“Where are we?” I ask, observing the distinctly European furniture and old style oil paintings hanging on the walls.

  “My villa in Tuscany,” he answers. “I wanted to keep you somewhere safe. Not many people know about this place.” He turns to face me and smiles. “It’s where I come to hide from the rest of the world.”

  “So are we hiding?” I ask, amused by the idea of Mason trying to hide me.

  “In a way,” he says. “I wasn’t sure what was happening to you. I didn’t want to take the chance of you falling into the wrong hands while you were defenseless.”

  “So you were my body guard?” I asked.

  Mason looks back at me, his eyes travelling the whole length of me.

  “It’s a body worth guarding.”

  Thankfully he turns his head before he can witness a completely girly moment of me blushing. I feel like I should fan my cheeks their so hot but instead I just concentrate on my breathing so I don’t forget how to.

  When we reach the first floor, Mason quickly escorts me through a light airy room with a large built in stone fireplace on the far wall, three white sofas with coral colored throw pillows are arranged around a large worn wood sofa table. A large antiqued white chandelier hangs in the center of it all, softly illuminating the exposed cherry wood beam ceiling.

  We descend another set of stairs and walk a short ways down a hallway to the kitchen area. The kitchen is a lot smaller and cozier than I would have imagined for a house so large. The appliances in the kitchen are the most modern things I’ve seen in the house thus far. Apparently Mason does like to cook because I can tell he has spared no expense in this room. Antiqued white cabinets surround the walls with black marble counter tops. A wood table with white painted legs and chairs sit in the middle of the room. Mason lets go of my hand so he can pull out one of the chairs at the table for me, a courtesy no one has ever bestowed on me before.

  After I sit down, he walks to a large industrial sized refrigerator and pulls out a large silver platter filled with various cheeses, fruits, sliced meats and vegetables. After depositing the feast of food on the table in front of me, he takes out a loaf of French bread from one of the cabinets and begins to slice it up while I nibble on a piece of aged cheddar cheese.

  I can’t stop myself from watching Mason as he slices the bread. The way his muscles move beneath the electric blue button down shirt he’s wearing as he works the knife in and out of the bread mesmerizes me. I grant myself permission to let my eyes travel down the length of him and find myself smiling thankfully that he decided to tuck his shirt into the pair of form fitting jeans he is wearing. It’s a side of Mason I had never paid attention to before and became thankful for the opportunity.

  “Jess?”

  I quickly lift my gaze from the inappropriate spot where my eyes have been staring and find Mason’s head turned in my direction catching me in the act of ogling him.

  “Yes?” I ask as innocently as I can, hoping beyond hope that he didn’t just see me staring at his butt.

  A lopsided grin appears on Mason’s face and I know I’m totally busted.

  “I was asking,” he says, a hint of amusement in his voice, “if you would like me to make you something else to eat? I have a fully stocked kitchen. I can make you anything you want… if it’s food you want, that is.”

  I feel like crawling underneath the table and staying there until the end of time. Not brave enough to address the elephant in the room I shake my head.

  “No, I’m fine with what’s here,” I say looking at the tray of food in front of me before I look back at Mason.

  He turns around to face me and leans back against the counter behind him, arms crossed over his chest.

  “So you’re sure there’s nothing else you might want to have instead?”

  It’s then I experience my first ever Freudian slip as my eyes, and I swear they do this on if their own accord, drop down to Mason’s hips. I quickly look away and find a piece of dust on the wall to my left extremely interesting to stare at.

  “No,” I say, shaking my head sagely. “I’m fine.”

  I don’t dare look in Mason’s direction until he turns back around to arrange the sliced bread on a plate. When I do let my eyes travel back to where he stands, I notice that his shoulders are shaking slightly and I know he’s quietly laughing.

  Normally I would feel appalled by my behavior, but if it made Mason laugh, I can live with a little embarrassment. He doesn’t seem to be the type of person who lets himself relax enough to laugh very often, and I feel a strange sort of pride that my blatant leering of his persona brought him a small amount of joy.

  When he does turn back around to face me, his smile is so bright I find it utterly impossible not to smile too.

  “Is there anything in particular you would like to….drink?” he says, emphasizing the last word in a way which makes it sound naughty.

  “Water?” I ask, completely ignoring his suggestive tone.

  He nods his head and grabs a glass from the cabinet filling it with water from the tap.

  “I have an artesian well on the property,” he tells me, sitting the crystal clear water in front of me. “It’s probably the purest water you’ll ever drink.”

  He sits down across from me and I take a sip of the water.

  “Wow, that really is good water,” I say.

  I grab a couple of slices of bread, sliced meat and cheese to make a sandwich. Just as I’m about to take a bite, I notice Mason staring at me and stop.

  “I feel funny with you looking at me while I’m eating,” I tell him.

  “Would you rather I stood and turned my back to you?” he asks, smiling knowingly.

  “No,” I say, not even pretending that we both don’t now what he is implying. “But, is there something else you could be doing in here while I eat?”

  Mason stands and goes to the refrigerator pulling out what looks like cut up chicken.

