Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Gabriel’s lips tightened, but he didn’t dare move away from Abaddon, who’d taken that dangerous shot with absolute confidence and saved him. Gabriel looked up at his angel in awe. He could almost see the two sets of translucent wings spreading from behind his back.
Magnificent.
Gabriel laughed, pressing his cheek to his lover’s thigh. “Joke’s on you, fucking bastard! Who do you think this is? Archangel Abaddon, the Destroyer! You summoned him, and now he’s here to deliver justice!”
Abaddon pulled back his hood, and as long hair fell from under it, their eyes met.
“Are you hurt?” he asked softly, lowering the gun, but the moment of relief was shattered by a low laugh.
“That’s your angel?”
Abaddon’s nostrils flared, and he filled his chest with air, staring at Martinez's sprawled form. Martinez, who’d been so desperate to flee moments ago, now sat and faced them with a crazy smile.
Gabriel met the vile bastard’s gaze with all the wrath in his stomach. “And he will be your end,” he spat.
Martinez licked his lips and took a shaky breath. “There’s a temple in the pyramid on orphanage grounds. Go there, find the throne, and you’ll see what kind of angel he is. But you can’t open it without me. I know how to get—”
His head kicked back with a giant hole in the forehead, and the bang of a gunshot took away Gabriel’s ability to think. He’d seen and been through terrible things, he’d been present to watch two men dying last month, but he still screamed, shedding tears as Martinez dropped dead so unexpectedly.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” Abaddon soothed, putting his arms around Gabriel.
He let himself be swooped up into the embrace, but stared at Martinez with his mouth open and a blank mind. The end of a monster that had tormented him for so many years. Just punishment for the terrible crimes Martinez had committed. And yet even in death, he left Gabriel with confusion and upset.
“What was he saying? I think I know the place he means, but it’s not a temple, just a fake pyramid the Benson family had built, because Ancient Egypt was so fashionable at the time.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Abaddon said, and gave him a kiss before stepping away to take a look at the body. “He was just trying to derail our mission.”
Gabriel got up on shaky legs, his mind in chaos as he took in Abaddon’s magnificent silhouette. Tall, strong, adorned with strange tattoos and with hair like brown silk. He could be an angel. He was an angel, wasn’t he?
You’ll see what kind of angel he is.
Gabriel swallowed, steadying himself against pushback that was surely coming. “I want to go there.”
Abaddon shook his head. “We shouldn’t waste time on his bullshit. He was lying to save his pathetic life.”
Gabriel squeezed his hands into fists. “If you don’t go with me, I’ll go myself.”
Silence.
Abaddon put the gun into the back of his pants, like some character in a gangster movie, and faced him with squared shoulders. Gabriel crossed the space between them and put his hand on his angel’s chest.
“I need to see.”
He didn’t understand why Abaddon seemed so spooked by the perspective of seeing a folly dating back to the Benson family actually living at what was now the orphanage, but he would not back down on this, and his angel must have understood it too, because he nodded.
“Fine. We’ll dispose of the evidence and go.”
15
ABADDON
Each step pushed a needle into Abaddon’s vital organs, and even squeezing the cross on his neck didn’t help the sense of doom growing in his chest.
His condition deteriorated throughout the evening. By the time they disposed of Martinez’s body and once again passed the guard who paid no attention to drivers who owned a remote to open the gate, he was suffering from a headache that made the edges of his vision crowd with shiny spots. The constant movement of the imaginary particles increased the sense of threat, but also exacerbated the nausea that became worse as he followed Gabriel through the vast woodland belonging to St. John’s. Could it be that the area was contaminated somehow, or was his sickness purely the result of a migraine?
“Can’t we do this tomorrow?” he mumbled, grabbing the branch of a passing tree to rest and shut his aching eyes for a moment while the trees and bushes hummed, protesting their presence.
But Gabriel was a man on a mission, and despite him moving like a mannequin whose joints needed oiling, he’d been relentlessly pushing his way down the overgrown path that was hardly ever used since the mansion’s adaptation into a children’s home. He waved his hand when little flies circled his face.
“I need to know what he was talking about. What if they move whatever’s hiding there by tomorrow?”
Abaddon staggered toward him with resentment growing in his chest like a burning coal he couldn’t spit out. After all Abaddon had done for Gabriel, his well-being should have been the boy’s priority, yet instead of helping Abaddon home, Gabriel focused on Martinez’s lies. The bastard was fucking with them from beyond the grave, and Gabriel had taken the bait like a fat cod about to land on someone’s plate.