his next words and his own thoughts carefully. “We would fly. But . . .” He licked his lips and glanced down at the gold band around his wrist. “But I’m not sure it’s such a wise idea, now that I think of it.” Flying was a supernatural ability that came with his newfound vampirism. The bracelet held it in check.
Eleanore turned in his arms and peered up at him. Her expression was a mixture of bewilderment and confusion. “You could honestly fly me somewhere? Like Superman?”
Uriel couldn’t help but smile at that. “Yeah,” he said. “Like Superman. And Jonathan Brakes,” he added, his grin broadening. Luckily, he’d been able to keep his fangs in check.
“Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?” she asked.
His grin faltered as he studied her face. He didn’t miss the disappointment that furrowed her brow and flickered in her eyes. She wanted to fly. He’d never have imagined that about her. There was so much to learn....
If he could give her that one thing—what would it do for them?
Now Uriel wanted to take her to the air more than he had ever wanted to do anything for anyone in his extremely long existence. “Never mind,” he said, smiling confidently. “It’s a good idea,” he told her. “It’s a very good idea.”
They stood and he took hold of the bracelet, but paused a moment in quiet reflection. “Eleanore, no matter what happens, whatever you see—don’t run from me.” He knew instinctively that if she did, he would give chase. He was a hunter now. And like all born hunters, he would automatically pursue anything that ran from him.
“I can handle it,” she said bravely.
This is insane,
he told himself then. He looked down into Eleanore’s dark blue eyes and thought of everything she meant to him. He had searched for her for two thousand bloody years. Through wars and famine and hardships that most people could not imagine. She was the other half of his soul. What he felt when she was near was unlike anything he had ever experienced with another woman. With no other being, period.
If he changed and couldn’t control himself, he knew he would use all of his power to seduce her senseless, screw her brains out, and nearly drink her dry. And when she came around—if she came around—she might not forgive him. Was he willing to risk everything between them just to take her flying?
I may never get another chance,
he thought
. I may always be a vampire. I may never be cured. I might have to wear this bracelet forever.
With that thought, Uriel yanked on the gold band around his wrist. It came away from his arm with a bright, decisive flash.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
E
leanore watched as the bracelet dissolved, flashed out of existence, and then reappeared in Uriel’s grip, no longer wrapped securely around his wrist. She looked up to find that his head was bowed and his eyes were closed. His lips were pressed firmly together as if he were in pain. Or possibly concentrating.
Eleanore couldn’t take the tension. “Uriel?” she asked softly, taking a tentative step toward him. “Are you okay?”
She stopped in her tracks as his lips parted, revealing long, gleaming white fangs. Then she gasped as he raised his head and opened his eyes. The gorgeous light green of his irises was no longer visible. It had been swallowed up entirely by a deep, bottomless black that claimed his eyes from corner to corner.
Uriel settled this unnerving, unnatural gaze upon her and smiled.
It was not a reassuring smile.
No matter what happens, whatever you see—don’t run from me. . . .
Those had been his words.
“Uriel . . .”
Oh God,
she thought. Run was exactly what she wanted to do. It was instinctive. When a predator with big, sharp teeth pins you in his crosshairs, you run.
But he’d warned her not to. And somewhere in the tornado of Eleanore’s thoughts, she knew he was right. Running would only make things worse.
He took a step toward her. It was a determined, deceptively calm prowl.
“Oh, Uriel,” she breathed, feeling dizzy with fear.
“Yes, Ellie?” His voice sounded like satin and it slid around her like a silky vise, squeezing her will within its dark influence. It sapped her strength to move away any farther.
“Snap out of it!” she told him—begged him—not even sure what she was saying. She was grasping for words that would bring back the Uriel that had been holding her only moments ago.
He continued to advance. Her instincts told her to step back, but she remained stubbornly frozen in place. As she watched him come nearer, an idea flashed through her head.
He calmed down when I touched him,
she remembered. Outside of the August, when he’d gone into monster mode on the teenagers, it had been Ellie that brought him back to himself.
Another step. He was closing the distance between them.
Eleanore swallowed hard and tried to take a calming breath. “I know you aren’t going to hurt me, Uriel,” she said, shaking her head once for emphasis. “I trust you. You’re stronger than that. You’re an
archangel
.” Against every defensive fiber in her being, she took the final step forward herself, closing the gap so that they stood toe-to-toe and she gazed up into his eyes. “You’re not a vampire.”
