Beauty Awakened

When Cornelia breathed her last, her spirit would leave her body. But she would not go up, would not spend the rest of eternity with the Most High in the Heavens of heavens. She couldn’t. To die with hatred blazing in her heart was to go down, down, down. It was a spiritual law no one—not even a Sent One—could supersede.

Devilish things could not coexist with divine things.

Reason number one Koldo was in such danger himself.

Cornelia deserved such a fate, yes. She deserved to suffer for all eternity. But he wasn’t going to be the one to send her to an early grave. He wasn’t like her—if he had to remind himself every day, he would. More than that, he wanted … what he could never have. Answers. Her love.

Absolution.

He gritted his teeth. No, he wasn’t like her—and he no longer wanted those things. A taste of vengeance was all he craved.

The thought hit him, and he paused. There was no way someone like him could help a female as fragile as Nicola, was there?

He should have stayed away from her, he realized. But he hadn’t, and now it was too late. He’d flashed away from her to prove the existence of supernatural activity, hoping to force her to accept it and take the first step toward fighting the demons. Now she knew.

Now she would ask questions.

If she asked the wrong people, they would give her the wrong answers.

He scrubbed a hand over the smoothness of his scalp. He had to stick to his plan.

And that wasn’t such a bad thing, he told himself. Nicola intrigued him. Her voice, so soft, so sweet … so addictive, a caress his ears already craved again. Her wit. Her resilience. Her bravery. He’d snipped at her, yet she hadn’t sobbed and begged for mercy.

Throughout her very short span on earth, one disaster after another had befallen her. Perhaps the demons were responsible, or perhaps the imperfect world. Perhaps both. Whatever the reason, he wanted better for her. The better he himself had found with Germanus.

Koldo just had to teach her how to fight the toxins. And he had to do it while keeping her calm. Fear would strengthen what the paura had left behind, and tension would weaken her immune system, strengthening what the grzech had left behind. Without fear and tension, the toxins would fade. With hope and joy, the toxins would fade faster.

Bottom line, what you fed grew and what you starved died.

Would she be able to look past her negative emotions and see the light?

A spark of anticipation beaded, somehow overshadowing the nearly overwhelming cascade of acid his mother had caused. Despite everything, he couldn’t wait to see Nicola again, to learn what she’d decided about his disappearance. If she’d convinced herself she’d imagined him, or if she’d accepted he was something other than human.

“So not the view I was hoping for,” a male voice said from behind him.

Still naked, Koldo spun and faced Thane, the second-in-command of Zacharel’s army. Thane, meaning freeman. And the warrior certainly seemed to be everything the word implied. The male’s carnal appetite was well-known. He hunted a new lover every day, discarding those he finished with as if they were dirty tissue.

And yet, even knowing that, women still flocked to him, as though he was the only male in creation with curling blond hair and big blue eyes.

“What does Zacharel want me to do this time?” Koldo demanded, reaching into the air pocket at his side to withdraw another robe. He yanked the material over his head, trying not to stare at Thane’s wings. They arched over the warrior’s wide shoulders, sweeping all the way to the floor. Pure white was broken up by dazzling gold. Trying—and failing.

“It’ll be better to show rather than explain,” Thane said, an odd note in his voice.

That didn’t bode well. “Very well. Lead the way.”

CHAPTER FIVE

THE NEXT WEEK PASSED in a blur for Nicola. Every day she woke up at the butt crack of dawn, went to work, went to see her sister on her lunch hour, went back to work, went to her second job and toiled until the wee hours of the night before at last heading home, watching TV to unwind, then falling asleep for four measly hours—and the cycle started all over again.

Now, she sat at her desk at Estellä Industries, watching the clock. Come on, noon. Get here already. The only aspect of her life that had changed was her thinking. She couldn’t get Koldo out of her mind. Who was he? What was he?

After his disappearance, she’d asked the girl at the coffee shop whether or not she’d actually spoken to a giant of a man with a bald head and beaded beard. The answer hadn’t surprised her.

“Are you kidding me? I’m not blind. But, uh, are you guys dating or, like, is he available? Because I already wrote my number on a napkin if you want to, like, give it to him.”

Unless they’d shared the same hallucination, Koldo was real and Nicola wasn’t crazy. Or maybe she was, despite that. She’d actually taken the napkin, curious to know what Koldo’s reaction would be.

But … what was he? she wondered again. What did say-la mean, the last word he’d spoken to her? She had no idea how to spell it, so she hadn’t been able to look it up online. And how had he vanished in the blink of an eye? Was he some kind of ghost that more than one person could see?

With as many near-death and death-death-for-a-minute-or-two experiences as she’d had, she knew there was an afterlife. Several times she’d floated into it. Once, she’d even talked to some kind of being.

Isn’t this nice? he’d said. He’d had pale hair, eyes as clear as the ocean and a pair of beautiful white wings. He’d been handsome in a classic movie-star kind of way, and had worn a long robe as he’d tried to urge her down a long tunnel. Isn’t this peaceful? Just let go of your old life and you can have this forever.

He’d reminded her of the angels she’d seen in picture books, but there’d been something about his tone … something in those eyes … she had fought him, wanting to return to Laila, and for a second, only a second, his affable mask had fallen away and she’d gotten a glimpse of bright red eyes, gnarled bones and fangs.

A monster. A monster just like she used to see as a child, before therapy and drugs had convinced her otherwise. Now she wasn’t sure what to think about Koldo and the monsters and had no idea how to figure it out. There was an overload of information out there, but nothing had jelled with her.

The right answer would elicit peace; she knew that much. Peace always accompanied truth.

Koldo would just have to tell her. If he ever showed up again.

And he had to show up! Did he really know how to heal her heart? If so, could Laila’s be healed, as well?

The more she wondered, the more hope filled her. To be able to fall asleep and not wonder if she would wake up, or if Laila would still be alive … to never fear losing another sibling. To be able to walk up a hill, holding Laila’s hand, without either of them passing out … to be able to skip and jog and jump … to be able to dance! Oh, to dance. To fall in love, get married and have children. To live, really live, as they’d used to dream, before tragedy convinced them to deal in “reality” rather than “fantasy.”

Koldo had said he would be visiting the hospital again, but hadn’t mentioned when. If he waited much longer, she might strangle him when he appeared, just to release a little steam. Every day she looked for him so diligently the nurses asked her if she’d like a Xanax or ten to help her relax.

When has anything good ever happened to you?

The question wafted through her mind, and she frowned.

Being optimistic will only lead to crushing disappointment.

No. No, that wasn’t true.

You don’t need one more thing to worry about right now.

Her hands curled into fists. Before meeting Koldo, she might have caved under the weight of those thoughts. She definitely would have battled an upset stomach, paced a thousand miles without ever leaving her chair and frayed the edges of her nerves until her limbs began to shake uncontrollably. Now …

“I’m not listening to you.” Or herself. Whatever! She had hope for the first time in years, and she wasn’t letting go. She leaned back in the chair at her desk. “He’ll keep his word. He’ll turn up, and he’ll answer all of my questions.”

The depressing thoughts stopped, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Are you Nicola Lane?” a hard, biting voice asked.

Nicola blinked rapidly and focused on the beautiful woman in the open doorway. She was tall, slender and black, with a fall of jet-black curls. Shadows consumed eyes the color of chocolate. Koldo’s were lighter, like caramel, and—Wow, Nicola must be hungry.