by Cynthia Eden
No humans. No shifters. No charmers. Delia had told her that when those beings passed, they went “far beyond the gates.” Yeah, there’d been a bit of yearning in Delia’s words. So when most folks died, they got some sparkly, happily-ever-after paradise. But angels had . . .
“You have to come with me!”
Seline spun around. Okay, wow, Delia’s wings were all ruffled. “What’s wrong?”
“Sammael.”
Her heart slammed into her chest. “Has something happened to him?”
Delia glanced around, and the woman looked worried. Not good. Delia didn’t worry. “If you don’t stop him, something exceedingly bad will happen.”
“Then why are we standing here?” Seline yelled as her own feathers ruffled. “Get me to—”
Delia grabbed her hand and yanked her right off the cloud. They fell fast and hard toward earth. The clouds whipped around them, and Seline could just make out a sea of blue and the thick darkness of land and—
“Use your wings!”
Oh, crap, right. Seline started flapping.
Delia didn’t let go of her hand. The woman flew forward, not down, and Seline struggled to keep up with her.
The air was cold on her face. It felt like raindrops were stinging her skin. Faster, faster, they went. Their surroundings blurred. She lost track of time.
And then . . .
Darkness.
Her feet hit the ground.
“Seline?”
Broken, rough, Sam. Her eyes opened. He was there. Tall, strong, but with hollowed cheeks and wild, shadowed eyes. Pain etched deep lines on his face. She hurried toward him, and heard someone—Az?—mutter, “Wings . . .” from her side. She didn’t look his way because she couldn’t look away from Sam.
Her fingers trembled when she touched Sam’s face.
“I dreamed about you,” he whispered.
She tried to smile. Couldn’t. “And I dreamed about you.” Her heart beat so fast she hurt.
“I tried to save you.” Gruff, torn from him.
She shoved back the memory of fear and pain and of his eyes—on hers. Afraid, angry. Desperate.
Seline stood on her toes and kissed him. This wasn’t a dream, he was real now, and she needed to feel his mouth against hers.
His fingers brushed over her wings, and a shiver skated down her body.
“She’s here, now let me out,” Uriel snarled.
Keeping Seline’s fingers twined with his, Sam stepped back. He kicked away the white powder that circled Uriel.
“What is that?” Uriel demanded. “Nothing should hold us, nothing.”
“We can hold each other. Our own powers can lock us in. Bind us.” Sam exhaled slowly. “The powder is made from angel wings. What the hell do you think happens to the wings when we fall? They burn, turn to ash and dust, but they keep a glow of our power.”
Seline tightened her fingers around his.
Sam stared at her. “I wanted you to be free.”
And she’d just . . . wanted him.
“Are you happy?” he asked as his gaze searched her face. “Tell me you are, and I’ll just walk away.”
Angels weren’t supposed to lie. She was learning the rules, but not fitting in at all. “I miss you.”
She saw him flinch. Then he inhaled. “Sweetheart, you smell like roses.”
An angel’s scent. Not her, not anymore.
“Roses and paradise.” His lips flattened. “I miss the jasmine.”
Such a simple, small thing. She’d used jasmine body lotion, before.
I never even realized he’d noticed.
Seline felt like she was breaking apart. She wanted to grab him and hold on as tight as she could. She just needed to know—
“I love you,” he told her, the words rumbling like a growl. That was what she needed. He pulled her closer. “I love you. You got to me, Seline, and I can’t—I can’t let you go.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Uriel’s cool voice. The earth trembled beneath them as Uriel left his containment. “You went too far today, Sammael. No one dares to imprison me.”
But Sam didn’t look scared. He should have. He just laughed and didn’t glance at the powerful punishment angel. “For Seline, I’d dare anything or anyone.”
The ground ripped open. Smoke blazed forth, and the heavy scent of brimstone filled the air. Seline didn’t need to hear the heavy growls to know what was coming.
“Time for your punishment, Sammael.” Uriel strode toward the opening he’d made in the earth. “You made a deal with a crossroads spirit, a deal that I’ll make sure you keep, even if he doesn’t.”
