Her Guardian Angel 4-Her Angel Series (2 page)

“No,
thank you,” he said and when she looked as though she needed a
reason for his refusal, he added, “It will keep me
awake.”

She still
didn’t seem satisfied. She shifted foot to foot, her gaze darting
down to her hands in front of her, and then looked right into his
eyes again.

“How
about I ice those knuckles instead then?”

Marcus
glanced into her low-lit apartment and then back at her, and caught
the fear in her eyes as she looked down at the stairwell. She was
afraid that the man would return and begin harassing her again. He
would accept her offer but not because he needed her to assist him
with his healing. He would go with her because he could see that
the man had won and had shaken her up, and that she was asking him
to stay with her a while because she was scared.

It was
his duty to protect her. Tonight, that duty could extend to
guarding her a little more closely than usual. Once she had settled
and was comfortable with the idea of being alone again, he would
take his leave.

He nodded
when her attention returned to him.

Amelia
led the way into the apartment, leaving him to muse what he had
done tonight and his duty.

She
deserved better.

A better
life.

That was
the reason he was here—to keep her safe and watch over her. To
protect her from the creeps and from something else.

To give
her that better life.

He was
sure of it.

Marcus
followed her towards the kitchen, noting that the layout of her
apartment differed slightly to his as he passed through the pale
square lounge. There were no windows in it, just like his one,
because the bedroom and bathroom lined the exterior wall opposite
him. Their positions in the apartment were reversed in his. He
stared through the open door of the room to the right. Her bedroom
was next to his and the head of her bed rested against his wall.
She slept so close to him, yet he couldn’t feel her when he was in
bed, couldn’t sense her on the other side. At such proximity, he
should have been able to even when her signature was dulled by her
sleeping. His gaze fell to rest on the long cream couch angled
towards the television set to his right in the corner of the
lounge. A pillow occupied one arm of the sofa and a scrunched up
dark blue blanket sat at the other end.

Did she
sleep on the couch?

He looked
through into the bedroom again, frowning at the smooth covers on
the double bed.

Was that
why he couldn’t feel her when he was in his bedroom?

Back when
he had been watching over her from Heaven, she had always slept in
her bed. Had something happened recently to change that? If it had,
it must have occurred in the past month when he had been in the
mortal realm. When he was here, he couldn’t watch over her as he
had in Heaven, able to view her through buildings using the power
granted to the angels of his division. He had to physically see
her.

Amelia
came back out of the room to his left. He dragged his gaze away
from the bedroom and the bathroom next to it, and finished crossing
the room to the open double doors that led into the kitchen. Her
small kitchen was brighter than his, the cupboards a pale type of
wood, with stainless steel appliances.

Some
former owner of his apartment had deemed it stylish to have a dark
kitchen. Marcus deemed it impractical. It was a nightmare to keep
clean so he had given up feeding himself shortly after moving in
and had resorted to eating take away food, instant meals or eating
out.

Marcus
leaned against the kitchen counter, his hand throbbing. It had been
a while since he had felt physical pain. He couldn’t remember the
last time it had hurt to punch something.

He
couldn’t remember the last time he had fought someone.

Amelia
placed a red and white chequered tea-towel down on the side and
emptied out several trays of ice cubes into it. She gathered the
ends and twisted the bulk of the cloth around to keep the ice in,
and then came over to him. He started when she took hold of his
hand, gently slipping her fingers under it so they brushed his
palm, and raised it. Heat travelled up his arm and it had nothing
to do with pain this time.

She
rested the ice pack on his knuckles and he didn’t feel the cold at
all. He stared at their joined hands, urgently trying to decipher
how she had warmed him with only a light touch and alarmed by the
hard beat of his heart against his chest. She looked up into his
eyes, her grey ones full of warmth again, softening her delicate
features and holding his attention.

“Thank
you.” She glanced away again, her gaze briefly dropping to their
hands and the ice pack, and then met his eyes. His pain faded in an
instant, driven away by the heat of her touch and her concerned
expression, and he marvelled at the effect she had on him. It
wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. She was his duty and that was all she
could ever be. Once he had fulfilled his mission, he would finally
request his transfer and would never see her again. Her thumb
brushed his and fire shimmered over his skin. “I really am sorry
that he woke you and that you had to hit him.”

“I said
it was nothing.” Marcus hadn’t needed to hit the man. He could have
compelled him to stop but he had reacted on instinct, and for some
reason that instinct had been to punch him. He could think of a
million situations with mortals when he had been in danger and had
compelled them. Why not this time?

Had
Amelia’s presence as a witness deterred him?

Or was
she the reason he had struck the man?

He had
been consumed by anger, enraged by what the man had said about
himself and Amelia, driven to violence by a handful of
words.

He was
Amelia’s protector. Her guardian.

He was
not her lover.

Her
fingertips grazed his palm as she removed the ice pack and
inspected his left hand. A shiver tripped up his arm and down his
spine, and his shoulder blades itched. He took his hand away from
her and rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the tension
building there.

His wings
wanted out.

“How are
they feeling?”

Marcus’s
head snapped up, his eyes immediately locking on Amelia. His wings?
She nodded towards his knuckles and relief swept through
him.

“Fine,”
he said absently and breathed slowly to steady his racing
heart.

