Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
“That’s horrible,” I said sympathetically.
“Oh no, it was incredible,” he gushed out the words. “Did you know that’s how archangels can tell their mates? They need to have a taste of blood to know. He heard me speak and was nearly certain, but when he had that mere drop, he walked me away from all I’d ever known, the pain, the desecration, the violation of my body, and saved me. His love and care made me whole once more.”
“But now you’re here,” I said, feeling bad about reminding him.
His opaque gray eyes that had been alight with happiness a moment before lost their spark. “Yes. We were in the market together in the third heaven when I was taken.”
“Wait. Heaven?”
He nodded.
“How were you kidnapped from heaven? I thought demons couldn’t get there.”
“Into Anahel’s heaven they can, as he is neutral.”
I shook my head because I remembered what Raphael had said about demons being unable to enter. “I’m sorry, but that’s not what I was told.”
He thought a moment. “Perhaps whoever told you that demons could not enter was unaware that because Anahel made his realm neutral, and it has remained so for eons, that the protective wards have eroded.”
That was probably why the celestial builder, Mammon, had decided to erect his bridge there, across the sea to the third heaven—because he could. I was starting to see how Anahel’s neutrality was bad. It probably accounted for the man who’d tried to whip me in the street, and had allowed demons to take Vaya from his love. “So these demons, they stole you and brought you here.”
“Yes.”
“And does the baron who lives here… Does he hurt you?”
“No. I was brought here because I can heal all who sit in this bath with me. My aura purifies the water and everything else,” he said, his eyes sad.
Glancing around the room, I realized that in another corner was a bed and a desk, in front of a window looking out at the mountains. “You never leave this room?”
“No.”
“It’s a prison.”
“It is.”
“And they make you heal the guys the baron violates?”
“Sadly no. I’m here to heal whatever injuries occurred before the baron begins,” he whispered. “The baron prefers to be the only one to inflict damage.”
“Like he will with me.”
“Yes.”
“And after? Do you ever see them again?”
He shook his head quickly, and I saw the tears.
“Can you bring them back from the dead?”
“No,” he barely got out, and I saw the pain on his face. “I cannot. I was not granted this power when I was made.”
Why would he, he was made in hell. Bringing someone back from the dead to a fate worse than death itself made zero sense. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I know you wish you could. I see it in your eyes.”
“I do, and I do not,” he confessed.
“Because if you could resurrect them, what would stop the baron from raping and murdering them all over again.”
Dropping down into the tepid water, submerging himself, when he surfaced, he wiped his face with graceful hands.
“Who’s the angel you were kidnapped from?”
“Remiel,” he breathed out, the name sounding like a prayer.
And that was interesting. Hearing a name twice, to me, always meant something. I didn’t believe in coincidences. I never had.
“I was just recently in the third heaven myself.”
He gasped, and those gorgeous eyes of his, framed in incredibly long silver lashes, opened wide. “You lie.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Did you see Anahel?”
“I did, and I heard about your Remiel, that he was investigating the death of Saudrian the demon lord and the whereabouts of his mate, the blood witch Moira.”
“She’s the one who took me!” he cried, and dissolved into tears, face in his hands.
I moved through the water to reach him, and once I was beside him, I put my arm around his slight shoulders and hugged him to me. “Well, I think he knows that, and he’s hunting her—and not at all for the reasons Gabriel thinks.”
“I don’t understand,” he barely got out through his tears.
“I know,” I soothed him.
It all made sense. Remiel hadn’t gone to investigate Raphael killing Saudrian because a kyrie was supposedly responsible and that was an impossible feat. He’d gone because he was hunting Moira. He’d probably been terrified she was dead because then he’d never find Vaya, but what he did find was Raphael giving chase, and had reported that back to Gabriel, perhaps as an afterthought. He was trying to find his mate, after all, and nothing else mattered but that. If only Remiel and Raphael would talk, perhaps they could find both of us.
“I’m being selfish, whining about myself when you’re the one who will be meat for the beast when he returns this day.”
“I won’t go quietly,” I promised him.
He pressed his lips together as though in pain.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”