Still assigned to Aviemore. Hope beat in my chest like a drunken butterfly. Rid of my guardianship, we could be together more openly. No rules. No bitterness that he was in an inferior position. It was great news.
Relieved, I crossed the room and stood in front of him. I couldn’t help myself; I reached out to touch him. “We can see each other more easily now, right?”
He gently circled his hand over my outstretched wrist and held it still. “You seeing me while I was working is what placed you in danger in the first place. So that doesn’t happen again, you won’t be seeing me again. Ever.” He moved my hand to the side, stood up, and broke contact with me.
My heart dropped to the floor. “Why? You said the demons were gone.”
“Those demons are gone, but there’s still something going on in the area that I have to . . . I really can’t talk about it.”
His passivity infuriated me. “Right.” I threw my hands in the air. “Or I’ll be tortured.”
“It’s not a game.” His face flared with intensity. “This is serious, Maren! I’m serious! Don’t joke about things like torture. If you saw . . . This is exactly why I can’t get close to you . . .”
“It’s too late, isn’t it?” I interrupted. “You’re already close to me. Too close, and it’s freaking you out. That’s why you’re doing this.” I held my breath and waited to see how he would react. His face drained of all color. He sunk back onto my bed and buried his head in his hands.
“I can’t,” he whispered at the floor.
“Can’t what?” I crawled onto the bed next to him and brushed at imaginary lint on his shoulder just to touch him. The air crackled with tension.
“I can’t be with you,” he moaned. “I want to. Believe me . . . The temptation is crushing . . .” He lifted his eyes and locked me in a sultry stare.
“I want it too,” I whispered. “Being with you is just so . . . easy. I can’t explain why it feels right, but it does. You know it does.”
“But it’s wrong.” His gaze was penetrating and intimate. “I can’t do this to you.”
I swallowed hard and blinked to keep some semblance of control. “Do what to me? Break my heart? Because you’re kind of already doing that.”
A heavy grief colored his voice. “I can’t change who I am, Maren. I’m an angel, and I’m a Warrior. I have a dangerous job.”
“I know your job is dangerous.” I wiggled a loose stitch on the bedspread, kept my own voice even and calm. “You’ve told me. I don’t care. I can handle it.”
“I can’t handle it!” He slammed his hand on the mattress. “Loving you would make you a target to every demon I ever go after. They’ll hunt you down and kill you, and I can’t put you in that kind of danger!” He thumped to his feet. “I’m sorry, Maren. I’m sorry it has to be this way. But it’s done. It’s over. You need to stay away from me, and I from you. For good.” He leapt for the open window, climbed on the ledge, and disappeared.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t follow him, couldn’t even watch him leave. Confusion ricocheted from my head to my heart and back again. Did he just tell me he loved me and then broke up with me in the same breath?
I threw myself down on the bed, prepared to cry my eyes out, when I spotted a white bundle on the floor near the headboard. I stretched out my arm, hooked it with my finger, and brought it close. It was Gavin’s shirt. The shirt I’d wrapped around me when he’d flown me back. I lifted it to my cheek. I could smell Gavin in the fibers. And, somehow, the tunic was still warm.
I scrunched it into a ball, clutched it to my heart, and let my tears wash over it. What had I done in a past life to deserve so much heartbreak in this one?
I fumbled at my neck for the Tudor rose necklace from my mom and rubbed its cool glass petals to soothe myself. Instead, self-pity tried to swallow me whole. I finally found a guy I liked who actually liked me back, and somehow I’d messed it up. How? Could I ever fix it? And why did it have to hurt so badly?
I never talked to my mom about boys, because there had never been any worth mentioning. Now there was one, I was desperate to talk to her, and she was gone. So was he, I reminded myself.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I wiped my face with the back of my hand and pulled it out. I hit the side button and found a text from Jo:
OUR BOG BUTTER IS GOING TO THE EDINBURGH MUSEUM!!
HOW COOL IS THAT? IM AT TV STATION. TALK LATER
Sweet Jo, she was always so darn perky. How did she manage it when she had a crappy life too? I thought about calling her, but I didn’t want to interrupt her with my sob story. And I wasn’t sure her eternal optimism was going to help anyway. I needed to talk to someone a little more dark and twisted.
I dialed Hunter.
“Hey, I was just thinking about you!” she said.
“Really?” I sniffed. “Why?”
“Wait, are you crying?”
I sniffed again. “No, I mean . . . not anymore.”
“Aw, is it your mom?” she asked.
“Kind of, but not totally.”
“A guy?”
“Good guess.”
“It’s always a guy, isn’t it? What did he do? Want me to come knock him out for you?”
I smiled into the phone. Calling Hunter was definitely a good idea. I told her about meeting Gavin in the woods, him showing up at my house, and my trip to his village.
She was impressed, and started babbling on, probably to distract me from the painful parts. “Oh, you’re so lucky! I’ve never met an angel. I know my parents worked with them. I can’t wait to work for the Abbey myself. Finally get out of here . . .”
“Where is the Abbey?” I interrupted. I rolled over and slid my mom’s journal out from under my bed.
“France.”
I slipped the decoded letter from between the pages and ran my fingers over the smooth outside of the envelope. “Le Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy?”
“Why are you asking me if you already know?”
“I don’t. I found an envelope my mom had addressed there right before she died.”
“So you found something?” Her voice went up an octave; from excitement or fear, I couldn’t tell.
“Yeah,” I admitted. I described the heart box, the journal, and the letter.
“How did you know it was written in invisible ink?” she asked. “Did you decode it?”
“Yes,” I said, remembering the cup of tea. “Sort of on accident.”
“There are no accidents,” she reminded me. “It’s amazing you could do that, you know. Not everyone can cryptanalyze. You must have inherited that from your parents. The Abbey’s going to want you for sure!”
“Maybe I don’t want them,” I replied. “And I think you were right.”