Beauty Awakened

“So why don’t you just tell me?”

“Would you believe me?” If he admitted he was a Sent One, she would, perhaps, have no idea what that was. If he used the word angel, she might have certain expectations he would be unable to meet. “We can discuss it later. Right now, why don’t I help your sister?”

Immediately he wished he could snatch the words back, but did he? No. He’d said them. He would deal with the fallout.

Eyes as wild and turbulent as a winter storm widened. “How?”

“I … can buy her a little time. She’ll strengthen and she’ll awaken, but I don’t think she’ll live more than a few weeks,” he rushed to add. She had to be swimming with toxins. Not only that, she would still have no internal or external barriers against the demons. Barriers she would have to learn how to erect. Barriers she might not have time to learn how to erect.

“A few weeks,” Nicola parroted.

“Not long, I know, but—”

“I’ll take it!” she shouted, as though she feared he would change his mind.

So eager for so little. “But you haven’t yet heard my terms.”

Her beautiful mouth edged into a frown. “You want something from me?”

Many things. “I’ll buy your sister a few weeks, and in exchange you’ll do what I tell you, when I tell you, until the day I release you from my charge.” He had no idea how long it would take him to rid her of the toxins and teach her enough to survive on her own.

“That sounds like something I’ve heard on the late-night news. Are you expecting me to become your sex slave?” Her tone wasn’t scandalized, but curious.

“No,” he replied with a frown of his own. “I don’t want you in that way.” He didn’t, did he? He hadn’t lied to Thane and the others. He was a virgin. Desire wasn’t something he was familiar with, and he wasn’t sure he would recognize it.

He knew he admired Nicola’s loyalty to her sister. He knew he wished he had someone who loved him half as much. But seeing her naked was … intriguing, he realized, the blood heating in his veins, becoming molten, scorching him. A heat that had nothing to do with rage. It bubbled up, washing away the cold man he knew himself to be.

Perhaps he did want her in that way.

The very idea nearly sent him stumbling backward. His mind reeled. But … but … but she was so dainty, so fragile. He dwarfed her. Could crush her. Why her? Why now? Desire for her was implausible. Impractical.

“No,” he croaked. He couldn’t.

“Oh,” she said, her shoulders slumping. “So, you want me to obey you when you tell me to … what?”

“Stay calm. Embrace peace. Sow joy.”

“Sow?”

“There is an irrefutable spiritual law that states a person reaps what they sow. Therefore, if you sow joy into others, you will reap joy for yourself. Right now, you need joy.”

“Calm, peace, joy,” she echoed hollowly. As if he were insane.

Maybe he was. “Yes.”

“Why do you want me to feel those things?”

If you don’t, the toxins will build up, and eventually you’ll die, just like your sister. They weren’t exactly calming, peaceful, joyous words, so he remained quiet.

“Wouldn’t you rather have me, I don’t know, grow a beard, get taller and play the part of Koldo in a little production called What You’re Asking Is Impossible? Because that I think I can do.”

Silly human. For the first time in his life, he wanted to smile. “No.”

Desperate, she said, “How about the number of the coffee shop girl? I could give you that, and we could call it even.”

Coffee shop girl? “Remember when I told you I could help you heal?”

“As if I could ever forget.”

“This is the way.”

A moment passed. A moment she spent blinking at him. “Calm, peace, joy,” she repeated. “Tell me my sister will live longer than a few weeks, and it’s done.”

As if he was in control of how long her sister survived. But she didn’t know that, and she was trying to buy more time. “I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. I gave you my top offer. There’s nothing more I can do on your sister’s behalf. Therefore, there will be no negotiating of my terms.”

“I figured, but I had to try.” She offered the same bright smile she’d given him in the elevator, and he had the foresight to capture a mental picture this time. One he would remember on the worst of nights, when the past threatened to rise up and swallow him. She was proof there was more in the world than darkness and pain.

“Do we have a deal?” he asked.

“We do.”

He nodded. “Very well. Don’t allow the doctors to take her off life support. I’ll return shortly.”

“But—”

He left before she could finish her sentence. Right now, every moment counted.

He flashed to Thane, who paced in the hospital hallway, and told him where he was going. Then he flashed to Zacharel’s cloud in the lower level of the skies. He had no wings and couldn’t hover outside the entrance to await permission, which was why Zacharel had given him an open invitation to enter—as long as he remained in the foyer.

“Zacharel,” he called. Walls of swirling mist surrounded him, obscuring his vision of the rest of the home. But that’s the way clouds worked. They opened only as you moved through them.

His commander stepped through the haze, his black hair askew, his robe dirty, torn and speckled with blood. Solid gold wings arched from his back, patches of the feathers missing.

Protective instincts rose. “What happened to you?” Koldo demanded. “Do you require aid?”

Zacharel’s dark head tilted to the side, his emerald eyes glassy, as if he’d … cried. “No aid is currently needed. You’ll find out what happened with the rest of the Sent Ones. A meeting will be called very soon, and every army will be there. Until then … what are you doing here, Koldo?” The last was said on a weary sigh.

Koldo liked and respected Zacharel. The warrior had taken responsibility of the most unruly army in the skies, and wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty to help each and every one of his men out of trouble.

“I gave Annabelle a vial of the Water of Life and I need what remains.”

Zacharel stared at him for a long while before saying, “Why do you want it?”

“Is there any left?” he asked, refusing to state his reason when he wasn’t yet sure there was a prize to be had.

Ignoring his question, Zacharel turned and motioned for Koldo to follow.

After only a few steps, the cloud opened up, revealing a living room suited for the richest of humans, with a velvet-lined couch, one half of it backed and the other half open. It was ideal for any Sent One and human pairing. There was a matching recliner, an intricately carved coffee table made of crystals from all over the world. A tapestry hung on the far wall, the words Perfect Love Casts Out Fear scripted in Greek in the center.