  “I was planning to make you some of my famous chicken soup. Would you like some for supper?”

  “Yes, that sounds good,” I say, taking a bite of my sandwich and instantly feeling my hunger begin to ebb.

  While Mason goes about cooking his soup, I end up eating three sandwiches in a row and begin to wonder if I will have room for the soup later. After the last sandwich, I completely drain my glass of water and get up to get another.

  “What are you doing?” Mason asks seeing me rise as he’s dropping in diced pieces of carrot into his pot of soup

  “I need some more water,” I say, the words ending up sounding like a question instead of a statement because I’m not sure why he’s questioning me.

  “I’ll get that for you,” he tells me. “You just sit down and rest.”

  He takes the glass out of my hand and fills it from the sink for me. I sit back down and tell him, “Thank you.”

  Once Mason sets his soup to boil, he returns to the table and sits down across from me.

  “Now, can you tell me what happened?”

  I tell Mason everything Michael told me and finally decide to reveal my secret of ‘seeing the truth of things’ to another living soul.

  “So that’s all you were keeping from me?” he asks, somewhat relieved.

  “How did you know I wasn’t telling you the complete truth?” I ask. “That first night we met I could tell you and Isaiah knew I was holding something back from you.”

  “The Watchers who have never tasted human blood were able to retain the power of being able to tell if someone is lying to us. We knew you weren’t exactly lying to us but we also knew you weren’t telling us the complete truth either.”

  “I didn’t know you guys could do that,” I say, not sure how I feel about being around a walking lie detector.

  “It’s not something we normally tell people about,” Mason says. “It can make some people feel uncomfortable to be around us.”

  Mason rests his elbows on the table and leans in towards me. “You know, all this time we thought the answer to sealing the Tear was an object of some sort. It never even occurred to me we should have been looking for people, and now we know what, or I guess who, Lucifer has been looking for all these years. Did Michael give you any advice on how you should connect with the other archangel vessels? Is there something in particular that you need to do? Some sort of ritual?”

  I look down at my hands not quite sure how to tell Mason he might be the key to me finding the others. Voicing that fact to him will also force me to admit I’m developing feelings for him. I’m not ready for that just yet.

  “He seems to think you might know of a way to help me concentrate enough to find the first one,” I say instead.

  “Me?” Mason doesn’t sound too sure about that. “Did he happen to say what it is I can do to help you?”

  “Not specifically,” I say, wondering if Mason can tell I’m holding a piece of important information back from him with his super Watcher lie detector.

  If he does, he doesn’t let it show. He sits back in his chair and it’s almost like I can see the gears of his mind shift from one idea to another. Finally, he just shrugs his shoulders and says, “I guess we’ll just have to try everything.”

  Mason scrapes his chair on the floor as he gets up and walks over to draw back my chair for me to make it easier for me to stand.

  “You really don’t have to do that,” I tell him. “I can move a chair on my own.”

  “I’m old fashioned,” he explains. “If I’m with a lady, I like to do things for her.”

  He gently grabs one of my hands which makes me wonder if he considers this a natural thing for us to be doing now and leads me out of the kitchen back up to the living room we passed through earlier. The fire blazing in the hearth lends the room a warmth, which is at once calming and relaxing.

  “Sit down on this sofa,” Mason instructs, leading me to the one facing the fireplace.

  I do as he says, waiting for further instructions.

  He lets go of my hand and sits down in front of me on the coffee table.

  “Now close your eyes and try to relax,” he tells me, his voice taking on a soothing tone.

  I close my eyes.

  “Listen to the crackling of the fire,” he says in a low voice. “Can you hear the heat popping the wood?”

  “Yes,” I say in a low voice of my own, not wanting to break the mood Mason is trying to create.

  “Keep listening,” he instructs. “And try to find that part of yourself where you never go. Somewhere deep down that you keep hidden away from everyone, even yourself.”

  Mason remains silent while I try to do what he asks.

  I hear him move and try to keep concentrating to find that part of me that I keep locked way. I feel the spot on the sofa beside me dip as he sits closer to me and I smell the scent of him.

  “Keep concentrating,” he whispers so close to my ear I feel the small hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. “Block out everything around you, and stretch out your feelings to find the others.”

  I begin to wonder how he thinks I can do that when he’s sitting so close to me I can feel the heat from his body mingle with mine. His warm breath tickles my cheek and I’m finding it incredibly hard to breathe much less concentrate on my inner id.

  “Do you feel anything, Jess?” He asks, breathlessly.

  I quickly open my eyes and stand up.

  “Did it work?” He asks, surprise in his voice.

  I bury my face in my hands and rub up and down in slight frustration. “No, it did not work,” I say, taking my hands away and looking down at him. “How am I supposed to concentrate with you whispering in my ear like that?”

  Mason looks bemused.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought if you could concentrate on my voice that maybe it would help you focus better.”

  “It’s more difficult for me to concentrate with you so close,” I confess. “You’re just too distracting.”

