Page 14 of Guarded
For some reason, my question had most around the table shifting. Rami was glaring down at his clasped hands while Breann muttered under her breath.
“Yes.” Micah’s voice was clipped. “Noah was part of Juniper before joining the Seraphim.”
What was left unsaid was so much greater than that, but I wasn’t going to push. If there was a story there, I wanted to hear it from Noah.
If I could ever get him to speak to me, that was.
“I think feeling the pull helped keep me sane,” Nox said, smiling briefly at his mate and returning us to the topic at hand. “Well, as sane as I can ever hope to be.”
“So, you and Dahlia had the pull, and Quill and I didn’t.” I was trying to make it all make sense, but the pieces weren’t fitting. “Surely it was more reckless to let the two of you go topside?”
“You’re forgetting that none of us knew what was going on. Lucifer didn’t know that was what was keeping me and Dahlia sane. Fuck, we didn’t even realise that what we were feelingwasa mating bond. But Luciferdidknow how much the two of you hated it down there. It’s not like you kept it a secret.”
“What about Darius?”
Nox shrugged. “Who the fuck knows? Dude keeps shit locked up tighter than the ninth circle—including how he really felt about being imprisoned in Hell.”
I gave a bitter laugh, thinking of our friend. He could make a Buddhist monk who’d taken a vow of silence seem chatty. “True.”
I braced myself, remembering that the rest of the Seraphim were waiting to hear the rest of my stories. The ugly truths of what I’d been made to do over the years. The tortures. The ones I’d inflicted. The ones done to me. Those I’d hurt time and time again, hating every second of it. The battles I’d fought against my will. How I’d vomited repeatedly after being sent to execute a clan of shifters who’d upset my master.
How I’d cried in Dahlia’s arms after that, bitterly wishing we had a different life.
I let it all rest on my shoulders for a breath. I could do this. I could flay myself open for them. For Noah.
Micah was studying me closely, a small furrow in his brow. Before I could speak, he got to his feet. “Thank you, Jeremiah. I think we’ve all heard enough.”
“Really?” I stared incredulously at the Seraphim. I didn’t understand the empathy on their faces or what had happened to cause it.
“Really,” Micah said softly, squeezing Nox’s shoulder. “Nox was right. None of us have experienced what you have. It was foolish of us to believe we could understand. We can’t. What you went through, what Nox went through…” He shook his head sadly. “We’re lucky. Lucky we were born angels instead of demons. Really, the only difference between us is the colour of our wings. Perhaps we all ought to remember that.”
His gaze swept over the assembled angels before coming to rest on me. “You didn’t choose that life any more than we chose ours. I don’t blame you for running,Jeremiah. You’d had your first taste of freedom and you were scared.”
I swallowed hard. “You’re being far kinder and more understanding than I thought you would be.”
A chill entered Micah’s eyes as his smile turned lethal.“We are, but hurt Noah again? Then you’ll see a very different side of us.”
Chapter 3
Noah
Iflew long and hard, not pausing until the languages on the air below me had changed three times. It still wasn’t far enough for me to escape the audacity.
I mean, what the fuck had Jeremiah been thinking? That a bunch of flowers would have me dropping to my knees? That a charming smile would make me forget how he’d fucked up?
Nope. I’d spent centuries letting someone walk all over me. The days of that happening were long gone.
It made my petty heart happy to think that maybe Jeremiah had been given a taste of his own medicine. That perhaps he’d watched me fly away and felt even a tenth of the sting I had.
To humans, my behaviour probably seemed over the top. But we weren’t human. Neither of us. We both knew that your fated mate was sacred. Meeting them should be the happiest moment of your life. Everything was supposed to align perfectly.
Maybe that would’ve happened if mine weren’t an emotionally stunted fuckboi.
And yes, I meant that literally. I’d done a little digging on my so-called mate and his adventures since he’d been topside. If there was a single person in a three-mile radius of his house that he hadn’t fucked then I’d yet to find them.
Jeremiah was just Lyle in another form. Even Nox had admitted he didn’t think his friend would ever settle down. That he was too free and wild to want to be tied to another person.
The excuses were so familiar to me it was almost comical. Time and time again, I’d fallen for Lyle’s false promises. Lured into his bed by the promise of him having changed.
