Revelation (The Guardian Series Book 3) Read online

  Revelation

  By

  A.J. Messenger

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Cover images credit:

  Sirikornt | istockphoto.com

  Copyright © 2016 by L.M. Perkel

  All rights reserved.

  Books by A.J. Messenger

  The Guardian Series

  (a paranormal angel romance series):

  Guardian (Book 1)

  Fallen (Book 2)

  Revelation (Book 3)

  More titles from A.J. Messenger coming soon.

  Learn more about new releases and contact me

  I welcome you to visit me and subscribe to my newsletter to be the first to know about upcoming releases.

  Web: ajmessenger.com

  Facebook: facebook.com/ajmessengerauthor

  Twitter: @aj_messenger

  Dedication

  To my greatest helper. You know who you are.

  Table of Contents

  Books by A.J. Messenger

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  Reader’s Note

  More Books by A.J. Messenger

  “Question Everything. Find your own light.”

  -Anonymous

  “True love stories never have endings.”

  -Richard Bach

  Preface

  In my dream, if it is a dream, the baby is smiling, with wondrous emerald green eyes and a distinct sparkle.

  Finn, Liz, and Chief Stephens are all gathered around as my mom holds the baby in her arms with a depth of love I can feel in my heart.

  But why is my mom crying? And why does everyone look so sad?

  And where is Alexander?

  Chapter One

  This can’t be.

  I’m pregnant?

  I stare at the plus sign on the test in my hand but I still don’t quite believe it. Even if it is the seventh test stick I peed on.

  It’s been six weeks since Alexander took me on our amazing night flight around the world and we made love in our perfect spot in the San Mar Mountains. At first I dismissed the message I remembered from my dad as either a dream or a product of synapses firing in a supremely relaxed state. I mean, c’mon, I just made love with an angel, who knows what that can do to a person?

  But now, staring at the pregnancy test in my hand, which I purchased on a lark because of a missed period not thinking in a million years it would come back positive, I can’t help but wonder if my memory of my father’s message was real. Alexander said that discovering the truth of what happened could have freed his soul to move on. Maybe he’s trying to communicate. And help me. When I think about it, it had to have been my dad who saved me out in the ocean. Otherwise, I honestly can’t explain how I made it to shore. And now he’s trying to warn me: Protect the baby. At all costs.

  The baby. Can it really be true that I have a life growing inside me? I place my palm over my stomach and imagine the warm, white light in my core protecting all that’s within.

  As the shock slowly wears off I smile and imagine the amazingly cute baby Alexander and I would make, but then the reality of the situation breaks through again. I just turned nineteen and I also just started my first year of college two weeks ago. Depending on when exactly this supposedly impossible pregnancy occurred … that would make the baby born before I even complete my first year at UCSM. How is that even going to work? Sorry professor, I’ll have to reschedule my finals because I’ll be busy having a baby that day. I chuckle at my ridiculously pragmatic thoughts and then I whipsaw over to a decidedly panicky feeling in my chest.

  But the idea of a baby—Alexander’s baby—although unexpected, sends such joy through me that I can hardly sit still. I’m meeting him at the beach in an hour to go surfing. I want to tell him but I have no idea how he’ll react. He insisted it was impossible for guardians to have babies—they can’t extend the line in that way. Guess angels don’t always know everything.

  But what if he’s not happy with the news? Or what if this breaks some crazy guardian rule I don’t know about? But how could it break a rule, Declan, if it was supposedly impossible?

  I dismiss all of my meandering worries almost the moment I have them. Alexander has shown me time and again that we talk things through and we’re honest with each other. Whatever this means, we’ll figure it out together … and he’ll be thrilled.

  I hope.

  Chapter Two

  “Do you ever wonder,” I ask Alexander as we’re walking with our surfboards, “why we were drawn together like we were?” We’re nearly down all the steps to the beach.

  He looks over at me and smiles. “In one of my lives, my parents were very different but they had an especially good connection. I remember when people used to ask my mum how they managed to get on so well she used to smile and say: ‘There’s no greater mystery than whom we spark to and why.’ I never realized how true that was until I sparked to you.”

  “You think we’re very different?” I ask.

  “No,” he laughs, “we’re actually a lot alike. I’ve just never sparked to someone the way I sparked to you.”

  I smile. I like that term sparked. It perfectly encapsulates how I felt when I saw Alexander for the first time. And every time I see him, in fact. “Do you think,” I ask, “that if two people like us spark together, that something impossible can happen?”

  We reach a good spot on the beach and he sets down his backpack and jabs his surfboard into the sand and looks over at me. “Sure,” he says, “anything is possible … but I don’t understand, where is this going?”

