Angelic Union (3 page)

“I don’t know if I can do this.” Marius sounded strangled as he spoke. He buried his head into Levi’s abdomen, uncaring that the guardian still stood in the room. The fallen angel took a deep shuddering breath as Levi wrapped his arms around him.

“You can do this. We’re sharing our home with the angels. It’s no different than the way we’ve been sharing with Madigan and his lovers.” He looked up at the guardian. He was happy to see that not an ounce of satisfaction was displayed on Axis’s face. In fact, there was a vulnerability and pain there that Levi just couldn’t place.

Axis really was handsome standing there in his uniform. Levi’s nose twitched, and arousal started tickling the edge of his consciousness.
Shit
. He hadn’t meant to pay that much attention to the angel. He forced his attention away and back on the lover in his arms.

Levi sighed. He felt like such a jerk for even being remotely interested. He belonged to Erik and Marius and no one else.
Stupid
nephilim instincts.
Those instincts turned him into a sex-crazed maniac most of the time. Every touch was like a hit off a crack pipe.

He began to shake harder. He didn’t want to upset Erik and Marius, but the angel smelled so good. He turned glittery eyes at Axis.

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“Can you please wait out in the hallway for a minute? I…I need a second.” He prayed that Axis would be a gentleman about it, and thank God he was.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Marius raised his head. There was a wary feral look in his eyes. “You want him.”

“I do not,” Levi said, knowing that his scent would betray him. “I can’t help my instincts and how my body reacts, but I do not
want
him.” The tears he’d been holding back dripped down on his cheeks.

He felt so dirty for wanting all the time. It was so damn shameful that he couldn’t control his own body for a minute. His lovers probably thought he was a whore.

“I’m sorry, beautiful. I seem to be saying that a lot today.” Marius pressed a kiss to Levi’s lips. “Please, don’t cry. It’s okay. I know it’s just your instincts. I shouldn’t blame you for them.” He sighed and pushed himself off his knees. Levi ached to take the burdens from his shoulders, but he knew there was no way Marius would let him.

“We can figure it out, Mar,” Erik said, grabbing his lover and taking off Marius’s suit jacket in one economical move. “Until death do you part, remember? If we do this together, we can make it. They are just our bodyguards and our houseguests. We don’t have to act on instincts.”

Marius took a deep breath again. “Okay. You can tell them that they can have the extra bedroom.” He turned. “I’m going to take a shower. When I get back out, I want both of you naked and waiting on me. Clear?”

Levi smiled at the bossy tone. “Yes, sir.” He gave a little salute followed immediately by a giggle.

Marius finally smiled. “That’s more like it. Love you two.”

“Love you, too, Mar,” Erik said immediately. Levi loved how they both melted now when they looked at one another. In the beginning it certainly hadn’t been like that. Marius and Erik had either been one of two extremes, fucking or fighting, and sometimes both simultaneously.

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“Love you, Marius.” Levi added his voice to the chain, and he let Marius’s smile fill him with warmth.

Erik turned toward him as Marius shut the door to the big bathroom and started the shower. “You okay, angel?” Levi nodded. He was fine. It was Erik and Marius that he worried about. The only time he wasn’t fine was when they were upset or thought bad about him. “I’ll go talk to the guardians if you want,” he offered, struggling to take off his tie. The damn thing was so knotted that he wasn’t sure he could manage. Erik knelt in front of his chair and swatted his hands away. Levi relaxed and gave a sheepish grin as Erik undid his mess.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“No big, angel,” Erik said. He finished in under a minute, a record for one of Levi’s knots. They were forever threatening to buy him shoes with Velcro ties because shoelaces constantly had to be cut off his feet. “I’ll talk to them in the hall. You just go on into our room and wait for me and Marius. Okay?”

Levi shifted uneasily. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Erik.” He paused. “They smell really good.” He knew Erik would understand even if Marius flew into a rage at the thought of them wanting someone else.

