by Lisa Voisin
“Why would you be punished for love? You told me to feel love earlier and it kept the demon away.”
“It does. Love does. But not lust, not enthrallment. There’s something wrong with me. Angels are supposed to be impartial. You were in our care. We weren’t supposed to desire you—let alone be blinded by it. We were supposed to watch over you, guide you, protect you from temptation—not lead you into it. God, Mia, I was so easily tempted to want more, to cross that line… Now, it’s how I’m tested. How the demons get in.”
So he was being tested. That was why he pushed me away. Even though we came from different worlds, we were drawn to each other so intensely it could hurt both of us. Just kissing me appeared to weaken his defenses, leaving him open to being attacked like we were tonight. Could things be any more impossible between us?
“Was Azazel a test?” I asked, still confused by it.
“Yes. No. He took advantage of the moment. It’s what demons do. They’ll exploit any weakness.”
“He mentioned Damiel.”
“Azazel wasn’t acting alone, that’s for sure. He was delivering a message. Damiel will be back soon.” He leaned against the fireplace and folded his arms across his chest. “From the looks of it, he’s bringing backup.”
What he said had to be true, but that didn’t stop me from wishing it weren’t. For the last day or so, I’d put the idea of Damiel’s return aside, hoping it wouldn’t happen, but now it was something I couldn’t run away from. When I’d last seen him, Damiel had been in human form. Michael’s battle with him may have been quicker, less gory, but I knew from the way he had been protecting me that Damiel was a much bigger threat than Azazel ever was.
“What do you mean by backup?” I asked, but on some level I already knew the answer. The demon had given us Damiel’s regards.
I pulled my knees into my chest and hugged them for support. Michael didn’t move closer to comfort me. Instead he flipped a switch on the wall and with a hiss of gas a fire ignited in the fireplace. “When I fought him that night, I knew he went too easily. All I did was dispatch him, temporarily freeing the body he’d been possessing, but I did him no real damage.” I noticed how talking about Damiel agitated him, tightening his shoulders and hands, making the tendons pop. “What Azazel said tipped me off. Damiel’s up to more than I suspected.”
“What is he up to?” I asked.
He reached between his shoulder blades and pulled out a long silver handle that curved to fit perfectly in his grip. “He’s building an army.”
“Why? What is he going to do?”
“I don’t know his plans, but it’s a very old grudge between him and me.” He examined the handle. Carved with ornate scrollwork and ancient lettering, it was beautiful. “I don’t think it’s just me he’s after. I think he wants you, too.”
“Me?” The blood chilled in my veins despite the fire. “Why?”
“That was my fault. I trusted him.”
His mouth forming a hard line, Michael focused on the object in his hands. His sword expanded from it, faster than a switchblade and at least as long as his arm. It made me jump.
“Where did that come from?” I said.
“A sheath between my wings.”
Between his wings? Had it been there all the time?
The sword’s blue light glinted in his eyes. Something about it turned his expression from grief to something quiet and determined, deadly even.
“Let me guess, it’s inter-dimensional too?”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It can’t hurt you.” He moved closer to me and held out the blade.
It seemed to be made from some kind of metallic light, blue but not a laser; there was a silver, steely quality to it as well. Slowly he moved it toward me. “Touch it. You’ll see what I mean.”
I reached a fingertip to the blade and my finger passed right through it, like it was a hologram. There was a cold tickle where it had connected, but no pain. “How does it work?”
“By intention. It can’t hurt humans, but it’s fatal to demons.” To illustrate his point, he ran the blade through his own arm. There was a rippling of light, but no damage. Raising his sword, he readjusted his grip. “Try it again.”
I reached for the blade expecting nothing to be there, and this time it was a cold steel, icy beneath my fingers, but not sharp. The blue light buzzed and arced around them.
“My intention can make it into a blunt instrument, but that’s as much damage as it can do. We’re meant to protect humanity, not harm them.” There was something in his tone—guilt perhaps—that made me wonder what he’d done.
He transferred the blade to his left hand and rotated his wrist, the weapon a silent extension of his arm. So that was how he’d managed to dispatch Damiel without hurting his vessel, Giulio.
“What happened between you and Damiel?” I asked, wanting to know what Michael was talking about before he’d changed the subject. It was an area I had no memory of. “How is trusting him your fault?”
“He saw my obsession back then and tried to keep me away from you, but I wouldn’t listen. His sin was envy. That envy made him competitive, so he wanted everything I had. My rank and position…” He glanced at me and I could tell it still shook him to speak of it. “You. He wanted you because you loved me. It became a compulsion.”
Envy. I thought about how Damiel had sent hellhounds to look for me but only appeared in person after I was hung up on Michael, and it made me shudder.
“He fell quickly,” Michael continued. “Since we were close once, fighting him was especially hard. But I managed to keep him away from you.”
“You protected me from him.”
He stopped moving the sword but didn’t retract it. “For purely selfish reasons.”
“Are you worried about fighting him again?”