Uriel seemed to pause, staring down at her through those black portals, studying her carefully. But she couldn’t tell what he was thinking; his eyes were so alien to her—devoid of color or emotion.
“Please remember who you are,” she whispered, slowly reaching up to place her palm against his cheek. “And who I am.”
Uriel could feel it again. But it was stronger than before. It was surging through him unchecked, beckoning him to use it. It was an angry sort of power, like a monster caged and starved and tormented through the bars—then suddenly unleashed upon the world that had imprisoned it.
At inception, he had scented Eleanore’s blood, like desire and need and want all mixed together and bottled into a perfume. And she was there, standing before him, defenseless and beautiful, wind-blown and a touch cold, her skin ever so slightly dampened by the salty mist in the air. She was temptation in human form and he had never,
ever
felt so hungry.
She’d spoken his name—breathed it in fear—and at first it only fed the fire in his blood. But then she’d told him to snap out of it. She’d told him that she trusted him. And, though the curve of her chin and the beguiling tilt of her neck was very nearly killing him, she’d told him to remember who he was.
Who
she
was.
And he couldn’t help but do as she commanded—because she was his archess. She had been made for him and, if you discounted the sequence of events, then in essence, he had been made for her as well. He could never hurt her.
She raised her hand and touched his cheek and the monster inside of him backpedaled into its cage, leaving him stunned and . . . something else. He couldn’t put a name to it. But it was staggering.
He could only gaze down at her as his world slowly turned from red to the normal nighttime hues it had been cast in before he’d pulled off the bracelet. His vision changed. His blood stopped rushing. The need within him tamped down and receded to a dull, insistent throb. It was not exactly comfortable—but it was the same aching need he always felt when he was near Eleanore.
He could handle it.
His canines receded to their normal size. He shuddered once beneath her touch and then lifted his own hand to cover hers on his cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “Did I scare you?”
She smiled at that. He’d obviously scared the hell out of her. But she was brave. She was so, so brave and she amazed him to no end.
“Only a little,” she fibbed, shrugging it off. “Are you okay?”
“
Yes
,”
Uriel said. “But it seems you’re always having to ask me that. You deserve better.”
“What’s better?” she asked.
“This.” And suddenly, his arms were snaking around her waist and he was pushing off of the sandy beach and taking her up with him.
Eleanore screamed. The world was falling away, vertigo rushing in to take its place, and everything blurred into one dizzying, terrifying motion as Uriel spun toward the heavens, holding her so tight that his embrace felt like a steel seat belt, strapping her body to his.
She shut her eyes against the unexpected change, clinging to the archangel with every ounce of her strength. She wondered if she was going to faint.
And then, just as suddenly, the wind ceased lashing her hair against her face. Her stomach dropped back out of her throat, and the air stopped biting. Eleanore was surrounded by silence, all-encompassing and vast. There were no seagulls, no waves hitting the shore. There was nothing but the sound of her trembling breaths, in and out in a nearly hysterical rhythm. Several seconds of this passed before she dared open her eyes.
Her face was pressed to Uriel’s chest. She’d buried it there in fear.
She chanced a movement, pulling her head away to look up and over the hard swell of his biceps. Darkness spread into the distance, curving against the horizon just enough that she could tell the Earth was, in fact, round. The ocean was endless beneath them, dark and foreboding and, perhaps, bottomless.
Far, far below was the tiny white strip of beach they’d left behind. Their campfire was but a speck of beckoning warmth. The surf looked like a slow-rolling string of froth, moving lazily toward the shore. Over the water, the white wall of fog waited patiently, and small dots of black dove in and out of the mist—seagulls, playing in the night, their cries silenced by the distance between themselves and the angels that hovered above them.
“So now it’s my turn to ask,” Uriel whispered, his lips caressing the curve of her ear. “Are you all right?”
Eleanore slowly blinked as the stillness around them gradually calmed the frantic beating of her heart. They hovered in the air, separate from the rest of the world, apart from the chaos that existed on the ground. And little by little, Eleanore realized how perfect it was. How peaceful.
“Yes,” she whispered, giving him a small nod. “It’s so quiet.” She turned in his embrace and looked up at him. She could barely see him in the darkness and his frame was outlined by the moon, making his expression a secret. But she caught a glinting in his eyes, flashing green as emeralds, and it reassured her.
“You won’t let me go?”
Very softly, he said, “Not for anything.”
A breeze picked up again, gentle and tentative. She could tell that he was slowly lowering them back toward the ground. “Where are we going?” she asked.