  I see the first signs of a pleased smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  I stare at Mason and see the same expression I saw the morning I woke up in his arms and he asked me if I really was sorry I had slept with my body draped across him the entire night. Michael’s words to me about allowing myself to care for someone else reverberate in my head:

  “If you don’t let yourself connect with someone you actually care about, I’m afraid there might not be any hope of you finding the others.”

  “No,” I hear myself tell him. “It’s not a bad thing. But you’re just…” I didn’t know how to put it without sounding like a complete idiot, “you’re just too…distracting!”

  Mason allows the little sprites tugging at his mouth form his lips into a complete smile. He stands up. “So how can I be less distracting and still be helpful to you?”

  I take in a deep breath and let it out. “I have no idea. Could you grow ugly or smell bad or try to not be so damn perfect somehow?”

  I see Mason’s cheeks grow red at my request.

  “Why are you embarrassed?” I ask in complete exasperation. “I’m the one who should be completely mortified.” I bury my face in my hands for a second time in less than five minutes, intent on hiding that way for all eternity.

  I feel Mason grasp my shoulders and gently force me to turn and face him.

  “Jess, look at me.”

  “Why? Did you spontaneously grow a pair of horns out of the top of your head or grow warts all over your face in the last few seconds?”

  I hear him chuckle softly. “No, but look at me.”

  I force myself to lower my hands but have a hard time lifting my eyes to meet his.

  “Jess…” he gently coaxes.

  Hesitantly, I look up at him and meet his gaze.

  Through the unfathomable depths of his bright blue eyes, I see his longing for me to truly see all of him.

  I sigh inside at his perfection and slowly lift my hands to cover my face again. “How was that supposed to be helpful?” I ask, my voice sounding accusing.

  I hear Mason chuckle louder at my predicament.

  “Jess, I am not perfect,” he says, and I know he believes his own words. “Just look at me.”

  Confused by why he would believe such a thing about himself, I drop my hands from my face and look straight at him.

  “What about you isn’t perfect?” I ask, completely dumbfounded by why he thinks so little of himself.

  He turns his head so I can fully see his scar.

  “See,” he says, “not perfect.” The pain I hear in his last words makes my heart ache for him.

  Tentatively, I lift my right hand towards his face. He seems to know what I’m about to do and doesn’t try to stop me, just swallows hard and closes his eyes. I allow the tips of my fingers to start at the top of his scar just above his left eye and slowly trail down its rough ridges to below his cheek bone. My heart physically hurts inside my chest at the thought of how much pain he must have suffered when the scar was first made.

  “How did you get it?” I ask, letting my fingers try to sooth the ravages of wrath.

  “It was part of my punishment,” he tells me, his eyes still closed. “God made the mark to remind me of my failure.”

  “How can you love a God who can be so cruel?” I ask, not trying to hide my disgust.

  “Because He was right. I did fail my brother Watchers. They were under my command and I wasn’t strong enough to keep them on the path we were sent to follow. It was my fault they went against His law.”

  “I thought you said He forgave you all for what happened in the past when you helped stop Lucifer from destroying the universe.”

  Mason opens his eyes, turns his head with my hand still caressing the left side of his face and looks down at me. “He did. But I haven’t found a way to forgive myself yet. I don’t think I can until the Tear is sealed. Then, maybe, I’ll finally feel like I’ve done enough to deserve forgiveness. Until then, I wear this scar as a reminder that I’m not perfect.”

  I shake my head in bewilderment. “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes,” I tell him.

  “Why?” he asks, his voice husky. “What do you see?”

  I take in a deep shuddering breath as I attempt to drag up a braver me to tell him exactly how I feel and what I see when I look at him.

  “Excuse me, are we interrupting something?”

  Mason and I pull away from each other guiltily, like we’ve been caught doing something we shouldn’t.

  I know who the voice belongs to before I even turn my head to look in his direction.

  Malcolm is standing in the living room with a knowing grin on his face. Standing beside him is a man I have never seen before. He has skin the color of milk chocolate, short cropped hair and soft brown eyes. He smiles at me and I’m instantly put at ease even if Malcolm is still smirking at Mason and me.

  “Yes,” Mason answers, not trying to hide his agitation with Malcolm, “you are.”

  “Sorry, Mason,” the man with Malcolm says, truly apologetic. “I asked Malcolm to bring me over so I could check on Jess again.”

  “Again?” I ask, not being aware there had been a first time.

  “Jess, this is Tara’s husband, Malik. He’s the one I told you about. The one who made the medicine I gave you when you were sick.”

  “Thank you so much for that,” I tell Malik. “You really should sell that stuff to a larger market. It’s like a miracle drug.”

  “Well, we’re thinking about expanding our operations,” Malik says, pleased with my rousing endorsement. “As soon as Tara gives birth to baby number 2 we might look into it more closely.”

  “You really need to give that child a name,” Malcolm complains. “You can’t keep calling it baby number 2.”

  Malik sighs. “I know, man, but Tara is dead set against giving her a fairy name and I’m set on it. We just can’t seem to agree.”

  “Let me name it,” Malcolm suggests. “That’ll put an end to your squabbling.”

  “Yeah, right,” Malik scoffs, like Malcolm has completely lost his mind. “Like Tara would actually let you name our child.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25