Secret Worlds (189 page)

That made me wince a bit. “I don’t know if I’ve been that good a girl, munchkin.”

She shook her head, making her pigtails wag back and forth. “Auntie Jordan is good. I can tell. I can always tell ‘bout good people. Make a wish!”

Finally, I smiled at the girl and blew the tiny seeds away, watching them float along the warm afternoon air. Lily cheered and kissed my cheek, racing back into the field to find more flowers.

Lauren shook her head, a fond smile on her lips. “What’d you wish for?”

“Lily’s wisdom.”

An hour slipped by. Lauren took Lily home and wished me luck, leaving me on the park bench to watch the leaves from maple trees gently waft to the ground, illuminated by the lampposts on either side of the bench. I had one hour to go before Michael’s return, exactly twenty-four hours after he had, in a fashion, asked me to marry him. To spend the rest of my life and the life after it with him. Christ.

Footsteps approached from my right, crunching through the dirt and gravel, coming to a stop next to me. The polished Armani dress shoes were a dead giveaway.

“Hiya, Gabe.”

The archangel sat next to me. “Good evening, Jordan.”

He paused, watching me curiously. “You seem…well. Not quite what I expected.”

I glanced at him, lifting an eyebrow in question. “What were you expecting?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Nervousness. Fidgeting. Any of the normal human reactions when faced with an important decision.”

“Well, I’m not completely human, after all.”

He smiled wider. “You’re human enough.”

I rolled my eyes. “Is this you offering advice? Because you kind of suck at it.”

Gabriel chuckled, leaning his arms over on his long legs. The evening air was cool so he was wearing a dark brown sweater and black slacks. I never could get him to stay in casual clothing. He had told me it just didn’t feel right to him.

“What would you like to ask me?”

I brushed a lock of hair behind my ear, fixing my gaze on the ground. “Has any other angel ever entered the Marriage of the Souls?”

He took a deep breath and sighed. “Yes.”

“Tell me.”

He interlocked his fingers, his voice losing all the charm and humor it had once held. “Centuries ago, there was an angel who fell in love with a Seer. It was in the early ages of man, back when certain events of the Bible were still happening. At this time, there had only been young angels mating with humans and creating nephilim. There hadn’t been any cases where angels fell in love with Seers as there were so few, but this particular angel did. He came before the Father and asked him if there was anything that could be done to allow them to be together. Father considered his proposal with great wisdom and consideration. The angels are God’s servants. He knew that man would need woman to be his companion, but He never considered that we would ever require the same kind of nurturing. He realized that it would make things easier for those angels working on Earth to have someone to love, and so He granted the angel’s wish.”

Once more, Gabriel paused and I didn’t know why. I frowned, looking at him.

“What happened after that?”

He licked his lips, seeming to choose his words. “The Seer that he fell in love with…betrayed him.”

“What?”

“It turns out that she had actually been corrupted by the archdemon Belial. He instructed her to seduce an angel, so that he would have a sort of ‘double agent’ on the inside. He would be able to know of our plans before we deployed them, giving the demons an edge. However, the Seer didn’t know that having her soul married to the angel would allow him to track her no matter where she was and one night he found her meeting with the demon in secret.”

I shook my head. “I can’t imagine how he must have felt.”

“Me neither,” Gabriel admitted.

“What did they do?”

“It was very complicated. You see, her soul had been promised to enter the gates of Heaven after her death, but her sin was one so great that it made her too impure to enter. In her state, if she died, she could not go to Hell because she shared a bond with an angel, but she could not enter Heaven because of her pact with the demon. They ended up having to banish her to Purgatory.”

“What happened to the angel?”

“He played no part in her wrongdoing, but he was too heartbroken to continue his work on Earth among mankind. God granted him the responsibility of guiding souls from Earth to Heaven.”

My jaw dropped. “You mean that angel was—”

“Uriel.” Gabriel nodded. “Afterwards, God forbade the union of angels and Seers. He did not want any other angels to suffer the same fate as Uriel. He will never be whole because his beloved resides in Purgatory until Judgment Day.”

