by Alisa Woods
Asa ran a hand through his hair, panic leaving his body in small, short breaths. “I know.” He searched the floor for a moment. What could he do to keep her? He’d tried everything he could think, conjure, or borrow. When he looked up, both Razael and Laylah were giving him painful looks of pity. “I’ll speak to her,” he said tersely. “If we are finished, my lord?”
Razael nodded, but the look of pity followed Asa out of the throne room.
All the way back to the nursery, Asa beat his fist against his forehead, but no thoughts were shaken loose. How could he make Molly see? How could he convince her she was safer here—that it wasn’t a prison, it was a safehouse…
But nothing came to him.
When he charged through the nursery door, he had no plan or even any idea what he might say.
Molly and Ren turned quickly, startled by his sudden entrance—they each held one of the babies.
“Can I speak to you?” His voice was strained.
Molly scowled and set the baby in the crib. Ren’s frown followed her over.
Molly stood in front of him, arms crossed. “What do you want?”
For her to want to stay? That was really the sum total of it. The pain inside his chest said he would never have that. Never. The next best thing would be simply convincing her she couldn’t escape.
“Can we talk in private?” He held out his hand.
She stared at it a beat too long. “Where are you taking me?” She glanced back to Ren, who had also set down the baby she was holding, now on high alert.
He sighed. “Just to my cell.” He raised his voice for Ren. “She’ll return shortly.”
Molly pressed her lips together, judging his outstretched hand.
How foolish was he? Thinking he could win her heart? Thinking that simply providing a few necessary things might make the Regiment a home—one where she would want to stay?
He could hardly convince her to take his hand.
But she finally did.
He twisted and brought her with him back to his cell. It was crowded with the bathroom he’d conjured, and his thin-mat bed, which now held the bag of her clothes and a leftover tray from breakfast. Simple things. A vibrant woman like Molly would want so much more out of life than these. How had he not seen that before?
“Laylah told me,” he said, dragging his gaze up to meet hers.
Her eyes went wide.
“You can’t leave, Molly.” The words were dead in his mouth. Truth… but still dead.
She took a half step back, glancing around as if looking for a secret door to escape. “Why did you bring me back here?” There was fear in her voice.
It gutted him, poisoned him from the inside out, like a blade of light magic.
“Not to hurt you.” The exasperation showed in his voice. “I’m trying to protect you. That’s all I’m trying to do. That’s all I want.”
“What about what I want!” She stepped forward again. Her anger, the tremble of her lip, the fear that kept her eyes wide and full… all of it felt like body blows. “Or am I just a thing to you? A delicate vase that might break and has to be protected? Guarded and locked up and given nice toys and treats, all so I don’t remember that I have a life. Had a life. Before this. And now that’s all been taken away because I made one mistake…” The trembling lip was turning into tears, and it was shredding his heart into bloody pieces. “One mistake and a whole lot of bad luck, and now I’m stuck here in hell with no chance of parole? Ever? I can’t live forever in this place, Asa!”
“You won’t live at all outside it, Ellie!” He shook his fist toward the door. “It’s not safe! Don’t you see?”
“What?” Her fear dissolved into confusion.
“I’m trying to save you,” he insisted. How could she not see this? How could she not know it to be true?
“What did you call me?” Her green eyes were blazing at him now.
He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. “You have to trust me. Please. I won’t let anything happen to you—”
“Who the hell is Ellie?”
A jolt went through him, like a bolt of lightning had struck him where he stood. Ellie… what had Laylah told her? Why was Molly asking… then he heard his own words again.
Fuck. He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, then backed up against the door. The solid hum on his back. The reassuring solidity of it there.
Tell her. He had to. He would explain it all… then… maybe she would understand.
He opened his eyes. “Ellie’s the only woman I’ve ever loved.” Until you. But he kept that part locked away, a burden he alone would bear for the rest of time. Because none of this would turn out well if he told her. Not now.
Molly’s eyes went wide again, but she just stared at him, waiting.
“I was on walkabout.” His voice went suddenly raspy. “She was alluring like nothing I’d ever known. Funny and bright like a flower and incandescent as the sun. I loved her from the first moment I saw her, but she was forbidden, you see. Back when I was in the light with wings of white and full of garbage ideas about Sin. I knew nothing of Sin… except that in her presence, I lusted and loved and laughed with every fiber of my being.” For a moment, his voice left him. He’d not let himself go there for so long, his thoughts lost in the good days before the bad.
“What happened?” Molly whispered. She’d inched closer.
His back was against the wall, or he’d put more space between them. The Siren Call of her shining Virtues was even louder now… now that she was full of concern for him and his tale of woe and broken souls. “She was savaged by a shadow angeling. I was gone…” He choked out a wretched laugh. “I was contemplating whether I should stay and try to love her. As if I wasn’t already hopelessly lost.”
Molly’s eyes were luminous, peering into his.
He looked away. “When I returned, she was with child. A shadowling forced himself upon her, violating her and leaving a piece of himself inside her to grow and grow.” The Wrath surged up, as predictable as the sun. He wrestled it back down. Then he turned his pain-dulled gaze to Molly. “I promised to protect her. You see, they always come back for the child. To build their armies. It was one of Elyon’s angelings, and I knew they’d return.”
