Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (46 page)

“Why here? Out of everywhere in the world, why this market? It must mean something.”

“It does. Not exactly here, but very close.” He took her hand again, led her back down an aisle. Leaving, but they couldn’t just teleport and disappear, not with so many people still following them with curious stares. “The angels did guide me. But I’ve learned far more from humans. And this is where I first learned to have a bit more faith, too.”

“When? What happened?”

“About three thousand years ago.” He slanted her a wry glance. “I finally figured out one right from wrong.”

“Which one?”

“The enslavement of another human. I realized what a great injustice and evil it was.”

When he was
five thousand
years old? “You didn’t already know that?”

“No. For all of my life, it was the natural order. When a people were conquered, it seemed right to take possession of their lives and labor in victory. Of course I saw a difference between good slave masters and cruel ones. I knew that it was wrong to starve them, to rape them, to whip them.”

God. “At least you knew that.”

“No.” He stopped, his gaze intense on hers. “That was what I had to learn. There is no such thing as a good slave master, no matter how kind his treatment. Not because of the person, whose intentions might be good, but because of the slavery itself. It’s a great evil, and participating in it is as well. Even if that participation uses a gentle hand.”

“And no one ever pointed that out to you before?”

“Yes. I’d heard humans argue against it for thousands of years—and Anaria and Khavi had long said the same. And I’d never owned a slave myself, but I didn’t think it wrong, either. I only thought poor treatment was.”

“What happened to change your mind, then?”

“Nothing happened.” He shook his head. “I watched a child sold away from his family. But it was nothing different from what I’d seen a thousand times before—and I’d always felt pity for them. But for the first time, I felt the wrongness of it. Of denying a person’s free will, of professing to own their very flesh, and of selling them like that woman sells carp.”

Taylor glanced at the stall behind her, where a gray-haired woman used a plastic basket to net a fish out of a tub. “So what did you do?”

“I purchased the family’s freedom. Then I purchased the freedom of every slave I could. I spent all the gold and silver I had—and I’d hoarded five thousand years’ worth.”

Like a dragon. “You must have freed a lot of them.”

“I did. But in the end, it changed nothing but their individual lives.” His thumb stroked the back of her hand, and he started down the aisle again. “Anything else was beyond my power. I had to have faith that humans would change fundamentally, that they would come to see slavery in the same way. They eventually did.”

Most of them, anyway. “But it took a really long time.”

“There were a lot of people whose minds needed to change.” He smiled faintly. “It didn’t take as long as I thought it might, in truth.”

“No wonder. If it took
you
five thousand years . . .”

“Yes. But that is always the way of any new idea. It begins with a few and slowly, then racing. All that I have seen of humanity tells me that. Change used to be so slow and painful, and now it is quick and constant. In the past one thousand years, I have learned more from people than I learned in the previous seven millennia combined.” As he spoke, his expression became stark, his gaze flat. “Yet there is still so much to learn.”

And in a few days, Lucifer would try to take it all from them. Knowing that apparently got to Michael, too—no matter his determination to win.

And she couldn’t bear the bleakness in his eyes. Gently, she bumped her shoulder against his arm. “So, you won our wager. What prize do you want?”

“That was not the agreement.” He tugged her closer to his side as a bicyclist passed them from behind. “It was that I would give you anything, no matter the outcome. So what do you want?”

A thousand things. All terrifying. Taylor reached for the safest. “Teach me to fly?”

“I’d have given you that anyway. But I can’t teach all you need to know in the space of a few days.”

In other words, she still wouldn’t be ready to fly by the time Lucifer tried to open the portal. “I know. But the other thing I wanted would have taken a little longer—and we still have a lot to do before the world burns.”

“What was it?”

Forever.
But Taylor only shook her head.

Even though he’d declared himself hers, Michael had never spoken of the future. But the reason was obvious: He didn’t know there would
be
a future. He believed they’d defeat Lucifer, but Michael wouldn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.

So she’d do the same. No plans or promises right now. Those could come after they stopped the sentinels, stopped Lucifer.