Seline saw the claws first, and she shuddered. Her neck seemed to throb and screams wanted to burst from her throat as she remembered death.
Sam pushed her behind him. “It’s okay. I swear, I won’t let him touch you. I swear.”
“Sammael.” Uriel’s voice boomed. “The prey is Sammael!”
The hound leapt from the ground and hurtled right toward Sammael.
Seline screamed. Az jumped out of the shadows.
And Sam grabbed the beast and broke its neck in one quick twist.
The hound collapsed on the ground.
“Now, now . . .” Uriel shook his head. “You know it won’t be that easy.”
Thick black hair covered the hound’s body, and a long white streak swiped across its right eye.
Seline stared at the beast and blinked, shocked. Wait, that was—
My hound.
Uriel had dared to raise her hound to come after Sam? The bastard. Her wings stiffened, then stretched out behind her.
Bones snapped, popped, and the hound slowly shook its head. Then that head tilted back, and Seline saw razor-sharp teeth glinting.
“Don’t worry, Seline,” Uriel told her quietly, “your hound will get your vengeance.”
No, no, it wouldn’t. “I don’t want vengeance against Sam!” Sure, making Rogziel suffer through another very painful death was near the top of her to-do list, but Sam? No. He’d fought to save her. He shouldn’t suffer.
She could still hear his tormented screams in her mind. He’d been so desperate to save her.
The hound launched. Its teeth sank into Sam’s arm.
Sam didn’t make a sound.
“You can’t kill the hound,” Uriel said, and for someone without emotions, the words sure sounded like a taunt.
“We can sure as hell slow the thing down.” Now this was from Azrael. He had a knife in his hands. He jumped forward and drove that knife into the hound’s side.
The beast’s howl . . . hurt her.
Seline gasped. She saw the hound’s gaze turn to her. It looked lost, confused.
“Sammael,” Uriel snapped.
Seline tried to push toward the hound.
Sam blocked her and turned back to face the beast. The hound slashed him. Deep slashes that cut into his chest. Slashes that came too close to his heart.
Seline shoved Sam out of her way—and, wow, Sam hurtled into the air. She guessed being a punishment angel came with a strength bonus.
The hound stared at her with its mouth open, those deadly teeth dripping blood, and it took all of Seline’s willpower not to turn and run.
Claws at my throat. Teeth slicing. Digging into my flesh. Sam! Sam!
Sam was on his feet. He raced toward the hound. The hound dug its paws into the ground and prepared to leap at her Fallen.
“Stop!” Her bellow.
Everyone froze. Everyone, even Uriel.
The hound’s head turned to her. Seline walked toward the beast, one slow step at a time. She held out her hand, and her fingers only trembled a little. “Easy.” Please don’t eat me. Been there, done that, and don’t want to do it again.
The hound lowered its head and whined.
This hound was smaller than the one that had, ah, killed her. Deep scars marked its body. So many wounds. So many deaths.
Was the hound the evil one? Or was it the h
ound’s master?
Like a pit-bull. Trained to attack. But maybe, maybe, the beast could be more.
“Protect.” The word came out stronger than she’d anticipated. Seline lifted her hand, and her fingers didn’t shake any longer. “Protect Sammael,” she ordered her hound. Not prey. “Protect him . . . always.”
The hound’s head swiveled between her and Sam. “Not prey. Not him,” she said.
The hound eased forward and licked her fingers.
He’s not prey, and you’re more than a monster.
“Good,” she whispered. Because there was good in the hound, she could feel it, struggling against the darkness that seemed to wrap so heavily around the beast.
Right then, the hound almost reminded her of . . . Sam.
Sam who stared at her with the eyes she loved. Black, not angel blue, because that darkness swirled too strong in him. Always would.
“You can’t do this!” Uriel reached her side and barely glanced at the hound. “Sammael is to be punished for what he did to—”
Lightning flashed from the sky, and the bolt hit right at Uriel’s feet. The scent of sulfur burned Seline’s nose.
