I managed to shrug. “You’re naked.”
Ignoring me, he tugged my uninjured left arm across his shoulder and carefully walked me back inside. Naturally, the gouges didn’t start hurting until we got in the rear entrance of the hotel, on account of the air conditioning. The adrenaline had worn off, leaving me shaky and scared shitless. Still, I managed to keep it together as Michael slid the key card in the door with his left hand, his right still wrapped securely around my waist to hold me steady.
“How’d you know I was in trouble?” I asked.
“I felt the hellhound’s presence. Whenever something with energy from Heaven or Hell is on Earth, the angels sense their presence,” Michael told me. The door opened and he helped me inside, kicking it shut and hurriedly settling me down on the bed. He grabbed one of the fresh white towels on the sink and wet it. He knelt in front of me and began cleaning the wounds.
“You never did explain that to me properly. I thought creatures from Hell couldn’t appear on Earth.”
“They can’t. Hellhounds are usually just stray dogs that the demons use their influence over to corrupt them into monsters. It’s sort of a loophole.” He pressed the towel a little harder into my neck, causing me to hiss and his brow to furrow even deeper.
“I’m alright,” I asserted, taking the cloth from him to mop up the blood. It seemed almost a shame for all that pure white to be marred with crimson.
He frowned at me. “How are you anywhere near alright, Jordan?”
I shrugged again, regretting it as the claw mark on my shoulder stung. “You taught me well, after all.”
Michael shook his head. “Don’t try to change the subject. I shouldn’t have let you go out on your own. It was stupid of me.”
It was my turn to frown this time. “What? Am I your pet? You don’t run my life, Michael.”
His gaze hardened. “That’s not what I meant. You told me before that you’d be careful and now look at you. You almost got eaten by a hellhound all because you wanted to go on a date with your ex-boyfriend.”
I pushed his hand out of the way when he reached for the towel, standing up. He stood too, appearing worried that I’d topple over from blood loss but I didn’t. My anger had somehow given me enough strength to glare up at him.
“It wasn’t a date—it was a meeting. Besides, why should you care?”
“Last time I checked I was your emotional support,” he retorted a mildly sarcastic voice. “I can’t perform my duties if I don’t know the whole story.”
A tired sigh escaped my throat. “What do you want me to say? I don’t know how I feel about him any more than you do.”
“Then why are you pursuing this relationship at all?”
My mouth fell open. “You—you’re the one who asked me if I would ever consider getting back with him! Are you really giving me lip after you suggested it?”
Michael’s face became stubborn. “Oh, great. So you ignore everything else I say to you except when it comes to this guy. That makes a lot of sense.”
“This isn’t about you, Michael.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “On that we agree.”
His words stopped me. I had another angry retort prepared, but something stopped me. It was the way he said that last sentence and how waves of irritation seemed to pour off of him like a warm cloud of cologne that made me realize a startling truth.
“Michael…are you jealous?”
Silence spilled around us. Then, slowly, his expression began to recede from angry into something much harder to place. The frown disappeared and a very strange smirk touched his lips as he ran a hand through his dark, damp hair.
“Jealous, huh?”
He walked towards me. Normally, Michael was an open book of emotions: happiness, sadness, humor, compassion—all of them he wore on his sleeve like badges of honor. This walk I had not seen before. There was something in his body language that made my throat dry and my palms sweaty. He stalked towards me with the grace I only saw on National Geographic channel in the powerful movements of a lion on the plains of Africa—a predator closing in on the helpless prey.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a plain to run around on, so I backpedaled until my bare back pressed into the wall, the towel slipping from my slackened grip and onto the floor. My pulse skyrocketed when he stopped mere inches away, staring down at me with an unfamiliar heat in his gaze. The angel had vanished and the man stood in his place.
“My purpose on this Earth is to serve my Father and protect mankind from evil. It might not seem obvious, but I’m continuing my mission through protecting you, Jordan.”