Messenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels Read Online Free Page A

is the ability to read your mind,” he said softly. “Penny for your thoughts?”
    Eleanore laughed and shook her head. “No deal. I know you can make gold out of anything in this room. Pennies won’t cut it, young man.”
    He laughed, too. “I’m anything but young, Ellie.”
    It was true. She reasoned that, by all rights, he was more ancient than time itself. He had been on Earth for two thousand years, as had his brothers, but he’d existed as an archangel in another realm before that.
    “Well?” he hedged. “You gonna share?” His green eyes twinkled. “Or do I have to torture it out of you?” His hand slipped under the hem of her shirt and his fingers brushed teasingly—threateningly—against the lace of her underwire bra.
    Ellie’s heartbeat kicked up a notch, her temperature rose a few degrees, and her lips parted as she watched her husband’s pupils expand in hunger. As if he could sense her response, his smile turned dark, spreading to a dangerous grin.
    She decided to prolong the torture. “I was just thinking that with the Adarians out there and Sam watching over everything, it’ll be war for the others,” she admitted truthfully. She
had
been worried about the other archesses. She, herself, hadn’t had an easy life. She’d run from the Adarians since she was a little girl and their leader had spied her healing another child. The other archesses were one of the main reasons she had decided to stay on Earth with Uriel after their souls had united and they’d literally earned their wings four months ago. They’d had a choice then—they could have left Earth and returned to Uriel’s realm, or they could remain behind. They’d chosen the latter.
    Uriel’s smile stayed put; he clearly knew she was turned on and teasing him. “The other archesses?” He played along.
    Eleanore nodded. There were supposed to be three more women out there, somewhere in the world: three more like her. Each one would be gifted with supernatural abilities and each one was fated to become the soul mate of one of the four favored archangels. But it hadn’t been easy for her and Uriel. The Adarians, twelve very powerful archangels who were cast to Earth by the Old Man, were dead set on obtaining an archess of their own in the hopes of somehow absorbing the archess’s ability to heal. And Samael . . .
    With that thought, some of Ellie’s mounting desire slipped away. “What do you think Sam’s plan is?” she asked softly. Samael was an enigma. He was an archangel who had once been the Old Man’s favorite but who was displaced by Michael. He was also the thirteenth Adarian, but unlike the other twelve, he had not been discarded by the Old Man and sent to Earth all those years ago. For some reason the Old Man had kept him in their realm. He’d left only when the four favored left, in order to track down the archesses himself. Or at least that was the assumption.
    The truth was, nobody knew what Samael’s motivation or plans were.
    He was certainly more powerful than the four favored, a fact he made more painfully clear as time passed. And he made life hell for them at every given opportunity. Four months ago, Sam had tricked Uriel into signing a contract that indirectly caused him to become the very same vampire he played in Hollywood. The curse had nearly torn him and Ellie apart at a time when they had just found each other and should have been focusing on growing closer.
    Why had Samael done this?
they had wondered. He claimed that he wanted an archess of his own—for his own reasons. But in the end, true to his enigmatic ways, Samael had turned the other cheek and shown a different side of himself by helping Ellie and the brothers defeat the Adarians in a harrowing battle in Texas. He was mysterious and dangerous in equal measures. Well, perhaps not quite equal measures.
    He was very, very dangerous.
    “Who knows?” Uriel said in answer to Ellie’s question. He sighed heavily, obviously disappointed