Her Guardian Angel (Her Angel Romance Series #4) – Chapter Two

It’s time for another chapter of Her Guardian Angel (Her Angel romance series #4) as part of my Paranormal Pandemonium 2011 Blog Tour. I’ll be posting the first five chapters for FREE. You can find them all by clicking here: Her Guardian Angel chapters

Her Guardian Angel is currently available in e-book direct from my website, Amazon Kindle Stores, and Smashwords. It will soon be available from Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Apple iBookstore, and also as a paperback from Amazon sites.

Other stories in the Her Angel series are: Her Dark Angel, Her Fallen Angel and Her Warrior Angel. Details of them and where they are available in e-book and paperback can be found at my website: http://www.felicityheaton.com/ebookseries.php?series=Her%20Angel

Felicity Heaton
A simple mission becomes a fight for survival in this fantastic instalment in the Her Angel series.

A guardian angel dedicated to his duty, Marcus will do whatever Heaven asks of him, but even his loyalty has its limits. When his superior orders him to gain Amelia’s trust through seduction, Marcus starts to question his mission and his feelings for the beautiful woman he has watched over since her birth.

Amelia has gone from one bad relationship to another, so when a gorgeous guy moves in next door looking like Mr Right, she hopes he doesn’t turn out to be another black knight in disguise. But there’s more to Marcus than meets the eye, and when he rescues her from three demonic men, Amelia is thrust into his nightmarish world—a world where God and the Devil exist, and only one angel can save her from death—Marcus, the angel she’s falling in love with.

On the run from demonic angels and the Devil himself, aided by Marcus’s angel friends and their amazing women, fighting for survival against the odds, Marcus and Amelia discover a love that will last forever.

A love so strong it will shake Heaven and Hell.

ebook price: $3.99
genre: paranormal angel romance
length: 110000 words
rating: sultry
released: July 2011
Book 4 in the Her Angel series

Available in e-book from:
Author’s website: http://www.felicityheaton.com/ebooks.php?title=Her%20Guardian%20Angel
Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005EUJIG8/
Amazon Kindle Germany: http://www.amazon.de/dp/B005EUJIG8/
Amazon Kindle UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005EUJIG8/
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/77776

CHAPTER TWO

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.

When the light faded, an equally bright room surrounded him. Marcus straightened, flapped his wings to bring his feathers into line and then furled them against his back. He noted with annoyance that neither of his weapons had appeared at his hips. It seemed Heaven didn’t want him armed for this meeting.

He walked forwards and the brightness dimmed, revealing what most mortals would consider a waiting room. The pale furniture melted into the white walls and floors, making it difficult to distinguish them, and for once the room was empty. He couldn’t remember the last time he had reported to Heaven’s Court and it had been like this. Normally his fellow guardians were here on some business or another, escorting detainees or sinners, or reporting on missions themselves.

Putting it down to the late hour, he strode towards the white double doors at the opposite end of the room, passing the empty reception desk and armchairs.

He pushed the heavy doors open, revealing the equally white room beyond.

It appeared much like a human court, only everything was white. The benches where those awaiting their hearing would sit, the barrier between them and the area where the judges and jurors sat, and the dock were all so bright that they blended together and made him wonder for what must have been at least the six hundredth time why everything was so irritatingly pale in Heaven.

He looked down at his blue armour.

At least that had colour to it.

The weight of it felt good against him and he ached to beat his wings and feel the wind cut through his feathers. He was so focused on himself that he failed to notice that he wasn’t alone until someone spoke.

“Report, Marcus.”

Marcus jerked his head up, eyes fixing on his superior, a man with short sandy locks and dark eyes that rarely held any trace of emotion. They were cold now, devoid of feeling as he stared at Marcus with a critical air about him. Marcus calmly walked towards him, opened the white gate, and stepped into the dock directly on the other side.

There were no lawyers in Heaven. Each sinner, detainee or reporter had to stand for themselves. It was even rare to have a jury. Ninety percent of cases were decided by three judges.

His sat before him on a raised platform encased by an elaborate curved white wall that bore a beautiful carving of angels in battle and hid their bodies from their chests downwards.

The two men nearer the back, flanking his superior, were there to oversee his report and to ensure that everything followed the rules of their kind. They were angels from a different division to Marcus and his superior. The dark haired man to his superior’s left wore white armour edged with gold and had pure white wings, the sign of a mediator and intervention specialist, and the white-blond haired man to his right wore black armour edged with gold and had raven-black wings, the sign of those affiliated with death. Marcus’s own armour and wing colour signified him as a guardian, one of the angels who were responsible for shepherding souls through Heaven for judgement and then leading them to their respective resting place in Heaven or escorting them to Hell. There were watchers who wore armour like his too, and even a faction of the army. He bit his tongue as desire to mention his request to join that army welled up inside him and saluted his superior instead, bowing his head in greeting.

