Angelic Anarchy (Heaven on Earth Book 1) (12 page)

“You can’t catch us, Belleeza, and this is a war you will not win,” the wicked bitches spoke in unison. “We are here to give you a message from our master. You will lose this war. It has been foreseen that you are the key to fulfilling the prophecy. When it is done, you will have taken our place as our queen—the mistress of the new Hell. There is no reason to fight it. It has been seen that no matter which path you take, the destination will always be the same.”

I was more than a little disturbed by their words. I thought back to the way I had sucked all the light from the corridor. And the way the rage had been building inside me since my encounter with Big Jack. And even before that, I’d always had the feeling I was more darkness than light. Being with Colton had kept me grounded, but when he fell . . . But join them? That was ridiculous.

I forgot that my emotions were open to Colton, and suddenly I could feel both his pain because he did not like anything that could hurt me, and his fear at the possibility of a prophecy like the one they spoke about. I felt my blood turn so cold it felt like it iced over as I realized that if every demon believed this prophecy, then there must be some basis of truth to it. The more my level of fear increased, the more my rage also increased, and it had pretty much reached its peak.

I charged the twins and was just about to reach them when I remembered something.

“Shit, the wind!” I shouted.

FindersKeepers had puffed their chests out like some kind of bird, while their arms were straight behind their backs, fists balled up tightly. Their mouths began to open and then continued opening much wider than was natural. The faint sound of a whistle over a breeze started coming from their mouths. It started subtly, but soon the entire dungeon was filled with the sound of a train, and the winds they created increased speed until I knew we were about to have a full-blown tornado aimed at us.

“Take . . .” I tried to warn Colton and Nicholai to take cover but I could not get the words out. Suddenly I was blasted all the way to the other end of the corridor. I slammed into prison cell after prison cell and I was not the only one. Colton and Nicholai were bouncing from floor to ceiling and prison cell, left wall to right, until we were all on the furthest side of the dungeon, banging into each other with wicked force. My head slammed into a wall torch and I could feel the blood bursting from near my temple. Nicholai’s leg moved freely, clearly broken as he slammed left and right. We were all scraped up, bleeding and broken. FindersKeepers giggled softly and yet somehow we could hear them from the other side of the dungeon without any problem, and without the winds ceasing.

“Don’t worry, Belleeza, we aren’t allowed to kill you.” Finders laughed as the winds finally began to slow. “We wouldn’t want to anyway. We just can’t
wait
to see you in all your glory when you join us.”

“We just wanted to play with you a bit, but we have one more message for you, mistress.” Keepers giggled.

The winds were completely still as they spoke in unison once more, “It has been seen that despite our efforts, you will continue to fight off your destiny. We seek only to help you reach your maximum potential, and thus to speed up the process, we will destroy each and every one you love one by one. Only then will you see the true colors of your soul and only alone will you see your full potential. Goodbye for now, our queen.”

My entire body was in raging pain as I sat crumpled on the floor a short distance from Nicholai and Colton. I was flabbergasted by the things I was hearing and disturbed even more by the fact they spoke as though they revered me or feared me—maybe even both. They acted as though threatening to kill my loved ones was a mark of respect.

I struggled to my feet, and once again charged them, but to no avail. They blasted me with their wind—blasted me so hard I heard the snapping of several ribs. I slammed into the ancient wooden door, and they blasted me once more before giggling and vanishing.

The last blast threw me harshly to the right, and suddenly I was being strangled to death by someone I could not see, or so I thought. It took a moment to realize that my feet were dangling a few feet above the dungeon floors. My necklace—the damn necklace Theodore tried to warn me to remove— had got stuck on a wall torch and was now hanging me. I tried not to panic. I knew I was not really going to die from strangulation, but my feet still flailed against the cold brick wall. I could feel the chain cut into my neck as I needlessly panicked. Colton and Nicholai were at my side instantly, despite the fact that a shard of something was stuck in Colton’s stomach and Nicholai’s leg was hanging limply. Colton lifted me easily without as much as a groan, and Nicholai unattached my necklace from the torch.

It was just another day in the lives of angels and demons.

We headed, albeit a little more than worse for wear than before, back toward the girl. Rubbing away the droplets of blood on my throat, I made a mental note to heed Theodore’s warnings with more seriousness as I stepped over the two demons the guys had killed while I dealt with FindersKeepers. I reached the unconscious human girl. She looked as though she had passed out from fright. Not that I could blame her. We were running out of time to get out of there before more backup arrived. I picked up the girl and tossed her over my shoulder.

