Angels of Darkness (45 page)

“Okay. Right. I will.” He slid out of the bench, hefted his backpack over his shoulder. “Thanks for the grub.”

Marc inclined his head, waited until Sam had walked out of earshot before opening his mouth. Radha beat him to it.

“The quarterback?
Really?
”

His grin eradicated the weariness that seemed to hang over him. Okay, that was proof enough. No matter how resigned and lonely he seemed, he was all right—and she really needed to go soon.

“We'll talk to him next.” His gaze lifted to the window. Outside, Sam was walking past, head down and earbuds in. “Do you think he'll grow out of it?”

“Out of being a stalker, pretending to be a girl's best friend for years, just so he can get into her pants?” At least with the more aggressive creeps, a girl knew exactly what they were after. They didn't pretend to care about anything else. Sam was the insidious kind of creep. Could that change? “I don't know. For now, she's well rid of him.
He's
the one who wasted their friendship. Maybe she caught on.”

Marc nodded, but she sensed a slight hesitation in him. Now
that
was unexpected. She'd never known him to hesitate over anything.

“What?”

“Is this what you thought I did back then?”

Back then.
She knew very well he hadn't. “No. You made it clear that you weren't after sex.”

She hadn't been after it, either, not at first. She'd been older, maybe too old for him—living a lifetime as a human, and then the span of another human life as a Guardian by the time she'd met him. But she'd liked him so well, and he'd been so fun. Serious and driven, yet smiling that sexy smile every time she'd gone to visit him, abandoning whatever he was doing to spend time with her.

And before too long, age hadn't seemed to matter. It rarely did with Guardians, not when they could appear however old they wanted to. They were all adults, after all. But maybe, with Marc, their age differences
should
have mattered. She'd known he was still finding his way, adjusting to his new life. But they all had done that. She'd known he'd settle in, eventually, discover who he was, who he wanted to be.

Maybe she'd pushed too hard, though. Maybe he hadn't been old enough—
mature
enough—to resist her when she'd finally given in and kissed him. He certainly hadn't had the experience.

He'd made up for it. All of that seriousness, all of that focus, suddenly turned toward pleasing her. She'd told him what she liked, and he'd applied himself to it very,
very
determinedly—and with an intensity that all but burned her alive.

And for all of her experience, she hadn't known how much she'd wanted that intensity. No surface passion, no going through the motions seeking some fleeting pleasure. With Marc, it had been all fire.

But only because his control had slipped, and he hadn't been able to resist.

He hadn't wanted to be her lover; she'd known that. She didn't know whether he'd pretended to be her friend, though. Maybe he'd just tolerated her. All of those polite human rituals coming to the fore, stopping him from telling her what he really thought of her.

The bastard.

Though Marc nodded in response to her answer, he still had that slightly faraway look, as if trying to work something out without actually asking her. And she realized—his question hadn't been about their friendship. It had been about her
leaving
, about being rid of him.

Did he not know? Did he truly never realize? Disbelieving, she shook her head. “You thought that was why I left? That I thought you'd just been my friend until you got what you wanted? Or maybe—did you think that
I
had gotten what I wanted?”

His jaw tightened, and a slight flush rose beneath his skin. “Or that you realized that I couldn't give it to you.”

A hard, bitter laugh shot from her. Oh, God. “Marc, you left me in bed and went to pray. You asked for forgiveness for having sex with me.”

“Ah.” He closed his eyes as if seeking out the memory, and his uncertainty became chagrin. Mildly embarrassed, but not sorry. The asshole. “I prayed a lot in those days, didn't I? Everything I enjoyed, later I asked forgiveness for. What can I say? I fell in with a bad crowd.”

A bad crowd of Guardian religious fanatics. No surprise there. Many Guardians went searching for answers after they were transformed, and those who seemed the most certain and the most vocal about those answers were also the most extreme. Radha had tried out several different belief systems, too, though she was over it by the time she met Marc. And she'd known that he'd been influenced by the fanatics—they'd debated several times. But she'd thought he was still looking for answers, not internalizing the ones that had been given to him.

By calling them a bad crowd, he probably meant for her to laugh, but it still hurt too much. Far too much. And he still didn't get it.

She'd understood him, though. Even back then, she hadn't been surprised that he'd gone to pray. Of
course
he was conflicted. He'd just broken a vow he'd made to himself. She'd understood that perfectly, and she sympathized with it—that was why she'd followed him. She'd intended to lend her support.

Instead, she'd discovered exactly how deeply that bad crowd had gotten to him.

“Marc, you prayed for forgiveness for fornicating with an
unclean
woman.”

His big body stilled, his face suddenly rigid as he stared at her. Would he come up with an excuse now? There
was
no excuse. She didn't care what he'd believed. A heathen, an infidel, okay. She absolutely was.
Unclean?
No friend thought that.

“Radha . . .” His voice was hoarse, and his throat worked, as if clearing an obstruction. His gaze searched her face before he closed his eyes. “I
did
say that.”

At least he didn't deny it. “I know. I heard.”

“So you left.”

“My choices were either to cry in front of you, kill you, or leave. I chose the one I could live with.”

“God. I can't . . .
God
.” He looked at her again, expression tormented. “I can't take that back. But I'm sorry. I'm damned sorry, Radha. It's not what I think now, and it was unforgivable to say it then.”

“Yes.” Unforgivable. It didn't matter that his horror and remorse were genuine, that she could feel them pouring from him. It didn't matter that he'd opened his emotions and lowered his shields in the most vulnerable manner a Guardian had, just so that she could see the truth of what he said now.

