Angelic Ties [His Guardian Angels 2] (10 page)

They rolled for another endless set of minutes before coming to a stop. He couldn’t identify up from down. The orientation of his world was still spinning. Nothing hurt, but it wasn’t because he wasn’t injured. It was more due to the fact that he was in shock more than anything else.

“Y–Yuri?” Madigan’s voice was hoarse as he spoke. Yuri wondered if he had been screaming. “Yuri!”

“I’m okay, Madi.” Yuri didn’t know if he actually was, but it seemed like the thing to say. The angel mentally assessed his injuries but couldn’t feel enough of his body to tell. He opened his eyes and saw a bleeding Madigan. His heart constricted painfully. His Madigan was hurt. He hadn’t been fast enough in shielding him. Some of the glass must’ve got at him before his wings had closed. Thinking of his wings, he tried to open them open but couldn’t. They were stuck somehow.

Bren’s voice sounded. “Madigan?” He seemed as shaken up as Madigan was.

“He’s alive,” Yuri offered. He couldn’t determine more than that.

“Everyone else?”

“I’m okay,” Michel said, his voice hoarse as well. “What the hell hit us?”

“I’m okay as well,” Dex muttered. “Pretty badly sliced up from the glass, but I’m okay. The seat belt saved my ass. I think it was a car that smashed us up.”

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“What about Cross?” Madigan asked. Silence answered him. Yuri felt a flood of adrenaline surge through him at that unnatural silence, clearing away his fuzzy-minded shock. “Cross?” Madigan asked again, pitifully.

Dex started cursing like a sailor, never a good sign. “He’s unconscious. Bleeding pretty badly from his head. Gash on the side of his neck.” He paused long enough for a fresh dose of fear to floor him. “Hole in his chest. Looks like something came through the windshield.”

“Fuck,” Bren said. “I think I see what came through the fucking windshield.”

“What is it?” Yuri asked.

“Looks like some sort of spear.”

“How can you tell?” Yuri wondered.

Bren paused. “It’s what is holding your wings closed. It was probably aimed at Madigan.”

Cold rage went through Yuri. They were hurting his men. It was an odd thing to think of and an even odder thing to feel, but they were his and the idea that they were hurt…

“This wasn’t an accident. There was more than one spear.

Someone had to have tossed one through the side window to hit you like that. Looks like one scraped you as it came through Cross and another pinned your wings,” he cursed again, “This was definitely not an accident,” Dex said. Yuri couldn’t agree more.

A groaning sound came from the front seat. “Fuck me, that hurts.”

“Don’t talk, Cross. Conserve your strength,” Dex murmured. He sounded near tears.

“Get Madigan out of here,” Cross commanded. Stubborn moron, Yuri thought. “Can anyone fly?”

A hand touched Yuri’s wings. “My wings are good and my injuries are pretty minor.” It was Bren.

“Good. Get him out of here.”

“Cross, you can’t fly and neither can Yuri,” Michel argued.

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“Doesn’t matter. Our priority is Madigan.”

“Someone just tried to kill us, and there are no guarantees that they aren’t still around,” Yuri said. He felt like a jerk for thinking so, but he didn’t want everyone to leave them. “I can’t feel my wings.”

He added the last with a note of panic in his voice. He’d had numerous injuries over his existence, but none like this. Where the joints were connected seemed fused together. He smelled blood and knew that some of it was his. The wetness on his feathers told him a
lot
of it was his.

“I’m not leaving you, Yuri,” Madigan promised, his green eyes sparkling.
He really loves me.
It was the singularly most important thought Yuri could ever remember having.

Suddenly a door was wrenched open from the outside and sent flying. Dex growled, and someone else cursed. The sound of unsnapping seat belts played, and Yuri tensed as the sound of war cries reached his ears. The hunters had found them.

* * * *

Cross struggled to unbuckle his seat belt, his fingers nerveless and unable to process the sensation and gauge the correct pressure to open the mechanism. Dex unsnapped himself and launched out the open door as soon as Bren’s door was wrenched open. Bren cursed as he was pulled out of the car by unfamiliar hands. Cross’s vision narrowed as he slammed his hand into the seat-belt release button, finally applying enough pressure to make it unsnap. He panted hard as a nearly blinding pain lacerated his chest as he tried to sit up enough to open the door. He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to bring blood as he resisted the urge to scream. He managed to raise his hand high enough to touch his chest.
Fuck
. There was still a piece of wood or something in there.

