“They didn’t tell you…?” His voice trailed away and he shook his head at the ceiling as if addressing someone up there directly. She watched him, trying to pinpoint the difference she discerned in him. Something subtle, but definitely there. “Celeste, I thought I was attacking Saklon. I’d just told him I wasn’t handing Adam over to him, and I thought he’d been the one to hit me, not you. I swear it.” He did touch her now, his hands cupping her cheeks as his gaze held hers with burning intensity. “If you believe nothing else I’ve ever said to you, believe that, and one other thing as well…I was the one who took you home again.”
Oh, such a skilled and perfect liar. She might have believed his first statement—it made sense, and his attack had seemed more reactionary than anything. She could still recall the horror of realizing what was about to happen to her as she’d felt the flare of power from him, aimed in her direction. After that, everything had been a muddle of pain and darkness until she woke in her bed at home surrounded by friends. The idea that Damael had taken her there was preposterous. As if he would ever step foot in Heaven, even if he could.
“I know you’re lying, and not just because your lips are moving. I wouldn’t be speaking to you right now if that were the truth.”
“It was quite unpleasant, I assure you. Rather like a fish out of water. But if you throw him back soon enough, he might just make it.”
“I’m to believe they bothered to throw you back?”
“They were grateful. I returned something very dear to them. And it cost me…dearly.” He stepped away from her, his eyes hard and…angry? “But I’m not here to talk about what I gave up. I don’t care about that. You’ve given up more than I can possibly imagine.”
The tears that had been brimming in her eyes spilled over. He stared at them as if transfixed, then reached up to touch one, hesitating before allowing his fingertip to meet her flesh. When it did, he sighed, his shoulders relaxing. With both thumbs, he began caressing the droplets from her face as they fell.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t count on…all this. Yes, I lied to you. I made the offer never intending to give up Adam’s soul. For that you can torture me until Armageddon if you wish.”
“How do I know the entire thing wasn’t an elaborate set-up between you and that other devil? It was all so sickeningly convenient, his showing up after you got what you wanted from me, to whisk you off to get what you’d really wanted all along.”
“You can know it wasn’t that way because we wouldn’t have bothered, Celeste. If I didn’t care about you, I’d have taken my pleasure, laughed at you and sucked out Adam’s soul right in front of your eyes. It’s simple fact. Can you honestly dispute that, knowing me as you do?”
She was loath to admit it—and it didn’t make her feel much better—but he had a point. Why would he bother to save face? The Damael she knew lived to please no one but himself. Until now, at least. “You were really trying to save Adam?”
“At that point, I wouldn’t have let Saklon take him. I’d have fought him until the deadline passed. The fact you’ve been allowed all this time to think I deliberately hurt you makes me want to pluck every last feather from those bastards you call friends.”
“Speaking of which, I tried to pretend it didn’t hurt when they stripped my wings. Or when they cast me out. Physically, it didn’t.” The words tumbled out in a rush, aimed at him like daggers. But she didn’t have the strength to sustain her anger any longer. Not with him looking at her which such regret in his eyes. “The humiliation of it—that was another matter entirely. The only thing that got me through it all was thinking about you and how you made me feel when we were together. And how, for the time I was in your arms, it was worth it. I was even stupid enough to think if they could have only sent me to you, I’d have happily suffered whatever other punishments they saw fit to mete out.” Damael began shaking his head, opening his mouth to speak. She laid her fingers on it. “Anything would have been worth enduring if I could have stayed with you, but suffering that humiliation when I didn’t know where you were or if you even cared…”
He caught her hand gently and pulled it away, lacing his fingers through hers. “Believe me, I cared. But you wouldn’t have been with me if they’d cast you under.”
“I thought as much. All I’m trying to tell you is that…” She drew a breath, dropping her gaze because she couldn’t look at him as she made the confession. “I love you. I don’t know how it happened, or why, but I can’t deny it any longer.”
The silence that stretched out was catastrophic. But what had she expected? Did he even have the capacity to love her in return?
“I suppose that makes me a fool. It can never be, can it? Just as you said before. They’ll never let us be together.” She hated herself for how small her voice sounded. Hated herself for the tears that wouldn’t stop falling.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of what they did to me for loving you. I’m not here only because I broke a rule saving Adam’s soul.”
The hand that wasn’t holding hers skimmed up her nak*d back, his touch feather-light. His fingertips traced the scar inside her left shoulder blade, where one of her wings used to be. There was an identical one on the right.
“Did they give you any stipulations?” he asked.
