Page 74 of Avenging Angel

“What do I do, Uri? I won’t join him, but I can’t stand by and let another girl lose her soul; her future; her dreams.”

He nods solemnly. “Play the fool, but don’t let the fool play you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just as I say. The Lord has revealed all you need to know, and it’s time for you to wake up. You’ve been asleep for long enough.”

This time when my eyes open, I’m surrounded by the walls of the cabin and not held captive in a memory. I’m covered in a layer of warm heat, with muscular arms banded around my waist. Soft snoring and light breaths tickle the back of my neck.

“He loves you, Daisy,” Faith says when she notices me stirring.

Not quite awake, I’m confused by the comment that seems to come out of nowhere. “Who loves me? God?”

Faith smiles and giggles. “Well, that is certainly true. And if you having nine lives isn’t proof of that, then I don’t know what is. But no, I was referring to my brother who hasn’t left your side.”

I slowly shift out of Angel’s hold and sit up, not sure what to say to that. “He can’t possibly love me. It’s too soon.”

Faith snorts as she pours hot water from a kettle into a mug and then places a tea bag inside to steep. She hands it to me, the heat seeping into my palms and the scent of cinnamon filling the air.

“Angel waded through water that was shoulder-deep and just above freezing. He went hypothermic in seconds, but none of that stopped him from reaching you. By the time Jaxon and I arrived, Angel was shivering violently and his lips were blue. Still, we couldn’t pry his hands off you. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is. What really happened between the two of you in the mines?”

I reach for Angel’s hand under the electric blanket they covered us with so that his body would heat slowly. Since his skin feels warm to the touch, I can only assume that his sleeping is because exhaustion has taken hold. Both of us have been running on fumes for the last week, and when this is over, I’ll sleep for a month.

“Honestly, nothing happened other than us taking care of one another and deciding that life is too short to waste by waiting until the right time to pursue a relationship. For six months, I allowed my pride to get in the way of Angel making amends for his apologetic words regarding our kiss down in Colombia. We all make mistakes, and his wasn’t unforgivable. I treated it as such.”

Faith smiles. “I knew you’d eventually come around. You just had to do it on your terms.”

“Well, Angel did earn the right by taking a sim round to the thigh,” I tease.

Faith’s smile fades. “My brother would do anything for you, Daisy. The agony on his face when he thought you’d been shot and left for dead was nothing short of the kind that comes from losing a soulmate. It was only when Owen told him that there was no blood on your body that Angel finally found the strength to move. He carried you down the trail until he collapsed.”

“I’d do the same for him if the roles were reversed.” It’s as close to admitting that I love Angel as I’ll get; at least until I tell him first.

Faith seems to grasp the implication. “I believe that you would. While I would pay good money to see you lift a 185-pound man cradled in your arms, I pray I never have to. Especially if it’s my brother.” There’s a brief pause as she shifts in the chair. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Why haven’t you asked about Genevieve? I thought she would be the first person you asked about.”

I sip from the mug of hot tea, using the moment to come up with an answer that doesn’t make me sound like a loon. “It’s hard to explain.”

Faith laughs at that, loud enough that Angel rolls over and instinctually covers his head with a pillow. Only when he starts snoring does she say, “It can’t be any stranger than an angel rescuing you by causing a mountain to shake. Something no one else felt.”

“You don’t believe us?”

“Quite the contrary,” Faith replies. “While I’ve never experienced divine intervention of that magnitude, it would be hypocritical for me to believe the Word of God and the stories contained in the Bible, but not believe He still has the power to perform such miracles.”

“I know who has Genevieve, so there was no need to ask.”

Faith leans forward with interest. “Did you see who took her?”

“No, as always, his face was hidden under a ski mask. And this time, he was wearing riding goggles. The last thing I remember is seeing him point a tranquilizer gun at me and then me telling Genevieve to run. When I was knocked out, I was pulled into a memory that turned into a dream. It started out with me on my first day in captivity. When I looked into his eyes, dark as night, I saw something that my teenage mind hadn’t seen before. My captor was wearing contact lenses. Black ones.”

“Okay,” Faith says, unsure of where I’m going with this.

“There was only one way I would have been able to identify him, which would have been his voice. In my memory, it was the same as all those years ago. But when the memory shifted to a dream, he spoke to me as he speaks today.”

Faith thinks about this. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility. When Jaxon assumed a new identity, he had to undergo thyroplasty to lower the pitch of his voice so it would filter through audible recognition software. Granted, he also had to change just about every feature on his face so that he could hide from the cartel while still living a normal life. It’s why, even after years of loving him when he was Jacob, I didn’t recognize him. My heart did, but my mind couldn’t connect the dots.”