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Six months later...
Her days ran much as they usually did, except some big changes happened in the time after she fought Malphas and won with the help of her friends. Friends, that word still bemused her but she was getting accustomed to the fact that she had some. Ose didn’t come back, not even to sneak in for some sushi, she stopped expecting him to after a while, and while it was sad, she knew that part of her life was over.
Abeona, Wheeler, Henri and Yan were back at the house over Mistress Diablo’s club. Wheeler now had two bearded dragons as pets and Bella teased him it was two people his mother turned into lizards. She saw him looking at the curiously at one point before whispering, “if you were human, blink twice.” The club reopened with the unnaturals in attendance playing nice. Still, they had to pay reparations for the chaos they caused, and for Abeona to release them from their binding. They didn’t want to wait for it to wear off and that came at a cost.
Dax and the part of his business that dealt with construction renovated her backyard, adding a huge stone barbeque, a fire pit, and the artisan’s aspects were wood benches and ironwork patio furniture. They also installed a hot tub for when she had sore muscles and Abeona was loving the fact that she would be spending more time outside. She, Yan and Henri buried wards well into the tree line that would alert Bella if unwanted guests were around.
Even though the work was done, Dax seemed to see her more often than not. They went on a ride into the mountains once and she watched his change to a wolf so they could run through the forest. Sometimes even though she asked him not to, he shadowed her at night in wolf form while she hunted.
To have her back, he said, but something was growing between them, something good, kind and easy. Bella didn’t know life could be that so she was wary, and in those times when she tried to hide away in her house, Dax never let her push new feelings away. Dax was patient, and even though she saw the attraction in his eyes, he never made a move.
“When you’re ready,” he whispered in her ear more than once, making her shiver.
Bella wanted to take that step but because of her past with Sachiel and Ose, she was still very hesitant. They’d been together too long for six months to fix it all, but it was getting easier to think about them and not feel a stone in her chest. Six months that felt like normalcy. Bella kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and so it did one day late in the evening. Outside the lights that hung in her new backyard renovation glittered in the twilight.
She was waiting for Dax to come over for steaks and a movie night. He chose the movies and she knew it would be something with lots of explosions and action. There was a thump at the back door, then another, and Bella moved to the door with a laugh to open it. But the soft chimes sounded, the ones only she could hear from the wards Abeona put in place. They were loud in her ears. Dax wouldn’t set them off and Bella created the arc-blade in one hand while ready to open the new frosted sliding door. She slid it open and a figure fell backward onto the cement while another tried to catch his partner from falling. Her eyes widened at the two figures on the ground, one in the long leather coat that she knew so well, but the hair was wet and the face bloody. The other face Bella hadn’t seen for years, yet he was there not showing one day of age and cradling the other’s head in his lap.
“Sachiel? Father?” The words left Bella’s numbed lips.
Just then Dax came up behind her and looked over her shoulder with a frown. “Baby Girl, why are there two badly fucked up angels in your yard?”
“Hell if I know,” Bella answered, pushing back the old feelings that tried to rise to the surface.
“Belladonna, we need your help,” Sachiel said weakly.
“And we need someplace safe to hide,” her father added.
“Of course you do,” Bella sighed and Dax wrapped his arms around her in a protective hug. “Of course you do.”
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Coming next.... The Angel On The Right (Belladonna Book 2)