Reluctantly, I let my eyes roam, taking in more of the beautiful face that was silently assessing me, and knew that once I met his gaze, he would have me.
The moon broke through the thin vapor of the night and pierced its pearly light into my room. Hadrian stepped into its path, the glow washing over him with an almost magical light.
Clouds thickened and scattered, darkening and relighting his face, eerily playing with the scant four feet that distanced us from each other. I took a careful step forward, leery of the familiar shape that wasn’t disappearing with the taunting light of the moon or shifting into a lie. Tonight Hadrian was not an illusion. His shoulders were set and rigid, but his eyes were … almost tender.
“How long have you been here?” I tried to control the shake in my voice.
“Days.”
Days? I had felt it, the soft lingering of him creeping closer with each dream, each day that I spent away from Garreth. I couldn’t help pulling Hadrian closer to the brink of my reality.
“I felt your mind.” Hadrian interrupted my thoughts, answering the why that lingered on my lips.
“You felt … my mind?” I couldn’t let Hadrian know how long my emotional wall had been crumbling; that I had become weak, defenseless, letting thoughts of him, the “what-ifs,” seep out into the universe. That guiltily, I was waiting for this. I should have been more careful.
He appraised me for a moment, his eyes studying my face.
“I thought it was an illusion, the lucid dreaming that comes with being confined, shaming me into delirium. Hours turned into weeks, I truly believed I was going insane,” he chuckled deeply. “Then again, I’ve always been a little off, haven’t I?”
An invisible pole held me up just then because I was still having trouble digesting the fact that I was face to face with Hadrian. Hadrian. The dark angel the other guardians had feared. The very one who had planned the corruption of the angels and the destruction of the humans left behind. The one responsible for the disappearance of my father, and most likely Claire’s accident. The one who had taken Garreth …
And yet …
I was truly convinced that somewhere buried deep inside him, his soul slumbered, waiting for the moment when the light would come through once again and awaken the guardian that only I seemed to believe he could be.
He stood still in front of me.
“Where were you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
“You don’t want to know,” he answered huskily.
“Try me.”
“Hell.”
The answer shook me. Images of fire and misery flashed before me. It’s not somewhere I’d want anyone to go.
“How did you get out?”
“Does it matter?” He was agitated now and I couldn’t help but take a couple steps back.
“I … I was just wondering.” My pulse pounded heavily in my ears as I struggled to meet his eyes. I was the one who let go of his hand that night in the woods. The one who sent him into the darkness. Did I send him there? To hell?
Hadrian cocked his head to one side, as if listening to the rumblings inside my head. “It was Mathur,” he said, as if meaning to put my guilt at ease.
“Mathur?”
It had never occurred to me to question Mathur’s responsibilities. The high-ranking guardian in his flowing white robes had been a solace to me. He had enlightened me with the truth of my own judgment, existence, and purpose after I had followed Garreth to the realm of guardians, but my trail of thought was interrupted.
“Does this surprise you?” Hadrian asked.
“A little.”
“Mathur was generous with my sentence, but I deserved worse.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but his sharp eyes silenced me.
“You know firsthand what I am capable of; never forget that.”
Then he softened his voice, “Images of you plagued me day and night. I realized, this was the price I was to pay for interfering with your life.”
“My life? What about my friend Claire’s life? My father’s?”
“I admit to creating chaos, but I no longer find it amusing.” Hadrian’s eyes met mine cautiously as the fury I held deep inside threatened to burst. “I cannot control the havoc I create once it starts.”
“Can’t or won’t?” I interrupted fiercely. I thought back to the night in the woods. The night of the fire when my hand let go of his and I remembered the look of remorse on his face as he plummeted away from me.
The space between us seemed to glow. The moonlight was fading, bringing the dawn closer, and I could see him more clearly now. His face was drawn, but still perfect. His eyes, dark at first, now reflected the golden tints floating through my window, allowing me to stare into a liquid emerald pool.
“You can’t be here, Hadrian,” I whispered. “I love Garreth.”
“Really? Then why am I here now?”
If I looked at him again, I would weaken. Trying to stay centered and strong, I stared at my bare feet, now numb from standing in one place for too long.
He shifted one leg forward. He would be within inches if he wanted, towering over me, making me feel helpless. Stepping backwards, I tried to hide the wobble in my legs, which had grown unsteady under my still weight. He was quicker than me and I felt him gently grab hold of my shoulders, his eyes searching mine, reaching into a part of me only he knew existed. I couldn’t break down, knowing if he looked deep enough he would find what I was trying to hide. Seconds away from losing it, I thought of Garreth, how he could manifest himself into the middle of this, but he was MIA.
“There are many layers to me, Teagan,” Hadrian whispered. “I know a part of you believes or wishes that I could reform. But to deny all the darkness that remains inside me would be living a lie.”
Hadrian took my scarred hand and traced his fingertip across the sweaty skin I had been clenching tightly. My mark greeted us in a swirling glimmer of light. It scrolled and extended, revealing itself in full splendor.
My mark meant “unity.” I was the bridge between the realms, the societies. Angel and human. Heaven and earth.
Images of Garreth bombarded me, flooding my conscience. My first true love. But now, it was both painful and, dare I say, enlightening, that the truth was finally gripping my heart—that perhaps, I wanted Hadrian too? Part of me was like him in so many ways. The more I realized who he was beneath the dark façade, the clearer my inner self became.
I wanted to tell him I believed he wasn’t as hollow and dark as he believed himself to be. I knew deep in my heart, no matter how guarded I had kept it from him, that despite everything he had done, he was probably more human than the average person. He understood the dark and the light each of us held inside ourselves. He understood that without one, the other couldn’t possibly exist. We just needed the strength to see past the blackness and not give in to it. Hadrian was the blending of both and I wondered, could he possibly be the only guardian in existence to understand that?
Somehow, I always seemed to draw Hadrian back to me like a magnet. I found myself not wanting to choose between the two of them again. If I were to have two guardians—one light and one dark—was it to balance the light and the dark I have in myself?
I looked up at Hadrian, realizing he knew too.
He held my hand up higher.
“Have you not questioned the configuration of the mark you hold? Think, Teagan, what could it possibly represent?”
I stared at my mark, the one Hadrian seemed to know so much about. At a glance, my hand appeared scarred. Burned. But beneath the puckered, pink skin were three tiny open-ended circles, closely situated, in the formation of a triangle. Three scrolls coiled in the center of my palm, to be exact. They were connected by a thin line, much like a natural crease, embedded in my skin. I had often wondered why these markings had appeared in my hand.