The Watcher

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” he snapped, then quickly composed himself. “Being with you back then made this world bearable for me.”

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Happy tears welled behind my eyes. I blinked them back, smiling at him.

“Don’t look at me that way,” he said, frowning at me. “You wanted an angel’s presence. I was consumed by lust. What I became, what I did…”

Memories sped through my mind faster than I could catch them, dizzying me—one of Michael kneeling on the sun-baked grass, holding and kissing my hands. I gasped from the force of the memory. “You loved me.”

He took both my hands in his now, gripping them as a palpable anger flashed through him. “No, I became obsessed. What I did was wrong.” Sighing, his grip lightened as he let my hands go. “But you loved me anyway, believing for the rest of your life that you had seduced an angel. When it was all along the angel who had seduced you.”

Not sure what to say, I didn’t speak, taking it all in. All I could remember was the love.

“I can’t do that again,” he said, standing.

“You won’t.”

He knelt in front of the fireplace. One of the logs had fallen in the fire he’d built, its embers glowing beneath the flames. Poker in hand, he stabbed at it and clusters of hot, angry sparks gasped up the chimney. “You don’t know—”

“You asked me to trust you.” I couldn’t understand why he was warning me against him, after everything he’d done to help. “And I do.”

“That’s different.”

Was it? I didn’t see how. As crazy as it all sounded, I believed everything he was telling me. I even remembered some of it, and the memories I had were good ones. Though I was curious about everything—how we lived, what it was like, and especially what he’d done—I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Not yet. It didn’t seem right to mistrust him for something he did thousands of years ago, in a different life. Something I didn’t even remember. How was it relevant?

“It was a long time ago,” I said.

Putting down the fire poker, he closed the screen. “I hurt you.”

I joined him by the spitting fire and knelt beside him. “That doesn’t mean you will again.”

Exhaling sharply, he leaned his head into one of his hands and covered his eyes. As I watched him struggle with his conscience over his past, a tightness gripped my chest. Without thinking, I touched the back of his head, stroking his hair, and it felt natural, as though I’d done it many times before. He sighed as his shoulders visibly relaxed. Squeezing my hand, he moved it to his lips and kissed it, palm up, before taking it in his.

The heat of his mouth lingered on my hand. When he looked up at me, his eyes were soft and unfocused.

“Thank you,” he said, and a sense of peace washed over the room.

Chapter Fourteen

Once the fire died down, Michael admitted he was starving and we headed out in his car for a bite. When he turned on the ignition, a loud, moody guitar riff blared through the speakers. I recognized the melody, the steady beat. It was by a local indie band, but their name escaped me. The song itself was about love.

Noticing my smirk, he asked, “What?”

“This is the kind of music angels listen to? I always wondered.”

He laughed, a warm inviting sound that curled itself around my insides. “Expecting harp music? No, wait. Gregorian chants.”

“Yeah. Something like that.” I laughed too, happy for the distraction. “But this is way better.”

I leaned back and let the music flow through me as he drove along the tree-lined side streets. Lights from the houses and streetlamps flickered through the leaves, so bright they hurt my eyes. I took a deep breath to relax, but my mind was sprinting. Even as a kid, I’d wanted to become an archaeologist so I could discover ancient civilizations, and here I was remembering one. Instead of artifacts, I had memories, fragments of a story. I could have just as easily been remembering a dream.

“Have you been alive all this time? You know, since…?” I tried to fathom the idea of being immortal.

He glanced at me before returning his attention to the road. “No. I was born into this body, but it wasn’t until the accident that I got a chance to come back.”

“How does that work? Is it like being possessed?”

“Possession implies there’s no choice, an invasion by something evil.” He pulled the car onto the West Seattle Bridge, overlooking downtown and the Port of Seattle where cranes, lit like sentinels, watched over shipyards below. “This is different. When I came into this life, I thought I was human. The best way to describe it would be to say my soul was some kind of sleeper soul. It wasn’t until I had the accident and died that I was reactivated, returned to duty.”

The hairs on my neck prickled. “Is that…reincarnation?”

He shook his head. “This is my first time in a human form. I’m not strong enough to exist here without one anymore.”

“Was it strange? Going from thinking you were human to…” I stopped myself. How couldn’t it have been strange? It was like asking if water was wet.

“It’s like not knowing you had another limb until it grows back. Then you know what it was and how to use it.”

He turned the car along Alaskan Way and parked near the waterfront. City lights sparkled and danced off the water. Thick gray clouds covered the sky, except around the moon which had managed to peek through and light up the rippling waves.

“Why are you back now? After all this time?” I asked as we got out of the car. The sea air smelled of kelp and creosote from the docks, and its dampness made my skin tingle.

“I was in…recovery. Time doesn’t exist the way it does here. I had no idea where or when I’d be assigned, but I knew eventually I’d have to come back.”

“What for?”

He gazed out over the water and the wind caught his voice, making it almost inaudible. “To face you.”

We crossed the street and headed to a Mexican restaurant nearby. When he opened the door, the warm smell of fresh salsa, chilies, and herbs washed over us, making my mouth water. The fluorescent lights were so bright I had to squint to read the menu on the wall. Even then, the words swirled as though I were drunk. I drew in a deep breath to steady myself. Michael touched my arm, standing so close to me I could smell the sweetness of his skin mixed with the scent of fresh lime that hung in the air. In that moment he seemed very real, very human, and very sexy.

A man working alone behind the counter took our order and offered to bring it to our table. We sat by the window. Michael held my chair for me, and even though it was casual we were definitely out together, like a date. I should have felt guilty about going out with someone else’s boyfriend, but I didn’t. Being with him seemed right.

My cell phone rang, startling me. I fished it out of my purse and saw Heather’s number. Immediately thinking it was about Fiona, I answered. “Is everything okay?”

“You asked me to call you, remember?” said Heather. With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten. “I know I’m late, but I figured you were doing fine.”

I checked the time. It was 8:45. So much for my plan to use a phone call to escape Damiel. If Michael hadn’t arrived, I could have been dead by now. “Everything’s okay.”

“Have fun,” she said and hung up.

I didn’t realize how hungry I was until there was food in front of me. Before I knew it, I’d wolfed down a large bean burrito. As Michael chewed, the bright fluorescents revealed a tiny scar at the hinge of his jaw, a flaw that didn’t detract from his looks but enhanced them.

“How’d you get the scar?” I asked, gesturing at it.

“Oh, that.” The corners of his mouth pulled into a wide grin and the scar crinkled slightly. “I’ve had it since I was six. Thought I’d try shaving one day. Took my dad’s straight razor, but forgot to use shaving cream.”