SOUL MATES (Angels and Demons Book 3) (3 page)

That hadn’t happened since the fall of the tower when God had appointed Lucifer the first guardian of humanity. They were coming full circle. And Stiles couldn’t have been happier to see it happen.

Dylan handed the wooden box to Rachel and watched as she placed it inside a metal box that she called a safe. “It’ll be impossible for anyone to get it from here,” she assured Dylan.

“Stiles thinks that Jack James wanted to possess me so that he could have control over it. He says that only angels can benefit from its power, so Jack would have to possess an archangel to control it.”

“And you were the most logical choice.”

Dylan shrugged as she curled up in a low loveseat shoved against a back wall of Rachel’s private office. “Joanna likely told him I was the one it was meant to belong to.”

“You think so?”

When Dylan was in Joanna’s house, she remembered details about that visit she’d shared with her there all those years ago—back when she thought Joanna was on the right side and wanted only to guide her—and she knew now that she’d seen that box then. Joanna took the box out from under her bed and held it out to Dylan. But then she panicked—or changed her mind—and dropped it. Dylan wondered if Joanna had intended to give her the orb then, but decided, or was told, that Dylan was not yet ready for it.

Dylan wasn’t sure if she was ready for it now.

Rachel settled beside her on the loveseat and took her hand lovingly in her own.

“How are you?”

Dylan shrugged. “I’ve been better.”

“Have you seen him? Since he passed?”

Raphael had shown Dylan heaven a few weeks ago. He’d taken her there so that she could experience what it was like to be in that place most angels take for granted. Since then, he’d taught her a few things about her own powers, including her ability to move back and forth from one realm to the other. But she hadn’t gone back to heaven since Wyatt’s death. A part of her was afraid to see him there, afraid to see that he was happier in that otherworldly place than he’d ever been here on Earth with her.

She shook her head as she pulled her hand from Rachel grip. She dragged the fingers of both hands through her short hair, a weariness that seemed to always be with her these days settled heavily on her shoulders.

“I think about him more than I should. When I lay in bed at night, I relive moments we shared over the years. Sometimes stupid moments—like this fight we had once when Josephine was a teenager and she wanted to cut her hair. Wyatt thought it would look odd on her face, but I was offended because I thought shorter hair would make her look more like me and he should see that.” Dylan shook her head. “It was a stupid fight that we should have forgotten the moment it was over. But, for some reason, it’s come back to me after all these years.”

“You know what I thought about after Jimmy died?” She didn’t wait for Dylan to answer. “I thought about all the times when I was younger—after you brought me into this time—when he denied me something I thought I desperately had to have. There was this time when I wanted to stay up late and watch you signing in the Outlanders. You were pregnant with Josephine at the time. You looked absolutely miserable, and I wanted to be there in case you needed something. But he wouldn’t let me and I was so angry.” She chuckled. “I know now that he was just watching out for me, but I was so mad back then that I wouldn’t talk to him for a week!”

Dylan pulled her legs up underneath her, curling up into herself in a gesture of comfort. But she found no comfort in her position or anything else these days. She missed the life she’d had, the companionship she’d shared with Wyatt—the joys of being a mother, the security of being a part of a community. She felt lost now. Even though she knew what her future was supposed to be, and even though she knew her fate, she still felt as though she were a ship that had suddenly become unanchored. She was blind and floating along on the whims of someone else’s current. And she didn’t like it.

“How am I supposed to do this?” she asked. “How am I supposed to be this great guardian when I don’t even know how to stop the demons?”

“How did you make the angels leave the Earth so that humanity could have a fighting chance? How did you make the choice that ensured our safety from Joanna and any other creature that decided to test our vulnerabilities?”

Tears began to run down Dylan’s face. She brushed at them angrily, but they continued to fall.

“I did it for Wyatt.”

“You did it for humanity. You did it so that we would all have a chance to live a good life, like you did with Wyatt.”

Dylan shook her head. “Everyone makes me into this selfless person, but that’s not the truth. I did it because I had no choice. I made the angels go home because I needed to be free of the war, I needed to protect Wyatt and Stiles and you and Jimmy. I needed to not lose anyone else I loved.”

“You might think you did it for selfish reasons, but what you did made this world, this life we’re living right now possible.”

Dylan rubbed at her cheeks again. “I don’t know if I can keep fighting, not when everyone I love is gone or will be very soon.”

