So what! You think I fear being captured when I know they are probably hurting my family right now? I cry determinedly. At least when they capture me they might stop hurting humans. I will go, and there is nothing you can do about it!

Actually there is a lot I can do about it. You are not taking one step out there until we have come up with a solid plan, he says to me while gliding the few meters back to the dining area, and depositing me roughly on to my seat.

The moment he flies back to his seat, I waste no time in rushing off mine and back to the point on the wall where I'd found the door. I hear the twins laugh with amus.e.m.e.nt behind me, but I pay them no heed.

As I begin pushing at where I could swear the door had been just a short while ago, I almost cry out in frustration as nothing happens. Why won't it open? I bang at the hard stone wall over a dozen times until my fists begin to bleed, but nothing happens. I splay my bleeding hands over the surrounding areas. Nothing.

I hear the drifting conversation going on behind me. It just goes to infuriate me even more that they can just sit there and keep talking among themselves while I am drowning in my own anguish. What was I thinking? I should have let them rot in Tartaros. I should have just handed myself over to the fallen, then maybe they would never have started an attack on the humans. What is the use of divine angels if they will not even bother to protect humans?

Strong arms then envelop me and try imprison my arms against further a.s.saults, but I keep struggling against him even then, and continue banging my now aching hands against the stone wall over and over again in frustration and anguish until he drags me away.

You have to relax, your emotions are drowning us and we are having a hard time formulating a plan. My bleeding fingers itch to strangle the throat delivering those cold words. Good, they should be distracted instead and think of a way to save humans.

I will not relax until I am let out there to protect my family.

How? By handing yourself over to the Fallen?

If that is what it takes, Archangel! This I say with dripping venom in my voice. You see, I too am on a mission, and it is called protect my family at all cost! I grind out the words before bracing myself to steal his Essence and weaken him, as I had done before. My anger soars to even greater heights when I hear his short low chuckle.

You cannot steal my Essence, princess. I am the very source of it all!

"I stole it before!" I scream at him. "Outside the doors of Tartaros."

"I was weak then from the imprisoning pits. I hope you enjoyed it, for you will never again have the same opportunity, Caroline." I struggle angrily against him. I may not be able to steal his Essence, but I can steal that of the others here. I begin urging their energies towards me.

If you are thinking to fight me with all that energy, princess, I am sorry but you'll be gravely disappointed. You cannot overpower me, however much energy you steal from others.

Oh yeah! I saw your been beat to pulp before. You would be back in prison if I hadn't saved you for the second time! I say angrily, shoving at him with all the energy I can master. It is with great disappointment that I note his arms do not budge an inch from their grip on me. I then begin feeling the engulfing warmth emanating from his hands. I revolt against it, kicking out even harder.

I don't want to be healed! I protest, referring to my bleeding knuckles, because the increased heat from his hands always occurs when he is about to heal someone.

Maybe not, but it is time you took a nap, little princess, I hear him say as his voice drifts farther away, followed by the unmistakable chuckle from Azrael and the twins coming from even much farther away.

He is doping me to sleep somehow! I realise, and barely have time to try fight the doping effect before the darkness engulfs me.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fict.i.tiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Smashwords Edition: June 2015.

Copyright 2015 by Carol A. Robi.

The Guardian: a novel/ by Carol A. Robi/ Smashwords Edition.

Summary.

This is the first book in The Guardian Trilogy.

Caroline Gati Christiansen is a New Yorker born with the ability to see the dead. A harmless ability, if well ignored.

When her mother suddenly decides to change careers, Caroline is left with no other option but to move to Denmark with her estranged father.

For the high school student, moving to a small Scandinavian town after having lived her whole life in New York feels like the worst kind of punishment. That is until she begins to brush shoulders with the beautiful winged beings that are determined to change the course of her life forever. Life in the small Viking town turns out not to be as boring as she had previously feared.

What starts as a harmless encounter turns into a vicious contest, with her right in the center of it, as the beautiful creatures reveal their true nature, and condemn the whole world into joining their civil war unknowingly.

Caroline quickly learns that there's a worse fate than death, and just how much she's willing to sacrifice for a cause that oughtn't to be hers in the first place.

end.