Gabriel (3 page)

No longer softening the blow for my benefit, he seemed to have hardened. Either that or he was taking my choices away from me, perhaps for my own good. I wasn't sure.

*   *   *

W
E HADN'T WALKED FOR
long when a château fort came into view. It stood alone, with a brewing fog clouding its base.

I looked at Gabriel with raised eyebrows. “
This
is where you've been staying?”

Gabriel seemed to have more money than sense, and I made a mental note to ask him where his wealth came from.

“It's very small. I couldn't take you back to the barn. Han—” He stopped.

Hanora. The very suggestion of her name made my toes curl instantly. Sadly, I hadn't forgotten her. In fact, there were a few things concerning that particular Vampire that I would have gladly left behind.

“It wasn't safe,” he finished.

Standing now only meters away from the entrance, I rocked back on the heels of my feet dubiously. Gabriel halted and reached for my hand. As he slipped his fingers between mine, I knew he could sense my unease.

I didn't know how long I had been trapped between life and death, but he hadn't seemed to change. His broad shoulders and strong arms made me feel safe. He was an unbreakable wall, protecting me, and I knew he'd meet his end long before he'd let anyone pry me from him again. And God, he was gorgeous.

“I love you, Lailah.”

Those words surprised me.

“I. Love. You,” he repeated firmly. “I should have said it sooner,” he continued. “I didn't think I had to, because I felt it. I have always felt it, and so I thought you knew it. Every day we have been together, I
should
have said it.”

Right now, I had no inclination to debate the specifics of the love he was proclaiming for someone whose eyes he had struggled to meet only minutes ago or to question what that meant for us now. Instead, I smiled, though I was sure that the sadness at the edge of my lips was obvious enough for him to read. Having faced the end—the real end—and come through the other side, I was suddenly so tired. I was done with the complications of Pureblood Vampires, Arch Angels, and being a pawn in a battle between the two. I wanted it all to stop. I wanted my life back.

I had loved Gabriel in my first life, and though I had wandered this world for nearly two centuries without him, he had always been with me, buried in my memories and in my heart. I loved him still.

I tightened my grip around his hand and said, “And I, you. I'll do what you say; I will go wherever you want to take me, for as long as you will have me.”

It was true. I'd woken from my cocoon a Hedylidae, not a Morpho butterfly like him. But if he felt for me even a fraction of what I felt for him, I would flap my confused wings as hard as I could and follow him to the ends of any and every world, without question.

I immediately felt a sense of angst swelling within him. As he tilted his head, his blond curls fell slightly into his vision, stopping me from being able to read the message his eyes were writing.

Finally he said, “Really?”

“Really,” I said. I had no idea why he seemed so surprised.

Gabriel let go of my hand and began rolling his fingertips in circles within his palms. “What about Jonah?”

I scratched the tops of my arms pensively before I replied, “Sorry—who?”

 

TWO

G
ABRIEL STARED AT ME
as though I had lost my mind. Granted, up until this point, losing my mind was a fairly normal occurrence for me. But unlike all the other times I had awoken, this time, I was aware of everything that had come before and the complicated worlds that claimed me.

There was Styclar-Plena: the first dimension. A world that existed in light, born from a crystal that resided at its center. The day the crystal started to lose its light, the darkness began to fall on the Arch Angels and the other inhabitants that had been created directly from the light of the crystal. Their world began to die.

But fortunately for them, there was also the second dimension: Earth. Seeking a way to fuel the crystal and bring light back to Styclar-Plena, Orifiel, the leader of the Arch Angels, passed through a rift to Earth. Upon witnessing a bright white energy leaving the body of a human in death, Orifiel found the solution to his problem. He collected the clean, light souls of mortals, and transported them back to Styclar-Plena to refuel the crystal.

With so many Arch Angels dying because of the extended period of darkness in Styclar-Plena, Orifiel could not wait for the crystal to organically create more of his kind. He began mating the Arch Angels—the same way human beings on Earth repopulated their world—creating Angel Descendants. The Descendants were tasked with moving the light human souls across the planes to keep the crystal fueled, preventing future bouts of darkness. The first of these new Angel Descendants were created as independent beings with no connection to one another. However, as these Angels traveled to Earth, their connection to the light of Styclar-Plena began to dull and, feeling disillusioned, many chose to stay in the second dimension. They became known as fallen Angels.

