CHAPTER 26
Anais stood on the flat rooftop of the old elegant sandstone building that had been her home for almost a decade but no longer felt like it. She felt out of place among the hunters that called it home now, even when the heads of the organisation had given her leave to remain as part of it, at least until there had been a full investigation into what had happened the night Loke had escaped. Those in Archangel who had been her friends now looked at her with suspicious eyes—the same way they looked at Sable whenever her back was turned. It was as if they had betrayed Archangel and those hunters by falling in love with their fated mates, when that wasn’t the case at all.
Both she and Sable still burned with a desire to help the humans and non-humans who wanted to live in peace with each other.
In fact, her desire to help both sides in their fight against the immortals who meant them harm had grown stronger than ever.
Her gaze scanned the rooftops of London stretching around her, taking in the panorama of a thousand warm lights puncturing the inky darkness and throwing a glow up into the air.
She wanted to hold back the darkness just as those lights did.
She had taken to coming to the roof every night after she had finished her work. She liked the silence and welcomed the cool crisp air and being alone with her thoughts. Those thoughts always ran along the same lines.
It had been five days since he had left her in Underworld with her heart in pieces and that heart still ached whenever she thought about him. She knew that he had left her in order to protect her, but that didn’t mean it had hurt her any less. It didn’t make it easier for her to handle and she wasn’t sure she would ever overcome the pain he had caused her. It seemed to live like a constant thing within her, refusing to ease even in the slightest. She carried her pain wherever she went—into meetings, into battle, and onto this rooftop.
Sometimes, she swore the pain wasn’t hers, not entirely anyway.
Sometimes, she swore she could feel Loke’s presence.
Her eyes tracked a plane as it cut low across the clear sky, lights flashing as it headed straight towards London Heathrow.
Loke might have placed a barrier between them that was difficult for her to overcome, but that didn’t mean she was going to give up on him. She knew from Sable that when an immortal found their fated one that they were compelled to mate with them and seal their bond, but she wished it didn’t have to be that way if that was the only reason Loke had left her. The thought of never seeing him again hurt too much for her to bear.
She stared off into the distant darkness. London looked so bleak and cold to her now, a desolate place.
Because Loke was gone.
She hadn’t realised how much light and warmth he had brought into her life until he had teleported out of it.
“I thought I’d find you here.” Sable’s voice cut through the quiet hum of the night and Anais looked over her shoulder at the black-haired huntress. She blended into the darkness with her black t-shirt, leather trousers and knee-high boots. “Still moping?”
Anais scowled at her. “I’m not moping.”
“I bet he’s doing the same.” Sable halted beside her and looked off into the distance. “It’s typical of men from his world. They don’t have a bloody clue how strong Archangel huntresses are. Thorne was the same. He treated me as if I was some precious little princess who couldn’t fend for herself.”
“What did you do to change his mind?” Anais wanted to know, because she had seen Thorne when he had been like that, and she had also witnessed Thorne as a demon who showed Sable a hefty amount of respect and near-constantly praised her strength.
“I made it clear that I was a strong, independent woman who wasn’t afraid to unleash some whoop-ass on him if he dared to belittle me.” Sable placed her right hand on Anais’s shoulder and squeezed it as she smiled brightly. “We can find a way to make Loke pay for being so bloody annoyingly chivalrous. Don’t worry. You know where Loren dropped him?”
Anais sighed. “He’s probably gone back to his cave.”
Sable’s smile widened. “You know, he’s probably the first man I’ve met who can actually say he really has a man-cave.”
Anais almost smiled. She might have if in that moment she hadn’t experienced a sudden sensation of being empty, as if a piece of her was missing. The unsettling sensation eased and she frowned as she wondered what was wrong with her. Was it just the result of missing Loke and talking about him?
“Just say the word and Thorne will give you a lift. Contact me on my mobile if you need me.” Sable released her and began walking back towards the stairs.
“Where are you going?” She had thought Sable was done with her work for the night but the huntress seemed to have other plans.
Sable looked back at her, an edge of darkness in her golden eyes. “I have to talk with an angel about a problem I feel I’m going to have with that Echelon angel. I need more info about my bloodline, because I have the feeling he’s going to be one persistent bastard.”
Anais did manage to smile now. “Your problems make mine look like nothing.”
Sable shrugged. “Give me battles and enemies any day of the week. It’s love that really knows how to hit you hard and kick you when you’re already on your arse. The trick is to stand up, dust yourself off, and go out there and give it a swift kick in the balls until it falls into line.”
Anais frowned. “You are speaking metaphorically now… or am I meant to go and find Loke and kick him where it hurts again?”
“Again?” Sable grinned. “That’s my girl. Call when you’ve made up your mind… okay?”
“Okay.” Anais nodded. “I just need some time to get my head on straight and think about what I want.”
