A halo of golden hair surrounds her head, when it’s supposed to be bubblegum pink.
A bright circle of light envelops her, but then I realize with confusing clarity, it isn’t light at all, but white wings behind her that seem to glow from the inside out.
When she puts her hand over my heart, I don’t feel a thing.
Then she smiles at me, and it’s the most heartbreaking smile I’ve ever seen in this whole goddamn world. Her lips move, but I can’t hear her. Her glow intensifies, burning my eyes, but I don’t dare look away. If I do, I know the darkness will consume me.
The next thing I know, that fish hook stuck in my pathetic heart is yanked. Pain explodes in my body like a bomb being detonated in my chest.
I can’t cry out. I can’t curse or scream. All I can do is lie here and die.
At least I got to see her one last time.
My heart ruptures. My body shuts down. I hear the softest hint of a whisper. I don’t even think I hear it with my ears, but somewhere inside my head.
Have a good life, Warren Knight, and try not to be an asshole anymore. I love you.
I want to reply that I don’t understand. I want to tell her that it’s death I’m going to, not life. But I can’t, because she’s already gone, and I’m slipping away.
Her voice is all I’m left with, and then my time is done, and I’ve fallen onto death’s blade as its next unwilling victim.
I love you too.
Chapter 37
Trix
Six Months Later
A new dead—or a ned as I like to call them—lands at my feet and starts dry heaving. Some incorporeal spit flings from his mouth and lands on my wings. “Eww.” I wrinkle my nose and step away from him.
I should probably have more compassion since I’m a damn angel, but hey, nobody’s perfect.
The guy groans as he gets up, and he’s a good three feet taller than I am when he straightens up. He’s a spindly dude, looking like a stick insect with wheat-stock limbs and crooked eyes.
“Wh-Where am I?” he sputters.
I pluck at my white wings. “You’re dead. Welcome to the afterlife. Please get in line to be processed,” I drawl.
He starts making a keening noise of sadness. I just blink at him.
I know, I know. Worst angel ever.
Luckily, one of the other angels working the line with me bustles over. Cariel looks like he used to be a grizzly shifter, because he’s a bear of a man and hairy all over. Even his white wings have sprouts of fur popping between the feathers.
“It’s okay,” Cariel soothes the ned. “Grace be with you,” he says before pushing some of his calming light towards him.
The ned nods, instantly calming. “Thank you,” he says with a hint of reverence.
Cariel nods all pompous angel-like, and the ned moves forward to get in line with the rest of the dead schmucks.
Cariel turns and marches over to me. “You could be a little kinder,” he reprimands me.
“I know. I’m sorry.” I really am, but I feel empty inside. I can barely fake a smile most days.
He shakes his head and looks around the massive room as we wait for more neds to show up. It’s been a bit slow this morning.
“How many people have you given Grace to today?” he asks.
“I dunno. Maybe, like...one?”
His bushy brows shoot up in surprise. “One? We’ve been working the line for hours.”
“Sorry,” I say again. I say that word a lot as an angel.
I should be grateful. After all, my angel powers made it possible to heal Warren’s heart. And the Veil didn’t pop me out of nonexistence—that’s definitely something to be thankful for. But to be honest, my heart isn’t in my afterlife job anymore. How can it be when I left it behind with a man I’ll never see again?
“These souls need reassuring,” he chastises me in his gravelly voice.
“I know.”
Guilt curls up in my stomach like the edge of a dry leaf.
Ever since becoming an angel six months ago, I’ve been struggling to adjust. After healing Warren, I was yanked back to the Veil and told to do grunt work. Punishment for going on an unauthorized trip and using my powers before I was trained.
My job now consists of staying in the processing center and being a glorified line monitor.
Some more neds pop up. Humans, vampires, fae, trolls, even a centaur by the looks of it. He stumbles on his hooves before looking wildly around. “Yeah, yeah. You’re dead. Welcome to the afterlife. Please move forward to the back of the line.”
I swear, his ghostly form pales a little bit when he sees how long it is. We can’t see to the front. Hell, we can’t even see to the middle of it. It’s just an endless snake of zig zags, as far as the eye can see, spanning the enormous building and fading into the distance like a cloudy mirage.
“I know,” I tell him with a conciliatory look. “But it’s not like you have anywhere else to be, am I right?”
He wrinkles his nose at my distasteful joke before clopping away.
Cariel sighs. “You definitely did not just bestow Grace on his soul to ease him into his transition, angel.”
“Trix,” I correct him. “For the thousandth time in six months, my name is Trix.”
He shakes his head. “And like I told you before, angel. Not anymore. Your angelic name is Muriel.”
I scoff. “Fuck that.”
The gold band around my wrist starts to burn in warning at my expletive. “Ouch!”
Cariel smirks and tsks under his breath. “Still haven’t learned your lesson.”
I glare at him as I think very unangelic thoughts. I picture my ghostly fist punching straight into his hairy gut. I don’t care that he’s four times bigger than me, I’d still hit him if I could.
More souls pop up, a few of them rowdy. I blast them with an overly intense bout of ambrosial Light to calm the fuckers down. They scramble away real quick, shielding their eyes as they go.
