He halted
in mid-air and she almost collided with him. Clearly she needed to
practice stopping as well as landing.
“What
happened?” Lukas said with a look over Marcus and then took him
from her.
“Renounced.” It was the only word she could get out between
breaths. She felt faint again and wasn’t sure how much longer she
could keep flying.
“Hurry.
We shall leave the angels to Veiron. He will keep them busy long
enough for us to reach safety without them seeing where we went.”
Lukas turned and flew back in the direction he had come
from.
Amelia
followed him. Another explosion shook the air and she looked back
towards where Veiron was battling the angels. He was on their side.
She found that hard to believe but she wasn’t going to complain.
Veiron was lighting up the sky with his attacks and she could feel
their strength regardless of the great distance between them. He
was a powerful ally and she needed all she could get right
now.
She had
escaped Heaven but she hadn’t won yet.
Amelia
touched down on the tiled balcony of Apollyon’s rooftop apartment
and followed Lukas inside. She frowned when something washed over
her and looked back at the French doors. Purple light shimmered
there. A barrier?
“You are
alive!” Serenity’s high squeak, still laced with her thick French
accent at such a pitch, brought a smile to Amelia’s
face.
Amelia
went to step towards her but her wings shrank and disappeared into
her back and the last of her strength left her.
Einar
caught her around the waist and she tried to thank him but couldn’t
find her voice. She looked across at Marcus in Lukas’s arms and
reached for him.
“Take
them into the room,” Serenity said and then looked at Lukas. “I
will need you back here right away.”
Lukas
nodded and carried Marcus into the room where Amelia had slept
before. He laid Marcus down on the white wooden double bed there
and covered him with a pale blue blanket. Einar helped her onto the
bed beside him and she leaned back into the pillows. They were warm
against her chilled skin and comforting.
“Angels
are coming,” she whispered and Einar nodded.
“It’s
under control. Rest now. I will see to Marcus first.” Einar smiled
at her and then rounded the foot of the bed to the other
side.
Amelia
tracked him with her gaze and then watched him as he pulled the
covers away from Marcus and held his hands out above him. Pale
light filtered down from his palms, washing over Marcus’s bruised
and dirtied skin.
“Will he
be alright?” Amelia tilted her head to one side and took in
Marcus’s profile.
“He’ll be
fine.”
Those
words brought comfort to her heart and seemed to give her leave to
surrender her fight against the tiredness running through her
aching body. She slipped her hand under the covers and into
Marcus’s, locking their fingers together.
“Let’s
send you to sleep, shall we?” Taylor’s voice cut into the darkness
of her closed eyes and Amelia sighed out her breath and sunk into
the pillows as a warm hand came to rest on her forehead.
Sleep
sounded good.
She
wanted to sleep forever in Marcus’s strong arms.
Safe at
last.
***
Chapter 26
Marcus’s
head felt heavy and his limbs weak, drained of strength and limp at
his sides where he lay shrouded in darkness. His soul was in agony,
torn at and beaten, and it was a struggle to breathe through the
pain. He hadn’t considered the consequences of his actions. He had
thought only of ending his duty and saving Amelia.
She was a
divine being, made of God and the Devil, and he had heard the
strength of her voice when he had cut her loose from the chains
that had bound her. It had reached deep inside him, filling him
with the images of countless deaths they had shared and with her
fear of dying again. She had wanted to live with him. She had
wanted this to end and for them to finally be together.
He had
wanted that too.
It had
taken only a handful of words from her to give him the strength to
fight Heaven’s rule over him and then only a small amount of his
power to change the course of his spear so it struck the chains,
smashing them instead.
But
Heaven hadn’t relented.
It had
pushed him throughout their escape into the open gardens
surrounding the white fortress and then when they had been flying
back to the mortal realm, and he had known that they would never
give up. They would continue to push and send that same command to
him until he was too weak to fight back and would succumb
again.
His
strength and power had left him just moments before he had made his
decision, and he had realised that he would no longer be able to
fight the command that Heaven was hammering into his skull. It had
driven him to do the only thing he could in the hope that it would
work and it would save her.
He had
sacrificed everything for her.
His wings
had disappeared in an instant.
His
armour and weapons taken from him.
Yet he
didn’t feel mortal.
He had
none of the weakness he had felt during the times when Heaven had
limited his power.
Was this
being fallen?
Einar
would know but Marcus didn’t have the energy to open his eyes and
seek the former angel out.
A cool
breeze washed over him, sweeping upwards from his toes.
“Marcus.”
Her voice was soft, as though the wind had carried it to him,
restoring his strength with its sound, and he slowly opened his
eyes and looked for her.
She
descended from the inky moonlit sky above him, her arms
outstretched and a smile curving her sweet rosy lips. Her silver
hair caught the moonlight and shone brightly as it fluttered out
behind her. Her wings beat the air but they were changing, some of
the long silver feathers falling away to reveal leathery membrane.
She looked at them with concern and then her gaze met his again,
shier this time.
“Marcus.”
Amelia drifted down and halted barely a metre above him. He closed
his eyes at the first touch of her hand on his face, and then
leaned into her caress.
“Amelia,”
he whispered and sighed as her touch sent warmth flowing through
him. Wherever it ran, his strength returned. The pain in his soul
began to lessen when her hand came to rest above his heart and she
landed beside him, kneeling between his right arm and his side. “I
am so tired.”
