“I would
like nothing more.” Marcus hesitated and her hope faded. “I must
speak with Veiron about what he has seen.”
Amelia
didn’t want that to happen. She needed to leave, to find somewhere
quiet where she could be alone with Marcus and pull herself
together. Her courage was spent. The events of the past day
combined with the knowledge that she was going to die had her head
spinning and left her quaking. She couldn’t face Veiron yet, not
when she feared that what he had said would come true if she saw
him again.
Running
away wasn’t the answer but it would give her the time she needed to
find the strength to face everything that was happening and to face
her fate.
“Is it
set in stone?” she whispered and he looked confused. “The future…
Marcus… is it set in stone?”
Marcus
lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her hair. “No. If there is
one thing I have learned in my years, and during this mission, it
is that nothing is set in stone. The future can be changed, and the
slightest thing can avert the greatest disaster.”
That was
a small comfort at least.
“I don’t
want to die.” Amelia buried her head against his chest armour and
wished it wasn’t there creating a barrier between her and Marcus’s
warm skin. She needed to feel him.
He
brought one hand up and splayed his fingers through her hair,
holding her gently against him as he sighed.
“I
promise you, Amelia, with all of my heart, I shall not let you
die.”
She
smiled at the strength in those words and the gravelly edge to his
voice that left her with no option but to believe in the promise he
made and his conviction to keep it.
“Is he
really a demon?” She looked past Marcus’s arm to the open backdoor
of the townhouse and through it to the entrance hall. She couldn’t
see the porch or the world on the other side of the building from
this angle. “He looked like one of you.”
Marcus
stroked her hair, his movements slow and gentle, as rhythmic as his
steady breathing. That steadiness flowed into her, calming her
fears and settling her heart. “Veiron would have been like me once,
many millennia ago, or perhaps even less. He was once an angel of
Heaven.”
“Is he
what happens to angels when they fall?” Amelia thought about Einar
and how kind he had been to her, and hoped that Marcus said that it
wasn’t because she didn’t want Einar to become evil.
Evil.
Veiron
had said that he wanted to protect her. That didn’t seem like a
very evil thing to do. The other demonic angels who had attacked
her in the alley clearly hadn’t wanted to protect her though.
Perhaps even the demon world had those who were good and those who
were bad.
“Veiron
is what happens when an angel’s soul is corrupted so much that the
damage is irreversible. He has pledged himself to the Devil and
forsaken my master.” Marcus paused and held her closer, his hand
stilling against the back of her head, holding her to his chest. “I
had not realised before yesterday that they had a second
appearance. I had only ever heard of them, seen them, as a man with
the wings of a demon.”
“Why do
they use such a human form if they have that other one?”
Amelia
had never believed in deities before and even with this happening
to her it was hard to bring herself to believe in their existence.
She had seen angels and demons though, and believed in them now.
Perhaps if she saw God and the Devil, she would believe in them
too. She only hoped that seeing them wouldn’t mean she was
dead.
“I am not
sure. Perhaps they do so to taunt us with what they have become and
the fear that we too may one day be like them. They always appear
to my kind in the same manner as Veiron did today, their tainted
feathers disappearing to reveal their demonic wings
beneath.”
Veiron
had certainly seemed to take pleasure from the manner in which he
had appeared to them. He had enjoyed shocking her.
“We
should see what Veiron has to say.” It wasn’t what she wanted to
do, she wanted to stay here in Marcus’s arms and forget the past
few minutes had ever happened, but it was the right thing to do and
she was starting to find her courage again. She would face whatever
life had in store for her and she would survive. She had finally
found a good man, a beautiful angel, and she wasn’t about to give
up and throw in the towel. She was going to live through this and
be with Marcus.
Marcus
held her a moment longer and then lowered his hand to hers, clasped
it tightly, and led the way back through the townhouse to the front
porch.
Veiron
was gone.
***
Chapter 12
“What
happened?” Marcus hurried down the stone porch steps to Einar where
he stood near the black wrought iron gate to the
townhouse.
Einar
looked from him to Taylor. She kept her back to them, still
standing in the road close to the spot where Veiron had
been.
“What
happened?” Marcus tried again, growing tired of no one answering
him. Veiron couldn’t have left. When Marcus had no longer been able
to resist going to Amelia, he had told the man to wait and he had
agreed, stating that they needed to talk. “I need to know what he
saw.”
“He’ll be
halfway to Hell by now.” Taylor turned to face them, an edge of
guilt in her blue eyes. Had she driven Veiron away? Marcus didn’t
care if she had been involved with Veiron and things had ended
sourly. Amelia was what mattered now and he had thought that Taylor
would see that and would have kept Veiron here while he had gone to
speak with her.
“I don’t
care.” Marcus stepped towards her, anger rising within him, and
stared her down. She cast her gaze downwards. “I want to know why
he left!”
“Marcus.”
Einar caught Marcus’s arm, his grip so firm that Marcus wouldn’t
easily be able to shake it. “Taylor will try to get a message to
him, won’t you, Taylor?”
Taylor
nodded.
It was
too late now to argue about what had happened, but it wasn’t too
late to find Veiron and he wasn’t about to wait around while Taylor
tried to contact the man. He could find a way to go to Hell and
track him down. He needed to know what Veiron had seen. He couldn’t
let anything happen to Amelia. It was more than duty driving him
now and he couldn’t fail her when he had promised that he would do
all in his power to protect her.
Marcus
looked skyward. The lightening vault of Heaven was turning blue as
the sunrise wore on and it looked as though it was going to be
another hot sunny day. Not a cloud marred the sky.
