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  The fork froze halfway to her mouth. The sympathy in her eyes was almost more than I could bear. “I’m so sorry.”

  I usually never wanted to talk about the brother I’d lost, but for some reason the timing seemed right, the wound finally ready to begin a slow process of healing. She hadn’t been there. She was probably the only angel that wouldn’t judge me for what happened. And I needed someone to know.

  “Remember when I said there are Angels of Order and Angels of Chaos? Well, Samael was the only one of the five of us who was an Angel of Chaos. He was the Adversary, the Iblis. He was the one who questions, who made us see another point of view. Angels of Chaos keep us from being too intractable, they break us out of our tunnel vision. They keep us from stagnating. They bring us alive.”

  “You sound more like one of these Chaos angels then an Order one,” she commented.

  “I am. Occasionally there is an angel born that straddles both sides. They are designated whichever type they hold the most in common with, but they never truly fit in with either group.”

  “And that’s you.” Her voice was soft, full of sympathy. I had to take a breath to pull myself together. In billions of years, there hadn’t been anyone who truly understood. No one except for Samael.

  I nodded. “There was a war. The Angels of Chaos lost and were banished to Hel. They’ve interbred and produced demons. We…we can’t interbreed. Aaru has become gridlocked in our own piety. We’re stuck. And we’re too proud to admit it and reach across the distance to reconcile with the demons.”

  She shot me a sad smile. “Isn’t pride a sin?”

  “There is a whole lot of sin in Aaru. Probably as much sin as in Hel.”

  “And your brother died in the war? This Samael?”

  I swallowed hard. “We don’t know. We’re pretty sure he didn’t die in the war itself, but he may have died soon after the Angels of Chaos were banished. It’s been nearly three million years and none of us have seen or heard from him. His seat on the Ruling Council sat empty until a few years ago when an imp showed up with Samael’s sword and took his place.”

  She reached across the table and took my hand. The sparkle of tears in her eyes made me want to cry too. “And you blame yourself for not taking his side, for opposing him with your other brothers.”

  Like a scalpel, her words cut right to the heart of the matter. “I was designated as an Angel of Order, but I could have gone either way. Samael begged me to stand with him. And in my heart I knew he was in the right on these matters. If I had stood with him, maybe he wouldn’t have died. Maybe there would have been some reconciliation.”

  “Or maybe you would have been banished like the rest of them. And Aaru would have been a far worse place without you there to shake things up a bit.” She smiled. “Why did you choose to fight on the other side? The side of Order? I know you had your reasons.”

  She was the only one ever to ask. In three million years, no one had bothered to ask me why in that pivotal moment I had chosen Order over Chaos.

  “Samael was in the right, but he was brash. He wanted change to happen at a pace that would have caused unacceptable disruption. If he just would have exercised some patience, gone through the prescribed channels, then he would have gotten his way in the end. I loved my brother but he was all about smashing the status-quo and less about enacting a gentle, sustainable change.”

  She squeezed my hand, and I felt her spirit-self reach out to mine. “Spoken like an Angel of Order. You might think you don’t fit in, but from my viewpoint, you sound like the only voice of reason in this whole madness. Maybe if both sides had listened to you, there wouldn’t have been a war.”

  I felt the weight on my chest lift. There was nothing I could have done to prevent the war, but it was so freeing to actually share this with someone.

  “What about you? What has your life been like so far?” I asked.

  She laughed and tried to retrieve her hand. I held tight, not wanting to let her go, and she relented.

  “Let’s see...it was hard to find my place with the humans. They called me Little Crow because every time someone followed my advice they got into trouble. I’m contrary, always questioning authority, stirring things up. I guess like your brother, in that way. About two hundred years ago, a werewolf caught sight of me and recognized me as a Nephilim. The humans were reluctant to let me leave, but once there was an established pack, they finally agreed.”

  “You didn’t have any say in all of this?”