To give the Angels a reason to return to Styclar-Plena, Orifiel paired the Descendants through an exchange of light—of love. When two Angel mothers were pregnant with their Angel babies, a ceremony would be held. Harnessing the light from the crystal, it touched both unborn Angel children in their mothers' wombs, connecting them to one another forever. One light, split into two. It no longer mattered how often or how long the Angel Descendants were parted from Styclar-Plena, as long as they had their Pair, they had no reason to fall.

And finally, there was the third dimension: the opposite of the first—a world existing in darkness, from which the Pureblood Vampires emerged.

The Pureblood Vampires who came through the rifts to Earth fed from the dark souls of mortals and used their venom to change humans who possessed a light soul into Second Generation Vampires. This was how they built their armies.

And, there was me.

I was created as an Angel Descendant, paired with Gabriel by Orifiel through the exchange of light before I was even born. But still in my mother's womb, I was infected with Vampire venom by Zherneboh—the deadliest of all the Purebloods.

My Angel mother had given birth to me here, on Earth, and I was born into human skin. The fact that I was Gabriel's Angel Pair was kept from him by Orifiel. In 1839, Orifiel tasked Gabriel to find and kill me. But Gabriel did something that was forbidden: He fell in love with me despite thinking I was a mortal. He refused to kill me and instead protected me.

But he was too late.

The same year, when I was seventeen years old, Ethan, my childhood friend turned fiancé, discovered that I was about to run away with Gabriel and, during a struggle where he had pleaded for me not to leave, had accidentally killed me. Gabriel found me lifeless, and so he left, thinking that the Arch Angels had discovered his plan to protect me and had sent another Angel to do what he would not. He then began a search for my lost soul.

Though I had died, I came back to life. I woke up, inheriting my immortal lineage.

And yet when I awoke, it was without the knowledge of all of this. And so I spent nearly two hundred years living, dying, and reawakening, not knowing what or who I really was. All I knew was that I didn't age and that if I died, I would be resurrected.

But in the past few weeks, Gabriel and I had found each other again. I was traveling with him, now a rogue Angel Descendant, and the Second Generation Vampires whom he'd helped free from their ties to their Pureblood creators. Vampires who, despite their darkness, had found their lights once more. We were on the run from both the Arch Angels and the Purebloods, who each sought me out.

It was through my Angel father, Azrael, that we learned the truth of my heritage. Gabriel had found Azrael with help from a wise and old fallen Angel, Malachi. It had been far from the family reunion one dreams of, however. Azrael had tricked my friend the Vampire Ruadhan into plunging a sword through my chest when the girl in shadow—an extreme darkness hiding deep within me—had morphed through my skin to appear in the presence of Zherneboh.

Azrael had been working on behalf of the Arch Angels and had struck a deal that he could return to Styclar-Plena upon my true and final death. He fled the mountain as I lay in the snow dying, and Ruadhan made chase.

My father had believed that once I knew what I was—both light and dark—I would not be able to accept it, that I would meet my final end. This was what the Arch Angels wanted because they knew, as did the Purebloods, that I was the only being that could keep my form in all three dimensions. If my Angel and Vampire abilities manifested, I could pass through rifts into any dimension and potentially end their worlds.

Zherneboh hoped to use me as the ultimate weapon in a war he was waiting for me to wage against Styclar-Plena. He wanted me alive, and Orifiel wanted me dead.

But I had chosen to return to Earth, to live.

Jonah. I turned back to Gabriel, unable to recall the name. “Am I missing something?” I asked.

Gabriel straightened and without reluctance replied, “No. Nothing.”

“Okay—”

“Lailah, I'm going inside to get your things. Then we're leaving. I want you to stay here. I'll ask Brooke to come and wait with you.” He paused. “You remember Brooke?”