There was
no way she could know about his wings but, for a moment, it had
felt as though she had been reading his mind. It had been a while
since his wings had wanted to come out. After five centuries of
living with them sealed away, he had grown used to them not being
there. It had been strange becoming accustomed to them again when
the binding curse had started to lose effect over thirty years ago.
Most of the time, he was content to physically put them away as he
was now. It took concentration to maintain their disappearance but
it used less energy than hiding them from human eyes with a
glamour, and it was far easier to move around in the mortal realm
without worrying about accidentally knocking things over with
them.

“Are you
alright?” Amelia ducked towards him, interrupting his view of his
knuckles and replacing it with an altogether more pleasant one of
her face and her cleavage.

Marcus
stared at her plump full breasts, his pulse picking up again, and
then averted his eyes. Women had no shame. It was little wonder his
master had decided that they should not serve him. They were wily,
manipulative, a distraction, and considered by most as the source
of all sin.

“Fine,”
Marcus repeated and took the ice pack from her, ramming it onto the
back of his hand when all he wanted to do was stick it down his
jogging bottoms to bring his libido under control.

His
fellow warriors had warned him about women, especially ones as
beautiful as Amelia, and he wholeheartedly believed every word that
they said. Women were dangerous. He would not falter though. Amelia
was his mission and his allegiance was to his master, his loyalty
to his duty, and nothing would change that.

Once this
irksome mission had ended, he would return to Heaven and request
his transferral as originally planned, and would join the ranks of
the soldiers who protected the realm of Heaven from intruders and
wars. He would defend that which he believed in. Not this mortal
world, but his world.

He had
never physically guarded a human before but was certain that his
assignment to act as her next door neighbour was a sign that his
mission was progressing and soon he would be free of it.

He
couldn’t wait to return home.

“How are
you feeling?” Marcus took the ice pack away from his hand and set
it down in the stainless steel sink beside him.

Amelia
shrugged. “Better, I guess.”

She
didn’t look better. The weary edge was back in her eyes, draining
them of warmth, and he found himself desiring to comfort
her.

“He won’t
come back.” His words had the desired effect and she brightened for
a brief moment and then it faded again.

“You
don’t know that.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I do
pick them.”

Marcus
turned and ran his hand under the cold water, letting it wash away
the trace of blood on his knuckles. When he reached for the tap to
shut it off again, he felt Amelia’s eyes on his bare back, boring
into his shoulders, and lingered a moment. Would she mention the
marks he had revealed by carelessly turning his back on
her?

“It won’t
be long before I drive you away too.”

Those
words, softly spoken, caused him to look over his shoulder at her,
a frown drawing his dark eyebrows tightly together. She dropped her
gaze and then met his with resolution that didn’t surprise him.
This was the Amelia he had come to know these past three decades.
Strong, able to face anything head on, unflinching.

“What
makes you say that?” Marcus turned back to face her, aware now that
he was bare from the waist up and was probably only encouraging any
attraction she might feel towards him. He should have put on a
t-shirt before leaving his apartment but he’d had one thing on his
mind—getting the irritating bastard in the hallway to shut up so he
could sleep.

Or was it
purely so he could sleep?

He stared
at Amelia, taking in the way her cheeks coloured as he did so and
how she couldn’t hold his gaze.

He had
thought only of protecting her.

Defending
her.

“The last
bloke who lived alone next door to me left only a couple of months
after moving in.”

Marcus
knew for a fact that the man had been forcibly evicted due to a
minor error in payments caused by Heaven’s intervention but had
later won money on the lottery that had allowed him to place a down
payment on the house of his dreams. The young man had been the
easiest target to remove in order to place Marcus close to Amelia.
The old lady who lived in the apartment on the other side of Amelia
was frail and had lived in the building for over twenty years and
relied on those around her to assist her. She also slept heavily,
meaning that Amelia’s ex-boyfriends didn’t wake her when they came
to knock down her door. Marcus would have had a contender in the
guardian stakes if the young man had remained living next to her
and they had moved the old lady.

“You do
live alone, don’t you?” There was a tremble to that
question.

Marcus
nodded without thinking and then considered the implications of his
answer when Amelia’s grey eyes warmed again. A loaded question. She
had cleverly used it to discern his availability.

He
briefly considered making up a girlfriend in order to obliterate
any attraction she might feel towards him so he could continue his
mission in peace but couldn’t get the words out when he looked into
her eyes again.

The space
between them shrank until it felt as though she was barely inches
from him. Her soft breathing filled his ears, drawing his attention
down to the sensual bow of her dusky pink lips. The tip of her
tongue swept across them, leaving moisture in its wake, luring him
in.

How long
had it been since he had kissed a woman?

Not in
this lifetime, that was for sure.

Marcus
dragged his eyes away from her, shutting down his emotions at the
same time. Amelia was a mission. He couldn’t allow things to become
complicated. Not when he wasn’t even sure why he had to protect
her.

He
couldn’t get involved with her.

He had to
maintain his distance.

No matter
how impossible that seemed now.

No matter
how much he wanted her.

***

Chapter 2

The
moment Marcus set foot back in his apartment and closed the door, a
bright shaft of light encased him. His wings swiftly emerged,
silver-blue feathers warming as the light touched them, and his
sweat pants disappeared, replaced by his dark blue loincloth. His
armour appeared next. Dark leather boots slowly materialised on his
feet, followed by rich blue metal vambraces that covered his
forearms and greaves that encased his lower legs. His blue back
plate and breastplate melted into existence, protecting his upper
torso, moulded into muscles to mimic his body. The raised silver
edging on his armour shone brilliantly, reflecting the blinding
white light.