  She squirmed, looking down at the few scraps of pancake still left on her plate. “Yes, I guess so. But what was I to do? The humans took me in as an infant. I’d been living off their charity ever since, and now I live off the werewolves’ charity. I have a job, but it’s not enough to support me. Everything I have I owe to them — the humans and the werewolves. Without their care, I would have been alone in the wilderness.”

  “You’re nobody’s charity case,” I argued. “Those years with the humans, and now with the werewolves…you contribute. You’re out there killing chimera, trying to kill a hydra. How many times did you defend your humans from attack? How many times did you provide food for them when they had none? You’ve protected them. You’ve kept them safe. They live off your charity.”

  They were lucky to have her. An angel walked among them, watched over them, and she thought she was like some homeless beggar on the corner?

  She stared at me a moment, then looked down at our joined hands. “I love them, really I do, but they die, and I don’t always understand their priorities, or how they live their lives. No matter how much they welcome me, and consider me part of their pack and family, I’ve always been the outsider. I’ve always been the crazy half-angel. I’m the only one like me here, the only one here for five thousand years.”

  She was lonely. And that was something I completely understood. “You’re an angel, like me, like Nisroc, like all the angels in Aaru. You might be an Angel of Chaos, but you’re definitely not an outsider. Someday I’ll introduce you to the Iblis. She’s an Angel of Chaos too. And she’s so crazy that you’ll look completely sane in comparison.”

  I felt the muscles in her hand tense as she pulled it from my grasp. “There’s another? And she’s not in Hel? Or dead? I just assumed when you said ‘imp’ that she was a demon.”

  “She used to be a demon, but she re-evolved or something. I’m not sure the exact details. She’s the Iblis though, so she gets to be here and even in Aaru as part of her duties on the Ruling Council.” I smirked, deciding to answer her unspoken question. “She joins with my brother, Micha. They’re quite a devoted pair. And no, we’ve never been an item. She’s like a sister to me.”

  Ahia squirmed. “I didn’t……I mean… So, when an angel joins is it like getting married? This Iblis and your brother?”

  I grinned, happy to discuss one of my favorite activities — one that I hoped I’d be participating in with this angel. “Joining is to angels what sex is to humans. Our spirit-selves align and merge outside of a body. Two become one. It’s an incredible rush. When we are perfectly unified, a pair of angels becomes one and is in a state of grace, approaching divinity.”

  She snorted. “Grace and divinity? Leaving my body? Ugh. Give me naked, sweaty, heart-pounding human sex instead.”

  I leaned forward. “Both. At the same time. You have to leave a portion of your spirit-self inside the body to feel the physical sensation of orgasm. That means you won’t get the full rush of joining, but the two together, both sensations simultaneously, would be explosive.”

  Her eyes were wide. “Holy cow. You’ve done that?”

  “Never at the same time. I’m waiting for the right angel, one who appreciates my kind of crazy, a like-minded someone who is a little bit of Order and a whole lot of Chaos. Once I find this special angel, I’ll need to woo her, convince her of my worthiness, persuade her to take a walk on the wild side.”

  “Woo her, huh?” She raised an eyebrow then looked down at the pancak
es. “Like with flowers, chocolates…or pancakes.”

  Flowers and chocolate coming right up. I motioned to the remains of our breakfast. “I’ll admit to having ulterior motives.”

  Her lips curled up in a smile that went right to my heart — as well as other parts of my anatomy. “Good. I’d be terribly disappointed if you didn’t have ulterior motives.”

  There was one of those moments, and I wished there wasn’t a table between us. I could make the table vanish, but then there’d be plates and pancake scraps and clotted cream all over her floor.

  Her spirit-self touched mine, merging along the edge. “Like this? Only more?”

  “Most definitely like that,” I whispered. The table needed to go. Right as I was wondering whether it would be wise to make the dishes vanish as well, she pulled away and stood.

  “These dishes can wait until tonight. Let’s go close some rifts and bowl with drop bear heads.”

  I watched her ass as she strode from the room then stood. Patience. It was a virtue that seemed to be quickly vanishing as I reveled in the sin of lust.

