CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Eleanore 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.
“Up the beach. Here,
let go of my shirt and take my hand.”
Eleanore glanced down
at his offered hand. His other arm was still wrapped securely
around her waist. She thought of Superman and how he had taken Lois
Lane flying above Metropolis with nothing more than a grip on her
fingers. She smiled a nervous smile and pried one of her hands out
of the back of his shirt so that she could lay it across his
palm.
His fingers closed
tightly, possessively, over hers. “Now let go with your other
hand,” he whispered, his words once more caressing her
ear.
“No
way.”
He chuckled, the
sound sending delicious shivers down her spine. “Trust me,
Ellie.”
“Uh-uh.” She shook
her head.
“You’ll regret it
later if you don’t take the chance right now,” he told her softly.
“You trusted me enough to stick around when I took off that
bracelet. If I didn’t hurt you then, why would I hurt you
now?”
He had a point. But
it didn’t matter.
“I can’t,” she told
him.
There was a brief
moment of silence as he seemed to be contemplating something. Then,
in a more serious tone, he said, “I can help you.”
Eleanore looked back
up at him, trying to meet his gaze.
“I can make you
relax. If you let me inside . . .” He leaned down and laid a very
gentle kiss on her forehead. “In here.”
“You mean hypnotize
me?”
He laughed at that,
loud and clear. It was a delicious, rumbling sound. “Yes.
Basically. But only if you want me to.”
Eleanore considered
it. “You won’t make me do a strip tease for you or cluck like a
chicken, will you?”
Again with the
laughter, this time a low chuckle that warmed her abdomen—and
places lower down. “That I can’t promise. I like
chickens.”
Eleanore shot him a
sideways glance. “Okay. But just relax me a little and that’s
it.”
“Yes,
ma’am.”
Eleanore thought he
would allow her time to prepare, but almost at once, she felt his
presence within her mind, and not just her mind, but her body. It
was like being infiltrated by gaseous morphine or Valium, mixed
with a heavy dose of some kind of aphrodisiac. Words whispered in
her ears, but she couldn’t make out what they were. They were
indistinct and sent shivers through her—delicious, decadent
shivers. Moisture pooled shamelessly between her legs. She couldn’t
help it.
She was incredibly
turned on.
Eleanore closed her
eyes, unable to suppress the moan of slow, catlike pleasure that
escaped her throat.
“Let go now, Ellie,”
he said, his voice carrying easily over the influential whispers
caressing her body and mind.
Eleanore could not
help but obey. She let go of him. She felt his grip on her hand,
tight as ever, but it was the only part of them still
touching.
“That’s it,” he told
her. “Now open your eyes.”
Again, she obeyed.
Then he turned out toward the long line of beach beneath them and
began to soar above it, taking her with him. She squealed with
surprise when he dove closer to the ground until they were skimming
a mere few yards above the surface.
Eleanore knew that
her eyes were saucerlike and her smile a mile wide. She could feel
it, ear to ear, as the ground rushed by beneath her and her arms
stretched out on either side of her. She became the flying Ellie
that she’d always been in her dreams. It was wondrous; there was no
discomfort, no fear, no pain. There was only the night and its
endless ocean and its frothy waves and the way they all raced by
underneath her. She felt as if she could reach down and run her
fingers through the water like the fin of a shark.
They dove through a
bank of fog and came out the other side damp and breathless.
Eleanore became transfixed with the reflection of the moon on the
water. She wanted to follow it, to keep moving, to keep skimming
there just above the ocean, and Uriel seemed to know this, because
he let her.
He never once
loosened his hold on her hand. He simply guided her toward all of
the places she wanted to go.
She laughed out loud
when they buzzed past a small pod of sea lions on an outcropping
and the creatures barked back in surprise.
Eleanore forgot about
everything in those precious moments. She left it all behind. There
were no contracts, no men with needles, no worried parents, no
dead-end jobs, no dangerous fans with cell phone cameras—not up
here with Uriel and the night and its salty wind.
The night wore on
and, eventually, Uriel began to lower them back down to the ground.
He drew her close as they neared the paved asphalt of a
bed-and-breakfast parking lot. When her feet touched down, it was
with a gentle tentativeness, as she was wrapped tightly in Uriel’s
embrace.
They gained their
legs beneath them and gravity worked once more.