“Cross, don’t!” Yuri shouted from the backseat. His wings were wrapped protectively around Madigan, pinned in place like a
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butterfly’s through the connecting joints and into the metal of the car itself. If Cross hadn’t known that it was Yuri beneath the gnarled mass of bone, blood, and feathers, he would’ve been unrecognizable.

“Gotta get out. Gotta help Dex and Bren.” He wheezed. God everything hurt so badly. He thought like an idiot that the hunters would follow the rules and leave Madigan alone. It was stupid. So stupid on his part. He was supposed to be the leader, supposed to have all the answers.

Michel kicked the door until it came open and rolled out into the night as well. The sounds of screaming and fighting continued. He had to get out. He tested the door, found it wouldn’t give. He searched for a well of strength inside him, trying to find it even as the world he knew spun out of control. He didn’t have the extra power in him. His vision began dancing with spots of color. Vaguely, he realized he was losing consciousness.

“Stay with us, Cross. Try to stay awake. You don’t need to go see the Maker right now. We’ve got to finish our mission.” Yuri was babbling from the backseat, but Cross barely heard the words, let alone processed them. He felt like he was drowning, but it wasn’t unpleasant. His muscles began to relax, and his heart slowed. He couldn’t see anything anymore, not even impressions of light from the swords that were slashing outside.

Distantly he heard his archangel calling him, telling him to stay awake as well. Why? Why did he have to stay awake? He couldn’t remember. Something important teased the edge of his consciousness.

“Don’t leave me, Cross.” Madigan’s sobbing words finally penetrated the fog of his mind. “Please, I’m sorry I made you all come to work with me. I’m sorry that you had to put up with the bakery, and I’m so so sorry about everything. Please, Cross, I love you.

Please!”

“Love…you…Madi,” Cross whispered, but it might as well have been a shout for all the effort it cost him. The strangest sensation of falling made his head spin as his eyes slid shut, and he heard no more.

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* * * *

Dex was rarely in a temper. Now he was in a frothy fury. He drew his angelic sword which blazed from its place within him and hacked at the hunter nearest him. He felt the vibrations through the blade as it connected to flesh and bone. These monsters had tried to hurt his men, and it turned him into a berserker of epic proportions.

He swung again, taking off the head of the nearest angel, the one who had Bren’s struggling body in his tight grip. It tumbled off into the darkness like a macabre football. He knelt beside his lover.

“Bren, you okay?” he asked.

“Right as rain, Dex. I thought Madigan was strictly off-limits?”

Bren took his hand as Dex pulled him to his feet.

“Madigan is. We’re not. I didn’t think about it.” Dex cursed and pressed a kiss to Bren’s cheek. “Glad you’re okay. Did you see any others?”

Bren pulled back enough to draw his own sword. “Three more scattered when the two dragged me out. You get them both?” Dex nodded. “Good. Three more, I think.”

“We don’t have enough people to hunt them down. We need to get Cross out of that car and to a healer ASAP.” He didn’t say so, but they were both thinking that Cross’s injuries could very well be fatal.

If it was a last resort, they could use Bren’s serum on Cross to bring him back from the dead, but he really really
really
did not want Cross to die.

“I’ll find them. You two get the others to safety.” They both jumped as a new voice added to the conversation. Michel’s stormy expression gave Dex a first insight into the fact that he was one of Michael’s angels. He was a warrior first before anything else.

“You can’t go by yourself,” Bren protested. “There are three, if not more of them. We’re outnumbered and outgunned and outmatched with the injuries we have. We need to get out of here.

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Once we’re well, we’ll hunt them all down to the ends of the Earth, but for now, we need to go.”

Michel let lose an earsplitting battle cry and raised the fine hairs on Dex’s arms. “I will have my vengeance!” Dex understood where he was coming from. The hunters had tried to kill not only them but their loved ones as well. Michel was perhaps the most gentle out of the bunch, and his love ran as deep if not deeper than most. The most logical action would be to kill anything that had tried to harm those he loved.

“Vengeance is God’s department, Michel,” Bren said quietly.

