Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 131708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“And yours,” Blondie chipped in. “A being with the volume of power he possesses … It is not good for such a person to love. It only makes them more unstable, more dangerous.”
Her pulse skittered as Blondie moved closer, the set of his jaw telling her there’d be no changing his mind. Helplessness battered at her, amping up her demon’s anger. “You may not see this as a betrayal, but he will,” she said. “That doesn’t bother you?”
Blondie waved that away. “He will not believe we were responsible. He will suspect our superiors. He would be right to do so—they would have come for you if we hadn’t. They wouldn’t have settled for hiding you, they would have obliterated your soul to rein him in.”
Her head swimming, she shook it. “Hiding me? What does that mean?”
“When he claimed you as his own, he placed an imprint of himself on your soul. It allowed him to know where you were. But we will take away that imprint. He will not feel you, and so he will not know that you have been reborn. When time goes on and your soul appears to have not been reborn, he will assume it is either in hell … or that it has been destroyed.”
Oh, fuck.
Right then, all six of the archangels began to close in on her.
Panic wrapped around her throat and squeezed. Everleigh shook her head. “Don’t do this.”
Blondie stared at her, his expression implacable. “As we have explained, it is for your own good as well as his,” he stated with such unbelievable arrogance and condescension … like she was a child who knew no better.
Her panic gave way to a fury that heated her skin. “He won’t be fooled, he’ll find me,” she swore with a snarl. “Maybe not straight away. Maybe not for a while. But eventually, he’ll find me.”
Brawny shook his head. “No, no, he won’t. He’s exceedingly powerful—one of the most powerful of our kind. But without the imprint, there is no way for him to track you.” It was said with such assurance that her belly flipped. “He will never find you. No one will, not even us.”
“There will be no need for him to search for you anyway because, as I said, he’ll presume your soul now dwells in hell or no longer exists,” Blondie reminded her.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Now be still,” Blondie told her, all business. “We shall put you to sleep—there is no need for you to suffer as you die.”
A cold force delved into her mind, and she cried out with the shock of it. The force spread, turned even colder, seemed to numb her thoughts. She felt herself fading; felt a thick, gray cloud move through her mind.
“I am not so sure there is truly a point in this,” said one of the archangels, his voice seeming so far away.
“This is the only way to save him from himself,” Blondie insisted.
“But it will only work if he believes she hasn’t been reborn. We will then have time to talk him out of falling. But if he does not believe it—”
“He will be blind to her location without the imprint, so it matters not.”
“Perhaps. But we know our kind can be very obsessive when they want something—she has brought that out in him. Do you honestly think he will cease looking? That he will accept she has gone?”
Other words were spoken, but she couldn’t make them out. The archangels were too far away. Or she was. And she just kept fading and fading and fading until, finally, it all went dark.
CHAPTER ONE
Las Vegas, present day
Ella Wilde parked at the curb and pulled out her phone. Running late, have to make a quick house call, she texted to her sister.
Mia quickly responded: No problem, I’ll order drinks.
Usually, Ella would turn down any jobs that cropped up on a Friday evening—it was routine for she and Mia to meet at their local pool hall to eat dinner, knock back beer, and shoot some pool. But there were some matters that required a swift intervention, and this was one of them.
Having plopped her cell back into her jacket pocket, Ella slid out of the car and took in the cute two-story home. It was pretty with its window boxes, porch rocking chairs, and ropes of ivy trailing up the walls.
It made her think of the house that she and Mia had recently considered renting, but then their apartment complex had come under new management. The place had since been spruced up—new security system, fresh paint, working elevator, better lighting for the parking lot, major cleaning job.
Ella strode up the path and rang the doorbell. When the door swung open, she smiled gently at the human male staring at her through tortured grayish-blue eyes. “Hi, I’d like to speak to Mr. or Mrs. Mills.”