And even though Taylor didn’t ask for what she wanted most, it all turned out okay, anyway. Within minutes, she was in his arms, the world spinning around her, and Michael her only anchor.

A pretty damn good reward, for just having a bit of faith.

*   *   *

When Taylor’s brain stopped twirling cartwheels, Michael held her beneath a starlit sky, his hands at her waist and her feet dangling. His wings beat a rhythmic swath of darkness behind him. Cool ocean air filled her lungs.

Steadying herself with her hands on his forearms, she looked down. They hovered about a hundred feet above the water. A long trail of moonlight reflected across the sea, where the surface appeared as smooth and silvery as mercury.

Not a bad landing spot. “So when I crash, I don’t hurt myself as much?”

“You won’t crash. We’re here because there’s very little wind.” With his back to the moon, harsh shadows darkened his features, but amusement lightened the harmony of his voice. “Form your wings.”

She did, rolling her shoulders to adjust their weight. Oh, but she loved this. That wonderful, heavy sensation, the whisper of the breeze through her feathers. This part of her, so new and familiar, all at once—and suddenly making her so aware of every other sensation, too. The stretch of cotton across her breasts. The slight prickle of dark hair beneath her palms. The strong grip of his hands.

Michael looked incredible with the moonlight carving shadows from every ridge of muscle. With a delicious flex of his biceps, he moved her farther from his chest—holding her only by her waist. “Now let go of me and beat your wings in time with mine. Find your balance.”

Taylor tore her gaze from his arms and released him. The first downsweep of her wings almost toppled her over. She grabbed for his wrists again, steadying herself. And tried again.

She watched his wings, the smooth easy sweep. It took a few minutes to catch his rhythm, and a few more to stop wobbling. The grip on her waist slowly loosened. Still no wobbling. Just the beating of her wings making her entire body feel light, then lighter, like a balloon rising out of his hands.

He let her go, and she didn’t fall.

Taylor hovered above the water, full of so many wild emotions she should have been bursting, then she looked down and—
oh, my God
—wobbled but steadied again.

Laughing, she met Michael’s eyes. “Give me a sword. I’m ready.”

“Lucifer is trembling on his throne.” With a grin, he flew in close. “I’m going to shove you off balance now. Keep the same beat, but reach forward with your wings to find your center again.”

His palm flat against her chest, he gave a gentle push.

Instantly, she began to fall. Taylor’s stomach swooped. Her heart jumped into her throat, pounding wildly. She swung her wings hard, hard again,
too far
and then slow and stiffening her wingtips the same way she would make paddles of her fingers underwater and finally steadying, back to that easy rhythm, hovering above the sea.

She grinned. Her breath hadn’t settled, her heart still raced, but she’d found her balance again.

Disappointment filled Michael’s sigh. “I hoped to catch you.”

“What?”

“I expected you to fall.”

Wry amusement curved his mouth. So that hadn’t really been teaching her anything. He’d just wanted an excuse to save her. To hold her again.

That was just fine with Taylor—though she had to laugh. “So I’m a quicker study than you realized.”

“No. I know how quick you are. I’ve also taught thousands of novices, and not one could have pulled out of that fall.”

“Whoo! So I’m the Chosen One.”

“We will ask Khavi for a new prophecy.” Smile fading, he studied her with a thoughtful frown. “I should have realized—you already know much of this. We flew together for a year. The ability was drawn from my experience, but your body hasn’t forgotten. We just need to make you aware of
how
you are doing it.”

Like amnesia. Still possessing a skill, even though she couldn’t remember learning it. “So you think I could dive now and be fine?”

“No. Your reflexes might save you, but it’s more likely that you’d attempt to control the dive. And when you lost control, you’d panic and overcompensate.”

“And crash.”

“Yes.”

So baby steps, then. “And I’ll still have to learn everything?”

Michael nodded. “You’ll have stronger instincts, so you’ll learn more quickly, but you still need to be taught. And you need to practice until you no longer have to think about how to fly.”

Until it was as natural as walking. All right. “So what now?”

