I had never heard Raphael sound like that, so dead, so cold. And even as my heart leaped, I was terrified as well. What would he think, seeing me like this?

  “I didn’t touch him,” Dollo lied.

  There was a great sigh, as though Raphael was much bigger than he was, a beast, something immense, like a dragon. The second sigh, longer, deeper, shook the tower. I thought I would hear more people crying out in fear, but perhaps there was no one else left alive.

  The tears were a surprise, hot in my eyes and then on my skin as they trailed down my cheeks. My relief was overwhelming, as were the tremors rolling through me.

  “But how are you— You can’t be— You’re an archangel and can’t descend this far into—”

  There was a sound like when a parachute opened, or the sharp crack of a sail hit by the wind, and the demon cried out in pain and surprise.

  “This cannot be!” The scream of terror tore through me, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and though I wasn’t scared—Raphael was there, after all—I was wary.

  “The blood witch lied to you,” Raphael rasped, walking around the bed to where I could see him. “Or she didn’t know, but did you not wonder at the bracelet there?”

  How strange that I hadn’t thought about it either, and only then did I remember that it had somehow changed, tightening and becoming the color of my skin. It had camouflaged itself, as though sentient, and that was extraordinary.

  “What bracelet are you—that silver one?” the baron rasped, getting shakily to his feet, and I was guessing that suddenly he saw it easily on my bound wrist.

  “Yes. That one,” Raphael replied in a flat voice devoid of anything but wrath and certainty.

  There was only a stifled keening then, the cry of a man about to be ended.

  “You’re right. I should not be able to be here. The depths of hell are shrouded to angels, which is how you kept Remiel from his love, from the incubus demon Vaya, but the moment you planned to kill my love, my mate…my spouse…that was your undoing.”

  “Spouse?”

  “The sacrament you missed,” Raphael snarled.

  “No!”

  “Yes,” he whispered, and his slight laughter was dark and twisted, almost evil, the sound carrying both resignation and pain. “It’s the wrinkle you didn’t perceive—that a warder with angelic blood, in thrall to an angel, pledged to one, married to one, can never be parted from the other half of his soul.”

  “I didn’t know!”

  “I don’t care,” Raphael husked, and then both my mate and the baron were gone from my line of sight. Something wet hit my back, and in the same moment I saw an arch of red droplets fall like rain, striking the silk sheets at eye level with me.

  There was pressure on my arched back, and then hot breath in my ear. “Jackson,” he growled, low and dark.

  “Raph,” I whimpered, loathing the helplessness in my voice. “Thank God you found me. I—”

  Everything shifted around me, altered, and there was the scent of bergamot and sage, pine and leather. The bed was different, softer, the ropes as well. But I was in the same position; that was unchanged.

  “Raph?”

  “Tell me,” he said, and I barely heard him with how low and deep his voice was. “What do you think would have happened if the baron had violated you?” he asked, and through the ropes, his hand smoothed down over my ass. “What would have happened to us?”

  “I don’t—” I couldn’t see him, though I tried, straining even for a glimpse of him, needing to see his face. “Untie me!” I demanded sharply.

  “You will answer,” he insisted, hands testing the ropes before tracing over my skin.

  I turned my head to the left and saw a wall covered in inlaid tile, then to my right, a red velvet chaise edged in gold brocade. A different room, a different place. “Raph…lemme go.”

  “Answer,” he demanded again, and his voice was hoarse, gravelly. “And be honest, or I’ll know.”

  I took a shallow breath because the ropes were too tight for me to take a deep one. “I thought I was better off dead than…”

  “Defiled,” he offered.

  “Yes,” I croaked out, voice cracking, trying to squirm and finding all my movement, as I logically knew it would be, utterly restricted.

  He made a noise, and there was the aroma of warm honey-scented oil, a smell that, because it was his favorite, was inexorably linked to Raphael in my mind.

  “Raph, I’m—oh,” I choked, breath catching as he slowly, with great care, slid two slippery fingers inside me.