I turn to Cariel in triumph. “There, I embraced the shit out of my Light just then.”
Cariel sighs. So judgmental.
My band burns again, but this time, it starts to glow too, and a message pops up on it. I’m being summoned to a supervisor.
“Uh oh.”
Cariel glances down at it, not looking the least bit surprised. “Bad luck, Muriel. I wonder if they’ll terminate you for good?” he muses.
I bristle, but honestly...he’s right. They might actually terminate me. It’s not like I’m excelling as an angel.
“Peace be with you,” he says with a shit-eating smirk on his face as I turn to head to the angel offices. He shines a little Grace over to me to be a jackass, but I bat that shit away like an annoying fly and flip him off over my shoulder. I get burned again. Worth it.
I fly my way past the snaking line of souls and then veer off to head to the hallway that has clouds for floors and harp music playing over the speakers. Light shines from above, too bright to look at directly, and a little bit of golden glitter hangs in the air. It looks beautiful. I hate it.
My band said to go to office number two, so I fly in front of the door. I fidget with a white feather on my wing and hover nervously. Is this it? Am I going to be popped out of existence for good?
I don’t regret becoming an angel. But I wish I could forget what it was like being a cupid—what it was like being with him.
Maybe they’ll terminate me, and I’ll cease to exist. Maybe that’s what should happen, because I don’t know how much longer I can stand this. It’s like my soul is severed. I just don’t have the heart anymore.
Before I can really work up my level of nervousness, the door slides open, and a male angel stands before me. He’s smooth, shiny, and drop dead gorgeous, in an impossibly perfect kind of way.
He has golden hair and white wings like me, but he’s impressively large, and the loin cloth look is really working for him. Wow. It’s like he has a third leg down there.
“C
ome,” he tells me.
“Gee, I usually need a little more warm-up than that, but I’ll do my best,” I joke nervously.
I don’t think he gets it, because he doesn’t laugh. Or crack a smile. Or do anything other than blink. Sheesh. It’s like these angels can’t appreciate a dirty joke. Never had that problem with cupids.
Clearing my throat, I fly inside his office...and then stop in my tracks when I see that we’re not alone.
“Sev?”
I look at my old cupid supervisor, and a pang hits my chest. I missed this crazy dude.
“Hello, luv,” he says with a smirk.
He’s dressed in his tight rocker clothes as usual, but there’s also a demon standing right next to him, picking at his nails as his black wings smoke behind him.
“What’s going on?” I ask, looking back worriedly at the angel as he strides forward to stand on the other side of Sev.
“Well, luv dove, I hear you’re not being a very good angel. Not that I’m surprised,” Sev says, looking oddly proud about that. “You’re a cupid at heart, after all.”
Hearing that makes me want to cry.
“You’re really fooking terrible at these afterlife jobs.”
I give a humorless laugh. “I know.”
He shakes his head. “Just when you finally got good at being a cupid, you go off and become a damn angel. Fooking boring, the lot of ’em.”
The angel shoots him a glare. “Becoming an angel is the highest honor.”
The demon snorts. Sev rolls his eyes. “Aye, whatever you say, dovey.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” the angel replies.
The three of them come towards me, and I tense, not sure what’s going on. “What...what are you doing?”
Am I about to be terminated? Shit. I don’t actually want to go pop.
“Wait!” I say, holding up my hands. “I’ll try to be better! I’ll do my job, I swear!”
The three of them close in around me. I can’t even back up a step before I’m surrounded. “You’re no good as an angel, luv. And we can’t turn you back into a cupid. One more trip through that arch, and you’ll be a goner for sure,” Sev explains. “Only one thing to do.”
This can’t be happening.
Please, don’t let this be happening.
“Sev!”
Without warning, all three of them raise their arms, and power suddenly shoots out of their hands.
I’m blasted with pink, white, and black power that wraps around me.
I open my mouth to scream, but it just rushes in and takes over my insides too.
It’s like I’m simultaneously being filled with smoke, suffocated with water, and smothered with light.
Pain and numbness war inside of me as my back arches with agonizing pain.
Too many sensations take over me, and my vision starts to blur as the world spins.
The last thing I see before I’m yanked out of the office is Sev winking at me. “You’re welcome, luv.”
What?
Then, pain erupts inside of me like an angry volcano, and I start to fall, fall, fall.
Now, I may not be a good one, but I’m fairly certain that falling never ends well for angels.
Godsdammit.
Chapter 38
Trix
Once again, I land ass-first.
But this time, it’s on sand instead of marble tile.
The brutal landing shakes my bones and makes me bite my tongue as pain jars through me.
I look around at the dark world, my skin instantly spreading with goosebumps from the cool night air.
I look down at my body. “Motherfucker,” I curse. “Why am I naked again?”
But then it hits me.
I’m solid.
I’m not in the Veil anymore.
I look over my shoulder, and sure enough, my wings are gone.
I try to summon some angelic Light. Nothing. I try to blow some Lust for old time’s sake. Nada.
Oh my gods.