Real emotion appeared on Uriel’s face then. Fear.
“I guess someone is pissing off the boss upstairs,” Sam said in his mocking drawl. “ ’Cause that bolt sure wasn’t aimed at me.”
Eyes wide, Uriel backed away. “One day, Sammael, you will be punished.”
The right side of Sam’s mouth hitched into a sad smile as he stared at Seline. “I already have been. I lost the only thing that made this life worth living.”
But he hadn’t lost her. She was standing right there.
“I can stay with you,” she told him. She didn’t care what Uriel might do. Sam was before her. He mattered. Her hands stroked the hound. Its fur was almost soft, once you got past the matting.
Sam’s lips parted, as if he’d speak, but then he shook his head.
“Sam, I can stay.” She knew it. Other angels had fallen. He’d fallen. She could do it, too. “We can be together.” He’d said he loved her. They could have forever.
His jaw clenched, and after a moment, he gritted out, “You don’t know what it’s like. The pain . . . I won’t ask you to suffer for me. I can’t. Never for me, understand? Never.”
“She’s already died for you once,” Uriel threw in, even as his wings flapped and he began to rise into the air. “What’s a little trip to hell between lovers?”
“No!” Sam snarled. “She won’t suffer anymore!”
Seline felt a pull then, like an energy was wrapping around her and lifting her into the sky. She fought, desperate to stay with Sam, but she couldn’t break free of that strange pull.
“Don’t fall for me!” he shouted up to her, his face stark. “Dammit, I’ll find another way! I can get redemption! I can come to you! Don’t fall for me!”
“He’ll never get redemption . . .” Uriel’s soft voice seemed to whisper right in her ear, even though he was over five feet away from her. “Some sins can’t be forgiven.”
Tears stung her eyes. She kept rising up, pulled by a force she couldn’t stop. Sam.
His burning black gaze followed her. “I will find a way, Seline! Don’t fall, promise me! Don’t!”
Then she rose too high, and she couldn’t see him—or hear him—any longer.
“He’s going to hell.”
Seline glanced up at Delia’s voice. The angel walked toward her, her steps soft on the gleaming marble floor.
“Sam met with Uriel again,” Delia told her. “Only this time, Sam didn’t cage him.”
Probably because Uriel hadn’t gotten caging close. She figured the big boss had learned from his mistake.
A soft sigh eased from Delia’s lips. “Sam wants to earn redemption.” Delia’s head tilted as she stared at Seline. “For . . . you. He wants to come back home, and it’s all because of you, isn’t it?”
Seline didn’t speak. Hell. She didn’t want Sam in hell.
“Uriel stripped the skin from his back.” Delia whispered this. “It was the first step in Sammael’s punishment.”
Her breath rushed out as horror filled her. “Why?”
“Because that’s where the wings once were, so the flesh is more sensitive to pleasure or to pain. Uriel wanted Sam to feel maximum pain.”
Her stomach tightened. “No,” she bit out. Maximum pain. “Why did Uriel want to hurt him that way?”
“They’re old enemies.” Delia shrugged. “And Uriel didn’t exactly enjoy the fact that Sam was able to trap him. Now everyone knows that the great punisher came close to dying by a Fallen’s hand.”
“So he took his pound of flesh.” No, Sammael had sacrificed that flesh, for her. Seline swallowed, trying to choke down the lump in her throat. “What’s hell like?”
“You’ll see, soon enough.”
Was that a threat? She hadn’t expected one from Delia. Maybe I should have.
Delia’s shoulders bowed. “It’s part of our duty. We can travel between earth, heaven, and hell. We go where the punishment takes us.”
“So I’ll be able to see Sam?” Yes, that was hope making her voice rise.
“See him,” Delia agreed, but shook her head as she said, “not talk to him, not . . . touch him, not until his sentence is over.”
“How long is his sentence?” She didn’t like this plan. Not at all. Her hands fisted.
“For redemption, Sammael has to serve a thousand years in hell.”
