Chapter Twenty-Three
Gabe
“Gabriel, wake up.”
The feminine voice, with its demanding and domineering quality, was not the one I expected to wake to. Worse yet, it was one that I’d woken to before, long ago.
My eyelids flew open to see not one but two women standing at the foot of my bed. The sight of two beautiful females in one’s bedroom might have been the subject matter of many men’s fantasies, or at the very least, the reigning plot of many pornography flicks. But for me, it was more like a nightmare.
Standing in the doorway wearing nothing but that blanket she knitted me was Melanie. Her eyes were glued to the force of nature standing between us with toned arms folded over a perfectly fitted blazer.
I jolt into a sitting position. “Azraella!”
Melanie’s eyes rounded at the name, not that it would mean anything to her, despite the fact that it was an angelic name. She’d cracked the code. Azraella wasn’t just my ex. She was my boss. And this wasn’t just an awkward call from an ex. This was a visit from my archangel.
And this wasn’t a social call.
Blood and feathers.I was afraid of this. I expected to get caught. I just didn’t expect it to be the next fucking day.
I should have anticipated as much.
Paradise had its hand in everything. They probably had a Watcher on us. The celestial spies were everywhere, especially posted in front of Lucifer’s establishments. Fucking Christ. One had probably followed us when we’d left Siren’s.
“You don’t seem happy to see me, Gabriel?” the archangel mused, her painted lips pursing into a venom-dipped smile that would give Poison Ivy a run for her money. Her gaze roved over my nude body, a kind of rigid appreciation banked in the blue depths of her eyes. Her mouth curved into a ghost of a smirk as her attention came to rest on the thin corner of the sheet that covered my dick. Glaring, I grabbed a pillow and placed it in my lap.
“You could have called, Az.”
Her smile turned icy. “You don’t get to call me that anymore. Gabriel.”
She strode around the room, scrutinizing every detail. She ran a manicured fingernail with French tips over my dresser and examined it, rubbing the dust between her fingers with a sour look.
“Besides, why would I bother notifying you? So you could run away with stolen property? Just because you cover her in your seed doesn’t make her yours, Gabriel.”
Melanie opened her mouth to say something, but I shot her a sharp glare of warning, and she immediately clamped her jaw shut.
Shit.
“I wouldn’t have run.” My tone was curt, bearing no trace of emotion. It didn’t matter how I reacted to Azraella or what I said. She knew my crimes. I’d broken three laws. And I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction to see me squirm and beg. I refused to allow her to have any effect on me, not in front of Melanie.
Besides, I had little patience for small talk. If I was getting my wings ripped from me, I might as well get it done and over with. My stomach curdled at the thought, and my shoulder blades trembled.
Don’t let her. Fight her.
My beast was never frightened of anything, but he was frightened now. I couldn’t blame him. The prospect of being locked away inside me forever was an unsettling one. Honestly, it was a horrific prospect. My wings were the only way I let out my beast, and he was my source of strength, my immortality. They were a symbol of pride. And I didn’t like to brag, but my wings, in particular, were gorgeous, as white as snow with thick feathers and a wingspan that could carry a giant.
My gaze slipped to the brunette in the corner wrapped in a patchy blanket she’d made herself. My heart swelled just looking at her.
But I guess all those things weren’t so important, so long as she was mine. The joy she brought me made everything else seem trivial in comparison. Mortality wouldn’t be so bad. Not when I got to spend it with her.
When I had first come to Earth on assignment, I was just a boy. Paradise’s youngest guardian. I had been top of my class, the perfect example of discipline, of God’s holy power.
I’d been assigned a child and told to make her my priority. Why? Because that was what Paradise had commanded me, and like all warrior class angels, we are taught to value duty and devotion to Paradise above all.
And our ward’s came second.
Over the years, my priorities had been flipped, and I hadn’t truly realized just how far Paradise, with all its archaic laws, had dropped down on my list of shits to give until yesterday.
No longer was I consumed by guilt for what I’d done. That’s what Paradise hoped to instill in all its guardians as a means of control.
