Beneath (Heven and Hell #3.5) (4 page)

He shook his head. “I could never be afraid of such a beautiful creature. Are you an angel?”

“Yes,” I told him. We weren’t supposed to interact with humans. We weren’t assigned to, but we weren’t supposed to lie either. “Please don’t tell anyone you saw me here.”

He nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Gemma,” I said and then I heard Sinead calling for me. “I have to go.”

“Wait,” he said, reaching out to grasp my hand. I looked down at where he held me and I watched, fascinated, as his thumb rubbed over the back of my hand. The texture of his skin was thrilling. “My name is Callum.”

“Callum,” I said, trying it out on my tongue.

“It sounds like a song when you say it.”

“I have to go,” I said again, knowing Sinead would be worried if he couldn’t find me right away.

Callum released me, and I flew up to the top of the ravine. Before trying to find Sinead, I looked over my shoulder. He was still there, looking up at me.

Something felt funny in my stomach and so I rushed off, already wondering when I would be able to see him again.

* * *

I waited to ask any questions until we made it past Airis, through the InBetween, and were welcomed back into heaven’s grace. “What happened?” I demanded of Sinead the minute we weren’t in earshot of anyone else.

“It must have been hanging out there in the woods. Perhaps it was hoping you would come back so it could get even for the dagger wound.”

“So it was a hellhound?”

He nodded. “First one I’ve seen in years.”

“How do you know it was the same one I saw?”

“They don’t run in packs like other shifters, and they’re fairly rare. I highly doubt there would be two in the same area at the same time.”

I nodded, not totally convinced, but unwilling to challenge his knowledge and the training he went through over the course of many years.

Sinead stopped walking and turned to face me. “Don’t worry about this. I killed it. It’s dead.”

“You’re sure?” I asked, thinking I’d thought it was dead, too.

“Absolutely.” He smiled a blinding bright smile and it melted away all doubt in my mind. “Let’s go get something to eat. Our trip made me hungry!”

He didn’t bring it up again after that. It was like it was completely gone from his mind. But for me, it was something I wasn’t able to forget.

After that, I met Callum in secret. Secret, meaning I told no one that I was meeting with a human after every assignment I had on earth. Callum also promised to tell no one, and for several months I would complete my assignments and then rush to the stream, hoping he would be there. And he always was.

At first, I only went because I was curious about the way I felt when I was with him. Like I was teetering on a cliff, only I didn’t have my wings. It was slightly terrifying but also thrilling. I wasn’t used to feeling that rush of emotions. I was used to a level head and level sentiments.

But then I realized curiosity wasn’t what kept me coming back.

He was sitting at the water’s edge, his scuffed-up jeans rolled up around his calves and his feet submerged in the stream. He had his hair back in a low ponytail at the base of his neck, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Instead, he had it tossed over one of his shoulders. I landed on the opposite side of the stream, my feet making a light splash in the water, and he looked up.

Surprise flickered in his eyes and he smiled, his grin stretching out across his face. He stood up as I flew myself over the water, closing the distance between us and hovering just over the ground so we were eye to eye.

“You’re not hiding your wings,” he said, his voice hushed.

“I figured after all this time, hiding wasn’t necessary.”

“They’re beautiful.” His eyes swept over them and I could see the pleasure in his face. It gave me a warm tingling feeling across my entire body. “So soft looking, but strong, you know?”

“Kind of like you,” I said shyly.

He laughed. It was an abrupt sound, kind of like a bark. “I look soft?”

I couldn’t help but glance at the muscles in his chest. It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d seen a man without his shirt—the angels preferred little clothing—but it was the first time I’d seen
him
without one. He wasn’t smooth and white like the angels. Instead, his skin was golden, like the sun was shining directly on it, and he had dark hair growing out of his chest that was curly and looked rough to the touch.

I cleared my throat and looked up from the hard expanse of his torso. He watched me with an amused expression on his face. “You don’t look soft… but I happen to know that what’s in here”—I reached out and laid my palm right over his heart—“is.”

He stilled and scarcely moved except to glance down at where I was touching him. Thinking I’d done something wrong, I moved to pull away my hand, but he covered it with his own, pressing it firmly in place.

I’d been right; the hair on his chest was rough.

