Secret Worlds (181 page)

It was a hellhound.

I swallowed to wet my suddenly-dry throat as the muscles coiled around the beast’s shoulders when it prepared to attack. Well, being scared wasn’t going to do me any good. Tossing off the cumbersome purse around my shoulders, I clenched my hands into fists and drew my energy out from where it rested inside me. My mouth formed an unpleasant smile.

“Alright, Scooby. Come get some.”

Snarling, the beast lunged straight for me in a deadly arc.

“In the name of the Father, I reject!”

The hound smashed into me with what felt like the force of a Mack truck, taking me right off my feet. I slammed into the ground on my back, hands blocking my upper body. The shield had worked. The creature snapped at me with its huge jaws, but an invisible force kept it from touching me. Still, it had me pinned beneath its huge body and the shield wouldn’t hold forever. I needed a plan and fast.

Grimacing, I summoned as much strength as I could and shoved my arms up into the thing’s face. The shield forced it several feet away from me. The hound scuttled against the ground to get back on its feet. It gave me a couple of seconds to think. I needed to be on the offense.

I split my shield into several shards the way Michael had taught me and threw out my hands.

“Strike!”

One shard flew through the air like an arrow just as the creature raced towards me. The attack sliced down the right side of its body, spilling black blood onto the ground, but it kept coming. I threw myself to the side too late as it jumped at me. Its claws scored deep scratches across my right arm. Pain lanced through me as if I’d been burned with a red-hot poker. Shit!

The hound regrouped, rushing me again. I threw another two shards at it, this time slashing its left front paw and part of its spine. The beast stumbled as it ran but still crashed into me. I hit the ground again, knocking the air out of my lungs, too stunned to put up another shield. The hound snapped at my face but I rolled, crying out as one of its paws grazed my stomach before I could get away.

I felt something wooden beneath my shoulder. I glanced downward at the pile of trash I’d fallen into and found a broken broom handle. As the hellhound prepared for its final attack, I ripped the cross off my neck and shoved it into the tip of the splintered wood. The hound leapt, razor-sharp teeth aiming for my throat. I thrust the handle up into its massive chest.

The improvised stake pierced its shaggy hide and a sharp hissing sound emitted from where the cross buried itself in its insides. The hound convulsed in its death throes, still trying to bite me. My arms were too busy holding the stake to stop it from biting one side of my neck. I cried out again as its fangs scraped my skin, spilling blood. Just when I thought it would tear out my throat, two impossibly strong hands wrapped around its jaws and pulled them apart until I heard the loud snap of its skull cracking.

The great creature went limp and collapsed beside me, dead. In seconds, it disintegrated into ashes, leaving a steaming black stain on the ground. Michael reached down and helped me up, his face losing its righteous fury to give way to concern. It wasn’t until I was standing unsteadily on my feet that I realized he had rushed out of a shower to help me. He was clad only in a towel. Huh. Interesting.

“You’re hurt,” he said, green eyes raking over my form.

I managed to shrug. “You’re naked.”

Ignoring me, he tugged my uninjured left arm across his shoulder and carefully walked me back inside. Naturally, the gouges didn’t start hurting until we got in the rear entrance of the hotel, on account of the air conditioning. The adrenaline had worn off, leaving me shaky and scared shitless. Still, I managed to keep it together as Michael slid the key card in the door with his left hand, his right still wrapped securely around my waist to hold me steady.

“How’d you know I was in trouble?” I asked.

“I felt the hellhound’s presence. Whenever something with energy from Heaven or Hell is on Earth, the angels sense their presence,” Michael told me. The door opened and he helped me inside, kicking it shut and hurriedly settling me down on the bed. He grabbed one of the fresh white towels on the sink and wet it. He knelt in front of me and began cleaning the wounds.

“You never did explain that to me properly. I thought creatures from Hell couldn’t appear on Earth.”

“They can’t. Hellhounds are usually just stray dogs that the demons use their influence over to corrupt them into monsters. It’s sort of a loophole.” He pressed the towel a little harder into my neck, causing me to hiss and his brow to furrow even deeper.