“You can.”

She shook her head. “You’ll be gone someday. And Josephine.”

“But you’ll have Josephine’s child and her children and all the children that will come after them.”

“It’s not the same.”

Rachel took Dylan’s hand again, lifting it to her lips to kiss the back of it. “You are the savior. You were born to protect us and to give us the safety we need to live our lives to the best of our abilities. And I think God gave you Wyatt and Josephine all those years to allow you the time to understand what it’s like to live as a human, to have the same fears and struggles as us, but also so that you could feel what it’s like to love with all of your heart and soul, to feel happiness and contentment, and to know security so that you, like Stiles, will want to fight for us.”

A sob slipped from Dylan’s lips. She moved closer to Rachel and lay her head on her shoulder. “I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

“But that,” Rachel said softly, “is part of what it means to be human.”

Dylan went back to her room a while later and curled up in the center of the mattress. For the first time in weeks, she fell into a sound sleep. At first, it was a dreamless sleep. But, slowly, images began to fill her mind. She heard a voice, low and soft, that she didn’t know.

“I can make things better for you. I can make the pain go away.”

She believed this voice even though, as she turned in her dream, a fog settled around her and she couldn’t see the source. But she believed him. She believed there was life left for her and that she would feel whole again when she heard the promise in that voice.

“Better things are coming for you, Dylan. You just have to hang on long enough to experience them.”

Stiles was walking through a wooded area in the eastern part of the United Alliance of the Americas’ territory, his boots getting stuck in the mud that seeped up beneath the rotting leaves. Raphael was walking at his side, apparently not having any trouble with the mud despite walking in the same muck as Stiles. Nothing ever seemed to bother Raphael. He was one of those guys that everyone either loved or loved to hate. Stiles was bordering on the former at the moment.

They were looking for a group of dark souls that Dylan had assured them could be found in this area, preparing to attack a fledgling settlement that was beginning to grow roots in the ruins of a nearby town. They each had access to the lassos Dylan had created for them and placed in their arsenals, the only defense they had against these souls at the moment. They’d been fighting them for nearly a year now with little luck at finding a more permanent solution. Dylan could send them home, some of them, but only one at a time and that was taking much too long.

“She seems to be better these last few months,” Raphael suddenly said.

“Who?”

“Dylan. She seems better since the two of you found the orb.”

“She’s more focused,” Stiles reluctantly agreed. “She understands better what lies in her future.”

“I was concerned the earthly death of her husband would cause her to fail at her mission.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Stiles said, moving ahead of Raphael to step onto drier ground.

“She has freewill.”

Stiles didn’t answer. He wasn’t really interested in discussing Dylan and her uniqueness with this angel. Especially since Dylan wasn’t really going out her way to speak to Stiles much anymore. Ever since that afternoon at Joanna’s old house, Dylan seemed to be avoiding him on everything but the instructions she felt no qualms in giving him in regards to this war against the dark souls. Suddenly, he’d been demoted to soldier in her legion and he didn’t like it. Therefore, he didn’t need to be reminded she had freewill. He knew it all too well.

“Rachel thinks the orb has helped her get over her grief somehow.”

Stiles just grunted as he kicked the side of a tree, trying to get the mud off his boots.

“She thinks that she’s ready to accept her fate. She’s just not ready to choose her soulmate.”

“And Rachel knows this how?”

Raphael shrugged. “They talk.”

“Dylan knows what’s expected of her. She’ll make her choice when the time is right.”

“You think it’ll be you.”

Stiles glanced at Raphael. “My relationship with Dylan is really none of your business.”

“I know you don’t have a soulmate. And everyone can see the way you look at her. You’re what my wife called a lovelorn puppy.”

That made anger rise in Stiles’ chest so suddenly he could feel his armory open its doors and offer up his sword. But he didn’t reach for it. He simply turned away and began stomping through the trees again.

“You do know that only an archangel can be her soulmate, don’t you?”

Before Stiles could respond, a dark soul rushed at him from behind a stand of trees just a few feet ahead of him. He grabbed the lasso from his armory and easily swung it until it looped around the soul, somehow trapping its smoke-like figure in its embrace. Another rushed at Raphael, but he was even quicker than Stiles—of course—and caught it before it was even fully exposed to the clearing where they stood.