“Well, no, but…you’re a demon, and—”
He shook his head, gaze steady upon her own. “No, Celeste. I’m mortal.”
Chapter Eight
Mortal?
If the wall hadn’t been behind her, she might have fallen backwards. “How…?”
“It was the only way your kin could save me. They gave me a choice. I could be cast down to earth as a human being with a clean slate, or I could…fade away. I had to choose fast. I chose this.” His gaze searched her face, and she could only imagine the breathless shock he saw there. No wonder she didn’t sense the familiar malevolence rising off him. No wonder what little light infiltrated her room was reflected in his eyes. She should have noticed that from the start.
“So you see, Celeste, they still love you, no matter what you did. If they didn’t, they would have let us both shrivel and die right there. But they thought enough of you to show mercy to me, their mortal enemy.”
“I never doubted they love me. But I don’t understand. Why would you agree to become mortal? You seemed to glory in the darker side of your nature. I would think you’d rather not exist than be stripped of your power.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “This way, there was at least a chance, miniscule as it was, that I might see you again someday.”
She could only stare, surprise giving way to dawning, impossible joy. One corner of his mouth tugged upward in a self-deprecating twist.
“Say something, Celeste. Tell me I didn’t act in vain. You just said you loved me as I was. Now say you love me as I am. If I’d thought you would turn me away, I would have chosen differently.”
“I love you.” The words burst forth, bypassing her mind. They came straight from her heart, which was pounding in her ears. “I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ll love you always.”
“Then it was worth it.” He drew her gently into his arms, the only place she’d wanted to be over the past two years. Warmth suffused her, chasing out all the cold, dark places that had settled in. She held him as if he might disappear if she let go.
“What took you so long to find me?”
He chuckled. “As grateful as they were, they didn’t see fit to supply me with a road map to get to you. But it seems I have other angelic connections.”
Celeste lifted her head to look at him. “What?”
“Your friend appeared to me a week ago. Tanan, I believe? He’s been watching over you. And me too, it seems. He told me where you live. Said he was tired of us both wallowing in misery and grief. I didn’t know angels could be so hostile. He described in great detail exactly what he’d do to me if I hurt you. It sounded most unpleasant. I told him I’ve had worse, but he didn’t have to worry.”
Tanan, the cad. He could have warned her. “That was you I saw at the concert tonight.”
“I thought you might be checking up on your charge. It’s really too bad I didn’t manage to reap that one. He would’ve been splendid entertainment for our halls—”
Laughing, she planted a swift kiss on his lips before he could finish that thought. She couldn’t last one second longer without that sensual mouth on hers, anyway. His tongue quested for entrance, and she gave it, rejoicing in the reactions of her body to his nearness. Just as potent, but earthier, more carnal than she’d known as a spiritual being. Arousal bloomed through her sex, a searing need that demanded to be assuaged.
He didn’t make her wait, cupping her aching br**sts in his palms before bending to draw a peaked nipple into his mouth. Her body could have been made for him, she fit him so perfectly. Clasping his head to her, she tilted hers back against the wall and moaned, arching her body against his.
One of his fingertips slipped between her legs, stroking too gently over the damp silk of her panties and wringing an anguished cry from her lips. Damael groaned against her, the vibrations of it shivering across her skin. “So wet for me,” he murmured. “You are so beautiful, Celeste, so beautiful it drove me mad. It hurt to look at you and know you couldn’t be mine.”
But she was his, oh, she was. She couldn’t reply. She was too near coming just from the light pressure of his finger on her cl*t and the shuddery breath of his words cooling the moisture he’d left on her nipple. He gave the turgid crest another lick and then grasped her hips, whipping her around to face the wall.
Off balance, she shot her hands out to brace herself. His arms went around her waist from behind, one hand roaming down to cup her mound. Warm lips trailed down her left wing scar. “I’ll spend this lifetime and beyond making this up to you, if you’ll allow me,” he whispered, moving to give the same treatment to the opposite side.
Twin tears slipped down her cheeks. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“Hold me to it. And I’ll hold you to me. I love you, Celeste.”
She could only sob with emotion and anticipation as he knelt behind her, slipping his fingers into the lace edge of her panties and slowly drawing them down over her buttocks as her knees went weak. A trail of kisses followed the panties’ descent, over her cheek and down the back of one thigh. She could hardly stand any longer, trembling with longing and the need for completion. For him. Hard and thrusting into her, filling the emptiness between her legs. Cool air swirled over her newly nak*d flesh, and at last she stepped out of her underwear only to feel both his hands trail leisurely up the back of her legs. Knowing he was there looking at her so intimately…