He called
on his wings and stretched them, preparing himself for flight. He
couldn’t easily enter Hell to find Veiron, but he could enter
Heaven and face his superior. This time he wouldn’t leave without
discovering what they had seen and why he had to protect
Amelia.
“Where
are you going?” Amelia said from behind him, her soft voice lined
with fear.
Marcus
tucked his wings against his back and turned to face her. Just as
he did so, her hand slipped into his, fingers pressing into his
palm, and a desire to remain with her battled his need to
leave.
What if
he left her and something happened?
What if
Veiron returned and took Amelia, claiming that he wanted to protect
her?
Marcus
couldn’t bring himself to trust a Hell’s angel. Three of them had
already come after Amelia and they hadn’t done so to protect her.
For all he knew, Veiron could be lying so he would hand Amelia over
to him, believing that she would be spared a terrible future if he
did so. Veiron or another demon might be the one who killed her. He
had only said that Marcus was there when she died. That didn’t mean
that Marcus or anyone from Heaven was responsible for her
death.
He made a
short noise of frustration and looked at Amelia, deep into her grey
eyes. The fear in them spoke to his heart and he couldn’t bring
himself to leave her side, not until she wasn’t looking as scared.
Veiron hadn’t said when the event would take place, but it couldn’t
be soon or he wouldn’t have left without a fight for Amelia. There
had to be time before her death and Marcus would use it to find out
what was going to happen so he could avert it.
First he
needed to ease Amelia’s fears.
“Taylor…
please try to contact Veiron or anyone who might know about this,”
he said without looking at her and then took hold of Amelia’s hand
and led her back into the townhouse and through it to the small
garden.
The patch
of sky between the backs of the tall buildings that formed a
quadrangle around him was already turning deeper blue, calling to
him with promises of warm sunlight on his feathers and a cool
breeze to chase away the heat of day.
It was
soothing being surrounded by quiet with Amelia and the longer he
stood there clasping her hand tightly in his, the more he shared
her need to escape everything for a while and just be alone with
her. It wouldn’t solve anything but it would give him time to
answer Amelia’s questions, and perhaps find answers to his own, and
would ease the fear in his heart and hers.
Marcus
leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Put
something warm on and come back here.”
He
released her hand and nodded towards the door. Amelia walked over
to it and then looked back at him, uncertainty written in the
beautiful lines of her face. When he smiled, she went inside and
through to the foyer. Taylor and Einar were arguing outside. He
could hear them and was certain that the neighbours could too. They
fell silent a few seconds after Amelia had left him and he heard
their low-spoken conversation and Amelia’s request for warmer
clothing.
Marcus
tilted his head back and looked at the sky. Everything that had
happened this morning ran through his mind and he analysed it,
searching for clues and inspiration. He would take Amelia away for
a few hours but that was all he could spare. He needed to find a
way to uncover what Veiron had seen or discover what Heaven had
witnessed about Amelia’s future.
Heavy
footsteps alerted him to someone’s presence but he didn’t take his
eyes off the sky. It wasn’t Amelia.
“I know
you’re angry with her, but cut Taylor some slack. She went through
a lot of pain because of Veiron. He hurt her and it was the first
time she had seen him since he broke up with her.” Einar’s tone was
soft, careful and each word felt measured, as though he had put a
lot of thought into what he had said.
Marcus
sighed.
He hadn’t
realised that Veiron had been the one to leave Taylor. The way they
had reacted to each other and the fact that Veiron had gone looking
for her when he had heard about her being with someone else had led
Marcus to believe that she had been the one to break things off
between them. If Veiron had hurt her, she had hidden it well, but
not good enough that Einar hadn’t noticed.
“Veiron
left because Taylor said that she wouldn’t let him take Amelia, and
that she believed that you were able to protect her and change her
fate. She told him that he wasn’t needed and that we wouldn’t
entrust Amelia to him.” There was an edge to Einar’s tone now, a
note that warned of his increasing anger over how Marcus had
reacted to the fact that Veiron had left. Had Einar been able to
see his doubt about Taylor’s desire to protect Amelia?
It shamed
him that he had. He didn’t know Taylor but he shouldn’t have
believed her capable of doing something that would endanger Amelia.
Just because she was half-demon, didn’t mean that she would side
with another demon over an angel. She was in love with one after
all.
It was
difficult for him to see past his prejudice towards her kind
though. He had never worked with a demon before. They had always
been his enemy in the past and now he was expected to view one as
an ally. It was going to take time to adjust and come to trust
her.
Marcus
looked across the yellow stone patio at his friend. The hardness in
his rich brown eyes dared Marcus to say another word against the
half-demon he loved. He sighed again, exhaling long and slow, and
let his shoulders drop. The tension in them faded. He couldn’t hold
on to his anger towards Taylor now that he knew Veiron had hurt her
and knew that she had defended both Amelia and him. Her actions
went some way towards gaining his trust but he still needed more.
If she tracked down Veiron, she would have his trust
completely.
“I’m
sorry,” Marcus said and held Einar’s gaze, hoping that he could
understand what had driven him to suspect Taylor wasn’t wholly on
their side. Einar had once been one of the leading hunters for
Heaven and had regularly been sent to the mortal realm on missions
to destroy demons who were dangerous to humans. He had to
understand because he must have struggled to overcome his hatred
towards demons in order to love Taylor.
Einar’s
look softened and he crossed the patio and placed a hand on
Marcus’s shoulder. “I know how you’re feeling. We were all shocked…
but this cannot be completely unexpected. If Heaven has seen her
demise, then it is likely your mission to change something so it
won’t happen. Heaven has ordered you to protect her, haven’t
they?”