Sweet Disgrace

She liked to peek in from time to time, check up on him. He was looking well—most likely because he had no memory of the ordeal on the plane. He and Melody had married, and he spent far more time with his daughter than he used to.

Just now, Melody stood in the shadows at the side of the stage, stroking her swollen belly as she watched her husband with a gaze of pure love and delight. Every night, he sang for the crowd as if grateful to each and every person in the audience for the life he had. Now, it would be a long one. A good one.

Celeste had sacrificed her wings and her home in Heaven to make it so.

Of course, she’d rather the human not know what she’d been through on his account. Adam seemed to sense something had changed in his life, and that was enough. He’d been placed under divine protection in case the demons ever tried to strike at him again. It was something she’d fought hard for during her tribunal. Saklon and his cohorts had called for the forfeiture of Adam’s soul because she’d attacked him and Damael first. Nicolae had shrugged and pointed out that Damael had offered a compromise for Adam’s soul, and it was fairly common knowledge Celeste had accepted. So as far as he was concerned, no matter what the demons’ secret intentions had been, Adam was free.

Damael was nowhere to be found, and if anyone knew where he was, they weren’t telling. Many times she’d been sent from the room while secret conversations took place. She’d been afraid to ask too many questions. She could still recall Tanan’s stern disapproval as he’d informed her after she awoke from that horrible ordeal that she often cried out Damael’s name in her sleep. His wasn’t a name they liked to hear spoken aloud in their territory.

It had been a very scary time as she’d awaited her final judgment. The demons had wanted her. They had demanded atonement, and she’d loved one of them, so shouldn’t she belong with them? Their sly arguments had repulsed her, and she hadn’t been foolish enough to think she’d have ever laid eyes on Damael if she’d been banished to Hell. Most likely she would have become a concubine to any of the devils who desired her.

Thankfully, her superiors were nowhere near as cruel as his. The archangels had been shocked, stricken by everything she’d done, but they hadn’t thought she’d damned herself simply by protecting someone. Or by loving someone she shouldn’t.

So she was still favored in Heaven. But her job now was to roam the earth, helping people when she could. Completing small assignments and moving on. She would live out a life cycle and then go home again, at which time her case would be reevaluated. In some ways it was a relief, really—not nearly as heartbreaking as her former position. She also didn’t mind spending time among the mortals. But sometimes she got lonely.

Humans were inquisitive by nature, and any of them who got close asked too many questions. What did she do for a living? Where was she from? Where was her family? She couldn’t very well tell them the truth, that there were earthbound angels among them everywhere, and their secret society saw she had every need met. Her true family wasn’t of the earthly variety—even if at the moment she was their black sheep. So she went her way mostly alone.

“Fallen” wasn’t a word she liked, but it fit better than anything else. She just hadn’t fallen as far as she could have. She was lucky she hadn’t earned herself a one-way ticket. That didn’t stop her from thinking about him, and wondering if…

No. You’ve moved past all that. It’s over. He’s everything you knew he was from the start, and you’ll never see him again.

As people bumped and jostled past her, laughing and shouting, she coursed deftly through the steady stream and slipped out through the main gates. But not before she glimpsed a face in the crowd.

Stopping dead in her tracks regardless of the people who plowed into her from behind, she stood on tiptoe trying to see over the tops of heads. Her attempt was futile. She was frustratingly short and lacked many of her old powers…levitation and flying being among them. Could that have been…?

It was probably her imagination. She saw him everywhere she looked, after all, no matter how she tried to exorcise those final moments on the beach from her mind. They replayed in her head every night as she laid her head down to sleep. Even if she did see him again somehow, she might want to run in the other direction. He’d already tried to kill her once.

Sighing, Celeste continued on, her sense of sound bombarded on all sides even in the parking lot. Cars crept by with music blaring, people chattered with excited intensity about the show. Overhead, a full moon swiftly rose, orange and bloated. She pulled her jacket closer against a sudden blast of biting autumn wind. The temperature affected her more now that she was earthbound.

Her apartment was within walking distance of the arena—a long walk, but manageable. Her legs ate up the distance quickly, the boisterous sounds of the post-concert buzz receding until the clack-clack of her boot heels was all that filled the night aside from an occasional honk and the gentle rush of faraway traffic. The side streets were mostly empty.

A clatter sounded from behind her, and she whirled to see an empty can roll across the pavement. A sheet of paper scratched lightly down the sidewalk beside her boot, propelled by a sudden blast of wind. Casting a glance around and shoving her hands deep in her pockets, she suppressed a chill and dashed up the steps into the warmth of her apartment building.

Ah, relief. She slammed her door behind her and stripped on the way to her bedroom, eager to put this strange, haunted night behind her. It had rubbed her raw, brought everything rushing back. She should stay away and let the wounds heal, but without fail, when she heard Adam’s band was coming to whatever town she was living in, she couldn’t help herself. She had to go see him and marvel that he was still here.