If there were any other dark souls in the area, they didn’t feel the need to expose themselves. Stiles searched the area while Raphael took the souls to the small jail where Wilhelm continued to study them. A year and he had yet to come up with anything conclusive, but he kept promising them he would. Dylan had faith. Stiles was, again, losing his patience.

Stiles returned to Dytonia, the small town where they’d set up their unofficial headquarters at Rachel’s library. Dylan was in the sitting room, reading through a sheaf of papers that appeared to come from a significant stack on the table in front of her.

“What’s that?”

“Death certificates,” Dylan said, brushing the hair out of her eyes as she looked up at him. “Rachel dug them up from the old city archives. She thought maybe if we knew something about the demons that are haunting this area—”

“How do you know which were Nephilim and which were human?”

“I don’t. But I’m learning a heck of a lot about the people who lived around here before my birth. Do you know more people died of disease and violence back then than natural causes? Can you imagine that?”

“I’m not surprised. It was a violent world to live in.”

“What was it like?” she asked, patting the couch cushion beside her. “You were here before the war was in full swing. What did you think of that world?”

Stiles settled beside her and crossed his legs, looking more casual than he felt.

“There were a lot of people in need,” he said slowly. “I spent my first night on Earth in a place they called a homeless shelter. It was for people who, for one reason or another, didn’t have homes of their own. I met a priest there—a religious leader—who abused the men who came to him for help.”

“He hurt people using the name of God?”

“Yes.” Stiles opened his mental barriers a little to allow her a peek of what he’d seen and heard that night. Horror dawned in her eyes and danced in her soul. “People were not kind to each other in that world.”

Dylan shook her head. “How did Lucifer allow it to come to that?”

“I don’t know that it was Lucifer’s fault. Perhaps it was just a basic flaw in humans.”

“But they were God’s creation. Would he have allowed such a flaw?”

“Maybe that’s why he decided to start over.”

Dylan nodded slowly, her eyes falling to the stack of death certificates in her lap. “Do you think that I’m capable of doing a better job than Lucifer did?”

“I think you’re capable of more than you’ve ever given yourself credit for.”

Dylan picked up the papers and dropped them on top of the pile sitting on the low coffee table. She sighed as she settled back on the couch. “Demetria’s worried that we’re stretching our resources too thin. There are too few of us to protect every settlement in the world. But we can’t leave any of them unprotected because we can’t predict where Jack and his people will attack next.” She reached up and rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand. “They just attacked a city outside of the ruins of Paris this morning. That’s the third attack in Europe in the last week.”

“You could ask Raphael to request another legion of angels from heaven.”

She nodded, but her shoulders were slumped as though they bore a heavy weight. “I thought of that. But I’m not sure bringing more angels down is the answer. I’ve already got to explain to the governing council’s committee about the ones we have now.”

“Forget the council,” Stiles said. “They have no idea what’s best for them.”

The council—the United Alliance of the Americas’ governing council—had decided in their infinite wisdom to banish all angels from populated areas, deciding that was the only way to prevent a repeat of the angel war. It never occurred to them that the angels were there to protect them from dangers they would never see coming, like these dark souls. In fact, they’d escorted Dylan out of town the moment Wyatt’s funeral was over, taking her from the only community she’d ever known and telling her that she was, essentially, no longer wanted.

It was cold and unnecessary. And it pissed Stiles off to no end even all these months later.

But Dylan…she’d forced them into a compromise in which she would make reports to a special committee appointed by the council and presided over by her daughter and her daughter’s children. She still respected their authority in a way Stiles would never completely understand.

“I have to respect their wishes, Stiles. It’s the only way I can ensure their cooperation in the future.”

“They’ll agree to more angels when these dark souls invade the council. When they begin attacking their own.”

Dylan shivered. “I won’t let that happen.”

“I’m not talking about Josephine.”

Stiles turned into her, reaching for her hand. She pulled away, tucking her body tighter into the back of the couch. It was that—this new distance she was putting between them that was slowly killing him. She’d never denied him a touch before; she’d never denied him the connection they’d had between them since she was a small child. But now…she wouldn’t even allow a casual brushing of the hands, let alone a comforting touch.

He stood up, moving so quickly around the low table that a few of the death certificates flew from the pile.

“Stiles….”

She said his name. But she didn’t really want him to come back to her. She was relieved. He could feel it radiating from her like waves of heat from the sun.