“I’m alright,” I asserted, taking the cloth from him to mop up the blood. It seemed almost a shame for all that pure white to be marred with crimson.

He frowned at me. “How are you anywhere
near
alright, Jordan?”

I shrugged again, regretting it as the claw mark on my shoulder stung. “You taught me well, after all.”

Michael shook his head. “Don’t try to change the subject. I shouldn’t have let you go out on your own. It was stupid of me.”

It was my turn to frown this time. “What? Am I your pet? You don’t run my life, Michael.”

His gaze hardened. “That’s not what I meant. You told me before that you’d be careful and now look at you. You almost got eaten by a hellhound all because you wanted to go on a date with your ex-boyfriend.”

I pushed his hand out of the way when he reached for the towel, standing up. He stood too, appearing worried that I’d topple over from blood loss but I didn’t. My anger had somehow given me enough strength to glare up at him.

“It wasn’t a date—it was a meeting. Besides, why should you care?”

“Last time I checked I was your emotional support,” he retorted a mildly sarcastic voice. “I can’t perform my duties if I don’t know the whole story.”

A tired sigh escaped my throat. “What do you want me to say? I don’t know how I feel about him any more than you do.”

“Then why are you pursuing this relationship at all?”

My mouth fell open. “You—you’re the one who asked me if I would ever consider getting back with him! Are you really giving me lip after you suggested it?”

Michael’s face became stubborn. “Oh, great. So you ignore everything else I say to you except when it comes to this guy. That makes a lot of sense.”

“This isn’t about you, Michael.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “On that we agree.”

His words stopped me. I had another angry retort prepared, but something stopped me. It was the way he said that last sentence and how waves of irritation seemed to pour off of him like a warm cloud of cologne that made me realize a startling truth.

“Michael…are you jealous?”

Silence spilled around us. Then, slowly, his expression began to recede from angry into something much harder to place. The frown disappeared and a very strange smirk touched his lips as he ran a hand through his dark, damp hair.

“Jealous, huh?”

He walked towards me. Normally, Michael was an open book of emotions: happiness, sadness, humor, compassion—all of them he wore on his sleeve like badges of honor. This walk I had not seen before. There was something in his body language that made my throat dry and my palms sweaty. He stalked towards me with the grace I only saw on National Geographic channel in the powerful movements of a lion on the plains of Africa—a predator closing in on the helpless prey.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a plain to run around on, so I backpedaled until my bare back pressed into the wall, the towel slipping from my slackened grip and onto the floor. My pulse skyrocketed when he stopped mere inches away, staring down at me with an unfamiliar heat in his gaze. The angel had vanished and the man stood in his place.

“My purpose on this Earth is to serve my Father and protect mankind from evil. It might not seem obvious, but I’m continuing my mission through protecting you, Jordan.”

He lifted an arm and pressed his palm against the wall to the right of my head, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “In order to do this, I’ve had to train myself not to feel the same human emotions that you deal with on a daily basis—greed, gluttony, wrath, sloth, pride, envy, and lust.”

When he said lust, the other arm rose to parallel the first on the left side of my head, effectively trapping me. I couldn’t look away from the intensity in his eyes. Words died in my throat—words that should have gotten me out of this dangerous situation. Distantly, I realized Michael wasn’t using his influence on me. This was the sheer power of his presence.

“So when you ask me if I’m jealous, you already know the answer because part of me is human. What you should be asking me is
why
I’m jealous, considering I have no right to be. Terrell is a good man. He could give you a comfortable life, keep you safe, and treat you well. I should want that for you. I should be willing to step back and let you live your own life. I should remember my place as an archangel under God’s direct orders. Why do you think I can’t do that, Jordan?”

I swallowed, imploring my lungs to fill with air enough to answer the question, though for the life of me I couldn’t keep from stammering. “I-I don’t know.”

His face drifted close enough that I could smell the faint scent of his shampoo and the sweet spice of his aftershave, close enough that I could feel the warm air from each breath across my neck, close enough that goosebumps rolled over my arms from the thrill of being so near a handsome, nearly naked male body.