Eleanore gazed up
into Uriel’s stark green eyes, which she could now see very clearly
beneath the porch lights of the bed-and-breakfast. She wanted to
tell him so many things. She wanted to thank him, especially. But
she also felt breathless and high and fantastic and—because his
influence had yet to drop away from her, she felt flushed. She
yearned for him.
She wanted to kiss
him again. She wanted to show him just how much she’d enjoyed the
flight.
Something orange,
like fire, flashed in the green of Uriel’s eyes and his hand slid
up her back, pulling her harder against his chest.
And then her stomach
growled. Loudly.
She
blinked.
Uriel closed his
eyes, as if composing himself. And then he opened them again and
pursed his lips to keep from smiling.
“Inside with you,” he
said. “There will be plenty of time for other matters after you’ve
had a decent meal.”
Sam finished reading
the last of Juliette Anderson’s file and then gently set it down on
top of the coffee table in front of him.
She was a very
interesting young woman. Born to twenty-two-year-old Abigail
Anderson and twenty-five-year-old Scott Anderson in Sacramento
twenty-five years ago. She was unlike Eleanore Granger in that her
powers had not materialized until just recently. She was very lucky
in some ways; she’d had a relatively normal childhood and had been
able to go to college. However, she was unlucky in other ways.
Samael’s men reported that she was frightened of her new abilities.
She felt alone; even her parents were unaware of her double
nature.
She was a beautiful
woman. As an archess, that was to be expected. The folder he’d
perused contained various photographs, taken at different angles.
She had a wealth of shining brown hair that fell in thick waves
down her back. Juliette, or “Jules” to her friends, was a fair
amount shorter than Eleanore, coming to a very petite five feet and
three inches, but within her tiny frame was a vortex of strength,
energy, and power. Her beautiful hazel eyes glowed with it, as well
as with kindness. According to her file, the woman volunteered for
numerous charities and freely donated money and personal
belongings.
She was lovely,
inside and out. But Samael suspected, as well, that it probably
made it that much more difficult for the new archess to maintain a
low profile. People noticed women like her.
Just as they had
always noticed Eleanore.
And speaking of
Eleanore . . . Samael leaned back in his chair and laced his
fingers over his stomach. He wondered how she and the new vampire
were getting along.
He, of course, hoped
it wasn’t that well. But, whether it was or not, it hardly
mattered. The gala was tomorrow night. The archangel and his soul
mate would most assuredly be in attendance.
But they wouldn’t be
alone.
Not by a long
shot.
General Kevin Trenton
appeared quite young to be a general. But he was not like most men.
He was . . . different . He always had
been.
Right now, it was his
own different nature that he pondered as he watched the recorded
footage of Eleanore Granger healing a man and his daughter
immediately following a car accident in a small town in West
Texas.
It had taken precious
time and resources to locate the footage. According to his men,
despite the fact that the accident scene and subsequent healing had
been messy, evidence of the event turned out to be nearly
nonexistent.
Kevin wasn’t happy.
This cover-up meant that someone was looking out for Eleanore.
Someone else out there was thinking along the same lines that Kevin
had been thinking for years.
Granger was a very
special woman. She had something that Kevin and his men didn’t
have—had never possessed—and desperately wanted. Her need to heal
her fellow man had come naturally to her. And it was that healing
ability that had drawn him to her all those years ago.
Eleanore Granger
needed to be brought in. There was no more time to waste. He had
tried to capture her after a lucky flux had located her in a
mid-Texas town called Rockdale, where several of his men happened
to be stationed, but somehow she’d escaped him.
Her ability to elude
him was positively bewildering.
Kevin wasn’t certain
what Christopher Daniels had to do with Eleanore, but he suspected
that the actor was not all he seemed to be. Furthermore, Kevin was
fairly sure that Daniels, too, had something to do with the
temporal fluxes his team had been charting all over the
planet.
It all centered on
Granger. He needed to get his hands on her.
Christopher Daniels
had a promotional event in Dallas to attend tomorrow night. Kevin
knew that Eleanore would be accompanying him. With luck, a careful
plan, and a good number of skilled men, Granger would be under his
control by Friday morning.
Uriel had never been
forced to exercise as much control over himself as he had tonight.
First the kiss in front of the hotel. Then the stupid fans. Then he
had taken the bracelet off.