  “There is nothing that could ever, ever befall you that would change my love or desire for you,” he said solemnly, reverently, as he withdrew his fingers, only to press them into my body again, slathered with more oil, making circles with his fingers, massaging my channel with one hand and using the other to trace over my cock, now slowly thickening and pressing to my abdomen.

  “Raph, please, you’ve gotta—”

  “Did you hear me, Jackson? Did you hear what I said?” he asked as he shoved three slick fingers into my ass.

  “Yes,” I ground out, lost in the sensations he was pulling out of me.

  “You can’t be kept from me,” he intoned as he slid his hand free, climbing onto the bed behind me and kissing slowly, seductively, down my spine. “But even if you could, even if I found you, as you are now, but also taken and used, with the seed of others spilled on you, in you, I would do all that I could to heal your mind, body, and soul, but you would know, always, that you have my heart, and yours is my greatest treasure.”

  There were no words.

  “You’re mine,” he growled as he took hold of my hips and pressed inside me, the slow push seamless, as slicked with oil as I was, and endless, until he was buried to the hilt.

  I gasped with his entry, with how full I was, my relaxed muscles now clenching around him, trying to suck him in deeper, the pressure and the stretch a dull pain that quickly succumbed to a glorious aching need.

  He was enormous, long and thick, and the oil allowed for movement, the slide of him rubbing over every nerve ending as he ground deeper, making me roar his name.

  “Go ahead, shout louder so everyone knows,” he whispered, the bindings keeping me still as he pulled out slowly only to thrust back in, harder, faster, rutting into me, all his power there on display as he used me savagely.

  It should have been frightening, and had been before it was him, but now, because I knew if I had insisted, if I had said no, if I had told him unequivocally to release me, that he would…it had become something else altogether.

  I was helpless, all the control was his, and because it never was, because we were always equal, had been from the start, I had never put myself wholly in his hands. I had never let down my guard completely with anyone. From the time I was sixteen, when I became a warder, groomed to fight and protect, to stand between the innocent and the abyss, I had been watchful, ready, never allowing a moment of complete vulnerability.

  But now, suddenly, there was no choice. And he’d saved me, made me safe. I was his dominion, his prize, his love, his life, everything. I belonged to him, and in that moment, I let go.

  “Jackson,” he whispered, and there was a pull on the ropes at my wrists and then release, the tightness gone for seconds before his lips grazed the slope where my neck met my shoulder, and then his fangs. The bite was deep, and I was lost, plunged into nothing but a distant hum as my vision washed white.

  His voice, a soothing lull, came first, and my skin was so hot, burning as my pulse thundered in my ears before the euphoria of release. I spurted over my stomach and chest, shuddering in my held position as Raphael fucked me through my orgasm, pounding mercilessly, tirelessly, until he curled over my back, twisting my head to the right and burying his fangs in the other side of my neck, sucking hard as he came violently, bucking against me, in me, hammering until he collapsed, the feral claiming leaving us both utterly spent.

  I felt floaty, disembodied, lost in the liminality between being awake and being asleep. When he carefully slid free of my still clenching channel, I felt the gush of warm fluid, but it didn’t anchor me. I was still separate, not in my body, but in my head. When everything loosened, I was swimming, rising, lifting for the surface, for air, for breath.

  “Look at me.” He rumbled out the demand, and I was untucked, stretched out, and gently arranged on the bed.

  I tried really hard to open my eyes. My body tingled as blood rushed to my limbs, and he gently massaged my arms and legs, my back and feet.

  “Jackson…fuck…open your eyes.”

  But I wanted to sleep.

  “No way I let you— Baby, look at me.”

  With monumental effort, I got my eyes open, and then I was no longer sleepy at all.

  “Okay,” he said quickly, releasing the breath he’d been holding. “I thought you—”

  “Raph,” I breathed out, staring at his enormous black-feathered wings, noting the iridescent glow that seemed to be emanating from them. “Why aren’t those gold?”