“I’m used to dealing with monsters. I’ve been one.” He retracted his sword and sheathed it, and his face held all the weariness of someone who had lived a long life of pain and war. Although his body had healed, these were different scars and they haunted him still. “But I can’t be everywhere all the time, and if he’s after you—”
“You’ve protected me before.”
“If it weren’t for me, Damiel would never have come after you. We wouldn’t be in this mess if I’d stayed away. I should have left when I saw you again.”
His words sliced through me. Was that how he felt? That his life would be better without me in it? “Fine,” I said bitterly. I was used to being alone. “Why don’t you leave, then?” Everyone else does!
He crouched before me, his expression filled with regret. “I can’t.”
“Why, because Damiel’s coming? Because you have to protect me?”
“It’s what I do, Mia.” He took both of my hands in his and bowed his head as though in prayer. “Let me do that, at least. Let me do it right this time and protect you because you deserve it. Because it’s the right thing to do.”
I pulled my hands away and got up. “I don’t want you to stay with me because it’s your job as an angel or because you feel obligated to get it right this time.”
His face flooded with what looked like thousands of years of self-loathing and punishment. “Is that what you think?”
“Isn’t that what you’re saying?” I said, realizing that I didn’t know what I thought. I didn’t even know where I stood with him from one day to the next. “You stay because you have to.”
“No, I stay with you because…” He took a deep breath, but when he spoke it was barely a whisper. “I can’t stand being away from you.”
“You can’t?”
Hardly able to believe what I was hearing, I fought the urge to cry. I’d never known anyone who wanted to be around me before. Since my parents’ divorce, I’d been alone. The family I’d come to rely on had all but fallen apart. Mom worked all the time to look after us. Dad had no time for me. I’d moved, made new friends, but it wasn’t the same. I may have been used to being alone, but be
ing used to something wasn’t the same thing as being okay with it.
Michael had focused only on the danger, made it explicitly clear that it was real, not only from Damiel and an army of demons, but even from himself if he enthralled me or lost his way. I thought he had to protect me from all of it, that I was just something from his past he had to resolve. I accepted it, because being near him made the pain and loneliness of my life go away. But it was more than that. I couldn’t bear being away from him either, and I’d never stop loving or wanting him.
Standing before me, he inched closer, and the pull to be near him tugged at my skin and tightened my lungs until I was short of breath. Then, as though he could read my mind, Michael drew me to him, wrapping his arms around me as though I were on fire and he was extinguishing the flames.
“I thought you knew,” he whispered.
His arms tightened around me, and with the warmth and strength of his body pressed against mine, his heartbeat pulsing against my cheek, I felt completely safe. I crushed myself into him, matching my breathing with his.
He stroked my hair, and I raised my hands from around his waist and slid them up his back, between his shoulder blades. Sinewy muscles vibrated under his shirt, scalding my hands. They tingled and burned from touching him.
He let out his breath softly. “Your hands are cold.”
“Is this…?”
“Where my wings join? Yes.”
“Does it hurt when they come out?”
“No.” I could hear his smile. “But I’ve never carried another person before.”
“Really? Not even way back when?”
“Especially not then.” As he said it, an image flashed in my mind of his wings, white and beautiful, outstretched behind him. Same as the wings in the dream I’d had years ago. They were his wings that someone was trying to take—not mine. Why did I dream it, then? Had I actually been there when it happened?
The next thing I saw were bloody wounds on what must have been his back, the skin dark red and puckered as it healed. “You had scars,” I said, wincing, unable to think about what had caused them.
Hearing my pained expression, he backed away from me, his hands gripping my elbows. “You remember that?”
“How could anyone do that to you?”
“I chose to fall,” he said harshly. “I deserved it.”
“Nobody deserves that!”
“You don’t know the whole story…” Crossing his arms, he leaned against the mantel, his eyes downcast, as though he couldn’t face what he was about to say. “The Grigori were terrible when they—when we fell. Without remorse. We took whatever we wanted.”
I wasn’t sure what he was saying. Had he attacked me? Is that what had happened? “And you wanted me?”
“Beyond all reason. The creature you gave birth to was my fault.” His gaze shot through me like he was waiting for me to hate him; clearly, he hated himself. “Something that horrible could only be conceived through coercion…or worse.”
Or worse?What had he done?
I felt the room spin for a moment like I was on that ride at the amusement park, the one that twirls so fast it holds you to the sides with centrifugal force—right before the floor drops out from under you. I’d trusted him. How could he?
Focusing, I tried to recall the past, wracking my brain for any sign of what he might be talking about. I couldn’t remember violence or being forced in any way. All I could remember was the joy we felt when we were together and then his pain as he stood at my bedside, watching my life slip away. “You said we didn’t know what it would be. Did you know?”
This was the past, ancient history in fact, and yet Michael’s expression showed a grief so raw it might as well have happened yesterday.
“No. I didn’t think it would happen to us,” he muttered. “Enthrallment is a type of coercion. For all I know, I—”
I cut him off. “What do you mean, for all you know? Don’t you even remember what you did?”
“I’ve done terrible things.” Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly. “I don't remember everything.” His eyes shone in hollowed sockets pulled so tight, it made him look ancient. “Part of me doesn’t want to… If you knew how far I fell, you’d hate me.”
