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are you? What are you? How did you get in here?”
Despite her questions, she seemed to know that he was not like the creature he had just defeated. Demons did their best to evoke fear. Angels did their best to evoke a sense of calm. Or rather, they were supposed to.
“What are you?” the female asked again. “Are you here to kill me?”
Kill me, Zacharel. You have to kill me. Please. I can’t live like this anymore. It’s too much, too hard. Please!
Again the past threatened to rise up and consume him. Again he blanked his mind. Though he owed the female no explanation, though she was a demon’s consort and couldn’t be trusted, he found himself saying, “I will not kill you. I am an angel.”
As with all the Deity’s angels, Zacharel’s voice held an undeniable ring of truth. Typical of her kind, she flinched at its purity—but she could not doubt him.
Blinking rapidly, she said, “An angel. As in, an angel from heaven, defender of all that’s good and right?”
Perhaps she could doubt him. Her tone had been sneering. But he found it interesting that she did not spew the same hate at him that she had spewed at the demon. As the mate of a high lord, she should despise Zacharel above all others. That she didn’t… Definitely tricked.
“Well?”
“Yes, I am from the heavens, though I am probably not the race of angel you are familiar with.” He stretched his wings. Snowflakes continued to fall from him. His feathers were once again pearlescent, the gold threaded between each one shimmering. He frowned when he noticed the gold was thicker than ever before.
Thousands of years had passed, and his feathers had never changed color, for such a change usually indicated that an elevation of status was in the works. For those under the Deity’s charge, only the Elite Seven were blessed with wings of solid gold. Joy-bringers were characterized by wings of solid white. Warriors such as Zacharel possessed the white with mere traces of the gold. But what he had now was more than a trace.
There had to be some other explanation. Much as he’d hoped otherwise, his Deity had said nothing to him about rising to the level of the Elite. And he was hardly in a position to be considered for an advancement, anyway, when he was fighting so staunchly to keep the title he did have.
“There’s more than one race?” she asked after looking him over. “Never mind. Don’t take this the wrong way, but…you’re not a nice-looking man. And I’m not talking about your sexiness factor.”
“No. I’m not nice.” Humans often pictured angels as soft, cuddly beings who frolicked in the sunshine, made roses bloom and painted rainbows in the sky. He knew that. And some angels were, but so many were not.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Mean?”
He should not have allowed curiosity to get the better of him. Should not have opened this line of conversation.
That ended now. “Enough, human. You have picked up more trouble than you can currently carry. I do not suggest you seek any more.”
“Well, what do you know?” she said with a laugh devoid of amusement. The pink tip of her tongue swiped over her lips. “The doctors finally got something right. I’m hallucinating. Only in my mind would an angel treat someone so poorly.”
“I have not treated you poorly, and you are not hallucinating.”
“The drugs are affecting my brain, then,” she insisted.
“They are not.”
“But…you can’t be an angel. Only evil comes here.”
“Wrong again.” At least today.
“I…I… Okay, I can roll with this. I mean, why not. Let’s say you’re actually real—”
“I am.”
“—and that you’re one of the good guys, since you’re not here to kill me. Are you here to…release me?”
She had asked the question with such sweet hesitation, he knew she dared not hope he would rescue her, yet with every ounce of her being she wanted to believe escape was imminent.
Perhaps another man would have been moved by her plight, but not Zacharel.