“I told you—I remember everything. That includes Brooke and her chip.”

“Her chip?” His eyebrows arched.

“The one she wears on her shoulder.” Something nagged at me: Brooke always seemed angry with me, but right now, I couldn't put my finger on why.

“Brooke!” Gabriel called.

A whip of chilly air skimmed my cheek as she appeared from nowhere.

“What's up?” she said, removing her sunglasses and placing them on top of her head. She did a double take when she saw me standing beside Gabriel. “Cessie?”

“Actually, my name is Lailah.” My body shriveled a little as I recalled the charade Gabriel and I had kept up over my name. Not to mention the tiny detail about me being immortal.

Brooke's eyes flicked to Gabriel, and he nodded encouragingly at her.

“Yeah, right, Lailah,” Brooke said. “So … how you been?” She pushed back her flaming red hair awkwardly.

“Well, dead,” I said.

Brooke bobbed her head like one of those toy dogs you sometimes see in the back of a car. “Hmmm, sucks to be you, I guess.”

“Sometimes.”

“I need to collect Lailah's things,” Gabriel said. “Then we're leaving. You, too, Brooke, like we discussed.”

“Yes!” she cried. “Back to the sun, sea, and sand of the OC.”

“Good. I will be two minutes, not a second longer. Don't move, okay?” Gabriel's instructions were directed at Brooke, and she rolled her eyes.

Before Gabriel left, he offered me a sumptuous smile, which put me at ease.

“So, we're going to the States?” I asked.

“No, you're going with Gabriel to England. I'm going back to the US. Seems like this is where we say au revoir.”

I scratched my head; I wasn't comfortable enough around Brooke to ask too many questions. The more I tried to place where that sense came from, the more difficult it became. I cleared my mind, and then, from nowhere, it hit me.

She was upset with me over a guy. No. Not a guy. A Vampire.

“Shame we don't have more time together,” she said. “You could do with my help running some peroxide through that hair of yours—you look like a badger. I suggest you find some time to visit a salon; slices went out in the nineties, along with the Spice Girls.” She snorted.

I scowled at her. I hadn't given much thought to my appearance since I had woken. Only now with Brooke's sarcasm punching at me did I stop to think about it. I grabbed my long curls and glanced at the ends. They were jet black, with stripes of white blond seared through.

The way I looked had never changed before. What else had morphed into something different? I needed a mirror, and I needed one
now
.

I didn't have to search far—there was a large, rectangular, bronze-paned mirror hanging in the entranceway to the château fort. I sped along the marble floor and clung to the edges of a small table that stood beneath the mirror, simply to stop myself from hurtling straight past.

My body was hardly my own, a mere thought became an action, and one I could barely control. I had awoken having accepted all that I was, and now I had the abilities of Angels and Vampires. But I was in new skin, and though it was disconcerting, maybe it just needed wearing in.

I stretched out, arching my back, and parted my legs to keep myself balanced. I mustered my courage. Gripping the edges of the small table, I dared myself to look up.

I stifled a breath. I could see now why Gabriel hadn't held my gaze when he had searched my eyes. Their once sapphire color was now overwhelmed with flecks of black. It was as though my eyes had become liquid oxygen and someone had ground a piece of coal and sprinkled in the debris before the substance had finally reached its freezing point and solidified into this state. If your eyes are supposed to be windows into your soul, I feared what color mine had now taken.

My hair was different, and I knew without even trying that all the bleach in the world wouldn't remove the darkness. I was grateful that at least my face, though paler than before, was unchanged. My crystal gem, hanging low on a chain, glinted. I placed my palm over the top, thankful that this, the source of comfort to me for as long as I could remember, was still with me. Then I noticed the trace of a new scar running up from the V-neck of my dress across my chest. As I explored it, something in the reflection of the mirror caught my attention.

It was Ruadhan, and he was extending his arm out as he approached me from behind. Only my mind tumbled, playing tricks on me. It was as though I were back on the mountaintop and I couldn't tell if it was his hand reaching for me or if it was a sword. I reeled around, half-expecting a blade to have broken through my bones.