Sweet Disgrace

“Our rock star’s time is up in twenty-eight minutes,” Saklon said. “If you will not collect him, then I will…and trust me when I say that won’t end well for you.”

Ice flooded Celeste’s entire being, and her voice rang out of its own volition. “The contract was destroyed. Adam has been released.” Damael snapped a sharp look in her direction, one she interpreted as imploring her to keep quiet.

Saklon frowned at her as if he’d just discovered something filthy stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “This one doesn’t have the final say, angel.” He spat the final word like a curse.

“The hell I don’t,” Damael said. “I make them, and I break them. If I fail to deliver, I’m the one who suffers the consequences. I told you, I’ll suffer these. Let this one go.”

Those steady golden eyes locked on Damael again. “That might have been the way of it before I ascended, but no longer. I don’t like it when our acquisitions are tossed away arbitrarily. And I won’t stand for it, especially not with this one.” Saklon’s pale hands shimmered in the light of the moon as he made a quick motion. A sudden puff of fire in the air formed into the hated scroll, which he brandished in front of them. “It’s been reinstated as previously written.”

She surged forward, unsure of what she’d do if she got her hands on that scroll, but its very existence was an abomination at this point. Damael caught her and held her. “You can’t do that!” she cried.

“I just did. And we’ll have him, Damael, if I have to rip his soul out myself. If it comes to that, you’ll be lucky to ever find yourself free of the shackles in the deepest torture dungeon for your disobedience. It’s your choice.”

Torture dungeon? Dear God. She didn’t have time for the roaring weakness that rushed over her at those words. “I demand to see—” she began, her eyes still on the parchment, but Damael cut her off.

“No need. I can assure you it’s real.”

Helplessly, she clutched him tighter, trying to read something in his etched-in-stone profile. Completely and utterly still, he watched his general, but even the eye she could see was emotionless. No compassion lurked anywhere behind that gaze. “Go on, Saklon,” he said quietly.

“Adam is midflight on his way home now. You’ll take him to Hell, or I’ll see that you regret it for eternity.”

“No.” Celeste tried to break Damael’s grip, to face his master herself, but he held her fast. “For once in your wretched existence, show mercy.”

Saklon’s eyes narrowed on her. He opened his mouth and drew a breath, seeming to choose his words carefully. “If you address me again,” finally came the casual, almost pleasant reply, “I shall blast you back to your maker with your wings ablaze.”

“I’ll get your acquisition,” Damael snapped, his voice a savage hiss. Celeste looked up at him, shocked. “But if you cause any harm to come to her, I’ll shove a f**king pitchfork up your golden ass. Are we quite clear?”

Saklon burst out laughing as Celeste twisted in Damael’s arms and grasped his shirt in her fists. “No,” she pleaded, hearing her heartbreak in her own voice. “You can’t take Adam, not now.”

The flat, emotionless void was still in his eyes. She couldn’t see a flicker, not one flicker of anything that might restore her faith in him. “What choice do I have? Either I do it or he will, and Adam is only one soul. One, among the thousands you’ve lost before. What difference does it make?”

“They all make a difference!” She couldn’t control the high, wild pitch in her voice. She’d told Adam he would be okay, and she’d lied. This was the worst of it. She’d never falsely assured one of them of their safety before, only to lose them later. “They all do. They all wrenched my heart. I would give up my place in Heaven to save any one of them, but I can’t. You were there as I lost so many; didn’t you see what it did to me? Don’t you understand?”

No, he didn’t, she realized as he stared silently at her. He couldn’t. Because his heart was as cold, as black, as she’d always accused.

“How sweet,” Saklon mocked. “I wonder, would you even bother trying to reason with him if you knew his plan was to get between your angelic thighs and then take the wretched mortal’s soul anyway? Didn’t tell you that, did he?”

She wanted to snap at him that he was a liar, only she feared him meting out the punishment he’d promised. Then she realized something far more horrifying than Saklon’s words: Damael wasn’t denying them, nor did he even look vaguely appalled by them.

“He’s lying, isn’t he?” she asked softly, searching Damael’s face. Even her immense shame couldn’t stop the words. “Please tell me he is.”

“Well, that wasn’t the way it happened, was it?”

“Well, what’s happening now?”

Her biting words gained her no ground. His expression was closed off from her, empty. Whatever false emotions he’d poured into it during their time here, they had run out. “Go home, Celeste. This is my job, nothing more. You did all you could.”

Tanan’s exact words from earlier. It was the story of her existence. Doing all she could. Hardly doing anything at all. She was so tired, so heartsick. So through with this, with everything.

“If you go near Adam now, after all that’s happened…” she said, thinking the low, shaking voice that came out of her couldn’t possibly be her own, nor the words. They tore at her heart like teeth and claws. “I will stop you. By whatever means necessary.”

