Dating an Angel Read online

  Hapless Evie Thomas died.

  But it’s all good because now she’s training to be an angel. There are only two snags—her teacher’s a hottie, and eternity is a long time to be alone.

  Stubborn angel Caleb Pearce has his work cut out teaching free-spirited Evie. It doesn't help that his friends keep insisting he’s in love with her. If that were true, he wouldn’t have suggested they join Love Bites: A Dating Agency for Paranormals.

  Evie and Caleb share wine, laughter, and tears over their disastrous dating experiences, including a sex-obsessed Fae, a vamp tied to his mummy’s apron strings, and literally the date from Hell with an indecent proposal from a demon.

  How will they ever find their perfect match?

  DATING AN ANGEL

  Love Bites: A Dating Agency for Paranormals, #4

  Abbey MacMunn

  Published by Tirgearr Publishing

  Author Copyright 2021 Abbey MacMunn

  Cover Art: Cora Graphics (www.coragraphics.it)

  Editor: Lucy Felthouse

  Proofreader: Sharon Pickrel

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  Thank you for respecting our author’s hard work.

  This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, incidents are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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  DATING AN ANGEL

  Love Bites: A Dating Agency for Paranormals, #4

  Abbey MacMunn

  Chapter One

  Evie climbed out of her apartment window and stood on the rusty fire escape, breathing in the cool air. The bright city lights twinkled below, and the muted hubbub of London’s nightlife filtered upwards as she gripped the wobbly railing.

  “Pizza delivery,” came a gravelly voice from above.

  She looked up and grinned. “About bloody time! I’m famished after the day I’ve had.”

  A whoosh of air flipped her hair across her face as Caleb landed with perfect precision beside her, his magnificent, gold-tipped wings splaying out behind him. One day she’d get golden feathers on her own wingtips, and she’d be a fully-qualified angel—if she was good enough.

  He chuckled and folded his wings so they lay close to his body. “A thank you wouldn’t go amiss.”

  “Sorry, thanks.” She sat down, slipping her legs between the wrought-iron bars, her booted feet dangling mid-air. “Take a pew.”

  Caleb did the same. “Best seat in the house,” he said, gazing upwards at the starry sky. He handed her the pizza box.

  Opening the box, she grinned. “You got half meat, half veggie?” Her stomach growled as she eyed the mouth-watering cheese on the margarita half. “You’re an absolute angel, you know that?”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  Evie laughed. It was a joke they’d shared since they met two years ago, but one she never tired of. She tore off a triangle of pizza and gave the same old reply, “Not yet, but nearly.”

  She bit into the pizza and unfolded her wings. They protruded through two vertical slits in her T-shirt, which she’d cut herself. Evie let them rest behind her, enjoying the freedom that came when she stretched them out.

  Her white, iridescent wings, like Caleb’s but not as impressive, were hidden from the humans by a magic veil, so she had no fear of revealing her true form, even up here, but most of the time, she kept them folded close to her back. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d knocked things over in her wake when she first got her wings.

  A gentle breeze ruffled her feathers, and at last, the tension of the day eased from her shoulders.

  Caleb’s handsome face turned solemn. “Evie, I have it on authority; those from Above think you’re doing well.”

  She finished her bite of pizza and swallowed before she spoke. “They do? Sometimes I think I’ll never make it.” She reached for the bottle of red wine balanced on the metal stairs that led to the roof. “Wine?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  Evie placed a water-marked glass and a chipped mug on the iron grating and poured a generous amount of wine into both. She handed Caleb the glass.

  “Thanks, but didn’t you have two glasses?”

  “I broke one.” She gulped her wine like it was orange squash.

  He picked up a slice of pizza from the pepperoni half, took a bite, then regarded her for a moment, chewing quietly, his lips closed. The way he ate was one of the first things she’d noticed about Caleb when they met. She couldn’t bear people who chewed their food like dirty clothes slurping around in a washing machine.

  When he’d finished his mouthful, he asked, “So, are you going to tell me what’s up?”

  Her shoulders sank. “I got fired.”

  “Again?”

  “Yeah, okay, don’t rub it in. It’s not my fault I get the Calling and have to keep leaving in the middle of my shift to save some poor soul.”

  “And that’s exactly why you’re going to make a great angel.”

  How did he always know the right thing to say?

  She let out a sigh. “I hope so.”

  He touched her arm. “What’s wrong, Evie? Besides getting fired, I mean.”

  “It was a crappy job anyway.” She averted her gaze, anywhere she didn’t have to look into those piercing green eyes of his, full of empathy and patience. “I’ll have to owe you for the pizza, sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. My treat. I’ll ask again; what’s wrong?”

  Were her concerns that obvious to him?

  “If I qualify—”

  “When you qualify,” he interrupted.