He looked at me then. “Until now.”

I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to grasp what he’d told me. “But why? What about me is so important that He would reinstate the Marriage of the Souls?”

“Jordan, you have to understand that there is a hierarchy among the angels. We are all equal in spirit, but the truth is that Michael is one of the most important archangels in existence. Like all of us, he is brave, diligent, and obedient, but he is also the most vulnerable of the angels because of the little time he spent on Earth. Michael needs love and guidance, more than what my brother and I or even our Father can supply. He needs someone like you to help him reach his potential.”

I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of his words. “Well…if it’s not too personal to ask…why haven’t you or Raphael ever considered the Marriage of Souls?”

He paused, seeming as if he hadn’t expected the question. “I suppose it’s because of how he and I view humans. To me, you are more like children—not that you are immature or incapable, but I tend to feel more fatherly love than romantic love for mankind. Raphael sees you like brothers and sisters, and so he too does not love you in the romantic sense. I think that because Michael believed he was human for such a long amount of time that he was able to care for you as a lover. There are literally millions of angels serving alongside the human race, but none of them have his heart and, if you don’t mind me saying so, none of them have ever met you.”

He smiled a bit when I blushed. I cleared my throat, trying to dispel the sudden bout of shyness. “So…do you think I can handle this kind of responsibility?”

“That, I am afraid, I cannot answer. Only you can.”

I took a deep, slow breath. After a moment, he reached over and held my hand, making me meet his kind eyes one more time.

“Jordan, I have known you for years. You are kind and strong and impressively resilient. You don’t need to doubt yourself. Whatever you feel you should do in this situation, do it. No matter what happens, I have faith in you.”

He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, in the same spot as always, and squeezed my hand before standing and saying goodbye. I watched him go as the wind caressed my face, my hair, my shoulders, and I felt just a little bit taller.

I had been in the kitchen for around ten minutes, about to make myself a chicken salad sandwich in order to keep busy, when the doorbell finally rang. My stomach plummeted into my feet. I set the food aside, walking over to the door. My heart drummed a frantic rhythm inside me as I went.

Michael stood on my welcome mat with his hands in his pockets. His hesitance bubbled around him as he cleared his throat. “May I come in?”

“Sure,” I said, standing aside. He walked in and I shut the door, going back to the kitchen. He trailed behind me, a silent but tense presence. I couldn’t imagine what sorts of things were going through his head right now.

“I…understand if you need more time to think about this,” the archangel began, sounding regretful. It was so unlike him. “It isn’t an easy decision.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I talked to Gabriel. He told me what happened to Uriel.”

His green eyes went wide, but I couldn’t tell if it was fear or surprise.

“Oh. Well, at least you’re making an informed decision,” Michael replied, a weak smile tugging at the edge of his lips.

I nodded. “I am.”

He inhaled slowly. “And…what decision is that?”

This was it—the moment that decided everything. There were so many feelings flowing through my body all at once, nearly making me dizzy. Then, I took a deep breath and spoke from the heart.

“Michael…you’re smug, self-righteous, overprotective, and hardheaded. You make me feel as if everything I’ve learned over the course of my life is fleeting. You snore. You drink out of the carton when you think I’m not looking. You’re way too fond of those band groupies and you’re constantly telling me what to do.”

I took another slow breath and smiled at him. “And if that’s all I can come up with for reasons not to be with you, then I think we’ll be alright.”

He went completely still. “Jordan, what are you saying?”

“What do you think I’m saying, idiot? I’m in love with you.” I grabbed a handful of his shirt and jerked him down to my height, stealing a kiss that made warmth crawl down my spine and envelope my entire body. It wasn’t his lust or mine—it was the culmination of our very spirits, our energy, his and mine, somehow separate, somehow together, somehow whole.