“You don’t think I should go alone?” Erik asked, a little annoyance in his voice. Levi sighed. He couldn’t say anything today without offending his lovers.

“I’m saying be careful, please. I love you, Erik, and I don’t want you beating yourself up because you’re attracted to them.” That was the thing about Erik. He was honorable down to the core and devoted on a level that Levi had thought only existed in fairy tales. He would consider it cheating if he looked at another man with anything resembling lust. Erik could say what he wanted, but he was a softy when it came to them.

“He’s trusting us to go out there and tell them where to sleep,” Erik said, swallowing hard. It was difficult being a nephilim at times
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like this. If they were bound, married in angelic terms, it would be different. While the human ceremony was nice, it didn’t focus their hungers like being angel bound would. Once that occurred, they would be finally be able to relax in other people’s company. They would only crave their lovers. “I had a vision about them.” Levi’s head snapped up, and he searched Erik’s face for the truth.

Part of Erik’s angelic power was to be able to have celestial visions, in essence see the future or the correct path for them. It was how they’d avoided the hunters before Marius had found them. Hell, Erik’s visions had led to Marius as well. He’d seen the bar where Marius would be the night that the hunters caught up with them.

“What was it?”

“I saw Marius standing with them as a guardian. He was redeemed, Levi. They…touched us in my vision.” He blushed but pressed on. “They loved us.”

Levi didn’t know quite how to digest the information. If Erik had a vision like that, it could only mean that it was the right path, but…Marius was so very unhappy in this situation, and Erik and he didn’t know these angels from Adam. It seemed the most farfetched thing Erik had ever said.

“Don’t tell Marius. He’ll flip.” Levi knew it in his gut. Marius would go crazy if he knew.

“What should we do?” Erik asked.

Levi had no idea. “I don’t know. Let’s see how things go.” He motioned to the door. “Go on and tell them. I’ll wait here for you.” Erik nodded before putting his hand on the doorknob. He took a deep breath and seemed to steel himself for the confrontation that was to come. Levi’s heart ached. He wished that for once, life would be easy for them.

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Axis had anticipated the little one coming out to inform them that they could sleep in the spare bedroom. He had not expected to have the prickly nephilim Erik to come out to tell them. He breathed in the nephilim’s scent with a pang of longing. Unlike most guardians, the Elites were a breed unto themselves, and as such had certain differences from most of their angelic brethren. Knowing who their true mates were, for example, was one of their many quirks. The newly married threesome didn’t know it yet, but they belonged to him and his men.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Keer purred as Erik nearly bumped into him as he came out the door. Axis reached out and cuffed the back of his head. The violet-eyed angel didn’t need to be stirring shit unnecessarily. Keer shot him a “go fuck yourself” look and turned his attention back to Erik.

“You guys can sleep in the spare room, but don’t be too loud.” Erik seemed to put everything he had into the glare he leveled at Keer. Axis resisted the urge to chuckle. He was going to be a handful.

“We won’t. You won’t even know we’re there.” Axis pushed off the wall and came to stand in front of Erik. There was a good six-inch difference in their height. “We appreciate the resting place.”

“I–it’s for Marius’s sake, not yours. We don’t want him to become a demon.” Erik stammered through the sentence, his hands clutching rhythmically at his sides.
Interesting
. So he felt the pull. Axis filed the information away for future use.

“Neither do we. His redemption is one of the many reasons we’re here, Erik,” Jade spoke up, which was a surprise in itself. Jade never
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spoke unless someone made him. “We don’t want to cause you any pain.”

Erik seemed to have a moment of weakness and stepped toward Jade. “I want Marius to be happy.”

“He will be, Erik. This isn’t easy, but you know it will all work out for the best. I promise.” Jade’s red eyes were fixed on Erik.

“Protecting all of you is our main priority.”

“Even Marius?” Erik looked entranced as he asked the question.