We ran back to join the others. I wanted to just vanish and emerge, but we couldn’t do that as we would have two human witnesses—well, one at the moment. There was a chance Teddy had seen some of the flashes from our abilities when we were battling, but for all he knew, they were just blasts from guns. Although, I suspected he knew we were not exactly what we seemed to be.

As we made our way through the door that led us to the others, I heard Teddy’s voice say, “Excellent timing, we really should get going now.”

Talon shook his head, looking almost disgusted at Theodore’s keen sense of intuition. Liam and Olivia looked impressed while Colton, Nicholai, and I all grinned. He really
was
gifted.

“Let’s get back to my place,” I said.

The looks that everyone gave me reminded me that we had emerged here—wherever here was—and now we had humans accompanying us. So that meant emerging was out, but the idea of walking back down those dark corridors where we had already seen one beast of Hell did not sound like a good plan. Especially when we had no idea where they led to or where we even were. I was conflicted. I was halfway tempted to knock the kid out so we could just vanish. Colton gave me a look that said he was willing to do just that, and all I had to do was give him the word.

“It’s okay, I know it’s for the best,” Teddy said, just as Talon clonked him on the back of the head and caught him before he hit the ground. All of our mouths dropped. Liam, Olivia, and Nicholai stood flabbergasted.

“What the fuck was that?” Colton started on Talon. “That’s not the way we work! We talk and make decisions together!”

“What?” Talon asked, bearing the same serious face as usual as he looked upon our bewildered expressions.

Colton rolled his eyes and I grinned. It was just so Talon.

“Problem solved, let’s go.” I chuckled.

I
halfway expected
Evangelina and Anselma to be waiting when we arrived back at my apartment. I was surprised to see that Evangelina had kept her word. Not that she had ever broken a promise before; it was just that she was always wherever I needed her to be.

“Make yourselves at home,” I said to everyone. “I’m going to go shower really quickly. Colton, heal Teddy and the girl and then call on Evangelina.”

“No one lets Theodore out of their sight!” I ordered.

I showered quickly, eager to wash off all the filth I felt clinging to me from the many demons we had faced, and especially the beast. It was hard to believe we’d faced that many enemies in one day. It was a long day to say the least—first a beast, then an army of skilled fighting demons, and then a run-in with FindersKeepers. It felt so long ago since we battled the beast that had nearly killed Olivia, but at least we had found Teddy finally.

So that should be case closed. Well, case closed for Colton and me, anyway. I had a feeling the archangels would be taking over from here. They had to find out why the demons were after Teddy in the first place.

I should have felt relieved that we’d found the boy and the job was finally done, but for some reason, that just wasn’t the case. I still felt wary, and the sense of doom I’d been doing my best to ignore was as present as ever. As I thought about everything the others and I had been through, it began to feel like finding the boy was pure luck. If not something more.
It was too easy
. We found him on a pure whim. After everything we had tried, how did we just happen to find him so lightly guarded? The case just felt wrong.

A knock at the bathroom door brought me back to the present.

“It’s me, Beauty.” I heard Colton’s muffled voice through the door. “Can I come in, babe? We need to talk.”

I agreed. I
did
want to talk him. I could hardly believe I was thinking this, but I felt like the only person that would understand and that I could trust with my suspicions of this case was Colton.

Picking up a towel, I wrung out my hair then used it to wrap up my body. I looked at myself in the mirror to check I was covered and, if I was being honest, to make sure I looked decent enough to face Colton. The towel was clinging to my hourglass figure and I smiled slightly, knowing how it would affect him.

“Come on in,” I answered.

He walked in with a solemn face that quickly disappeared when he saw my lack of clothing. I rolled my eyes but walked out of the bathroom with a petty grin on my face. As I expected, my bedroom door was closed, and Colton had created a shield around the room so our voices would not carry to the others, despite their keen sense of hearing. We used to talk like this on a regular basis. Sometimes it was to talk about a case, others for more . . . intimate purposes. It hit me that this really was like old times, and my confidence quickly wavered. How many times had we been in shielded in our room only to ravage each other?

I suddenly had a flashback of Colton and me in the bedroom of one of the condos we used to share.