  “Okay, when.” She drank more wine. “You’ll be assigned another newbie angel to teach.” There. She’d said it—something that had been playing on her mind for months, but if she couldn’t tell him, who could she tell?

  Her words hung in the air. He didn’t answer for several seconds.

  “That’s what you’ve been worrying about?” He fixed her with an intense gaze, one she could not look away from this time. “I know I’m officially your teacher, but surely you know we’ve become much more than that?”

  Yes, once she’d imagined there was more to their teacher-student relationship; she’d even tried to kiss him once, but he’d snubbed her—albeit gracefully and with diplomacy—explaining there could never be anything between them. That was her trouble, throwing herself at any guy who showed her a smidge of kindness and making a right fool of herself in the process.

  But not anymore, because afterward, they’d become friends, so the embarrassing incident hadn’t been all bad.

  “Yeah, I know we’re besties, but you won’t have time for all this.” She waved her arm in a random fashion. “You know, drinking cheap wine, eating pizza and putting the world to rights.”

  “I wouldn’t miss sharing all the terrible wine in the world. Even if it is served in a dirty glass and a chipped mug.”

  Again with the right thing to say. How did she get so lucky to be assigned an amazing teacher like him? Well, maybe not lucky at first—she did ha
ve to die to be given the honour of training to become an angel.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be forever grateful for being given a chance to prove I’m worthy of becoming an angel, but this whole immortal life thing?” She drained her mug of wine and poured another. “How do you cope, watching people you love grow old and die?”

  “It’s hard, I’m not going to lie, but it’s far better to have known them and shared a part of their life than not known them at all. You’ll get used to it.”

  “Says the hundred-year-old angel who lands perfectly every time, as opposed to me, who still can’t land without looking like a clumsy emu tumbling over the sand.”

  Yeah, old enough to be a great grandad, but who didn’t look a day over twenty-eight, with wavy, ebony hair, a perfect chiselled jaw and a kind smile that could turn any woman into a quivering wreck with nothing more than a twinkle in his striking eyes.

  He laughed, a deep rumble inside his chest. “You’ll learn to land gracefully one day. You have to be patient.”

  “Patience has never been one of my virtues, and whoever heard of a klutzy angel?”

  Caleb patted her knee. “Stop worrying. You’ll get there. I know you will.”

  “Hmm, maybe,” she replied, trying to ignore the tingle shooting along her thigh from his touch. She inched her leg away, pretending to get herself into a more comfortable position.

  They finished the pizza, staring across the city in silence.

  A car horn sounded somewhere below.

  Evie threw her crust into the pizza box and closed the lid. “Our job is to bring hope to people’s lives when they’re at their lowest, to save their souls in their hour of need and make them happy, but what about me?” She took a breath and confessed, “I don’t want to be alone for all eternity. I know it makes me sound selfish, but—”

  “No, it doesn’t. Angels deserve to be happy too. It’s not a crime to want to share eternity with a soulmate. It doesn’t affect our job. It makes us better. Look at Raphael and Ophelia.”

  “I don’t know them that well, other than they’re, like, a thousand years old or something, and they’ve been together forever.”

  Caleb had taken her to dinner at their house once or twice, and to say she was star-struck by the ancient angels was putting it mildly. Or angel-struck, if there was such a thing.

  “Eight hundred and ninety-seven, actually, and they both said they liked you.”

  “I smashed a crystal glass that was probably older than me, for goodness sake. I could have died if I hadn’t already.”

  He dismissed her words with a flick of his wrist. “They have plenty more. My point is, they saw you have a good, kind soul. You sacrificed your own life to save a child.”

  “Duh, kind of a prerequisite for getting into angel school.”

  “It’s more than that, Evie. You’re special.” He looked away suddenly, gazing across the city at nothing in particular.

  A few moments later, he fetched his phone from his trouser pocket. “If you’re so worried about being alone, why don’t you try this?” Caleb tapped the screen, brought up a website and handed the device to her.

  Evie looked at the screen and read it out loud. “Love Bites. The number one dating agency for supernatural beings. Find the magic in love.” She burst out laughing. “Like Tinder for supernatural beings? That can’t be a thing, surely?”

  “It is, honest. Raphael told me one of his wards had signed up.”

  “Have you tried it?” she asked, still chuckling. There seemed no end of things in this incredible new life of hers that amazed her.

  “No, I don’t need to look for anyone, but if you think you do…?”

  She sobered, her curiosity getting the better of her. “Okay, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have a look. I bet there are some right mingers on there.”

  Now he laughed. “You have such a way with words.”

  “Years of growing up in the roughest of areas, I suppose.”

  Sudden darkness swept over Caleb’s features. “We’re all only a whisper away from succumbing to our dark side, given the wrong environment and circumstances.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t tell me Mr. Holier Than Thou has a dark side?” she joked.