  “If anything is possible,” I say as he’s pulling up his wetsuit and maneuvering his arms in, “is it possible I could be pregnant?”

  He yanks the long pull tab to zip up the back of his wetsuit and looks at me. “What?”

  “We’ve had sex,” I say. “A lot.”

  He smiles wryly. “Yes, if two mortals had sex as often as we have without protection, pregnancy would definitely be on the table. But I’m a guardian, we can’t have progeny, it doesn’t work that way.”

  “But what if I am pregnant?”

  He stares at me for a long beat. “What are you saying?�
�

  I swallow. “I’m saying that I bought seven different pregnancy tests from the drugstore and they all came up positive.”

  He grabs onto the surfboard in the sand beside him. “Are you serious?”

  I smile. “Yes.”

  “How can that be?” I detect a flash of what looks like fear in his eyes, alarming me. But just as quickly a range of other emotions play over his face until eventually he settles on a very slow, very astounded smile. He walks toward me with surprised, joyful eyes and lifts me into his arms, spinning us around. “You’re pregnant?”

  I nod and he brings me back down so he can plant an exuberant kiss on my lips.

  “How?” he asks.

  “The usual way, I guess.”

  He laughs. “This isn’t supposed to be possible.”

  “Maybe it’s our spark? Or sprite power?”

  He stares at me, still incredulous. “That’s amazing,” he says, his eyes alight.

  “Or ‘amazeballs’ as Liz would say,” I add.

  He laughs. “It’s incredible, really,” he says again, shaking his head in disbelief. “Are you sure? How far along are you?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I have a feeling it happened the first night we were together, so it could be six weeks.”

  He does some swift calculations. “So he would be born in April?”

  “Or she.”

  “Or she,” he smiles, “of course.”

  “Yes, I think so. I’ll need to go to the doctor to be certain. I looked it up and April would mean a diamond birthstone. As if that means anything. I think finding out I’m pregnant is turning me a little crazy. I was already looking up names online.”

  He laughs. “A diamond birthstone is very fitting for your aura,” he says, “clear and brilliant.” He picks me up and spins us around again. “I can’t believe this. We’re going to have a baby.”

  “So you’re okay with it?” I ask.

  He sets me down and meets my eyes. “Okay with it? I’m more than okay with it. I’m amazed … and ecstatic … and delirious.” He pulls me close again and plants his lips on mine. “I can’t believe this,” he says again, shaking his head.

  I laugh. He does look quite dazed.

  “Have you told anyone else yet?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I thought you should be the first.”

  He smiles and in the back of my mind I picture myself trying to explain my pregnancy to my mom—I have a feeling her reaction will not be quite as thrilled as Alexander’s. Not by a long shot.

  “Forget surfing, let’s go celebrate,” Alexander says, starting to take off his wetsuit.

  “Wait,” I say, “I actually like the idea of just celebrating out on the water. I like sitting on our boards together and waiting for the waves with you.”

  He smiles and pulls me into his embrace. “I like waiting for anything with you,” he says as he kisses me softly in the late summer sun, the sound of the breaking waves our only audience.

  “There’s something I haven’t told you,” I say after we’ve finished surfing for the day and we’re sitting on our towels in our swimsuits warming ourselves in the sun. I glance over at Alexander as he runs his fingers through his wet, tousled hair and leans back on his elbows.

  “You’re having twins?”

  I chuckle. Our feet are next to each other in the warm sand and I nudge his foot and toss some sand at his ankle with my toes. “I could be,” I say, “for all we know. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “What is it?” he asks.

  My eyes trail over his hard, muscled torso, noting the long, curved scar that starts under his heart and traces down over his ribs and disappears near the end of his ab muscles where his board shorts hang low on his hips. I shiver a little as I think about how Avestan’s Maker, Malentus, wounded him so badly.

  “It’s the reason I think I might have gotten pregnant that first night we were together,” I say. “I heard something.”

  He meets my eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “As we were falling asleep that night I had a memory from when I was in the ocean. A memory of hearing my dad’s voice telling me to protect the baby, at all costs. I thought I imagined it … it didn’t even make any sense … but now that I’m pregnant I can’t help but wonder if it was real.”

  Alexander sits up from his reclined position. “It sounds real. And, regardless, your dad is right. Our child will be unlike any other being—not a mortal or a sprite or a guardian but something else, and very powerful.”

  I consider his words. I like the idea of having an especially mighty baby but I also know what that could mean. “So Avestan will come after us?”