  He grimaced as he raked a hand through his thick hair. “I fell, for a time, into ruin, and for my abandonment of my place, and for losing hope…Michael has made this change.”

  “I prefer the black.”

  “As do I,” he said, beaming down at me for a moment before his face fell and he looked unsure. “But tell me honestly, did I hurt you?”

  “Hurt me when?”

  “Just now,” he ground out.

  “No, you didn’t hurt me,” I snapped at him, feeling suddenly like myself again. “You have never hurt me, even in the beginning, before it was love.”

  I watched him swallow hard.

  “And that, what we just did… That was fuckin’ amazing.”

  “You’re certain?” he asked, searching my face, worried now, sitting down beside me on the bed in our room overlooking the sea. There was a warm breeze gently moving the gossamer curtains, and I couldn’t remember ever feeling so safe or content. He was with me, and after thinking I’d lost him, it was a blessing. “I’m just worried.”

  “Raph, you fucked me while I was tied up, you bit—” I checked my neck, both sides, and it was sore, but I wasn’t bleeding. “You bit me and took blood, and now you’re second-guessing what you did?”

  “I’m not second-guessing,” he said, reaching out to cup my face in his hand. “You and I both know that seeing marks on you that I put there allows me to live well in my own skin.”

  I did know that.

  “But I’ve never had you completely in my hands and—”

  I sat up and kissed him hard, stealing his breath, making him open for me so I could chase his tongue until he surrendered.

  The whimper let me know I had him. Lifting for a moment, letting him breathe, I crawled into his lap, wrapped my arms around his neck, and kissed him again, tipping his head back, plundering his mouth, pressing against him tight, so tight, until he broke the kiss to speak.

  “I love you,” he rumbled, and the tears were not surprising as he hugged me to his heart. “You’re mine and will always be. And never again,” he promised, and the darkness crept back into his voice, deadly and possessive and scary, “will we be parted. I cannot bear it.”

  And neither could I.

  SEVEN

  Raphael had moved us seamlessly from the tower in Gehenna to Anahel’s villa, because once he’d found me, he could. He was not letting either of us remain in hell a moment more than we had to. I was thankful.

  He had been in his cell, in heaven, and when he felt the demon’s intention to kill me spear through him, his cry cracked open the door, which should have been unbreakable. Michael was there in seconds, watching Raphael, on his knees, clutch the bracelet on his wrist that was on fire, burning. In moments, his entire arm was engulfed in flames.

  Seeing the conflagration changed everything for Michael, because that he understood. He believed in his heart and soul that nothing evil could ever come from fire. It was perfect, cleansing, and the bracelet reacting to the imminent loss of love, of soul, of life was what convinced Michael. He released Raphael from prison and gave him his sword, the flaming one. The purifier of all.

  The bracelet was drawn like a magnet to mine, and that opening, the lifting of the veil, was enough for him to find me. Remiel, sensing his mate through the same rift, fell through eternity with Raphael, and the last of their party was Gabriel. He’d been racked with guilt and grief over what he’d put his brother through, and so arrived as an avenging angel, putting all evil in the baron’s house under his blade. When he was done, he razed the house to the ground.

  It was righteous, and those who’d been victimized were lifted up. It didn’t matter that they had been demons. Gabriel made them clean and set them, as he once had Tarin, on the road to Nebo to become reborn in the human realm.

  The coal mine was leveled, obliterated in the blink of an eye, and the slaves all returned to their homes with washed memories, all strong and hale and hearty once more.

  The baron’s family was lifted up as well, put on the road to Nebo to remake themselves and their lives, all given the gift of humanity.

  Everything was well and right, and when the demons gathered to question the changes that were made to Gehenna, to the reality there, once they saw Gabriel, it was understood that there had been a violation of what was allowed. Demons couldn’t abduct the mates of angels—or more precisely, they could as long as they didn’t get caught. Dollo was caught and so suffered the consequences. There was nothing else to say.