“Am I to be punished?” Marcus said without a trace of fear in his voice.

He wasn’t sure what punishment for striking an innocent would entail, but it couldn’t be any worse than what he had already suffered because of his sins.

“That is yet to be determined. We are gathered here to review your actions tonight. We withheld punishment in order to see if your actions engendered a positive emotional response that may forge a stronger connection between yourself and the mortal.”

Marcus frowned. “And why is there need for a connection?”

His superior didn’t hesitate. “So that she might trust you.”

Marcus leaned forwards, looking right into his superior’s dark eyes, eager to spot some truth in them, some answers to the thousand questions he had asked in the past and they had refused to answer.

“And why must she trust me?” Marcus knew he had pushed too far when a dark look crossed all three men’s faces.

“Enough questions, Marcus. Report.”

He ground his teeth. Always the same response whenever he pushed them to elaborate on his mission. He hated being left in the dark about everything almost as much as he despised having to live in the mortal realm.

“There was a problem with an ex-lover of the female’s. He was causing her fear and emotional harm. He was also causing me to lose sleep. I took it upon myself to forcibly remove him from the premises and deter him from attempting a repeat performance.”

“So you might gain more sleep?” His superior didn’t look impressed and neither did the two angels flanking him.

“No, so that the female may not come to physical harm.”

“You had reason to believe that this male might act in violence towards her?”

“She was afraid. I have watched her for thirty one years. Never once have I witnessed her this afraid. Seeing that the man was bent on violence, I took it upon myself to ensure that he would leave her alone.”

“Did the man say anything in his defence?”

Marcus frowned. Had he? He had accused Amelia of a lot of things, all of them false. Nothing the man had said had held any credit.

“No. He was intent on harming her and laying false accusations at her door.”

“So you struck him?”

“No!” Marcus leaned forwards. “It didn’t happen like that. He turned his foul derision in my direction and attempted to hit me.”

“Why did he do such a thing?”

His superior and these two angels were already aware of what had occurred tonight so why were they trying to draw it out of him? Were they hoping to embarrass him or cause him to reveal something? If they believed him attracted to her, then he would have to disappoint them.

“I was accused of being her lover. The man decided to… damage my face… in order to teach both myself and the female a lesson. I believe he sought to render me less attractive to her.”

“So you struck him?”

“I acted to defend myself and the female, as per my orders. I eliminated a threat to her.”

“And do you concur that the female is attracted to you, as this man believed?”

Marcus stared blankly at the three angels, mind working furiously back over tonight’s events as he tried to compute an answer to the question. Did he? Was she?

Amelia had certainly looked upon him with desire darkening her grey eyes and those eyes had lingered on his bare torso more than once. She had been gentle with his hand and had blushed several times during their talk in the aftermath of the event. He had little experience of females and couldn’t easily conclude what her reaction had meant, but it had seemed positive.

“I am not sure.” Marcus pushed the words out, his mouth and throat dry as he contemplated the answer he had wanted to say. Yes. Yes, the mortal did desire him. He wasn’t certain why, but the telltale signs had been there.

“Then we shall not punish you.”

Marcus frowned again. “Why not?”

“Because we require that ‘pretty face’ of yours to remain attractive to the female in order to form a stronger bond between you.” There was a definite smirk in his superior’s tone although it didn’t touch his stony face. “You will return to Earth and continue with your mission as planned.”

“When will my mission end?” Marcus wasn’t going to give up this time. Things were becoming critical on Earth and his desire to complete his duty there had increased a hundredfold tonight when he had been with Amelia, and a thousandfold just now when his superior had implied that Amelia was attracted to him and they would use that as a means of bringing them closer together. He needed to end this and return to Heaven. It was his heart’s desire.

His heart denied that and an image of Amelia flickered across his mind, wearing a plum-coloured shimmering slip that inflamed his desire.

He shoved the vision away and stared at his superior.

“When will it end?” Marcus spat out and the sandy-haired man leaned back in his seat and regarded him with flinty eyes.

“When you have completed it.”

“What must I do to achieve that?”

“Be patient. All will be revealed in time.”

“Time,” Marcus snapped and gripped the white wooden railing that ran around the dock, digging his fingers into it so hard that his bruised knuckles burned fiercely. “It is always the same. I tire of this mission. I demand to know when it will end!”

His superior shot to his feet and the air in the room grew heavy, draining the light from it and leaving it grey.

“It will end when you have completed it! This is your duty, Marcus, and you will obey my orders.”

