Page 7 of Guarded (Hopeless Blessed #3)

Noah

I flew long and hard, not pausing until the languages on the air below me had changed three times. It still wasn’t far enough for me to escape the audacity.

I mean, what the fuck had Jeremiah been thinking? That a bunch of flowers would have me dropping to my knees? That a charming smile would make me forget how he’d fucked up?

Nope. I’d spent centuries letting someone walk all over me. The days of that happening were long gone.

It made my petty heart happy to think that maybe Jeremiah had been given a taste of his own medicine. That perhaps he’d watched me fly away and felt even a tenth of the sting I had.

To humans, my behaviour probably seemed over the top. But we weren’t human. Neither of us. We both knew that your fated mate was sacred. Meeting them should be the happiest moment of your life. Everything was supposed to align perfectly.

Maybe that would’ve happened if mine weren’t an emotionally stunted fuckboi .

And yes, I meant that literally. I’d done a little digging on my so-called mate and his adventures since he’d been topside. If there was a single person in a three-mile radius of his house that he hadn’t fucked then I’d yet to find them.

Jeremiah was just Lyle in another form. Even Nox had admitted he didn’t think his friend would ever settle down. That he was too free and wild to want to be tied to another person.

The excuses were so familiar to me it was almost comical. Time and time again, I’d fallen for Lyle’s false promises. Lured into his bed by the promise of him having changed.

It was always thrown back in my face when the sun rose. It was easy to fool myself in the darkness, but the cold light of day left nowhere to hide.

My relationship with Lyle, if you could call it that, had been painful.

Being the leader of my former unit, he’d been able to drag me back into his clutches repeatedly.

Walking away from Juniper had almost killed me, but I’d done it.

I didn’t regret it either. I’d built a new life with the Seraphim—one I was happy in, and immensely proud of.

It didn’t stop me from missing the rest of Juniper. I doubted a day would ever go by without me thinking of Atlas. Of wondering what new recipes Rowan had discovered. Of worrying about who Dash had managed to offend with his lack of filter.

I hadn’t realised that leaving the unit would’ve meant losing them too, but it had. After months of my messages and calls not going through, I’d gone to Nate to see if there was a problem with my phone.

It turned out the issue was with the relationship I believed I’d had with them. A relationship that apparently no longer existed once I’d formally broken ties with Juniper.

They’d blocked me. Every single one of them .

I had hoped I might hear from Atlas and Rowan after that awful day with Lyle, Micah, and Nox on the beach, but there’d been nothing.

Their silence spoke volumes.

As much as I yearned to make things right, I didn’t let it put a dampener on my new life. I’d found a happiness with the Seraphim that I’d never experienced in Juniper. Likely because the leader of the unit wasn’t a sociopathic narcissist who took pleasure in manipulating me.

I was happy. Perfectly content. I wasn’t letting Jeremiah’s arrival on the scene tank that. I’d worked too hard to slip back into old ways now.

Even if Jeremiah was more beautiful than I’d remembered.

That beauty was a facade though, just like with Lyle. He’d given that away with that sarcasm-loaded comment.“ Don’t let meeting your fated mate interfere with your day. ”

I gritted my teeth and flew higher until I felt the air start to thin. The impudence of the fucker. What he was saying was that he wanted the meeting to happen on his terms. When it was best for him .

Fuck what I wanted.

Well, it was tough shit for Jeremiah. If he thought he was going to have a simpering, doting mate, he was going to be as disappointed in fate as I was.

Maybe it’s better this way , I told myself . Better to know now that your fated mate isn’t going to bring you happiness any more than Lyle did. Now you can stop hoping.

My gut twisted. I hadn’t pinned my happiness on finding my eternal mate. I knew better than that. I certainly hadn’t planned on finding him any time soon.

Yet it was still disappointing to know that type of all- consuming love wasn’t on the cards for me. Not on both sides, anyway.

Coming to a halt, I sighed. Here, high above the ground, I could almost pretend Jeremiah didn’t exist. Could almost forget the heart-rending pain I’d felt flying away from him.

But thanks to the pull in my chest, I couldn’t.

I didn’t want Jeremiah to be my mate, and from all appearances, he didn’t want me either.

Still, the pull couldn’t be ignored forever. No doubt that was what had brought Jeremiah back to me in the first place. Not because he wanted to see me, but because his instincts had forced his hand.