  Moira was dead, and Raphael could speak to that with conviction, as he’d cut her throat and watched her drown in her own blood. He’d avenged me, Vaya, and Dylan’s friends as well, and no one would mourn her.

  Remiel, reunited with Vaya, would take the third heaven from Anahel, who would also remain there, to live out eternity in peace. With Remiel taking over, there would be no more neutrality. He would keep up the communication with demons—he had to, that was the path to peace, and as his mind, body, and soul belonged to a demon, that had to be considered as well. But in laws and the consequences of breaking them, Remiel was absolute. Because yes, he was the angel of hope and held dominion over the faithful, but there were laws in his heaven and they would be followed. It was a new day for many.

  It was Remiel, along with Raphael and Uriel, who flew to the edge of the great bridge Mammon was building, landed there, and spoke to him. Raphael, the only one who could speak for Michael, promised that his brother would no longer wage war. He would bring down the righteous hand of the heavenly host to stop any incursion, but as long as everyone stayed in their lane, a truce could be called.

  Mammon, who looked, Raphael reported to me, just as tired as Gabriel, was skeptical. At that point, Remiel, who had Evangeline bring Vaya, introduced his mate, a demon, to a member of the fallen. After that, Mammon was convinced. Remiel ruling the third heaven was acceptable. They would cease building and, using Raphael’s words, would stay in their lane.

  Raphael looked sad when he returned.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, taking his hand. “You did a great thing. You being the only one anyone would listen to, along with Remiel loving Vaya, prevented another war.”

  He shook his head. “There will always be skirmishes and hostilities, and that’s another reason why I left.”

  I lifted his hand to my lips and kissed his knuckles. “What was the main reason?”

  “The fallen,” he rasped. “You understand that it’s a lie that they can’t be redeemed, that they can’t be returned to the fold. They could. They’re simply not allowed.”

  “And that’s why you left? The hypocrisy of that? The lies?”

  “Yes.”

  “So Mammon, who you just saw, you were close?”

  “We were all brothers,” he choked out. “And it was just a split-second decision. Anahel, he was going to follow Lucifer, but I chained him so he couldn’t. He was my friend, my scribe… I couldn’t let him go.”

  “Of course not. If you could save him, you had to.”

  He wasn’t looking at me anymore, instead, I knew, into the past. Remembering what was lost. “Mammon…he wouldn’t listen to me, and he was too powerful for me to hold, to bind. I begged him up until the very last moment.”

  I had no words to give him.

  “I saw both sides, but in the end, we had to be loyal, to listen and have faith.”

  Grabbing hold of his hand, I held on tight.

  “It was so hard on that day…on the day they fell…” Tears welled in his eyes. “So many were calling, and they were sorry, and I thought…where is the forgiveness, the grace?”

  “But it was too great a sin to forgive?”

  “Yes. And Lucifer was so hurt and so defiant, and if you knew him… I was certain he’d rally them eventually, and he did. But so many are lost and sad. That’s what they don’t tell you about true hell. It’s really just being full of regret and remorse for eternity.”

  “You wanted to give Mammon a hug today, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  He shook his head. “He’d never allow that, and really, it would hurt him, his pride and whatever peace he’s forged for himself, to have that moment of vulnerability.”

  “Have you ever seen Lucifer again? After the fall?”

  “Only once in…ages. He was as brilliant and beautiful as ever, but his eyes blazed with hatred.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Oh, I waved,” he said, chuckling. “And of course he scowled like only he can.”

  “Maybe someday all will be made whole again.”

  “Perhaps,” was all he said.

  Michael—whom I never saw, but Raphael told me all about—was trying to figure out what to do about love. It was not something he’d ever factored into his black-and-white view of creation as a whole. He had no idea that love was fluid and changing. But Raphael loved a human and Remiel a demon, and since neither of those things was supposed to be possible, Michael needed time and silent communion with the universe to figure out what to do.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12