For the first time since Saklon’s arrival, she saw a faint flare of emotion on Damael’s stony features. A spark lit in his eyes. She couldn’t help but think it was one of challenge. “You do that, and you’ll face judgment.”

“I face judgment already. What’s one more transgression?”

A wretched sound from behind her caused them both to look. Saklon had rolled his eyes heavenward. “I am f**king bored with this. Come, Damael. You have a soul to reap, and time grows short.”

Time. Adam’s twenty years were up in twenty or so minutes. They only had those few minutes to take him, or else a second past his deadline he would be freed by default. The contract had been reinstated, but if they tried to change the terms, she’d drag them both in front of Nicolae by their scaly black tails.

Damael removed her hands from his shirt and gently pushed her back a step. “I have to go.”

“Please don’t,” she ground out, and she knew he understood she wasn’t talking about him leaving.

“I wouldn’t follow, if I were you.” One minute more his gaze held hers, searching her face as if committing it to memory. His mouth was set in a grave line, his jaw clenched. She poured every ounce of pleading she possessed into her expression, every last drop of her longing for him and his redemption. Praying it would get through to him somehow.

But his face only blurred and then vanished altogether, the firm hands clasping her arms dissolving into the humid night air. Turning, she saw Saklon was gone too, leaving her alone on the empty beach with no sound but the mournful rhythm of the waves.

Chapter Six

The Gulfstream V jet carrying Adam home was well on its way to Los Angeles. Damael and Saklon materialized in the plush cabin, where the doomed man sat sipping a drink and staring out the window at the newly darkened sky. He couldn’t see them for the moment. Across the aisle from him, his girlfriend dozed. No one else was in sight.

Damael shook his head without looking at Saklon. “I hate you for this.”

“You should thank me, being that I just saved your ass. Like you told your angelpuff, this is your job. It’s what you do. I didn’t think when I gave you your orders they would cause you to take complete leave of your senses. Was she really worth losing everything?”

She was worth every damn horror Hell had to offer, but he wasn’t about to tell Saklon that.

“Now take him, before I’m forced to do it. You won’t find the consequences of lying down on the job again so pleasant.”

“Do you think if you say that a few more times, I might believe it?”

Saklon crossed his arms and smirked. “I’m done talking. It’s time for action, yours or mine.” The golden eyes smoldered. “I suggest it’s yours.”

Saklon was right—it was only a job. Damael didn’t give a damn about the throngs of blundering mortals. He didn’t give a damn about the one in front of him now, the sitting duck who foolishly signed away eternity.

But knowing Celeste thought badly of him ate into his heart like acid. She’d seduced it into beating again; now she was trying to tear it into pieces. As much as he tried to deny it, she was at the forefront of his thoughts, and the way she’d stared at him as he left her had his hands clenching into fists as he watched the oblivious Adam.

Well…perhaps not quite so oblivious, Damael thought. Adam set his drink down and leaned his head back against the seat. There was a pinch to the man’s mouth, and his knuckles were white as he gripped the armrests. The dread he’d described to his girlfriend must have returned, sitting heavy in his chest. Every turbulent jerk of the plane made him jump, and a fine sheen of perspiration had sprung on his brow.

Damn it. If not for Celeste, Damael would be standing here salivating with anticipation. What had that angel done to him?

Whatever it was, he only wanted her to do it again.

If you go near Adam now, after all that’s happened…I will stop you. By whatever means necessary.

He would almost welcome her intervention at this point, but he didn’t think she would dare. Those words had been driven by nothing more than hurt and anger. Right now she was most likely sitting alone on that forlorn beach crying those same tears that had burned him, just like he was burning now…

Ah, to Hell with it. He’d known from the start it was impossible, because of what they were. She should have known it too, and if she hadn’t, then she was more naïve than even he had thought. Their time together had been…miraculous, for lack of a better word, but then he didn’t believe in miracles. People created their own realities and destinies. Adam had created his.

Dropping the shields that concealed his presence from the mortals, Damael watched Adam closely as the man’s eyelids lifted and then snapped open wide when he saw him standing there. He attempted to scramble out of his seat, almost climbing over the armrest, before Damael grabbed his arms and planted him firmly back in it. Melody went on sleeping, and she would until this was over. He sent out a wave of power that rendered everyone else on the plane unconscious, save for the pilots. They were rather necessary.

“You!” Adam panted, his eyes showing white all around the irises. Vainly, he struggled against Damael’s grip.

Damael tightened his hands in a show of strength, not that he needed any more to pin the mortal’s thrashing. He allowed a slow grin to unfurl across his lips. “I thought you might remember.”