Sable’s expression softened as she backed towards the metal stairs. “It’s a big decision… but it could be worse. You could be half-angel, married to a demon king, trying to balance running a realm with protecting the world.”
Anais couldn’t stop herself from chuckling at that, even when she wasn’t laughing on the inside. She waved Sable away and went back to staring at the city, feeling the pressing weight of her options on her shoulders as she tried to decide what to do.
Loke couldn’t survive in her world and he couldn’t teleport as Thorne and Loren could, so he couldn’t transfer her between Hell and London. If she was going to be with him, she had to give up everything.
But it might just be a sacrifice she was willing to make to be with the man she had fallen in love with.
The distant sound of alarms sent a jolt of adrenaline burning through her and she turned on her heel and bolted towards the stairs that led down into the building. She took them two at a time and drew her sword as she reached the bottom and burst into a corridor on the top floor. Red lights flashed as the sirens screeched, hurting her ears.
She took a moment to get her bearings and then grabbed a man as he ran past. “What’s happening?”
“Some non-human just landed in the cafeteria.”
It was probably Thorne looking for Sable. He always caused a ruckus when he showed up unannounced in the cafeteria. But what if it wasn’t?
She followed the man as he sprinted down the corridor, leaving her behind as he caught up with a group of hunters. The hunter quarters were on this side of the building, meaning the way into the cafeteria from this direction would be blocked by the number of men and women trying to get into it to face the non-human.
Anais banked right at the first junction, breaking away from the group and following a long corridor that ran the length of the building and would bring her down on the other side of the cafeteria. Fewer hunters would hit it from the direction she had chosen, meaning she could see what had landed in it and could get in on the action if it wasn’t Thorne and was an attack.
She ran past the first set of stairs on her right and took the second down to the next floor, following it as it bent back on itself halfway, and banked right again, sprinting as fast as she could down the empty corridor. As predicted, everyone was coming at the cafeteria from the same direction. Score for her, since her patrol had been quiet. She might get to work off some tension tonight after all.
Anais leaped the wall around the next set of stairs and landed awkwardly on the steps below. She lost her grip on her sword as her bones ached from the hard landing, stumbled down the remaining steps and slammed straight into someone. Her cheeks blazed as she took them down with her in a heap and landed on top of them.
“Damn, I’m sorry.” She shoved herself up, her eyes leaping to the face of the man who had provided a nice cushion for her fall, and froze as she met stunning aquamarine eyes. “Loke?”
He grinned at her and she almost pinched herself to see whether she had knocked herself out as a result of her fall and was dreaming. It wasn’t possible.
She scrambled off him and he slowly got to his bare feet and grimaced as he stretched, making every honed muscle of his torso flex. She was definitely unconscious and dreaming. He looked far more delicious and gorgeous than she remembered. He stooped and picked up her sword, appraised it with an amused smile, and then held it out to her.
“What are you doing here?” She took the sword and the weight of it felt real enough.
Maybe she wasn’t dreaming.
Loke grabbed her wrist and began dragging her up the stairs she had fallen down, his long blue-leather-clad legs taking them two at a time and making her have to do the same to keep up with him.
“I am abducting you.” His rich deep voice stirred warmth inside her and she could only stare at the back of his head as she absorbed what he had said.
He had come for her.
A chill swept through her, raising the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck, and a laugh bubbled up her throat and tumbled from her lips.
Loke paused at the top of the steps and looked back at her. “You seem unwell. Did the fall injure you? I tried to land beneath you but perhaps I did not manage it well enough to stop you from hurting yourself. You came at me quite unexpectedly. I tracked your scent and the feel of you on my senses, but I had not expected you to launch into my arms like that.”
“I fell.” She wished she hadn’t said that when his blue eyes brightened with amusement.
He had been under the impression she had thrown herself at him on seeing him, and it certainly painted her in a better light than the truth that she had been a clumsy oaf.
“You must be more careful, Little Amazon, there is only one of you and you are irreplaceable.”
Those words melted her heart and she threw herself at him this time, looping her arms around his neck and dragging him down for a kiss. He growled against her lips, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against him as he kissed her. She heated to a thousand degrees and melted into a puddle as he mastered her mouth, his passion flowing through her and speaking of his need for her. His desire.
He really had come back for her.
She shoved away from him and held him at arm’s length as he tried to pull her back into his arms. When she locked her elbows to resist him, he stopped trying and frowned at her, his mouth flattening into a grim line of displeasure.
“How are you here? Why are you here? You can’t be here!” She might have been speaking too fast because his frown took on a confused edge and he just stared at her. Her fingers tensed against his bare chest. “You can’t be in the mortal realm. It’s too dangerous for you… you’ll die. You have to go back.”
He nodded. “I intend to, but there is something I must do first.”
The way desire darkened his blue eyes and heated her inside said that what he had in mind was wicked and possibly time-consuming.