  Only he didn’t appear to find it funny. She frowned. Caleb had never given her any impression that he wasn’t anything but a model, goody-two-shoes angel, but by the way he was grinding his molars, he regretted his comment. She didn’t push for an explanation, more confused by the sudden tingling in her belly at the thought of Caleb having a dark side.

  Stop it, Evie. He’s a friend.

  She had to be wired wrong. Why did she always find bad guys attractive? Well, not anymore. She wanted to find love, an epic love like Raphael and Ophelia, and Caleb had put her firmly in the friend zone. She shouldn’t care whether he had a dark past or not. He was Caleb, her teacher, her best friend.

  Evie didn’t dwell; she’d been dragged down that path in her other life, shoved between children’s homes and—some would say inevitably—falling in with the wrong kind of people. But she’d be damned if she would go there again, not now she’d been given a chance to make the world a better place, if only a small piece at a time.

  She glanced at the screen on Caleb’s phone again and tapped the ‘Enter here’ button. It directed her to a sign-up page. She harrumphed. “They won’t let you eye up the talent without signing up first.”

  “Sign up,” Caleb told her. “Then we can both see the, err, ‘mingers’ on there.”

  Evie smiled. He said the word like it was foreign. “I’ll sign up on one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “You sign up too.” If nothing else, she wanted him to be happy.

  “I told you I’m not looking for anyone.”

  “Go on, it might be a laugh.”

  “I don’t know, Evie.” He poured himself more wine and took a sip, his neatly trimmed, clean fingernails looking out of place as he cupped the dirty glass. He should be holding a champagne flute at a posh party, not sat on a dodgy fire escape with her.

  He didn’t seem to mind, though, since he came here so often.

  “You were the one who suggested this Love Bites website in the first place.”

  “Yes, which I’m beginning to regret.”

  She contemplated for a moment. Now she really wanted to suss out the talent on the dating agency. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal. You sign up too, and the first one to find love cooks a full-on roast dinner with all the trimmings—although, if I lose, I refuse to put my hand up a chicken’s arse. Veggie roast for me.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “You, cooking? Now that I’d like to see. You’re on.”

  Chapter Two

  Caleb shook his head in despair, already doubting his sanity over going along with Evie’s roast dinner wager but knowing full well he’d do anything she asked.

  For the life of him, he had no idea why he’d suggested the dating agency in the first place.

  Yes, he wanted to see her happy, and maybe at one point in their relationship, some part of him had wanted her to find that happiness with him, but it could never be. He’d found a good friend in Evie despite their many differences, and he would not risk their friendship under any circumstances. Not to mention he was her teacher and would not fail the Powers That Be who’d put their trust in him.

  He took his phone from her and filled in his details, then created a password.

  Evie brought up the website on her phone and tapped the screen for several seconds. “Okay, I’ve created an account and a password, but I’ve only signed up for a month—it’s all I can afford right now. Let’s get browsing.”

  He laughed at her enthusiasm.

  She scrolled the profile pictures. “O.M.G! This guy is gooorgeous!”

  “Where? Let me see.” Caleb peeked over her shoulder. “A Fae? Some of them are nice enough people, but they can be quite manipulative when they want something, and a bit on the vain
side, too.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that. Just look at him.” Evie waved her hand in front of her face like a fan. “It says he’s into sci-fi movies and walks in the woods. Bit of an unusual combination, but I can go with it.”

  An uncomfortable prickling sensation crept over Caleb’s skin. The Fae wasn’t anywhere near as good looking as she was making out.

  He pressed his lips. Two could play at that game.

  After scrolling through several images on his phone, he stopped on a mermaid; reasonably attractive, he supposed, except her hair was putrid green. He preferred tousled, flaxen hair like that of the would-be angel sat beside him, along with her chipped black nail varnish and chunky, knee-high boots that dangled through the railings.

  She sideways glanced at his choice. “A mermaid? She might smell of fish.”

  “I like fish.”

  Evie showed an interest in a couple more profiles, a vampire and a half-dragon. “Hmm, it’s asking me to fill in a profile,” she told him. “What do I put?”

  He frowned at her choices. “How do I know? Be honest.”

  “You’re so old-fashioned, Caleb. Do you really think anyone is honest on these things?”

  “Put whatever you want then, but I’m being honest on mine.”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, it’s not working.”

  “Nothing further from my mind.”

  “Don’t lie, Caleb, you’re rubbish at it.”

  “So what happens now?” he asked, randomly noting a banshee and another angel.

  Right on cue, a popup window appeared with a picture of a woman wearing a headset.

  He read the words in the speech bubble. Hi, I’m Jamie, your Love Bites coach. How can I help you today?