He wrapped those strong arms around my back and held me steady as the kiss deepened, until we were both breathless and shaking. I broke from his lips, opening my eyes to look up into that gorgeous face.

“That reminds me. Should you be kissing me before our souls get hitched?”

“Point taken. Well, there are two important things you should know about the marriage.”

I arched an eyebrow. “And those are?”

“One, with your soul bound to mine, no demon will ever be able to touch your skin without being burned. It’s a side effect of becoming part of me.”

A flood of relief went through me. “And two?”

“Two,” he said, dropping his voice to a sultry tone. “The marriage is only effective after we’ve…
consummated
it.”

A great thrill traveled up my spine, but I hid it with a nonchalant shrug. “How ever will I survive?”

His smile was decidedly wicked. “That’s a legitimate question.”

Before I could say anything else, he scooped me up in his arms and carried me to the bedroom, kicking the door shut. Just after he laid me down on the mattress, I remembered something.

“Wait, I forgot to put the chicken salad away.”

He leaned over me with a smirk that gave me heart palpitations.

“It’ll be there next week.”

Hours later, I awoke to fingers gliding over my bare shoulder: slow, lazy, much like how I felt at the moment. Michael’s chest was a wall of solid heat behind me, melded against my back, a comforting weight. He leaned over and kissed the nape of my neck, his voice quiet.

“Oh, good. You’re not dead.”

I choked on a laugh, rolling my head backwards to look at him. “Well, that was a romantic thing to wake up to.”

He chuckled. “Sorry. It’s just that you were pretty out of it for a while there. I was starting to think I accidentally killed you.”

“That would have been one hell of a way to go,” I admitted, stretching my back. A few things popped in response, further relaxing me.

Michael nuzzled his nose against the right side of my neck, sighing. “I think I owe you and the entire human race an apology.”

I glanced at him again. “For what?”

“Well…” he said slowly, his face solemn. “Having experienced love-making for the first time, I am amazed that you don’t simply do it all the time, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.”

I couldn’t help it. I erupted into laughter, so hard that my entire upper body shook beneath the sheets. Michael had enough sense to look sheepish after his statement, waiting patiently for me to regain composure.

I wiped my eyes, kissing him on the nose. “Congratulations. You are officially a human being. A human male, I might add.”

I watched with wonderment as his face turned a fantastic shade of pink, my grin stretching. “Are you blushing?”

He scowled, looking away. “No.”

“You are too cute for words.”

He groaned, burying his face in the pillow behind me. “Don’t say that. I hate it.”

I shook my head, lying down as well. “Sorry, but you really are sometimes.”

The archangel grunted in annoyance before scooting a bit closer so that our bodies were aligned, his right hand stroking the line of my side from my ribcage to my hipbone. He seemed oddly fixated on that part of my body rather than the more salacious bits, but I didn’t mind since it was soothing. We lay there in silence for a long while, enjoying the simple comfort of being able to touch one another, until eventually his fingertips wandered to my back and began tracing the scars.

“I could heal them, you know,” Michael murmured, his thumb caressing one scar that peeked around the small of my back and spilled onto the side of my thigh.

“I know. Raphael offered the same thing, but I turned him down.”

“Why?”

“They’re reminders of my past, of things I can’t forget. Things that made me the way I am. Making them disappear won’t change anything. I’ll carry them like I carry everything else.”

Michael pushed up on one hand above me and kissed my lips once, softly. “May I never become something you have to carry.”

I smiled, brushing the dark hair out of his eyes. “You won’t.”

“I made him just and right

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

Such I created all th’ Ethreal Powers

And spirits, both them who stood and them who fail’d

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

Not free, what proof could they have given sincere

Of true alliance, Faith or Love

Where onely what they needs must do, appeard,

Not what they would?”

The pastor’s voice rose and fell with a distinctive cadence, accenting John Milton’s powerful words about mankind’s free will. Funny. Often, his poetry inspired me and filled me with a sense of purpose, but now it only served to squeeze a few more hot tears from the corners of my eyes.