For better or worse.
“Open the door, Gabriel.”
“Mel, look at this place. Look at those men. They’re wolves, Mel. They stink of sex and violence.”
Her lips twisted into a cruel sneer. “Great, then maybe you can hang out with them while I have a drink inside with Jess. You should fit right in with them.”
“Melanie—”
“This stupid bodyguard thing isn’t cute anymore. You don’t own me.”
Her voice jumped up an octave, her words growing shrill. Her hand began to tremble on the door hand as she kept trying to open it.
“Goddammit. Look at you. You look like a drowned rat.” She looked beautiful; she always did. But I had to do everything I could to keep her inside this car. “You can’t be serious about going out like that.”
They’re going to scent you all over her,my beast growled low in my ear.They’ll know she’s mated to a celestial shifter, and they’ll devour every piece of her until there is nothing left.
I can’t let her go in there. God have mercy on my wretched soul. My desire for this human had my testosterone levels through the roof. Mixed with the overbearing instincts of my true nature and the possessiveness of a shifter who has marked his female, it made for a deadly combination.
“Open the door,” she seethed through clamped teeth.
She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. Yet, I couldn’t look away. Her dark eyes full of fire, her words dripping venom. Even when she was angry, she was beautiful.Especiallywhen she was angry. Her form, each curve, each dip and tuck and ripple of muscle was all pure perfection. Perfection in every single sense of the word. She was divinity itself. Her body was a temple, sacred and pure. It had been entrusted to me to protect, and I had desecrated it. And I’d enjoyed every single depraved second.
Forbidden fruit indeed.
My mouth watered for another taste, another lick.
Her cheeks flushed red, and her dark lashes fluttered. Then the perfume of her desire tickled my senses. It was almost like she should sense my lecherous thoughts with the way she smelled, the way the flesh of her thighs matched the color of her cheeks. The color of sin.
For one magical second, it was as if everything was right between us. Despite the secrets and the lies, despite the fact that I was her guardian angel—dammit—and it was a sin to crave her the way I did. We loved each other. And it was nice to pretend, if even for only one heartbeat, that that was all that mattered.
“Gabriel,” she whispered, her lips quivering and softening. Her throat glistened with tears in the crimson haze of Siren’s neon lighting.
I bit my lip.
We both sighed in unison.
“Melanie…”
“Please. Tell me the truth. What is going on with you? What…are you?”
My entire being burned to tell her. The beast inside me ached to comfort our mate because, in that moment, it was only the truth that would console her. At least, whatever truth she was imagining.
Because she would resent me if she found out what I really was. That I’d been lying to her all these years, that I had formed a friendship just so I could keep an eye on her. And if I did tell her, that would be yet another rule broken. Another chance of losing my wings, my immortality. I would still live a mortal life, and when I died, I would become Lucifer’s servant.
It was the possibility of her getting taken away from me and assigned to another that pained me the most.
“I can’t do that, Mel Bell. You must believe me when I say it’s for our own good that you don’t know,” I said through the wince of a groan.
A tear slid down her cheek, hot and bitter. “Then open the door.”
“I can’t do that either.”
She slammed her hand against the door, her gaze so sharp, it cut deep. “Open thefuckingdoor, Gabriel!”
I stared at her with a pained expression that I couldn’t hide. It would be easy to force her to stay here with me. As a guardian, the heavens put that power in my hands. Whatever it took to keep her safe.
But I couldn’t break her heart, no more than I’d already done. An internal war broke out inside me, her heart against mine, my true nature versus my humanity. My beast screamed at me so loud my skull rattled, and my vision shrunk to pinpoints. With a shaking hand, I reached up and jabbed the button that unlocked the doors.