Marcus clenched his teeth and lowered his gaze, staring at his hands where they trembled against the railing, a visible sign of the pressure bearing down on his body. The hot thick air in the room stuck in his throat and stole the breath from his lungs, leaving him wheezing.

His mind turned foggy, thoughts swimming in and out of focus, and he blinked several times, fighting for consciousness. His heavy limbs shook, bones aching as darkness descended on him, the power of his superior too intense to withstand.

A moment later it lifted, the room brightening as it faded away, and Marcus sucked in much needed air as the strain on him eased. His body continued to tremble and he clung fiercely to the railing to remain standing as his legs threatened to give out.

Marcus cursed under his breath. He shouldn’t have lost his calm. He had never snapped like this before but the pressure of living in the mortal realm, of having to endure being so close to Amelia, was getting to him. He had been waiting over thirty years for this mission to end and they had always given him the same answer to his questions. It was his duty. He had to obey.

His loyalty was to Heaven, born of faith and his belief that they knew what the future held and what each of his master’s servants were destined to do, but when they withheld information from him, when they shut him in the dark and expected him to blindly obey their orders without question, he found his faith wavering. He only wanted answers.

He had tried countless times and in countless different ways but each time they told him the same thing. His duty was to watch over Amelia until a certain point in time. They had never expanded on the nature of his mission or given him any other details. Each time they brought him back to Heaven, they asked the same questions and gave him the same answers.

It wasn’t necessary for him to know such information.

It was only necessary for him to obey their orders.

So he obeyed, and every time he left them, he hated his mission a little more.

His shoulder blades tingled where his wings joined them. Amelia had seen the marks there. He hated them too. If it wasn’t for them, he wouldn’t be in this situation. He would have asked for a transfer and would have been a soldier. It was his fault though and he accepted this mission as punishment for committing sin.

“Have you experienced any difficulties with your wings since living in the mortal realm?”

That softly spoken question came not from his superior but the dark haired man to his left. A mediator. Marcus didn’t know him or the other angel, but he could see from the embellishment on their armour that they were high ranking, and clearly they knew of his problem.

“There was one incident and that is all.” Marcus couldn’t meet the man’s eye. He hated talking about this with anyone, even his superior and the medical staff who had assisted him throughout the centuries since the marks had appeared on his back. It made him feel vulnerable and weak, and disgraced.

“Can you recall what you felt in that situation or anything that may have caused the curse to trigger again?” His superior this time.

Marcus risked a glance at him. The concern in his dark eyes surprised him and buoyed his spirits, and Marcus thought about what had happened the last time his wings had failed to appear.

Thankfully he had been on the ground and had only attempted to take off but it was always there at the back of his mind whenever he flew. His wings were unpredictable. There was nothing stopping the curse from triggering mid-flight and sending him plummeting to Earth. He had no desire to hit the ground from a great height. While the fall wouldn’t kill him, it would certainly render him unconscious and vulnerable to attack, and it would definitely hurt.

“Nothing particular. I had merely wanted to stretch my wings and fly somewhere new for a change of scenery.”

“Report back to us if anything happens. It should not be long now, Marcus. Your destiny awaits.”

Before Marcus could ask exactly what that destiny entailed, the light engulfed him again. When it receded, it revealed the low-lit lounge of his apartment.

He looked at the clock on the DVD player in the entertainment centre to his right and frowned at the time. Almost six. He rubbed his eyes and locked the front door, and then trudged wearily across the living room, stifling a yawn as he did so. When he reached his bedroom door, he beat his wings, glad to feel them and sense that they were stable, and then focused so they would disappear. They gradually shrank into his back and when the last feathers were gone, the marks there flushed with heat and then settled again.

Marcus didn’t bother to remove his armour. He flopped down on his back on his double bed, enjoying the cool of the covers against his bare skin between his back plate and loincloth and on his arms and thighs. A gentle breeze drifted in through the open window, washing over his head and shoulders, bringing with it the scent of dawn and carrying some of his irritation away. He stared at the ceiling, watching the room brighten with the rising of the sun, his mind racing but not with questions about his mission. He focused on his shoulder blades and the marks there.

When they had appeared five centuries ago, he had thought it was castigation for sinning. He had broken the law that night and had indulged in mead, a heady drink that at the time had been a banned substance for angels due to its alcoholic nature. When he had come around with his head on the verge of exploding and his stomach rebelling, his shoulder blades had been ablaze, burning so fiercely that he had felt as though someone had branded him. He had tried to bring his wings out but they had failed to appear.

When Heaven had called him back to them, Marcus had discovered that it wasn’t punishment at all but rather a curse. It took weeks for the medical staff to discover what it meant, and months for it to sink in that it was inerasable. The marks sealed his wings for five hundred years, leaving him stranded in Heaven, only able to do the duty of a watcher.