“You don’t have time. You’ll get sick again and I don’t want that to happen. I don’t know how you got here, but we have to get you back to Hell. We can talk there.” She pressed against his chest but he didn’t move.
He was a solid wall of muscle and strength, unmoveable.
That gave her pause.
He wasn’t burning up, sick or trembling and weak.
Loke smiled and heat flooded her again, leaving her trembling and weak. “Tell me something, Little Amazon, did the elf prince explain what would happen as a consequence of you giving part of your life in order to save mine?”
She wracked her brain but couldn’t find an answer to that question. There was every chance that Loren might have explained some things, but she only remembered him explaining how to save Loke. He hadn’t mentioned any consequences.
She shook her head.
Loke’s handsome face shifted in a way that made her feel he had known that and having her confirm it had irritated him. “I will have words with him about it when I next speak with him.”
“Was there a consequence?” She looked up into his eyes and sought the answer from them. They smiled at her, soothing her fears and showing her that the consequence he had spoken of wasn’t going to be a bad one.
At least not in his opinion.
“We are bound, Little Amazon. The piece of your life you gave to me has tied us together. I could feel you when I was in Hell.”
She nodded now, amazement filling her as she realised that the reason she had always felt as if Loke was somewhere close to her was because she was bound to him. They were connected to each other.
“The consequences of what you did reaches deeper than merely binding us together though.” Loke planted his hands on her hips and slowly drew her closer to him, his gaze on hers the whole time. “It has given me a link to this world, one that allows me to be here without endangering myself. I cannot shift, and I am weaker, but I will not die in this world.”
Anais had difficulty taking that in and what it meant.
Loke could be in the mortal realm without it killing him, and that meant he could visit her and she could continue her work with Archangel, at least for now.
Her heart stopped soaring and plummeted as she realised that it hadn’t really changed anything.
The banishment that meant he couldn’t survive in the mortal realm wasn’t the reason he had left her.
“But the visions,” she whispered and his face softened as he lifted his right hand and brushed his knuckles across her cheek.
“I thought about what the prince told me after he had taken me back to Hell, and I have found a way to stop the vision from coming to pass.” His blue gaze tracked his fingers as he stroked her cheek and she sensed the nerves in him, a trickle of fear that ran through her too.
Whatever he had discovered, he feared how she would react to it.
“Tell me,” she whispered and caught his hand, stopping him from caressing her. He opened his hand and pressed his palm to her cheek, and she held it there as she drowned in the endless depths of his blue eyes and the love they held for her.
“I am weaker in this world and I cannot shift. My dragon instincts are suppressed, but not extinguished. I still feel a need to mate with you and it still compels me to go through with it, but it is not as fierce as it is when we were in Hell.” His voice trembled the tiniest amount and she wanted to smile at how afraid he was of saying things straight to her.
His fear was ungrounded.
She wasn’t going to reject him.
Because she wanted what he was offering to her.
“I want to be your mate, Loke.”
His eyes shot wide and he stared at her in stunned silence.
Anais giggled. “That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it? You want to mate with me in this world, where you feel more in control.”
He nodded.
Swallowed hard.
“You will be my mate?”
It was a ridiculous question, but one she knew he needed to hear her answer so he could believe it.
“Yes.”
Loke grinned, his gaze fell to her lips and he went to pull her into his arms.
The sound of crossbows clicking as they were loaded froze both of them to the spot and Anais edged her eyes beyond Loke to the hunters stood there, aware that there were more blocking the other end of the corridor and the stairs behind her too.
She had been so caught up in seeing Loke again and the thought they might finally be able to be together that she had forgotten he had caused a mass panic and everyone had been hunting for him.
“This has to be the first time I’ve seen a captive come back after escaping.”
Anais grimaced as Mark’s, the head of the hunter department, voice cut through the wailing of the alarms. How the hell were they going to get out of this one?
Loke set her away from him, turned to face the sharply dressed fair-haired man where he stood in front of three male hunters, and narrowed his blue eyes on him. Anais looked between them as their eyes locked in silent combat and the tension in the air rose. She wasn’t sure what Loke was going to do.
Mark had close to a dozen hunters backing him up. She would fight with Loke if it came down to it, but her dreams of being able to continue as a hunter for Archangel would die in that same moment.
Loke finally dragged his eyes away from Mark and settled them on her, and she couldn’t stop herself from looking up at him, even when she knew he would see the conflict in her. She wanted to be with Loke, but she had a job to do here too, a mission that meant a lot to her and she wasn’t ready to leave it all behind. Not yet. She wanted to be his mate, and eventually she would leave Archangel to be with him permanently, but she needed time to adjust and needed to fulfil her mission here.
A hint of a smile curved the corners of his lips and he looked back at the head of the hunters and said the last thing she had expected to hear, but it was something she knew he was doing for her, because he loved her and he wanted her to be happy.
And that meant the world to her.
“I have come to offer a deal.”