Horror lit Molly’s face. “Did they take her?”
“No.” He let a small snort escape him. “That was the one thing I managed. I fought them and their shadow blades back with mine made of light. I vanquished them. But it didn’t matter.”
“Why not?” The horror was gone, but she’d inched closer again, and he could hardly bear the brilliance of her Compassion and concern.
“Because I saved her from them, but not from herself.” He pulled in a shuddering breath. The bath filled with blood. The glazed and lifeless expression on her face. It haunted him still, seizing him when he least expected it. “She took her own life. They’d broken her, and she couldn’t bear to carry one of them inside her.”
Molly’s gaze dropped to the floor. She said nothing, just rested a hand on her belly.
“I told her,” he insisted. “The baby is a new soul. Bright-shining and pure. Nothing like the beast who raped her.”
Molly looked up and nodded. “It’s not the baby’s fault.”
“No.” He gave her all the smile he could muster. It wasn’t much. “It’s not the baby’s fault. It’s mine. I couldn’t…” He squeezed his eyes shut, pushing through the pain of the Truth. “I didn’t love her the way she needed. I didn’t know how.” He opened his eyes again. “And when I wasn’t looking… her life bled away down a drain.”
Molly’s eyes went round and shining again. “Oh, Asa. I’m so sorry.” Her Virtues, if they were any brighter, might blind him.
And in that instant, he saw it. A small shift in angle cutting the glare so he could see past the bright-shining surface to the depths inside. Molly was a soul who couldn’t be caged. Ellie’s death was a death of the soul long before it was a death of the body. It wasn’t
the assault that killed her. It wasn’t even carrying the rapist’s child. It was knowing she could escape none of it. The shadow realm would always want her. The child would always be with her. It was the fact that they returned for her, and would do so again, and again and again… Asa himself had told her so, in his desperate desire to keep her safe… and it had destroyed her.
He couldn’t let that happen to Molly.
“I have something I need to do.” His words were a whisper.
“What?” As if she hadn’t heard him correctly.
He smiled. She was close enough now, so he brushed the back of his fingers against the infinite smoothness of her cheek—like he had before when he was in the throes of fighting his Lust. That one touch was all he’d ever have with her, but it was everything now—a simple touch, but it held all this love. A promise.
This time, he’d do it right.
“Wait for me,” was all he said.
Then he twisted away and left her in his room.
Chapter Eighteen
Asa just… disappeared.
Wait for me, he said. As if she could do anything else, locked away in his cell. But then, when he didn’t return, for an hour and then two… she tried the door. There was no door handle or obvious way to open it, but when she pushed on it, it easily slid open.
She jumped back.
Wide-eyed, she peered into the hallway. There was no one there. Then she crept out and tip-toed on her bare feet down the hall. Maybe she could find Laylah. Or Ariel. Or get someone else to whisk her away. She knew better than to think she could simply walk out of hell and into downtown Seattle—it took magic to get there.
Then an angeling strode into the hallway… and stopped short. He stared at her and her at him—then he disappeared. He didn’t even turn around and go back the way he came—he did the magic traveling thing to get out of there as fast as he could.
She skittered back to Asa’s cell and closed the door.
And waited.
He’d left the door open for her—why? Did he just forget?
And that story he told her… her heart broke for him. She understood now why he couldn’t let her go. He was haunted by this woman he had loved. Just thinking about the story was making her pace again in Asa’s tiny cell. Eden was broken like Ellie—more so, actually, because it hadn’t just happened once. But Molly wasn’t like that—sure, she carried the baby of an angeling who she’d known for about twelve hours and whose conversation consisted mostly of grunts and ecstatic cursing. But that was a mistake, not a trauma. She wasn’t going to take her life over it. It was being caged like an animal—a pampered animal, a delicate pet, but still a thing—that was slowly eating her from the inside out. She hadn’t realized how much it had affected her until she’d had those hours of freedom in her apartment—her and Eden and Ren, and even Ariel and the babies, all imagining a future for themselves. Suddenly, she had a family and a life—even better than her endless days scrabbling on the corporate ladder at her old job with few friends and nothing close to family.
And then it had been ripped away. Again.
Back to the box for her.
Just when she had something good happen in her life, Lady Bad Luck had struck again.
Molly had blamed Asa for that. And while he was keeping her locked up in Razael’s Regiment, she could see now that he really couldn’t help it—he was heart-broken and keeping her safe was somehow like saving the woman he couldn’t save before. A woman he loved. The way he talked about her… that had been the hardest to listen to. That kind of love. She’d never had anything like it. Watching his lips speak those love-filled words, seeing it in his eyes, she felt burning-hot jealousy of a woman she’d never known and who was already dead.
It would be crazy if it hadn’t left her so shaken.
Like she’d just discovered a hole inside herself.
And that hole just grew bigger the longer Asa was gone.