But I liked the way it felt against my skin.

“You never touch me,” he rasped, wrapping his hand around mine.

“I’ve wanted to,” I confided. Oh, how I had longed to see if he felt the same way he looked. I always wondered if he would be full of textures and whether his skin would be warm to the touch or cool like mine.

It was more than I thought it would be.

“I’ve wanted you to.” As the words left his lips, he slid his hand up to my wrist and tugged me a little closer. He reached out and ran his fingers over my hair and then trailed his thumb down my cheek. It’s a good thing I didn’t really need to breathe because I would have passed out from lack of oxygen.

When his thumb trailed down along the underside of my bottom lip and then up over it, something tightened within me and a sharp feeling exploded in my chest.

He moved in closer, shifting his body so he was all I saw. There was only him and nothing else. He kept coming, closer… closer still, until his lips were so close to mine that I could practically taste them.

I jerked back. I might have fallen if he hadn’t caught me.

I suddenly recognized that feeling in my chest.

I snatched my arm away and flew up, out of his reach. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

“Gemma, wait!” he called, but I didn’t turn back. I flew up into the sky as high as I could, past the clouds, until there was nothing but a sea of cerulean.

Longing. I felt longing. I wanted him to touch me and I wanted him to kiss me. My heart still thundered from what almost happened. He was a human. It was wrong.

It was forbidden.

All these months I told myself I hadn’t been doing anything wrong. I told myself I only liked him because he was different from anything I’d ever known before.

I’d been lying to myself.

I might have been curious about Callum in the beginning, but now… now it was something else. Something more.

It felt a lot like love.

* * *

I stayed away for a month and, for the only time in my life, I felt sick. How could I have allowed this to happen? When had my feelings for Callum grown and why hadn’t I stopped it?

Yet, even through all my disgust with myself, deep down there was still part of me that sometimes whispered,
What’s so wrong with loving him?
He was a good man, a decent man. And more importantly, loving him didn’t take away any of the love I felt for my Father. If anything, I appreciated his creation even more. He was the one who created Callum, a man so incredible that even I, an angel who thought she was incapable of loving anyone but God himself, had come to develop feelings for him.

I spent the entire month wrestling with myself, with that small voice inside of me that refused to quiet.

But nothing could change the fact that an angel and a human together was forbidden.

It was wrong to continue seeing Callum when nothing could come of our relationship. The very next day I received a new assignment which I completed and then took myself to Maine. I didn’t expect to see him waiting, I figured after all this time he would have given up.

He was there.

When he saw me he did a double take and when I didn’t disappear, he jumped to his feet and ran through the water, splashing everything around him and drenching his clothes. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“Yet here you sit.”

He smiled, the chip in his tooth charming me. “I don’t give up that easily.”

He reached for my hand, but I stepped away. “I only came to tell you I would not be back. I didn’t want you to wonder…”

“What do you mean you won’t be back?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“This…” I pointed at the air between us. “I never should’ve allowed our friendship. Angels are not supposed to interact with humans the way you and I have.”

“So all I am to you is a friend?” he asked, a hint of anger in his voice.

 I didn’t know what to say to that. It seemed whatever I said wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear. “I have to go.”

My wings moved, lifting me up to carry me away, when he caught my ankle and pulled me back down as if I were a balloon trying to catch a breeze and float away.

 I stared at him as my ankle became my calf and then my calf became my thigh as he pulled me down farther until he released my leg altogether so he could capture my waist within his grasp and pull me within mere centimeters. In fact, I was certain if I took a deep breath, the expansion of my chest would fill the little space left between us.

“You never asked me how I feel,” he said, his voice low.

“That’s because it doesn’t matter.” I wasn’t trying to be cruel. I was trying to tell the truth.

“So, knowing the reason I come here every single day, the reason I wait and wait for just a glimpse of you, doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter; it just doesn’t change anything.”

“That’s funny because loving you changed my whole life.”

No one had ever told me they loved me before, except for my Father, my creator. God loved everyone. His capacity for love was unmatched. Humans were a kind capable of love, but not with the same volume as God. So when Callum said he loved me, I knew I was probably one of very few that had made it into his heart. It made me feel special. It made me want to stay.