Seline leapt to her feet. “What?”
Delia stared back at her. “No angel has ever come back to heaven after choosing to fall. Sammael is to be used as an example—”
“Who decided that, Uriel? He’s a—”
“You’ll still be alive when Sammael’s sentence is done. He can come back here to you.”
After a thousand years in hell. She blinked to clear eyes gone blurry. “What will happen to him there?”
“Torture. Pain. Nightmares that won’t stop.”
He’d already had enough of that. “He doesn’t deserve that punishment.”
Delia’s wings shifted a bit. “It’s not really punishment. It’s his choice. He’s trading time in hell—and the agony that time will bring—for his wings.”
Her hands clenched. I’m sorry, Sam. “I’m not letting him do it.” She rushed for the doors that weren’t barred any longer. They hadn’t been barred since she’d visited the mortal realm and seen Sam. Don’t fall for me! She could still hear his voice, but Seline was ignoring those words.
“You don’t know what it’s like, do you?” Delia’s voice called after her. “The fall, I mean.”
Seline glanced back. “No, I don’t know, and I don’t care—I’m going back to him. He’s not going to—” burn. “He won’t suffer for me.” Not for a thousand freaking years.
“There’s a reason he told you not to fall.”
And how did Delia know about that? She’d thought the angel vanished after delivering her to Sam.
The angel’s lips lifted, just for a moment. Almost a smile. “Word spread. There were eyes watching that you didn’t know about, and when Uriel got that strike from above . . . well, that was sure something folks wanted to know about up here.”
“I need to be with Sam,” Seline said quietly. “When I’m away from him, I just hurt.”
“You’ll hurt more if you fall.” Delia didn’t move toward her. “Your wings will burn away, and it will be a pain unlike anything you’ve felt before.” Her lips tightened. “Or so I’ve been told.”
“I’m not afraid of pain.” A hellhound had ripped out her throat. So what was a bit of fire supposed to do? If she remembered correctly, a giant ball of flames had surrounded her right before she’d woken to heaven.
“It’s not the pain you need to worry about.”
Okay, now that sounded a bit scary. What was she supposed to fear if not the pain? “Look, I’m not cut out to be an angel. I can’t just—”
So that, what, in a thousand years, when Sam was flying with his wings again, she wouldn’t even care?
“I’m going back home.” To her real home. The only one she’d ever had. Sam. He was home to her. Love. Safety.
Hers.
Seline turned away, and her hands pushed against the doors.
But Delia was still talking. She warned, “You won’t have a memory. Not of heaven. Not of Sam. Not of the life you knew before him. That all gets wiped away in the fall.”
Az hadn’t known who he was at first, either. “Az’s memory came back. So did Sam’s.”
A pause, then Delia said, “Provided you can stay alive, and all those Other out there desperate for angel blood don’t kill you and drain you, then your memory will come back. Eventually. But that eventually part is different for every angel. It could be months. Could be years. You’ll walk the earth, alone, hurt, thinking that you have no one.”
So she walked alone for a few years or Sam suffered for a millennia. Um . . . not such a hard choice.
“Why?” Delia’s voice was ragged, and Seline knew the angel realized there would be no changing her mind.
Seline shoved with all of her strength, and the doors flew fully open. Light washed over her. “Because I love him.”
A sharp breath. “That’s just what Erina said.”
Now she risked one final glance over her shoulder. “I guess I am like her.” So much more than she’d realized. Then Seline tilted her head back and felt the light warm her flesh. “I’m ready to go home.” I’m ready to fall.
Not for punishment. Not because she’d sinned. But because she loved.
All you have to do is ask for help.
Her eyes closed. “Please,” Seline whispered, and knew that she was heard. “I want to fall.”
The wind whipped in her ears. The floor beneath her feet disappeared. Her body plummeted. Fast, faster . . .
The pain would come, she knew it, yet right then, all she could think was—
Sam.
Blood dripped down his back. Sam didn’t feel the pain any longer. The skin was gone. Stripped slowly away by an angel with no mercy.