“Now”—still upright, he flew backward, his wings beating in huge sweeps—“come to me.”

Only about twenty feet. Taylor hesitated, looking across the distance. Trying to push those instincts into flying forward. Gingerly, so that she wouldn’t lose her balance, she kicked a little, then swept her arms forward and back, like a breaststroke.

And didn’t go anywhere. “I feel like I’m in a kiddie pool.”

“You look like it, too.”

She laughed. “Shut up.”

“You don’t fly with your arms.” Michael’s were crossed over his broad chest. “They are for balance or for weapons. Your wings are for flying.”

So she needed to stop swimming. “Okay.”

“From a hovering position, it will feel like a dive to start, but you’ll flatten out, instead,” he said. “When flying forward, your body will almost always be horizontal, with your wings rowing through the air.”

Like an eagle, instead of up and down. She dipped forward. Panic gripped her throat but her feathers were already spreading out, swinging back and pushing her through the air. Still unsteady. Not exactly an eagle. More like a turkey. Her arms jabbed out, trying to keep herself from overbalancing one way or the other. Lying out, going forward . . . forward with every flap of her wings.

In Michael’s general direction. Not
to
him. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to attempt changing course.

“I’m coming to you, but you’re in the wrong spot!”

“Forgive me.” Grinning, he teleported into her wobbling flight path.

Breathless with laughter, she reached for him. He caught her hands, not pulling her in, just giving her an anchor as she flapped and flopped her way back up to hovering again. Finally she steadied, facing him with her wings beating in the same fluid rhythm as his.

His eyes glowed a warm amber. “Well done, Andromeda.”

“I don’t like that name,
Mike.
” Though still laughing, she cringed as it left her tongue. “God. It feels wrong just saying that.”

“Does Andromeda feel wrong?”

“No.” Not in the same way. It didn’t make her cringe. And the shorter version, Andy, was fine. “It’s just not how I think of myself.”

“Taylor,” he said. “Because that is who you are on the job. And because your father is gone, your brother is hurt, and you are the Taylor who will carry on.”

Every word true, though she’d never articulated it so succinctly, not even to herself. She stared up at him, her chest squeezing into nothing. “How do you know that?”

“Because studying you pleases me. Learning about you pleases me.” His hands gripped her waist, drew her in close. “And what I know of you is why Andromeda fits as no other name does.”

“If you know so much about me, you should also know why I hate it.”

“I don’t, but I would like to. Your mother once told me that your father named you after the constellation.”

Her father, the amateur astronomer. Jason had gotten that from him, too. The Taylors were always looking to the heavens—but each of them looking for different things.

“But you know who the constellation was named after? A princess, a sacrifice to appease the angry gods. Who ended up tied to a rock and almost eaten by a monster, until a hero saved her.” Vehemently, Taylor shook her head. “That’s not me. I don’t need a freaking hero. I’ll save myself.”

“So you wouldn’t hate the name if she had freed herself.”

“That would help.”

“Do you hate the name Joseph Preston? He needed someone to save him.”

And Taylor had, throwing herself in front of bullets to do it. “But that’s different. He was my partner. I wasn’t some random guy with magical powers who just shows up at the right time, and he wasn’t a princess who ends up being a prize. Something to own.”

“If I were chained to a rock and soon to be eaten by a monster, I wouldn’t care who saved me.”

Michael was smiling as he said it, and she knew that he was just teasing her a little—but she couldn’t stop herself from answering seriously.

“We’re not talking literally. Of course I’d be glad to be saved. But we’re talking about having the name of someone who didn’t save herself, and carrying that name around. Because if we’re going literal, maybe I should point out that I was against a rock in Hell, and
you
were the monster. So it’s no surprise that you think the name fits—except there was no one to save me. Khavi doesn’t count, because she stabbed me.”

“I remember.” A shadow moved across his face, leaving his eyes as dark as the night. No more teasing. “The name fits because I don’t think of it literally. Instead I feel as those ancient men did, studying the constellations and trying to understand them, to know them—and
I
was one of those who looked to the stars and wondered, too.”