Or worse?What had he done?

I felt the room spin for a moment like I was on that ride at the amusement park, the one that twirls so fast it holds you to the sides with centrifugal force—right before the floor drops out from under you. I’d trusted him. How could he?

Focusing, I tried to recall the past, wracking my brain for any sign of what he might be talking about. I couldn’t remember violence or being forced in any way. All I could remember was the joy we felt when we were together and then his pain as he stood at my bedside, watching my life slip away. “You said we didn’t know what it would be. Did you know?”

This was the past, ancient history in fact, and yet Michael’s expression showed a grief so raw it might as well have happened yesterday.

“No. I didn’t think it would happen to us,” he muttered. “Enthrallment is a type of coercion. For all I know, I—”

I cut him off. “What do you mean, for all you know? Don’t you even remember what you did?”

“I’ve done terrible things.” Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly. “I don't remember everything.” His eyes shone in hollowed sockets pulled so tight, it made him look ancient. “Part of me doesn’t want to… If you knew how far I fell, you’d hate me.”

As he struggled to control his emotions, I wondered if this was all he thought of himself. I may not know what he did back then, but I knew what he was like now: carrying me out of the woods, saving me from hellhounds, fighting Damiel and Azazel. He’d done everything in his power to keep me safe. “I could never hate you.”

“Never’s a long time,” he said, his voice wavering. Before I could reach for him, he backed away and motioned toward the door. “It’s getting late. I’ll take you home.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

From the front walk, my house seemed gloomy in the darkness, as old houses do when nobody’s home. I’d been so preoccupied before we went flying that I forgot to turn on the porch light. The solar-powered lanterns lining the front walk hadn’t seen enough sunlight to charge them today, so they gave off only a dim glow. Although Michael was silent on the drive home, he walked me to my front door. But when I invited him in he declined, saying he was going to check the area and keep watch.

Still shaky from everything I’d been through, I decided to take a shower—nothing like almost being demon food to make me feel I needed one. I hadn’t realized how much fear Michael’s presence kept at bay until I was alone. It didn’t help that every time I closed my eyes I recalled Azazel’s red ones watching me—and that horrible laugh. Once I got in the shower, a chill ran to the core of me, made my knees shake. Washing my hair and conditioning the tangles gave me something else to focus on, but as far as distractions went they were short-lived. I showered longer than I’d planned to and turned up the hot water more and more until it almost burned my skin, but the cold feeling didn’t leave.

Realizing that having clean hair and skin was about as comfortable as I was going to get, I got out of the shower and into plaid flannel pajama bottoms and a long-sleeved T-shirt. I was exhausted, my bed more comfortable than I expected. Once my head hit the pillow, it didn’t take long to fall asleep. Dreams came quickly, too.

***

I was at the beach again at night; the tide rolled in lazily and moonlight glimmered on the water’s surface. The cold, damp night air cut right through my skin. I was waiting for Michael, and it seemed I’d been waiting a long time but there was no sign of him. Then the sky blackened and Azazel crawled from the sea. I could smell that horrible stench of its breath as it loomed its many heads over me, waiting to strike. I screamed, but no sound came out of my mouth, so I gasped and screamed again, hoping Michael would hear me and come to the beach, but he didn’t. The third time I screamed, I broke into a run, but something gripped my wrist. At first I thought it was Azazel and I tried to pull free. Then I heard a voice say my name, a calm, musical voice. My arm shook gently.

“You’re having a bad dream,” Michael said. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see how concerned he was. “You were screaming.”

Pulse racing, I sat up and mumbled unintelligibly, “Azazel…beach…”

“You’re safe now,” he reassured me, straightening my tangled duvet.

“How did you get in?”

“You left your door unlocked.” He frowned. “Anyone could have come in.”

Looking at him, I could see golden-orange flames inside the huge black circles of his irises. There was nothing in my room that could have made that light except for him. It was beautiful, inhumanly so.

“Stay with me?” I asked.

“You know I can’t.”

“Until I fall asleep. It won’t take me long. Please?” Maybe I couldn’t face the thought that he had hurt me. If he had, he was doing everything in his power to make sure it didn’t happen again.

His body drew tight. I must have asked for too much. But slowly he relaxed, and the strain in the air was released. “Let me lock the door.”

He was gone only a minute, and yet as soon as I shut my eyes, the horrifying dream about Azazel returned. It pulled me in quickly and was so disturbing that when Michael touched my hand on his return, I screamed again and practically jumped out of bed.

“Sorry,” he said. “I forget how terror can be sometimes.”

Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you’re here. My nightmares will go away now.”

“Oh, so you just want someone to keep the monsters at bay,” he joked, but he sounded nervous. “What makes you so sure I’m not one of them?”

“Because I can see.”

His long body was all angles and limbs as he eased himself onto the bed beside me, outside the covers, and tension pulsed through him like a live wire. But eventually he settled, as though through a great act of will, and stretched out to hang his legs over the end of my double bed, his arms tight to his sides.

His cotton shirt was soft against my cheek as I leaned my head against his shoulder, afraid to breathe in case I frightened him away. It seemed he wasn’t breathing either. The electric hum of my alarm clock blared even louder than normal, and I marveled at how I could ever sleep through it. A faucet had been opened inside me, the current flowing. I buzzed with it. Now wide awake, I struggled to stay still. At least the horrifying images of Azazel were gone, replaced by other memories of the night, like kissing Michael. And while lying in his arms, unable to sleep, seemed to be the perfect place to think about that, believe me, it wasn’t. I needed to distract myself.

“You know, there’s this sound your wings make when the wind hits them,” I babbled. “It’s a beautiful sound.”

He touched my hand, intertwined his warm fingers with mine. Even that touch was electric between us. “Really?”

I swallowed. My throat was dry and tight, but I wasn’t about to get out of bed for water. “Then there’s the sound of your voice.”

“My voice?”

I held my breath, hoping to regain control. “Sometimes it takes on a completely different sound. Like a choir.”

“You can hear that?” He broke into a laugh. “I should have known.”

“Is that when you’re working?”

Nodding, he said, “It’s the Host.”

“The host?”

He squeezed my hand and brought it close to his heart. The light in his eyes glowed faintly orange in the dim of my room. “When any one of us acts on behalf of Heaven, all the angels in the network are with us. So if one of us speaks, all of our voices are heard.”

I took a deep breath and let that sink in. Closing my eyes, I saw an explosion of light erupt through darkness, forging galaxies and filling the sky with stars. Planets formed from colored light. The sound it made was incredible, comprised of many notes and harmonies all playing together at once. It was as though all life stemmed from that one eruption, like a spark that started a fire. Startled by it, I gasped.