Whatever else she’d lost, at least she’d won that battle. She hadn’t had to watch another one perish. She never would again.

Bed felt wonderful as she slid under the covers wearing only her underwear. Closing her eyes, she snuggled under the covers.

The dream came hot and fast and staggeringly vivid. She and Damael, making love with a passion to rival what they’d generated on the beach. She twisted in the sheets and arched, breaking out in a sweat, as she imagined him taking her in those long, relentless thrusts she remembered. “You’re mine,” he breathed against her ear. Her own hands drifted over her br**sts, her fingers teasing her n**ples until he grasped her hands and slammed them back on the mattress with a growl, replacing them with his lips. His teeth. “Mine.”

She cried out and struggled awake, sobbing into the empty silence of her room. Only the dim glow from the streetlights poured through her small window. Nothing was out of sorts, no black-eyed demon hovering in the corner, no dream lover by her side.

Wiping sweat from her brow, she swung her feet to the floor. How could she forget, how could she push him from her thoughts when he haunted her dreams like this? It was asking the impossible. Seeing Adam might bring everything back with a vengeance, but she had to be honest with herself: it never truly left her. And she hated Damael for that, for everything—lying to her, trying to trick her. She even hated him for the torment of not knowing where he was, what was happening to him right now—and the guilt for caring.

He’d almost killed her. Would she have to keep reminding herself of that forever to keep this infernal longing for him at bay?

She trudged into her bathroom, flipped on the light switch and nearly cried out when she saw her reflection in the mirror. Hollow, sorrow-filled eyes, mussed hair. She looked like…

Like you’ve just taken a tumble with the man you love, who then left you heartbroken. Does that cover it?

Yep. It did.

“You’re going to be okay,” she muttered to her reflection. Then, resolving not to meet that broken girl’s gaze in the mirror again, she busied herself filling a glass with water and taking several desperate gulps. It cleared some of the fog from her mind. Not all of it, but enough. Sighing, she flipped the light off and reentered her bedroom.

“Hello, sweet angel.”

Her heart nearly burst in her chest as the voice spoke, and she almost dove back into her bathroom to lock herself in. That was before her gaze caught the shadowed figure sitting on her bed, and she froze to the spot.

Damael. Even though he was only backlit by light filtering through the window behind him, she would know those shoulders anywhere. And the voice, the deep, smoothly ironic voice.

Was she still dreaming? It didn’t matter. First instinct took over, and she scrambled back against the wall, vainly trying to cover her near-nakedness and searching for something, anything, to put between them. As if that would stop him from…whatever he meant to do.

“Oh my God…”

“Well, no, unfortunately. Do you realize you didn’t lock your door? Tsk. Anyone could come creeping in, you know. Anything.”

What should she do? Run and hide? Grab her crucifix? Jump him?

Every movement as precise and graceful as she remembered, he stood and stepped toward her. Given the small area of her bedroom, that brought him almost close enough to touch.

Seemingly from nowhere, the hazy pleasure of her dream drifted over her again. Tears filled her eyes. Damael’s gaze roamed her face, her body. Irrationally she worried that he might not find her as attractive as he once had.

Was she mad? He could be here to finish the job he’d begun on the jet, and she was worried he was mourning the loss of her wings.

He stepped even closer, crowding her against the wall. Something soft brushed her skin: a sweater. His scent filled her nostrils. Exotic and fiery and… Oh, God, she couldn’t help it. She moaned and let her eyes fall closed as desire pooled between her thighs, dampening her panties. His hands met the wall on either side of her head, trapping her. His lips trailed down her hair.

The sound that came from deep in her throat was almost a purr. She forced it to form into words, any words. “Where…where have you…?”

“Shhh.”

“I can’t…”

His knee slipped between her legs. Every nerve in her body jumped, and she almost collapsed. Her heart was racing—such an odd sensation that was—and her mouth ran dry. “You can,” he murmured. Those lips were sliding dangerously close to her own now.

“You…” she began before he kissed the life from her, so hot and desperate that she ceased meeting him halfway and simply let him ravish her mouth with his. She hadn’t the strength, anyway—it had all fled her the moment she saw him. The hands beside her head clenched into fists, but he made no move to touch her with them. He let his mouth and his tongue and his teeth take complete possession of her senses.

“You missed me,” he murmured with arrogant assurance that should have made her scoff. But those warm, wet kisses just kept going on and on, and…

“You hurt me.” The words finally wrenched themselves from her throat before she could stop them. More anger sparked, boiling up from the cold, empty, dead-until-now places in her soul. Damael froze against her, then pulled back, his brow furrowed. “You said you would never hurt me, and you did. You nearly killed me and you left.”