As he struggled to control his emotions, I wondered if this was all he thought of himself. I may not know what he did back then, but I knew what he was like now: carrying me out of the woods, saving me from hellhounds, fighting Damiel and Azazel. He’d done everything in his power to keep me safe. “I could never hate you.”
“Never’s a long time,” he said, his voice wavering. Before I could reach for him, he backed away and motioned toward the door. “It’s getting late. I’ll take you home.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
From the front walk, my house seemed gloomy in the darkness, as old houses do when nobody’s home. I’d been so preoccupied before we went flying that I forgot to turn on the porch light. The solar-powered lanterns lining the front walk hadn’t seen enough sunlight to charge them today, so they gave off only a dim glow. Although Michael was silent on the drive home, he walked me to my front door. But when I invited him in he declined, saying he was going to check the area and keep watch.
Still shaky from everything I’d been through, I decided to take a shower—nothing like almost being demon food to make me feel I needed one. I hadn’t realized how much fear Michael’s presence kept at bay until I was alone. It didn’t help that every time I closed my eyes I recalled Azazel’s red ones watching me—and that horrible laugh. Once I got in the shower, a chill ran to the core of me, made my knees shake. Washing my hair and conditioning the tangles gave me something else to focus on, but as far as distractions went they were short-lived. I showered longer than I’d planned to and turned up the hot water more and more until it almost burned my skin, but the cold feeling didn’t leave.
Realizing that having clean hair and skin was about as comfortable as I was going to get, I got out of the shower and into plaid flannel pajama bottoms and a long-sleeved T-shirt. I was exhausted, my bed more comfortable than I expected. Once my head hit the pillow, it didn’t take long to fall asleep. Dreams came quickly, too.
***
I was at the beach again at night; the tide rolled in lazily and moonlight glimmered on the water’s surface. The cold, damp night air cut right through my skin. I was waiting for Michael, and it seemed I’d been waiting a long time but there was no sign of him. Then the sky blackened and Azazel crawled from the sea. I could smell that horrible stench of its breath as it loomed its many heads over me, waiting to strike. I screamed, but no sound came out of my mouth, so I gasped and screamed again, hoping Michael would hear me and come to the beach, but he didn’t. The third time I screamed, I broke into a run, but something gripped my wrist. At first I thought it was Azazel and I tried to pull free. Then I heard a voice say my name, a calm, musical voice. My arm shook gently.
“You’re having a bad dream,” Michael said. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see how concerned he was. “You were screaming.”
Pulse racing, I sat up and mumbled unintelligibly, “Azazel…beach…”
“You’re safe now,” he reassured me, straightening my tangled duvet.
“How did you get in?”
“You left your door unlocked.” He frowned. “Anyone could have come in.”
Looking at him, I could see golden-orange flames inside the huge black circles of his irises. There was nothing in my room that could have made that light except for him. It was beautiful, inhumanly so.
“Stay with me?” I asked.
“You know I can’t.”
“Until I fall asleep. It won’t take me long. Please?” Maybe I couldn’t face the thought that he had hurt me. If he had, he was doing everything in his power to make sure it didn’t happen again.
His body drew tight. I must have asked for too much. But slowly he relaxed, and the strain in the air was released. “Let me lock the door.”
He was gone only a minute, and yet as soon as I shut my eyes, the horrifying dream about Azazel returned. It pulled me in quickly and was so disturbing that when Michael touched my hand on his return, I screamed again and practically jumped out of bed.
“Sorry,” he said. “I forget how terror can be sometimes.”
Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you’re here. My nightmares will go away now.”
“Oh, so you just want someone to keep the monsters at bay,” he joked, but he sounded nervous. “What makes you so sure I’m not one of them?”
“Because I can see.”
His long body was all angles and limbs as he eased himself onto the bed beside me, outside the covers, and tension pulsed through him like a live wire. But eventually he settled, as though through a great act of will, and stretched out to hang his legs over the end of my double bed, his arms tight to his sides.
His cotton shirt was soft against my cheek as I leaned my head against his shoulder, afraid to breathe in case I frightened him away. It seemed he wasn’t breathing either. The electric hum of my alarm clock blared even louder than normal, and I marveled at how I could ever sleep through it. A faucet had been opened inside me, the current flowing. I buzzed with it. Now wide awake, I struggled to stay still. At least the horrifying images of Azazel were gone, replaced by other memories of the night, like kissing Michael. And while lying in his arms, unable to sleep, seemed to be the perfect place to think about that, believe me, it wasn’t. I needed to distract myself.
“You know, there’s this sound your wings make when the wind hits them,” I babbled. “It’s a beautiful sound.”
He touched my hand, intertwined his warm fingers with mine. Even that touch was electric between us. “Really?”
I swallowed. My throat was dry and tight, but I wasn’t about to get out of bed for water. “Then there’s the sound of your voice.”
“My voice?”
I held my breath, hoping to regain control. “Sometimes it takes on a completely different sound. Like a choir.”
“You can hear that?” He broke into a laugh. “I should have known.”