He was going a little
batty on the inside. On the outside, he was calm, he was in
control, he was understanding and gentle, but he had no idea how he
was holding it together as well as he was because, frankly,
Eleanore was making him crazy. If he hadn’t had two thousand years
to learn to exercise immense control over his own body, he would
have a painfully raging hard-on at the moment. Luckily, all he had
was a throbbing gum line and a pair of fangs that would not totally
disappear.
He managed to hide
those fairly well, making certain that Ellie couldn’t see his face
when they were pronounced. But how long would he be able to keep
this up?
Christ, he thought, as he followed her through the
front door of the bed-and-breakfast. He could smell her arousal. He
knew she was wet with desire for him. He’d known it from the moment
his influence had coiled inside of her, releasing the need she kept
so carefully in check. He knew he was subduing her, breaking her
will, and though he hadn’t meant to do it, there was a part of him
that was anything but sorry that he had. It had caused his own
monster to awaken, rear its head, and sniff the air. His gut had
clenched, his jaw tightened, his hunger spiking hard.
He had given her a
taste of something she had always yearned for and, in return, she’d
felt true happiness. Somehow, it made him love her even
more.
Love her?
He could hear that
her heart still beat rapidly in her chest and he couldn’t help it
when his gaze slipped to the curve of her taut ass in those tight
jeans, swaying gently as she walked ahead of him.
He swore under his
breath and bit back his groan.
He watched as she
tentatively placed a slim-fingered hand on the wall and peeked her
head around the corner of the entry hall into the foyer. The hair
slipped from her neck when she did, exposing the long, slim column
of her throat. He bit back another groan.
And there it
was.
Fuck me, he thought. I do love
her. I love everything about her. It didn’t exactly come as
a surprise to him. She was his archess, after all. But he’d existed
for countless generations and had never known love before this. It
was a new emotion for him, and it was bewildering in its own
right.
There was a woman
wiping down a coffee table in the room beyond. Uriel instantly
caught her gaze and, in a most nonangelic way, he immediately
subjugated her mind.
The woman smiled
warmly at Eleanore and put her hands on her hips. “Oh my goodness!
Look at you two; you’re soaked through. Have you come from
far?”
“Sort of,” Uriel
said, playing along with ease. He was good at acting. “We were
wondering whether you had a room available and we’re also hoping it
isn’t too late to get a bite to eat.”
Bite . . .
“Of course we have a
room!” the woman chirped happily. “In fact, our corner suite on the
second floor cleared out this morning and won’t be booked again
until Thanksgiving! You’re welcome to it; it’s already been cleaned
and prepared.” She bustled past Eleanore to a small writing desk
against one wall, where she extracted a few forms from a folder and
handed them to Uriel.
“My name’s Tilda, by
the way,” she said as she handed them the forms. “If you’ll just
fill these out real quick, I’ll go ahead and put some soup on the
stove. Minestrone all right with you?” she asked.
“That would be
fantastic,” Eleanore said with a grateful smile.
A half hour later,
Ellie had finished her meal in the bed-and-breakfast’s dining room
and the two of them headed to their room on the second floor of the
inn. Eleanore’s heart was beating fast by the time she followed
Uriel up the stairs. During dinner, she had confessed to him that
she needed to talk. Though she’d been having a fantastic evening,
she knew she had to tell him about her contract with
Samael.
The room they had
procured for the night was actually two separate rooms, joined by a
long hallway that sported an enormous bathroom. The bathtub was
more like a hot tub, complete with jets and nooks in the marble for
placing cold drinks. There was a fireplace in the master bedroom,
and Tilda had already started a fire for them. It burned low,
crackling warmly and lending a comforting glow to the rest of the
room.
But it was the view
that people were paying for with this suite. One side of the master
bedroom was lined with floor-to-ceiling windows and a set of
sliding glass doors that led out onto a balcony. The sound of the
surf was clearly audible, as were the cries of seagulls and the
barking of sea lions somewhere in the distance. Even at night,
Eleanore could tell that it would be breathtaking in the
morning.
“Did you enjoy your
dinner?”
No, Eleanore thought. I spent
the whole meal worrying about what was going to come
afterward.
“Yes,” she fibbed.
“It was good soup.” At least that was
true.