  Alexander avoids the question. “Let’s talk about that later,” he says, “for now let’s just enjoy the mind-blowing fact that we’re going to be parents. We need to get you an appointment with a doctor to confirm it.”

  I nod. “And to make sure all’s well. But what if the doctor looks in there and it has wings or something,” I say. “How the heck will I explain that?”

  Alexander laughs. “I don’t think that will be a problem, but you do tend to surprise, Miss Jane.”

  “As do you, Mr. Ronin—the guardian who supposedly couldn’t get me pregnant.”

  He laughs. “Touché. I should have realized that nothing with you is ever impossible.”

  He leans over and kisses me, softly at first, and then in that way he always does that makes my knees weak and my heart swoon.

  Chapter Three

  It’s been six days since I took the pregnancy test but I decided not to tell anyone (other than Alexander) until I could get an appointment with a doctor to confirm it. To say it’s been tough being around Liz and Finn and my mom for the past few days with this secret bubbling over inside me threatening to bust out is an understatement, but somehow I’ve managed to hold it in and not appear suspicious. It kind of makes me wonder if I must go around looking like a grinning, anxious fool on a regular basis and apparently now is no notable exception.

  Today, when Alexander accompanies me to the doctor’s office for my appointment and an ultrasound confirms that we are, indeed, a little over six weeks pregnant, the way he squeezes my hand and smiles at me makes my heart glow and swell in my chest. And the look in his eyes when we see our tiny dot on the screen with a fluttering heartbeat (no wings, thank God, at least not yet) is something I will always remember, and cherish. Our baby may not have been planned but it is already loved beyond belief.

  During the office visit, Dr. Morgan, my gynecologist, is upbeat, matter-of-fact, and she answers all my questions patiently. She advises prenatal vitamins (already on them since I found out, thank you), and she says some couples choose not to announce their pregnancies broadly until twelve weeks have passed.

  After we leave I consider her suggestion, but I still decide to tell my mom. And Liz and Finn, too. I don’t think I can keep the news in much longer anyway. Although I have to admit, putting it off for a while is tempting in some ways. I’m still very worried about my mom’s reaction.

  “Should we go tell Edwin?” I ask as we’re driving away from the doctor’s appointment.

  “Maybe I should tell him first,” Alexander says, glancing over.

  “Why?” I say, “I kind of want to see his reaction. And I have questions for him.”

  Alexander is silent for a moment and then he nods. “Okay, we’ll do it together.”

  When we get to Alexander’s house, I’m nervous and excited and not sure what to expect in terms of Edwin’s reaction. I know this news, like the realization that I was a sprite, is going to challenge his beliefs of the supposed rules and abilities governing the guardian world and I hope the accompanying surprise will be a happy one.

  Edwin heats some water for tea on the stove as Alexander and I sit down in the kitchen to join him. We make chitchat until the tea’s ready and then tell him we have something we want to talk with him about.

  “Is everything okay?”
he asks as he hands us our cups and sits down with his.

  “We have some interesting and amazing news,” Alexander says, eyeing Edwin carefully.

  “I’m pregnant,” I burst out with a broad smile. I hadn’t meant to lay it on him quite like that but I can’t contain it any longer.

  Edwin doesn’t answer. Not only that, but far from the congratulations I was expecting, he looks positively stricken. Perhaps even frightened. He sets his cup down and it clatters against the saucer.

  “Is this certain?” he asks, his voice low and measured.

  “Yes,” Alexander and I answer together.

  “And you’re certain it’s Alexander’s?” Edwin asks me.

  “Edwin,” Alexander says harshly.

  “Yes,” I say to Edwin. “I’m certain. Alexander is the only person I’ve ever been with.”

  “My apologies, but I had to ask,” he says to me, looking serious … and pensive. He peers down at his hands on the table and goes silent for a long minute.

  “What’s going on?” I ask as I look at the both of them in turn.

  “There was a story,” Edwin says finally, looking up at Alexander.

  “What kind of story?” I ask.

  “That a baby born to a guardian would presage the final war between dark and light.”

  I look at Alexander. “Did you know this?”

  The look on his face gives me his answer. “It’s just a story,” he says.

  “Like the stories of sprites that we all dismissed until Declan came along,” Edwin says, looking at both of us. “It was considered only a story because we all know guardians can’t have progeny. Now you’re telling me that Declan is pregnant, by a guardian. That changes things.”

  I swallow. “I thought you would be happy for us.”

  Edwin’s eyes meet mine and he reaches across the table to touch my hand. “Declan,” he says, “forgive me. Of course I’m happy for you … I’m happy for you both. But this is quite stunning news and shockwaves could reverberate far and wide. Whatever happens, we have to be prepared.”