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Avatars of Gaea: Once an Angel

  by

  Claudette Gilbert

  Copyright © 2011 by Claudette Gilbert

  Cover picture based on work by © Piotr Marcinski | Dreamstime.com

  * * * * *

  Ella glared at the stranger at the other end of the chain. "You're not very good at rescuing," she said.

  "I'll think of something," he told her.

  He smiled at her, and she had to look away or risk losing her temper—again. Or risk losing something . . . .

  His unshakable confidence was one of the most irritating things about him, she thought. He'd told her last night that he was here to save her. Yeah, right. Once again, she twisted the four-foot-long chain that bound her and the handsome stranger to the dungeon wall. She knew she was being unfair, but she was so frustrated that it had to come out somewhere. Just pretty boy's tough luck to be stuck here with her.

  Okay, so their prison was a wine cellar, but the windowless concrete-block walls made a pretty good dungeon. A wine cellar! If she weren't stuck down here, it would be almost be funny. But in this day of high-tech, computer-controlled "containment facilities," the harpies stuck to the tried and true dark cellar, complete with a heavy chain that ran through a ring in the sturdy wall. As containment facilities went, the cellar seemed to be working all too well. She'd been stuck in this twenty-by-twenty underground room for two days now. She could see a dozen rows of dusty wine bottles lining the far wall. She couldn't reach any of them. Not that she would muddle her head by drinking the contents, but a broken bottle would at least be a weapon of sorts.

  "Move over this way and give me a little more slack," she ordered.

  If only she could pry one of the links open, she could break the chain and get a little freedom of movement. At least, she'd be able to move around inside the cellar where the harpies had locked them. Gaea's sword might be out of commission, but a good kick in the head would still rattle those bitches' brains. Frustrated, she glared at the gorgeous blond man who happened to be cuffed to the other end of the chain.

  "Rescuing people was a lot easier before," her companion in duress said.

  What was wrong with him? Didn't he understand the trouble they were in?

  "Before what, blondie?" Ella grunted. She bent at the waist and strained hard to her left. There was a large stick—okay maybe it was a golf club—half buried in a pile of junk in the corner of their cell. It looked like an antique hickory handled club. If she could reach it, maybe she could break off the head and use the handle to lever one of the links of the chain open.

  "Before—when I was still an angel," gorgeous blondie replied.

  Ella looked up at him. The room was chill, but the lights were on some sort of motion sensor system, so as long as she waved an arm once in a while she had light enough to see her cell mate. Even though she was observing him with her head almost on the concrete floor, an angle that brought to the fore every tummy bulge and hint of flab marring the object of said observation, he was still the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. He'd lost his shirt some time before the harpies brought him down here. Since, he was dressed only in a pair of tattered jeans, and she could see a lot of him. Blond hair, golden eyes, golden skin, classic features, no bulging muscles, just perfect definition. And he was an angel?

  "When you were an angel," she said, straightening. Ella frowned and turned her statement into a question. "When were you an angel?" She wriggled her shoulders. Her back was trying to tie itself in knots, just like her stomach now that she realized she was chained to something that "used to be" an angel. "You're not an angel now?"

  "Nope. Not now." He didn't look dangerous, and the harpies hadn't had any trouble handling him. She felt no psycho evil vibes coming off him either. Still, Ella backed as far away from him as the chain would let her. This could be bad, very, very bad.

  "So, you're a fallen angel? Like—a demon?"

  A look of horror crossed his handsome but very expressive features. Ella was fascinated. It was as if the guy had never learned to lie with his face. Every thought was right there, bare to the world.

  "No! No! Not a demon!" he protested. "I haven't fallen that low. I'm just . . . ." He took a deep breath. Whatever he'd become, he really seemed upset about it. "I'm just human," he admitted.

  "Just human," Ella repeated.

  She pushed her curly brown hair away from her face. So, she was okay with being chained to another human, a sort of human. She was only a "sort of human," too. In addition to being a 28-year-old human female, she was also an avatar of Gaea. Part of the Earth Mother lived in her and through her—and through all the other avatars who were her clones. At the moment, that meant her mother, sister, and grandmother. Some people were freaked by the clone idea. Sometimes Ella was one of them. But she tried to keep in mind that twins were genetically identical, too; so being a clone wasn't so weird. Was it? So, did it matter that the guy was an ex-angel, so long as he was not of the fallen variety?

  "And just how did you go from angel to human?" Ella demanded.

  His explanation had better be good. She wanted to get this cleared up so she could ignore the whole angel thing and concentrate on escaping.

  "Your sister, Belle, did it. I mean, not intentionally. Well, she intentionally cut off my head—twice. But she wasn't trying to make me into a human; she was just trying to make me go away." He looked embarrassed. "After I became human, I realized what a lot of trouble I'd been causing everyone."

  "You know my sister! Why the hell didn't you say so earlier?" Ella hadn't seen her younger sister, Belle, for almost a year. How long ago had he seen her? Was she all right? "My sister cut off your head with Gaea's sword? Twice!" Which meant that she'd sent him back to the Dreaming minus two-thirds of his power each time. So, just how much was left? Her mind was so full of questions that, if Ella were the hair tearing kind, she'd be pulling hers out by the roots about now.

  "When the harpies threw me in here, I wasn't feeling so hot," he said. He rubbed the painful looking bruise on the right side of his jaw. "And you didn't ask any questions. You just growled at me and told me to shut up."

  True, she thought. The harpies had had a little fun with him before they'd dumped him in with her late yesterday, although nowhere near the damage they could have done if they'd put their minds to it, but he'd been pretty much out of it for the night. And she'd been feeling savage after what the harpies had done to her. Had they done the same thing to this poor guy? She was about to ask when she realized he was still talking about her sister.

  "Yeah, she did it twice. The second time about a week ago. It sounds bad when I have to admit it like that." He gave her a small, rueful grin. Ella blinked, dazzled. "You see, I was an angel of free will, a really, really minor angel in the cohort of Tabbris; but I thought I could make things better on Earth by giving people more power to use their free will." He spread his hands in a please-understand-me gesture that rattled their chain.

  Ella closed her eyes. She knew where this was heading. An angel, even a really, really minor angel with an angel's power loose on Earth and trying to second-guess God and Gaea. Yes, the guy was lucky that Belle had only cut his head off twice. Life could never be uncreated, but she could have chopped him down until he was a cockroach. She sighed and opened her eyes.

  It was a mistake to look at him. The poison in her surged up in a wave of savage lust. She ached to rip that beautiful skin, to bury her nose in the curve of his neck and draw in the scent of him as she bit down and felt his sweet blood in her mouth. It would be so much sweeter than the musty stink of this cellar. She took a deep, shaky breath. She had to get a grip on herself.

 
"So, the Big Boss decided you should try life as a human for a while?" she said. He'd been human for only a week, but he had the most perfect human male body she'd ever seen. Keep on track! She was not one of them. She would never be one of them.

  "Yes." He nodded, his pretty golden eyes as earnest as a child's. "At least, that's how Tabbris explained it to me. I just wanted to give people the chance to have what they truly wanted. Only they were never happy. They went mad, or they died and went back to the Dreaming." He still sounded puzzled that his efforts went so wrong. Then, he shrugged. "It was an experiment, and it didn't work. So, I thought that, to make it up for the wrong I'd done, that I would find you and rescue you. Your grandmother was certain that you