Uriel was still
watching her closely. He nodded once and lowered himself into a
large leather chair that sat across from the master bed. Then he
rested his long, booted legs on the coffee table in front of him
and speared her with a hard look. “Now talk.”
“I’m scared,” she
told him honestly. “This has been such a wonderful night, Uriel.
You’ve . . . you’ve shown me so much. But I’m afraid.” She
shuddered, a chill working its way through her body.
He did not fail to
notice it, but the hardness in his gaze also didn’t let up. “What
are you afraid of, exactly?” he asked softly.
“I don’t want you to
hate me.”
“I could never hate
you, Ellie,” he told her calmly. “So you can stop being afraid of
that right now.”
Eleanore slowly
lowered herself onto the edge of the bed and stared into the fire.
“Fine. What’s done is done.” And though she knew it was foolish to
have made such a deal with such a man, she also knew, in her heart,
that she had done it for the right reasons. She had done it in the
hopes that Samael would cure Uriel of his vampire curse. To her,
that was a noble motive. She only hoped Uriel would see it that way
as well.
“Yesterday, I signed
a contract with Samael,” she said, deciding to just let it out all
at once. She didn’t look up at Uriel to see his reaction. Instead,
she gazed steadily into the fire and didn’t even move. “The deal
was that I would come to him for protection if, at any time in the
following week, you did anything to . . . to hurt me.” She
swallowed, fighting past a lump that had formed in her throat. She
was beginning to tremble, but she forced herself to go on. She
still didn’t look at Uriel. “In exchange, he agreed to free you
from your vampire curse at the end of the week.”
The room was silent
but for the sound of the crackling flames and the seagulls and surf
outside the windows.
Eleanore wondered
whether she should look up and meet Uriel’s gaze. She considered
it. She considered pleading for understanding or forgiveness. But a
part of her—the stubborn part—also felt that she shouldn’t need
forgiveness in the first place. After all, she wasn’t the only one
who had made a deal with Samael.
The silence continued
to stretch until Eleanore was so nervous, she was certain she was
going to break out in hives.
“Did he hurt you?”
Uriel finally asked, his tone eerily calm.
The question
surprised Eleanore, but she still didn’t look at him. She shook her
head.
Again, he was quiet
for some time. And then, “You did this for me?” he
asked.
Eleanore nodded,
keeping her eyes stubbornly trained on the crackling
hearth.
Suddenly, Uriel
blurred into impossible motion, carrying with him a burst of wind
that rushed through her hair and sent the fire into a frantic,
crackling fit. Eleanore shut her eyes as her hair whipped at her
face. She felt strong arms at her waist lifting her, but she had no
time to cry out or object before she was taken at breakneck speed
through the air and shoved up against the wall. There she was
pinned beneath a tall, hard body.
Uriel’s dark vampire
power was instantly penetrating her mind, flooding it with desire.
Her lips parted, a moan of harsh longing climbing her throat, but
it was never given voice, as Uriel’s lips crashed down hard against
hers, claiming them in brutal subjugation. He delved deep, with no
hint of gentleness, and she could feel his fangs, fully elongated
and sharp, threatening at the tip of her tongue.
A rush of trepidation
fought to climb up her spine, but Uriel shoved it back down,
ruthlessly smothering her in her own desire.
He reached down with
one hand, his palm sliding along the side of her waist. He held her
body against the wall with the weight of his own and wrapped his
other hand gently—but threateningly—around her neck. He squeezed, a
show of ultimate control over her, as the fingers of his other hand
found the hem of her T-shirt and shoved it up, exposing the taut
flesh of her abdomen. His fingernails raked across her skin,
drawing a gasp of desire from somewhere deep within her, which he
swallowed as he continued to kiss her harshly, drinking her
in.
I want you, she heard him breathe into her
mind.
She was befuddled and
hot, feverish with confusing desire. She could not reply, but she
found herself arching against him when his fingers headed south,
ripping open the front of her jeans so that he could shove his hand
under the lace band of her panties.
God, I need you, Ellie. . . .
He was all around
her. Encompassing her, bringing her to terrible, delightful,
agonizing life. Her nerve endings cried out for him—to stop? To go
on?
He found the soft
curls between her legs and tightened his grip on her
throat.
She was on
fire.
I love you, he told her then, as his fingers
pressed on, invading her, parting her, and sinking
deep.
Then take me.