With a sigh, I let mine guide me back home. Not to Jeremiah, but to the compound.

Fate might have plans for us, but I was tired of following the paths others set for me.

It was time to forge my own.

H alf of me expected to see Jeremiah stood on the doorstep, exactly where I’d left him. I didn’t know why, but I felt a pang of disappointment when there was no sign of him.

Good. That’s good. You don’t want to see him.

If I repeated it enough, maybe I’d start believing it.

Judging by the tugging of the bond, he was close by. Made sense. He shared a house with the demons he’d escaped Hell with. Nox had lived there once too, before he and Micah were mated.

That was fine. Jeremiah could rot there for all I cared .

Laughter filtered through from the kitchen, as well as the mouthwatering scent of Ez’s lasagna. Eating meant explaining my absence. Answering questions about Jeremiah.

Finding out if any of them had spoken to him before he left.

None of that appealed, so instead I made a beeline for the stairs.

I shared the top floor with Rami, both of us with our own suite of rooms. Mine had once belonged to Dimitri, the angel whose spot I’d filled after he’d mated with both a demon and a human.

That wasn’t why he’d fallen though; that had happened when he’d crossed the river Styx in Hell.

From what I’d gathered, Dimitri’s absence from the unit had started long before he became a demon. Right around the time he’d found one of his fated mates and realised love was more important than his role in the Seraphim.

It was similar to what I’d done, only I hadn’t left Juniper because my love was returned.

I’d left because it was unrequited. Toxic.

I hadn’t been living there, I’d been existing, just waiting for Lyle to throw a morsel of attention in my direction, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to sustain me for long.

I let myself into my living room, kicking off my shoes with a sigh.

You wouldn’t know Dimitri had ever lived here now.

The twins and Rami had helped me redecorate it, turning the whole thing from greys and dark blues to light pastels.

Gone were the sturdy and practical chairs, in their place were squashy sofas covered in cushions.

A basket of blankets sat beside one of them, piled high ready for a rainy day.

I’d been determined to make this place my home from day one. I may have walked away from everything I’d ever known with Juniper, but it didn’t mean my life was over .

In some ways, it felt like it was just beginning.

Deciding a long soak in my bath was needed, I wandered into my bedroom.

And immediately came to an abrupt halt.

There, on my bedside table, was a bouquet of flowers. A bouquet I’d seen before.

If my blood pressure could rise, I had no doubt that it’d be through the roof. Jeremiah had been in my space. My personal space.

Which meant one of the unit had let him in.

Betrayal nagged at me. I’d mistakenly thought the Seraphim would have my back. Obviously, someone didn’t. The question was, who? Was it Nox, as Jeremiah’s friend? Or perhaps Micah or Ezekiel? As the most recently mated angels, they had a warped view of romance.

It was alright for them. They’d both found their happy ever afters already.

There was a folded piece of paper propped against the flowers, my name in neat print on the outside. Red filled my vision as I imagined all the empty words it might contain. Or perhaps it would be more of the gaslighting I was all too familiar with.

I’m sorry you misunderstood.

I’m sorry you felt that way.

If you give me a chance, you’ll see that you were wrong.

Nope. Absolutely not. I wasn’t even going to read it.

Grabbing the bouquet and note, I quickly crossed to the empty hearth. It took me a few minutes to get a fire going, but I wasn’t about to ask Nox to light one for me as I usually did. I watched the small flames dancing merrily before tossing the flowers into them.

There. That’s what I think of your efforts, Jeremiah.

But the sense of satisfaction I was expecting didn’t hit. Instead, my chest felt too tight, and the back of my neck was itching. Before I knew what I was doing, I reached into the fire to grab a rose from the top. It was barely singed, just one petal wilted from a flame that had got too close.

I dropped onto my bed and stared at it. Why had I saved it? What was the point?

I didn’t know the answers. Nor did I know why I hadn’t tossed his note on too.

Oh, who was I kidding? I knew exactly why I’d kept the note. I was too fucking curious for my own good. My hands trembled as I opened it to find the same blocky penmanship on the inside.

Noah,

You’re right, flowers aren’t a good start. I was a fucking idiot. Both in how I dealt with discovering you were my mate, and then in how I tried to make it up to you today.

That was for fucking certain. At least he wasn’t trying to gaslight me.

Yet.