“It's not enough, but I'm sorry. I had a lot of stupid thoughts then, let a lot of stupid things come out of my mouth, seeing everything as a test of my faith, my dedication—and sex with you as a failure, because I succumbed to temptation. It doesn't justify anything. It doesn't excuse anything. But I'm sorry that my stupidity hurt you, and I hope you know that the thought only came then, when I was hating myself for my weakness and trying to find any reason to punish myself a little more. I never thought it before that moment, or after, and I sure as hell don't think it now.”

She knew. With his emotions wide open, she could feel his sincerity. But after what he'd done, what he'd said, it didn't matter that he wasn't that stupid boy now. Did it?

Silent, he waited. Just before he built his psychic shields again, she sensed the pain slipping through the sincerity, the resignation through the remorse, the despair through the horror.

God. What the hell was he carrying around with him? There wasn't anything good in there. No hope, no joy—and he
wasn't
all right. How could he live like this?

But she knew the answer: because he was as solid as the earth, unflappable. Because he'd keep going, even if he ran out of reasons to.

She couldn't read his face or emotions now, but his voice was low and rough.

“Is this what you came for, then? An apology, reparation? To have my head? I'll give it to you.”

No, that wasn't why she'd come, though she appreciated the apology. She'd been around long enough to know that it was a rare man who fully accepted responsibility for his actions, who didn't offer any excuses. Marc had apparently become the good man she'd always thought he might be . . . and she should leave now. He
wasn't
all right, but he wouldn't do anything stupid. Not Marc. He wouldn't give up.

But she
couldn't
leave him. Not like this.

“I'm still on vacation,” she said. “But I'll take the apology.”

He nodded, his gaze holding hers. “I
am
sorry. And if I'd known that I'd hurt you, I'd have apologized long ago.”

“It wouldn't have meant anything if you still believed I was unclean.” God, even now the word stuck in her throat, made a painful hitch in her chest.

He heard it. His eyes darkened, and his voice thickened, as if he spoke past a constriction in his own throat. “I didn't. And I should have apologized for
thinking
it even for a moment, even not knowing that you'd heard. I've been sorry and ashamed since I realized what a fool I was, believing half the things that I did. But that doesn't even touch how sorry I am, knowing that I hurt you with it.”

So he hadn't been an asshole all of this time. “How long ago did you realize you were a fool?”

“About a hundred and forty years ago. About the time that I knocked on your door and you didn't answer—and I thought to myself that you were the best woman I'd ever known, and anyone or anything that tried to convince me differently had to be idiocy. And I realized that I hadn't failed a test of faith when I took you to my bed, but one of arrogance and blindness when I'd asked to be forgiven for it.”

“So I'm still just a test, then.” Not a woman, but a lesson to be learned.

“Not now,” he said. “I stopped believing shit about you and seventy-five percent of the Guardians in Caelum right away. But it took me a little while longer than that to pull my head out of my ass and realize that not everything is about me proving my worthiness as a Guardian, or a trial to pass or fail.”

“How many years did that take?”

“About a hundred and thirty.” He gave her a crooked grin. “I can be slow.”

Not slow. Just immutable. Solid. Good qualities, sometimes. Not always at other times. But it looked as though he'd figured that out. She might have saved herself the hurt if she'd waited, and become friends with
this
man instead of the boy he'd been.

And though she'd been pushing aside and ignoring the hurt his carelessness had caused for so many years, only now could she finally feel it cracking, as if the pain might crumble to dust. It hadn't yet. She could still feel the pain there, right around her heart, but she was suddenly very glad she'd come.

She gave him a smile, and a nudge against his shoulder. “Shall we go find this demon quarterback, then?”

S
o she was still here. Still hiding from something, obviously, since his apology hadn't been her reason for coming—but he wasn't going to question her about the why. He'd just do what he'd planned to do before, and watch over her until she left.

And in that time, he'd try to repair some of the damage he'd done. Try to rebuild a friendship that he'd always valued over any other, and that he'd had to force himself not to miss after he'd destroyed it. If he couldn't do that, if that was too much to hope for, Marc would just make damn certain he didn't do anything so careless and hurt her again.

Right now, that might just mean catching her if she slipped on the icy sidewalks. A Guardian's feet wouldn't freeze, but he couldn't imagine walking barefoot across the slush and snow as she was.

“It's bothering you,” she said.

“What?”

“My feet. You keep looking at them.” She wiggled her toes, gold rings winking. “You're not alone. It bothers Mariko, too. She thinks I do it to be like Michael.”

The Guardians' leader—who didn't need shoes now anyway, trapped as he was in Hell. “Why do you?”

“Partially because I want to be like Michael.” Her grin invited him to laugh with her. Probably every Guardian had admitted such a thing at some point. “But it also helps me build illusions. The better I know how something feels or tastes or looks, the more convincing I can make it. And I like the feeling, too. Cold doesn't hurt us, so why would I protect myself from it?”

“You could cut your feet.” God knew how many broken bottles or sharp stones were hidden beneath the snow.

“And heal in less than a minute. You weenie. Afraid of a little blood?”

God, he'd missed her teasing. “Maybe. But you wouldn't like the look of my feet anyway, so I'll spare you the sight of them bare.”

“I remember perfectly well how they looked, thank you—and they were nice. Long and lean, just like you. Every part of you was long. That was nice, too.”

Was she still teasing him? Probably. But all that he could think was that her feet were just like her, too. Small, delicate, soft—and that when he'd touched them, kissed them, she'd gasped and shivered.

She wasn't shivering now. “Is that the girls' Jeep?”

He forced himself out of that memory, spotted the Cherokee parked in front of the small city library—about a half block down from Perk's Palace.

“That's theirs,” he confirmed. “Let's hope we don't have to slay the bastard in front of them.”

Radha slanted that
Don't say stupid things
look at him, and he realized that with her Gift, the girls wouldn't see anything that Radha didn't want them to.