He opened
his eyes and sought hers. The smile was still there, heating his
chest through and stealing his heart. It was hers anyway. He had
forsaken everything for her, so they could be together, free of the
game Heaven and Hell had played with them. He only hoped their time
together lasted more than a few moments. He wanted it to go on
forever.
“Rest
then, my love.” She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his lips and
the ache in his soul disappeared. “My guardian angel.”
Marcus
closed his eyes and mourned the loss of her mouth on his when she
drew back. She draped herself over him, curling up with her head on
his bare chest, and placed her hand over his heart.
The
ground shook and she tensed.
“What is
happening?” He stared at the black expanse of sky above them. Stars
twinkled at him and the full moon was so bright that it was
dazzling. This wasn’t the real world.
“We’re
safe here, I think,” Amelia whispered and traced patterns on his
chest, following the lines of his muscles and then circling his
right nipple. “Taylor has sent us to sleep again.”
“We are
in Paris?” Relief beat in his heart when she nodded against his
chest. He couldn’t recall much after choosing to fall. The
immediate drain on him had rendered him unconscious and then he had
come around to find them close to crashing. They had crashed. He
looked down at Amelia. She lay with her head on his left pectoral
and her eyes closed. There was a cut across her left cheek and he
gently touched it. “You are hurt.”
“Only a
little,” she said and opened her eyes, meeting his. They were dark
in the low light but didn’t seem silver. Was she back to his Amelia
again now? He still wasn’t sure how it worked but there seemed to
be two sides to her, the angel and the mortal. Right now, she
looked like a mixture of both, as though those two sides had merged
into this one beautiful being lying with her head on his chest.
“Are you alright? You look so tired.”
He nodded
to stop her from worrying.
“We
should go back, shouldn’t we? Everyone is fighting because of us.”
The worry didn’t leave her eyes.
Marcus
shook his head this time and realised that he was laying on
something soft and warm that moved with him. He scrunched up his
free hand where it rested at his side. Sand. Taylor had sent them
to Amelia’s inner world again.
“The
fight will not last,” he said with a soft smile aimed at soothing
her. “This world keeps us hidden from Heaven and Hell.”
“They
won’t stop until they have me. I can stop this. I don’t want anyone
else to be hurt because of me.” Amelia pushed herself up until her
breasts pressed against his stomach and she was looking down at
him.
“I cannot
let you do that… and they won’t either.” Marcus brushed the backs
of his fingers across her cheek, sweeping the long strands of her
silver hair from her face. “They fought for you, Amelia. I fought
for you.”
“You fell
for me.” She looked away and tears filled her eyes. “That’s what
you did, wasn’t it? You gave it all up for me and I don’t deserve
it… I don’t deserve someone like you.”
He smiled
now. “You do… you deserve someone better than me.”
Amelia
looked at him again out of the corner of her eye, uncertainty
shining in them.
Marcus
swept his hand back to stroke the soft silver feathers at the top
of her wings and she turned her face away, casting her eyes
downwards, as though ashamed.
“I don’t
know how you can look at me now. I wish I didn’t look this
way.”
He
frowned at those words and the feelings behind them. So much
hurt.
“Why?”
Marcus caught her cheek again, trying to make her look at him. She
refused, keeping her face firmly turned away from his.
Her wings
shrank into her back and disappeared.
“How can
you feel anything for me when you know what I am… when I dragged
you into all of this… when I look like a demon?”
A demon?
She looked like an angel to him.
“You are
beautiful, Amelia,” he whispered and she frowned, sending tears
running over her cheeks. They shone in the moonlight as brightly as
her silver hair. He ran his fingers over the long silken lengths.
“I love everything about you. Your hair is like moonlight… and your
wings are beautiful… you don’t need to hide them from me. You are
still the woman I fell for.”
A tiny
smile touched her lips. “You really did fall for me.”
He cupped
her cheek and lightly swept the pad of his thumb across it, erasing
her tears. “I really did.”
“I hope
you won’t regret it one day.”
“I will
never regret anything when it comes to you. You mean so much to me
and that will never change, no matter how long we are together for.
I will always love you, Amelia.”
She
looked at him at last, fear still lingering in her grey eyes, and
he sighed at the sight of it. What could he say to make her realise
that he did love everything about her?
Marcus
slipped his hand under her chin and turned her head so she was
facing him again, looking into his eyes.
“Will you
let me see your wings again? I hate the thought of you hiding them
from me.”
Hesitation flitted across her face and then her wings slowly
emerged.
The stars
blinked and flickered above her, a halo of shimmering pinpricks
that matched her hair. The silvery feathers that had remained on
the top half of her wings shone too, pure and bright, just like her
heart and her soul. Beautiful. Breathtaking.
Marcus
held her cheek and smiled into her eyes. “You deserve so much more
in life than pain and suffering, and I wanted to give that to you.
I wanted to be a man worthy of your love… and I… wish that I was… I
don’t know if I am, or ever will be, but I want to be a good man
for you. I love you, Amelia. All of you.”
She
smiled brilliantly and leaned down and kissed him, her mouth
playing slowly and gently over his, breathing life back into his
weary body.
Marcus
wrapped his arms around her and held her close to him, savouring
the feel of her body against his and how good it felt to have her
in his arms again. He had fallen for her but he wasn’t sure whether
that was stopping Heaven from calling to him now or whether it had
something to do with where Taylor had sent them.