Their time together had been short and insane… but it had been real. More real than any of the flit-in, flit-out boyfriends she’d had. The angeling who got her pregnant was a substantially better lover than those guys, but he wasn’t much different otherwise—just another superficial good time, then he quickly moved on. They all did, although not always in a single night. If she were honest, there was a reason for it. She used to think maybe her hair was too red or her thighs too plump, or maybe her humor was just a little off. Maybe she was too boring—she did have an extensive collection of cat figurines—but in the end, it was really just one thing. They ended it because she’d never let it start. If she did, then maybe Lady Bad Luck would take them, just like everyone she’d ever loved.
Whenever Asa finally came back—he had to come back, right?—she’d tell him the truth. That she understood why he was keeping her locked up for safekeeping. That she got it—she’d locked away a part of herself years ago and never let it go free again. That was why she was so desperate to leave this insane magical place, no matter how pretty he made it—because this literal cage was far too close to the one she’d built for herself long ago.
And that wasn’t his fault.
She didn’t know if it would make a difference—but she wanted him to know. He’d bared his heart to her, and it only seemed fair to do the same. She wanted to—as if telling him would fill up a bit of that hole she’d just discovered. And maybe it would help him, somehow, to know that, in a way, he’d already set her free.
So she waited.
And waited.
She was actually getting hungry and was almost tempted to venture out in search of food, but she didn’t want to miss him when he came back. So, instead, she lay down on the thin cot that comprised his bed and stared at the ceiling—like she’d done those endless days in Elyon’s nursery. Only this time, she had something good to daydream about. Something to look forward to, even if it was only Asa returning so she could tell him she understood.
After a while, she closed her eyes.
She pictured him coming to her with a chocolate croissant and that earnest look—like he hoped she would like it. She would tell him it was delicious and lick her lips and probably think naughty thoughts about him. In her fantasy, she could even tell him how delicious he was, with those deep brown eyes and smoldering hot muscles. Then he’d look at her like he did when she wore the green dress, all heat and fire and want. He’d touch her cheek, and she’d tell him then—that maybe it wasn’t a cage if he was in it with her—and the soft stroke of his fingers against her skin wouldn’t stop at her chin. He’d trace a slow, sensual line down her body, making her melt into a puddle of throbbing, needy womanhood. And then he’d—
“Molly.”
She gasped in air, her body still heavy with sleep or she probably would have screamed.
“Are you all right?” He hovered over her, peering down with such concern that all she could do was nod, vigorously.
She swallowed down the dryness in her mouth—God, was she drooling in her sleep??—and croaked out, “I’m fine.”
He eased back and beckoned her to sit up. “Are you ready?”
She frowned. “Ready for what?”
He gave her a smile, but it was a sad one. And he didn’t explain, just offered his hand to her. So, they were going back to the nursery, then. But she didn’t want to go just yet—she wanted to tell him! That she understood!
“Wait.” She swung her legs off the bed so she could face him more easily. He was down on one knee to check on her. “I want to tell you something.”
He offered his hand again. “Let me show you something first.” And he had that hopeful look again. It was literally impossible for her to say no. So she put her hand in his warm, soft one—and suddenly, they were whisked away from his cell…
…and into darkness. And she was busy falling backward given the cot she’d been sitting on had just disappeared, but Asa’s strong hold on her hand and his other hand suddenly at her back lifted her to standing. Then she was pressed up against him, in th
e dark, her baby bump leaned against the hard muscles of his stomach. His chest labored as he seemed to breathe harder than necessary.
He eased back and released her. She missed his touch immediately.
Then the lights came on.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Asa had moved away and was whispering something nearby. She blinked, and the room came into focus. They were in a cozy but elegant living room with a high ceiling—a stone fireplace against one wall, a white faux-fur rug on the wooden floor in front, and a cream-colored couch facing it. The rest of the room held a pair of chairs, a small table, a TV screen against one wall, and… a whole collection of cat figurines on the bookcase? That was strange.
Asa was making bizarre gestures at the door and speaking in a language she didn’t understand. What in the world?
But as she glanced around the rest of the apartment—a tiny kitchen peeked from one end and at the other was a darkened hallway leading away to what was probably the bedroom—she realized… this looked just like the human world.
“What’s going on?” she breathed, half amazement, half actual question.
Asa finished whatever he was doing at the door and returned to her, eyes alight. “Do you like it?”
This was for her. He conjured an entire apartment. She let out a small laugh then clapped her hands over her mouth. “You did this for me?” She ran her gaze over everything again, and it snagged on a picture. Of her parents. “How did you do this?” She strode over to pick it up. It was an exact replica of the one from her apartment. And the cat figures… they were hers. She held the picture frame to her chest and turned to him—he had followed her over, that hopeful look in his eyes tinged with worry. “Did you go to my apartment?” she asked.
“Is that all right?” The worry quickly took over.
All right? It was so thoughtful… Tears were stinging the back of her eyes. She nodded quickly.
“I can… I can take them back…” He looked alarmed and confused.
She laughed—just a small snort—then ducked her head to wipe her eyes. “No, it’s perfect.” Then she sniffed. She should tell him. Right now. But then something else caught her eye—a window to the side of the fireplace. The blinds were mostly closed, but sunlight was sneaking through.