  Chapter 15

  She took me on another scenic tour as we flew to the next few rifts, then played the same guessing game, laughing while I tried to find the correct spot all on my own. What she didn’t know was that her eyes gave it away every time. I just went along with it all because I loved to hear her laugh.

  We checked in each rift for survivors. On the other side of every last one we found dead. Each time it was like Ahia had been stabbed in the chest. It made me try even harder to make her laugh with my mime routine at each rift. It made me wish that just once we could find someone alive, that I could give her the satisfaction of actually saving someone, reuniting them with their friends and family. But each time, we only found corpses near the opening on the other side of the rift.

  Today I’d closed three rifts, fought off a host of boobie-birds, raced all over the world gathering foods to impress her. I’d brought all my power to the surface, showing her every bit of the archangel I was. I was tired. The battles in Aaru, all the fighting… I hadn’t expended this much energy since the war nearly three million years ago. I desperately needed to rest and recharge, but there was no way I’d let her see any weakness. Raphael, the least powerful of the archangels, the frivolous, silly, not-completely-an-Angel-of-Order. So many in Aaru thought me unworthy. I didn’t want her to think that, so I kept onward. There would be time to recharge in a few days. I had plenty of strength to keep running flat-out until then.

  So I glowed, shifting my wings in the sunlight, pushing the weight of my power into the air around us as I looked up into the trees. They were up there, little furry bundles with shiny black noses and adorable round ears. I was beginning to rethink the appeal of bowling with drop bear heads.

  “They’re kind of cute. Maybe we should just round them up and send them back through the rift.”

  Ahia looked at me open mouthed. “Cute? Did I tell you they shredded me like a plate of pulled pork? That Brent had to flee before they took him completely apart? Brent, an Alpha werewolf, had to run away.”

  I snorted. “So Brent’s a pansy. Look at them. They’re like big squirrels. No, they’re like animated teddy bears. I’m sure you just got on their bad side.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and shrugged. “Fine. You go round them up, Pretty-boy. Have at em’.”

  I rolled up my sleeves. “Okay. Go stand by the rift so I can tell where it is.” They were cute, but I’d been scratched by adorable kittens before. If these things were going to get feisty, I wanted to be able to run over and push them through to the other side as quickly as possible.

  Ahia walked over near a tree and framed it with her hands, posing as if she were on a game show. She had a little smirk on her face, so I shot her a narrow-eyed glance and tiptoed my way over to the trees.

  Yeah. I was an idiot. I knew what was going to happen, but I just wanted to hear her laugh again — that deep belly laugh that made her double over and tears run down her cheeks. I loved that laugh the best.

  The furry beasts stirred in the trees, one sending up a loud, chilling cry. “Here, bear, bear, bear. Time to go home, bear, bear, bear.”

  The trees erupted with noise as the animals jumped from limb to limb approaching me as a group. One jumped down and I opened my arms to catch him. Then they all jumped, a hoard of twenty furry teddies landing on me all at once, claws and teeth flashing. I felt my skin shredded as if the bears were armed with box cutters. Dancing around, I tripped on a root and felt to the ground, teeth sinking into my torso and every limb.

  That’s when I heard it — that laugh. “Help,” I shouted, gratified to hear the laugh reach breathless proportions. About then I decided to get serious about these things. One by one I ripped them from my flesh and hurtled them like fuzzy footballs into the rift. Ahia held her arms in a circle as a target. Three made it through, but I got a little careless on the fourth and it whacked her in the face where it clung like a demented furry leech.

  Okay, I wasn’t careless. I’d done it on purpose.

  She did a funny scream-laugh then spun around, pulling the drop bear from her face and kicking it through the rift. Then she turned to face me, grinning with red, bleeding stripes down her face. “Did you see that? I drop-kicked the drop bear!”

  I wanted to clap my approval, but I had sixteen drop bears trying to devour me alive.