“We’re guardians. Our duty is to our charge. Remember that.”

Michel shook. “I’m just so angry…” The rage was thick in his voice. It sounded much more guttural than usual.

“I know, baby. I know.” Bren put his sword out and drew Michel into his arms, rocking him slightly as he did so. Michel shuddered and clung to the back of Bren’s shirt. Dex stepped into the hug, enveloping them both. They stayed that way for a few seconds, taking comfort in one another.

“You’re right. Let’s get our men home,” Michel said finally. Dex nodded. Sanctuary had never looked so good.

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Madigan shook because he couldn’t do anything else. Yuri was murmuring quietly, trying to keep him calm, he guessed. Cross hadn’t spoken in several minutes, and the sounds of struggle outside had ceased around the same time he lost consciousness. Madigan couldn’t think of Cross being anything else but asleep. It would drive him crazy. He hated being trapped inside this cocoon while his lovers, hell, husbands, were out there fighting, probably injured, and possibly dying. So he cried quietly and let Yuri tell him how everything was going to be all right and that they were all going to lie in bed later and laugh about how scared they’d been.

“I want to leave town when we get out of here. I want to go somewhere far away with everyone.” Madigan murmured the words and shivered. “Isn’t there anywhere safe?” When this day had started off, he’d sworn that he wouldn’t let fear control his actions, that surely it wasn’t as dangerous as his men led him to believe. He’d never doubt them again.

When Yuri spoke, he sounded very tired. “We’ll go wherever you want to go Madigan. We can even travel to a town of sanctuary.

Pacifist angels have made safe zones all over the world where the hunters can’t come. They’re remote, pretty rural, and hard to find, but I’m sure between the five of us we can find them.”

“Can my mom come visit?” he asked. He needed to talk about something happy, anything to take his mind off of this moment. Yuri and Cross were terribly hurt. Madigan was a baker. He had never been around violence or anything remotely this terrifying. He longed for the days when he’d only worried about his mother’s blind dates.

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“Of course. We’ll even behave.” The joke fell flat. Madigan wanted to go home.

Yuri groaned as the driver side door was opened. Madigan felt a surge of panic go through him. What if it was the hunters here to finish him off? He couldn’t help the whimper that escaped him at the thought. He didn’t want to die like this.

“It’s okay, bright eyes. It’s just us,” Bren said. Cold relief went through Madigan at the sound. Someone audibly swallowed and someone else hissed. “Cross.” The word Bren whispered held a wealth of sorrow.

“Pulse?” Dex asked.

“I’ll bring him back,” Bren said.

“Back?” Madigan wondered numbly. “Back from where?”

“Don’t worry about it, baby,” Michel murmured. He sounded as shaken as Madigan was. “Cross is just hurt.”

“How you holding up, Yuri?” Dex asked.

“Broken but I’ll live.” Madigan huddled closer to him.

“I’ve got to pull this out to get you out of here. It’s going to hurt a lot, but I’ve got to get you and Madigan unpinned. Okay?” Dex’s voice again. Madigan hated not being able to see.

“I’m taking Cross ahead,” Bren said from somewhere in the location of the front seat. “I need to get him into a place of Sanctuary for this.”

“Go ahead,” Michel encouraged. “Take him on. Fly low and take the shortest path. We’ll meet you back at the house.” Madigan wagered that Michel was the one in charge when Cross was unavailable. He certainly sounded like the second-in-command.

“All right, Yuri. Here we go,” Dex said, much closer this time.

Yuri groaned as whatever it was that was pinning his wings to the car were cut and then pulled out of the joints. Blood gushed, soaking through Madigan’s shirt and splashing a warm spray against his face.

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Madigan screamed in terror. “Stop! You’re hurting him!” Yuri’s eyes were squeezed shut and his jaw was set so hard that Madigan imagined that it would break under the pressure.

“We don’t have a choice, baby. We have to get him out of here so that we can heal him,” Dex said. “Get ready, Michel.”

Yuri slumped sideways as a pair of arms grabbed him and pulled him from the backseat, Madigan along with him. They hit the ground and another set of hands pulled Madigan off Yuri. A flash of light momentarily blinded Madigan as Dex unsheathed his angelic sword of fire. Madi whimpered as Michel pulled him away from Yuri. Was this going to be a mercy killing or something?