Three Major Veil supervisors pushed their powers into me. I don’t know how they did it, but they sent me back here. Alive. In the physical realm. As a human.
I jump to my feet in utter shock and whirl around to take in my surroundings.
I’m on a beach.
His beach.
“Holy shit,” I murmur.
My shock gets cut short when a dark shadow starts racing toward me and ferocious barks crack through the air like thunder.
“Fuck, fuck, fricken fuck!”
I turn and try to book it. The last thing I want to do is get mauled by a dog within the first sixty seconds of returning to earth. But of course, I’ve gone too long without a corporeal body, so...yeah. I eat major shit.
I’m talking body arcing dramatically, arms flailing, non-existent wings trying to propel me upwards, sand flying as I crash down—all major shit eating stuff.
And then it’s just full starfish mode all over again.
Sand gets everywhere.
Ass crack, armpits, mouth, hair, vagina. It’s all up in my business, ensuring I’ll never be able to reopen. I groan as I spit out sand from my mouth.
At least no one was around to see me.
“Hey, are you okay?” a voice calls.
“Fuck you, Karma,” I hiss.
The vicious, barking dog makes it to my prone form, and I flinch and quickly sit up, but instead of it attacking me, I feel it start to lick me all over my sandy limbs.
“Get back, dog,” the voice says.
I freeze.
My insides go totally frozen while my skin immediately heats with nerves. My body knows the truth even as my mind is struggling to keep up.
I hear his footsteps, and then I’m looking up at his dark, shadowed figure standing above me.
He kneels down in front of me, and as soon as his eyes land on my face, shock washes over his features. We stare at each other unblinkingly with matching looks of disbelief.
I can’t believe this is real.
This can’t be real.
Am I fricken dreaming?
Did some twisted shitfucker sandman trick me or something? If I wake up right now, I’m going to be pissed. I will Light up someone’s ass with my angelness so damn strong their shits will glow.
I reach up to pinch my nipple to make sure that this is all real. I hiss in pain immediately. “Ouch,” I say, dropping my hand.
That fricken hurt. Hindsight, don’t pick the nipple to pinch.
But the pinch test worked, which means...
“I’m here?”
Warren’s eyes run over my face like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. The feeling is mutual because I can’t believe it either. I never thought I’d see him again.
“It is you,” he whispers, as if the nipple pinching was what convinced him.
I can’t speak. I can’t even move. All I can do is look at him, because he’s here, he’s alive, he’s okay, and he can see me.
Healing him right after I became an angel was difficult. I nearly destroyed myself from the amount of power I pushed into him. For a new angel, it was a dangerous thing to do, but the risks never mattered. I’d do it all over again if he needed me to.
Tears fall from my eyes as I study him. He looks so different from the last time I saw him.
“You’re okay,” I murmur, like I need to reassure myself.
He nods slowly, and I see his throat bob. “The doctors called it a miracle. My heart is completely healed with no abnormalities or deficiencies. They can’t explain it.”
I smile secretively to myself. “I’m glad.”
I want to throw myself in his arms. I want to kiss him. I want him to hold me and let me feel that he really is okay, but I don’t do any of those things. Because despite the fact that I love him with all of my being, he still ended things between us, and I don’t know where he stands.
“I can’t believe you’re here. That you’re real…” he trails off, his voice holding a hint of awe. “I dream
ed about you when I was in the hospital. Just like this. Golden hair. White light. Your voice...” he says quietly, his eyes trailing over my features. “That damn dream has been burned into my mind for months. You told me not to be an asshole.”
A little snort escapes me, even as my throat bobs up and down with emotion. “Did you listen?” I tease.
The first hint of a smile cracks his lips. “Sometimes.”
“I’ll be sure to grade you on it later.”
His grin widens. “I’d expect nothing less.” His eyes flick downward. “I see you’re naked again.”
I brush away the tears that fell unbidden from my eyes and sigh. “Yeah. It just sort of happened. Again.”
He nods, and this his face grows somber again. “Where have you been, Trix?”
“I had a...work thing.”
He reaches over to brush the tears and sand off my cheek. I can’t help it when I nuzzle into him further and close my eyes at the small touch. I crave more. So much more.
“You left,” he says quietly.
My eyes open, and I lick my dry lips. “I told you I had to.”
“But now you’re back?” he asks hesitantly.
“I guess that depends.”
“On what?” he asks.
“On whether or not you want me to stay,” I admit quietly.
I wait for his answer, unable to breathe. If he rejects me again, it’ll destroy me. But six months have passed. Maybe something’s changed. Maybe he’s found someone else. Maybe he doesn’t want me around anymore. Maybe—
His lips crash against mine, and then I find myself on my back, with him settled between my legs as he devours me whole.
I feel like I can breathe for the first time in six months, and not just because I have a body again, but because I have his lips on mine.
Relief floods into me, and my soul sings to his at our passionate reunion. His tongue pushes between my lips like a hand reaching out to hold me. He cradles the back of my head, protecting me from the hard ground, and he kisses me until I can’t think.
He takes away all of the worry and fear and hurt and pain. He shows me how much he missed me with every sweep of his tongue.
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