In the same week that Heaven had assigned him to watch over Amelia, his wings had finally escaped their prison. The medical staff had declared that the bond of the curse was weakening with time but that he might still encounter difficulties. He had been too intoxicated by the thought of flying again to care that there might be future incidents where his wings would refuse to appear.

There were many at first but as time continued to flow, so the curse continued to weaken, and the space between the incidents grew. During his last assessment, the medical team had announced that his problem was no longer the curse but psychological barriers he had constructed. Something about it being his mind causing his wings not to appear.

Marcus had found it difficult to believe since he had no desire to drop from the sky and hit the pavement, but when they had explained it in layman’s terms, he had understood their point a little better. If he feared that his wings would disappear, or not appear when he needed them, then he could actually cause such a thing to happen. The power of the mind was frightening.

Since then, he had spent every moment when flying thinking about how wonderful his wings were and that he was glad to have them, and he really didn’t want them to go away, and that his curse wasn’t in effect anymore.

It seemed to have worked well so far.

There had only been that one incident since coming to the mortal realm, and the incident before that had been almost thirteen years ago when he had come to Earth to oversee Amelia as she moved out of her family’s house in the countryside and into her own apartment in London at the age of eighteen. He wasn’t sure what had happened then either.

His mind drifted over the past incidents and how his superior had conveniently used each one to deflect his questions and get him off the subject of Amelia’s destiny. Skilful old bastard. His superior was ancient in angel terms, reborn almost six thousand years ago, although he appeared no older than Marcus.

Marcus had been reborn in a time of peace two thousand years ago and could only remember that his previous position had been that of a guardian too. Most angels changed roles on their rebirth, with the exception of a few who bore destinies that kept them harnessed into a specific role, but all forgot their past lives. It was common for some to recall main points about themselves and all retained their former appearance, although wing colour changed from role to role.

Marcus couldn’t recall ever being something other than a guardian.

He knew angels who had changed roles, dying one day as a guardian and waking the next as a mediator or assistant of death or a hunter.

Death himself, Apollyon by name, had been reborn countless times into the same role, forever a black-winged messenger of destruction, and was a singularity in that he could remember important historical events in which he had been involved. Namely horrific times of devastation such as the flood, and the fall of civilisations, and the punishment inflicted upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

Perhaps Marcus was eternally reborn as a guardian because he had a destiny.

He just wasn’t sure what that destiny was.

But he knew it had something to do with Amelia and the event that would occur in the future. His reason for keeping her safe. Once the event occurred, his mission would end. What was her destiny?

Whatever it was, it was important enough that Heaven had assigned him to watch over her as she walked the path towards her fate. Not many mortals had personal watchers. Most angels in the Higher Order of Watchers were assigned to thousands of people at once.

Amelia had her own guardian angel.

Himself.

Why?

Marcus threw his left arm across his face and grimaced when the hard cold vambrace protecting his forearm struck his nose, sending dull pain splintering across his skull. He sighed and focused, using his power to remove his armour, and lay naked on the bed, contemplating what the future held for him and for Amelia.

Heaven hadn’t punished him.

His actions tonight had engendered a positive emotional response in Amelia.

He didn’t like the sound of that or what his superior had implied.

He tilted his head to his right and stared at the wall that separated his apartment from Amelia’s. He couldn’t feel her in the bedroom, which meant she was sleeping on the couch, too far away for him to easily sense.

Was she attracted to him?

If she was, could he bring himself to use that against her and forge the connection between them that his superior had mentioned?

He wanted his mission to end.

But he wasn’t sure he was willing to pay the price his superior had placed on it.

Marcus had always obeyed his orders and did all in his power to remain a faithful and loyal servant of his master, but he was also a man of principles who followed a code of honour, and using Amelia’s feelings against her was wrong. As little as he cared about mortals, he couldn’t ensnare her in such a way or gain her trust through manipulation.

He would gain her trust and connect with her, but not as his superior had ordered.

He would do so in a mortal way.

He just had to figure out what that entailed.

This was going to take some research.

Available in e-book from:
Author’s website: http://www.felicityheaton.com/ebooks.php?title=Her%20Guardian%20Angel
Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005EUJIG8/
Amazon Kindle Germany: http://www.amazon.de/dp/B005EUJIG8/
Amazon Kindle UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005EUJIG8/
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/77776

Be sure to come back next week for the next free chapter of this angel romance novel!

About Felicity Heaton

I'm a NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY best-selling author writing passionate paranormal romance books as Felicity Heaton and F E Heaton. In my books I create detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons! If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, Larissa Ione, Kresley Cole, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan then you will love my books too.

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