His hand rested gently on Jade’s chest. This was going to get bad if Axis didn’t step in.

“Especially Marius. But we’ll discuss this tomorrow when you get up. It is your human wedding night. Enjoy it with Levi and Marius,” Axis cut in and shot Jade a look that had him taking a step back. Erik looked forlorn for a moment before he seemed to come back to himself.

“You’re right. Now isn’t the time.” He took a deep breath and shuddered. Their scent must’ve been playing havoc with his nephilim senses. Erik turned his big brown eyes to Axis. “Thank you.” Axis inclined his head, knowing that he’d saved the nephilim from a potentially harmful situation and was happy to do so. They would have time to touch soon enough.

Erik led them back into the suite that had been set to be the place where the three were to spend their wedding night. It was an elegant cream affair with stark white and pink roses scattered throughout the space. Candles were lit, and the very atmosphere seemed to be thrumming in encouragement to join with lovers in a celebration of flesh. Axis only regretted that he would be unable to share it with them.

The nephilim didn’t waste any time leading them directly to the extra bedroom and ushering them inside. His men immediately fanned out in the room, taking up strategic positions and giving the space a thorough, if brief, once-over. Axis’s eyes hit the bed. That was
not
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going to fit all of them. It was a full bed. The damn thing probably wouldn’t even fit Keer if he stretched out.

“Um, towels are in the bathroom,” Erik said. He pointed to the smaller bathroom attached to the bedroom. “Marius is really pissed.

So, uh, try not to come out until breakfast if you can help it.” Axis nodded even as a few of his men looked offended by the suggestion. “Don’t worry, Erik. We’ll stay put.” One look silenced the restless looks the others were giving him. They would talk in a minute.

The second the door clicked shut behind Erik, the entire squad turned on him.

“Why are we in here instead of out there with them?” Brax demanded. “They’re our mates, too!”

“I can’t believe you let them talk us into a bedroom like this. We were better off sleeping in the fucking lobby,” Keer rumbled, his signature sneer firmly in place.

Axis raised a hand for silence. “They don’t understand yet. The three of them belong to us, but they’ve encountered nothing but trouble from angels. Even the nephilims’ own fathers wanted to punish the man they love by giving us as a gift.”

“We were always meant to go to them!” Keer protested, jerking the buttons on his uniform so he could shrug off his jacket. “And we’re not just some guardians that their fathers chucked at them.

We’re bloody Elites!”

“We have been waiting for months for our opening,” Jade reminded. The quietest of them spoke in the same calm tones that he used when reining in the young ones he guarded. Before he’d become an Elite Guardian, he’d been the guardian of several children. “If the opportunity hadn’t arisen, who knows when we would have been able to approach them without them fleeing. They don’t trust angels.”

“We should’ve just gone after them when we first found out that they were ours,” Brax declared. “We’ve known about them since the three of them met. Our hesitation makes us Johnny-come-lately to this
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party. All of us should’ve been up there getting married today, not just them.”

“The time was not right for Marius’s redemption, Brax. He would’ve bolted if he knew we were watching,” Axis explained patiently. He unhooked the cuffs on his jacket and shrugged the garment off his shoulders. “Don’t tell me that you weren’t proud of them for declaring their love today? It was beautiful.” And it had been. Even if they hadn’t been in the place they should’ve had in the wedding. Marius, Levi, and Erik had been on the run for months. The angelic sect that hunted Levi and Erik’s kind had been just one step behind them the entire way. Though often Axis and the others had intervened to prevent anything serious from happening to the three men who were their mates, it hadn’t been easy watching them grow close while the rest of them waited on the periphery for Axis to give the go-ahead.

“Why hasn’t Marius bound the two nephilim yet?” Jade wondered. It was a legitimate question. By all rights, Marius should’ve claimed the two nephilim and bound himself to them in the angelic fashion. Axis folded his uniform jacket neatly and put it on the small desk that was pushed into a corner.