“I think you do know. You know exactly what I’m thinking right now, because you’re thinking the same thing, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself.”

I closed my eyes in an attempt to regain composure. “We should…probably patch me up. Don’t want to die from blood loss.”

“You’re right. Hold still.” Confused, I opened my eyes again to see him leaning towards the claw mark the beast had left on my collarbone, seeming as if he were going to kiss it. I pressed my palms against his chest to stop him, regretting it as my fingers came in contact with his firm skin.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s faster if I use my healing energy.”

“Y-Yeah, but when Raphael did it he used his hands,” I insisted.

He smiled that secretive smile again. “True, but you made me angry. Consider this your punishment.”

Before I could say anything else, he lowered his mouth to my collarbone and kissed the torn skin. I hissed, flinching as it stung, but then something else happened. The cut tingled as if he’d poured rubbing alcohol over it, grew cold, and the skin re-knit itself as if it had never been damaged. No more blood, no more pain, no more mess. I hadn’t been awake to experience this kind of rapid healing the first time. During our sessions, Raphael had merely run his hands over the wounds and they gradually closed up. Michael’s method was nothing like his, probably for good reason.

There were three areas of scratches left on my body: the ones on my neck, the ones of my upper stomach, and the ones on my inner right forearm. My heart thudded inside my chest like an animal trying to escape its cage, but I had been trapped. Michael lifted my arm in one hand and trailed his lips across the delicate skin, sending goosebumps all the way to my fingertips. I could feel tremors going up my spine from the sensations and from the knowledge that he was doing something so intimate on purpose—dragging my very human desires out from depths of where I’d locked them in my mind. Damn him.

Now that the wounds on my arm had disappeared, he reached for the knot at the base of my neck that held up the dress. I panicked, afraid of what would happen if I let him. I caught his wrist, whispering his name. He held me with his heated gaze, his tone low and soft.

“Who don’t you trust? Me or you?”

My lips barely moved. “Both.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

I shook my head. “That’s not what I’m afraid of.”

“What are you afraid of?”

I swallowed hard. “Not being able to stop.”

A look went through his eyes that made my breath catch. “Let me worry about that.”

He tugged the knot loose. I didn’t stop him. The front of the black dress crumpled until the front lay a few inches above my waist, exposing my upper body clothed only by a black strapless bra. Michael’s gaze could have burned a hole through solid steel and it was aimed at me. God help us both.

Time seemed to slow as he leaned over my neck and kissed the first scratch, sending waves of warmth through me that made my eyes flutter shut. He sighed and then inhaled the scent of my skin as if it supplied him with air to breathe. My knees nearly gave out as his tongue flicked across the second scratch, simultaneously agitating and soothing it. My hands came to rest on his broad shoulders, feeling the heat that seemed to permeate us both. One more left. Those soft lips caressed the third mark and made it disappear, leaving only the clean line of my throat for him to explore. He kissed over my pulse, the edge of my jaw, so carefully, as if he were sure I’d shatter from too much pressure.

I gasped as he lowered one hand to the dress and tugged it down several more inches, until the cuts on the upper portion my abs were exposed. Michael dropped to one knee and slid his hands over my waist, holding me still as his hot breath curled across my stomach. When his mouth passed over the wounds, my breathing became strained and weak. That same boiling metaphysical warmth from the last time we’d kissed flooded over me in a sudden rush, erasing whatever hesitance I had left. After the cuts closed and he stood to full height, I knew there was no turning back. Now or never. Now sounded very attractive.

Michael didn’t hesitate either. In an instant, his body pinned mine against the wall and he kissed me, but it was different from before. This was a
kiss
. Eyes closed, lips parted, breath unsteady, tongue tracing a tantalizing line across my bottom lip. I had never in all my life been kissed like that, not by Terrell and not by any other temporary boyfriend I’d acquired. At first, his large hands cradled my cheeks to hold me still but the deeper the kiss became, the lower they sank. Down my neck, over my shoulders, brushing the sides of my bra, and finally settling on my hips. My knees were getting weaker and weaker by the second as his fingers drifted down into the crinkled half of the dress and just barely grazed my thighs.