  “Here. I’m open. I’m wide open.” I tore another bear from my leg and threw it to Ahia, who caught it like a pro wide-receiver and tossed it through the rift. “Another! Another!”

  I obliged then launched another and another and another at her. She squealed as she caught one, and two more latched to her, biting and scratching as she threw the first one through the rift. “You bastard!”

  “You have no proof of that,” I shouted back. “But I don’t either. I’m pretty sure we all were formed by the Creator itself.”

  “Pfft. I know a bastard when I see one.” Two more bears went through and I launched two more, aiming for the same spot. One went through, the other hit the edge and spun, squealing as it rolled across the ground. Ahia dove for it, tossing it from the dirt into the rift.

  We continued, goofing off and throwing bears until all twenty were gone and we were both torn up and bloody, laughing as we rolled on the ground.

  “Hurry up and close this before they come back,” she told me, wiping her eyes with the back of her arm and smearing red across her face.

  I looked up in the trees, just to make sure there weren’t any more of them up there. I was assuming that they’d all jumped down on me at once. If there’d been any holding back, then they would have already made their presence known. I got the feeling they weren’t the run-and-hide type.

  Unlike Brent. Haha.

  “Hustle your cute ass, Pretty-boy.”

  I stood and healed all my wounds, leaving my clothing torn and blood stained just for the effect. Then I paused, tearing the ruined T-shirt from my chest, and throwing it on the ground.

  “Woohoo!” Ahia clapped, then again outlined the rift, doing her game-show routine.

  I sealed the rift between the worlds, forcing myself to remain upright once it was done. As I turned around, I felt her slam into me, her arms wrapping around my neck.

  “God, that was fun.” Her breath was warm against my cheek. I grabbed her ass and pulled her up against me and she wrapped her legs around my waist.

  “First I’m a bastard, now I’m a god. Pick one, woman.”

  She leaned her head back to look me in the eyes, her face so near mine. “How about a little of both?”

  Then she kissed me, her lips soft and open, her tongue tangling with mine. I dug my fingers into her rear, crushing her against me. I’d had plenty of fun in three billion years, but never had I been so on the edge of completely losing control, never had I wanted to share so much of myself with another angel.

  My knees buckled and we rolled on the ground, c
oming to a stop with her straddling me. Her mouth never left mine, and now her hands were all over me, feeling the muscles of my chest as her fingers worked their way downward. I let her play, just holding her hips tight against me and thoroughly enjoying for once having another angel take charge and both initiate and drive our encounter.

  Her hand drifted lower, popping the button on my jeans. At the same time her spirit-self reached for mine in a soft, shy caress, merging tentatively at the edges. Again my control began to unravel and I bucked my hips against hers, struggling to keep from snatching her spirit-self from her body and joining with her completely. Patience. Patience.

  She pulled her lips from mine, her eyes glowing silver as she looked down at me. “I want you. Right here, right now.”

  I pulled her down to me kissing her, loving the soft feel of her lips, the sweetness of her tongue against mine. “Nope. Not yet.”

  She sat up, a pout pulling those beautiful lips together. “Not yet? What do you mean ‘not yet’?”

  Clearly few people had ever told this angel no. Rocking my hips against her, I watched her eyes lose their focus, a soft sound escaping her mouth.

  Mine. Mine, mine, mine. But I didn’t want to rush this, not when it, us, was so very important. “I’m not done wooing you yet.”

  Definitely a pout. “Dude, you had me at pancakes. Actually, you had me long before pancakes. I’m wooed. Trust me, I’m wooed.”

  I slid her off my lap and stood, unable to resist giving her another quick kiss on the forehead. “You’re not wooed until I say you’re wooed, angel.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Bossy. Are you going to demand I get in the kitchen and make you a sandwich?”

  “Hardly.” I held my hand out and helped her to her feet. “Given that you tossed me a package of Pop-Tarts for breakfast, I assume your culinary skills end at boxed mac and cheese. A sandwich might be beyond your abilities.”