Falling for Angels - Hazel Hunter Page 0,21

this time.

“Get out of here,” I shouted at him as I floated to my feet.

“He cannae hear you, slut,” an oily voice said from the trees. “We shall feed well tonight, brothers.”

I’d tried to stop the calpa from killing other people on the island, but I had no effect on them. Pherson couldn’t fight off three of them; in a few minutes I’d watch him die, too. My vision started to dim—a sure sign I was going back to the dark place—and the ground under me shook as if a minor earthquake had started.

“Pherson,” I screamed. “Calpa.”

My love stopped in his tracks, but instead of running away or drawing his sword he held up his hands. At the same time the carvings around me lit up, and surrounded me with a curtain of light. I heard horses screaming and then running, and then I sank down into the dark place. There I felt so weak I couldn’t do anything, but for the first time since the crash I felt something move. Leaves thrashed around me, and light poured down from above. I looked up to see a strong hand reaching down to me.

If I took it, would I stop being a ghost? Was this the end of my afterlife? Suddenly I didn’t care. Maybe if I got to the next place I could convince Pherson’s Gods to save him.

I grabbed the hand, and it pulled me out of the dark place and into a pair of strong arms. Leaves fell away from me as I stared at Pherson. The ground beside us closed, and then suddenly I understood. The crash had left me stuck in the portal, caught between life and death. Or maybe the Gods had kept me there, to teach me a lesson.

This time I was choosing life—and love.

“My thanks,” he murmured, and brushed the tangled hair out of my face before he kissed my brow. “You saved me, lass.”

“My name is Jane.” I smiled. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Chapter 18

Unwanted

I’ve never gotten anything easy. My teenaged mom abandoned me after I was born. No one adopted me, so I grew up in a group home where the other rejects disliked me. Our lazy house “parents” made us do all the work. I knew I’d have nothing when I aged out, so I studied my ass off in school. After landing enough scholarships for college I still had to work to cover my expenses. I tried out for the Angels after a cheerleader broke her ankle. I was only average—height, weight, looks, plain brown hair and eyes—but the team’s scholarship and stipend would pay all my expenses, which was better than two part-time jobs.

“I can offer you the sub spot, Penelope,” Coach Jennings told me at our first meeting. “But you’ll have to learn every position.” She watched me nod and said, “This isn’t about funding for the other girls. The Angels are a family.”

I said what she wanted to hear. “I won’t let you down, Coach.”

She smiled. “We’ll try to do the same.”

When the girls saw how hard I worked at learning everything, they accepted me, and even gave me a nickname. I noticed Hannah didn’t socialize, either.

“I have a brain injury,” she said one day when we were alone. “What’s your trauma, Lola?”

I shrugged. “Foster care kid.”

“We should try being friends,” she said. “It can’t be harder than that wolf wall stunt.”

Hannah’s friendship was why I came along when the squad decided to time-travel back to fourteenth century Scotland and join the McGillean clan. None of the guys fell for me, and I didn’t get a super power, but it was better than being alone. I worked around the castle with Hannah most days. Then she hooked up with Morven.

“I’d rather be with him,” she told me when I asked if we were still going to be friends.

These days I took a lot of walks by the loch to keep watch for calpa. The shape-shifting water demons that had been attacking the island ate humans, but first they changed into someone their victim loved. I figured as a loner I’d be a good lookout.

Ualan, an archer who was probably the handsomest guy on the island, had started walking the loch, too. I found him waiting on my trail one morning, his bow slung over his shoulder.

“Mistress.” He bowed. “Might I accompany you?”

I’d been there when he’d told Gayla that Stephanie’s blindness revolted him. Since then the squad and the clan had been treating him like