I stood in our room wearing only a towel. We had gotten in later than expected from a case and had gone to clean up. Nicholai and Lorileigh, his soulmate, were in the living room, along with Talon and some others. Colton and I were rushing around to get dressed when suddenly he stopped and made eye contact with me. The sultry look in his eyes made my knees go weak. We forgot everyone and everything. I unwrapped the towel from around my breasts and let it fall to my feet. Instantly, Colton was pressed up against my backside, groping my breasts as he whispered words of love and need into my neck. His crazed hand reached up and turned my neck to face him. He kissed me, kissed me good and hard. His left hand frantically released my breast and reached down my naval. His fingertips grazed against my most tender parts but only briefly as suddenly one then two of his fingers entered me. I slung my head back and moaned.

“I want you inside me Colton,” I whimpered.

“I want YOU, Belleeza,” he whispered into my ears.

We made our way to the bed. I bent over and Colton’s hands found my hips . . .

Shaking away the memory, I came back to the present. Only a second or two had passed.

“Something feels wrong,” Colton said. The intensity in his eyes stopped the sarcastic reply I was about to give him.

“I feel it too,” I said, walking into the closet. “I don’t feel any sense of relief or closure whatsoever. Something bad is coming and until we know what the plan was for the boy, we won’t have a clue how to prepare. Has Anselma arrived? Did Evangelina have any new information?”

“Actually, that’s part of the reason I wanted to talk. I haven’t been able to get in touch with either of them.”

“Hmm, that
is
weird,” I said, walking out of the closet with a fresh tank top and pair of jeans on. “Evangelina? I don’t know. Maybe they’re in a meeting or something.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Colton looked solemn and I did not like what he was getting at.

“What exactly are you trying to say to me?” I asked, my tone sounding more acid than I intended.

“I can’t find her, Beauty. I can’t even feel her. When has that ever happened before? When have you ever not been able to reach her? When has she ever not been where you needed her to be? She is always a few steps ahead of us.”

“Evangelina, get down here, we need you . . . Evange, get down here!”

I waited, but there was silence. I was fuming. She had never kept me waiting like this before. Colton put a hand on my shoulder. I shook it off and gave him a piercing stare. I was angry at him for suggesting something had happened to her. I knew he was just the messenger, but my anger needed a target. Buried underneath the anger was the fear. Fear because I should have been able to feel Evangelina, but there was nothing, just a blank.

“Please, Evange, give me something.” My voice cracked and I was pleading now, but I knew there would be no answer. She would never keep away unless she had no choice.

“Don’t panic, okay, baby? Don’t panic,” Colton pleaded. He stood facing me, desperately trying to calm me. He rubbed my arms urgently as though trying to wipe away my fears. “I know something is definitely wrong, and I’m not going to try and sugarcoat it, but she is not lost to us. You know and I know that if she died, you would have felt it. That means she is out there somewhere, and I don’t care where I have to go, if I have to go back to Hell to find her, I will bring her back to you.”

I wanted to crumble in his arms—to have a total chick meltdown. Instead, I opted to wrap my arms around his neck. I hugged him tightly and inhaled his irresistible scent. He didn’t smell sweet and succulent, or musky and manly. Instead, he smelled earthy, like he came from a thick undisturbed forest surrounded by a layer of snowcapped mountains. His scent was fresh and clean; it was everything pure and good. I soaked in his intoxicating aroma, and when I’d had my fill of him, I finally released him.

He held each of my elbows and looked at me as though he was trying to see my soul. We stood there, holding each other’s gaze. I stared into his tantalizing chocolate eyes and I felt safe, and yet I couldn’t allow myself to give in to the warmth he was offering. He couldn’t come back after all these years and just erase all that we went through.
I couldn’t afford to let my guard down
.

Something was going down—something big and bad. I did not know what or when or even how I knew, but I just
did
. I could feel it. I could feel it in my bones, I could feel it in the blood flowing through my veins. It was as if my body was trying to warn me, and from the look in Colton’s eyes, he was getting the same message from his own body.

“Thank you,” I said. My voice was soft and raw. It sounded like I had cried the tears that threatened to fall only moments before. “I guess I needed that. I guess I needed
you
more than I wanted to believe.”

“I need you. I always have and I always will,” Colton said. “Nothing can ever sever the connection between us.”

“Apparently not even Hell,” I joked.

Colton gave me a look that said he did not find it funny.

“We have to find her, Colton. We just have to.”

“We will. I won’t stop until I find her.”