“Look at me, Zacharel! Look how high I’m flying!”

“You’re doing so well, Hadrenial. I’m proud of you.”

“Like humans,” Annabelle said, “minus the flying, of course.”

“Yes.” He toyed with a lock of her hair. “The created were strong from the moment they first blinked open their eyes, but they never quite learned to understand the humans they were meant to safeguard. But that is why both the born and the created are useful. They excel in different areas, one picking up the other’s slack.”

“Who created them?”

“The Most High.”

Despite his status, Zacharel had never come to understand or sympathize with the humans. He had grown out of his weakness, but the humans had never seemed to do so. They had reminded him of grains of sand—there, but easily lost in the masses and forgotten.

What about the human in your arms? She is not weak, and you will never forget her.

No, she wasn’t, and no, he wouldn’t.

The warmth of her breath caressed his chest. “I’m trying to imagine little Zacharel. Were you allowed to play games as a child?”

“No. Hadrenial and I had duties, even then. When we weren’t training, we acted as messengers and scouts, and sometimes even served as escorts for human spirits to their eternal home.”

Hadrenial had hated that part of their life.

“Look how her loved ones cry over her loss. I can’t bear to see so much pain.”

“They will see each other again. One day.”

“Will they? What if one goes to heaven, and the other to hell?”

“We will not be to blame. They will.”

“Surely there’s something we can do to help them, to make sure.”

Zacharel had wanted to take over the duty of escorting the spirits completely, but he hadn’t allowed himself to do so. He’d hoped his brother would eventually become desensitized to it, that he would no longer feel the tenderness that had shadowed every aspect of his life.

He was wrong.

“I’m so sorry,” Annabelle said, drawing him back to the present.

He tensed, afraid he had accidentally spoken the long-ago conversation aloud. “Why?”

“You were deprived. Every child, even an angel warrior-in-training, deserves to relax and have fun.” A warm chuckle left her. “My brother and I used to play hide-and-seek in the house, and one time I hid a little too well. He looked for me for over an hour, and ultimately I fell asleep. He asked my parents for help, and the way they tell it, they tore the house up searching for me. When they couldn’t find me, either, they called the cops, thinking I’d been kidnapped.”

The joy in her voice… I want to make her feel that way. “Where were you?”

“In the dryer, snuggled up with the still-warm towels.” Another chuckle, sparkling like champagne. “Maybe one day you and I can play. We’ll—” She stopped, just stopped.

Assuming something was wrong, Zacharel held out his hand, preparing to summon his sword of fire while at the same time scanning the room. No demon jumped from the shadows or misted through the walls, and he relaxed.

“Never mind,” she said. “So anyway, how’d you become friends with those demon-possessed men?”

She’d stopped herself because she’d wanted to speak of the future, their future, but had thought better of it.

“You will stay with me, Annabelle,” he said.

“For now,” she replied.

“Far longer.”

“I know. For our month.”

That sounded like the beginning of a brush-off speech. “You are planning to leave me afterward?” he ground out.

“Well, yeah. And why are you suddenly so cranky? My plan should make you happy.”

“I am not happy.”

“But you said you wanted to part after our month on earth.”

“I said no such thing. You will stay with me and that’s final.”

“Actually, no, I—”

He spoke over her. “Now I will tell you my story.” He didn’t pause, didn’t give her a chance to talk over him. “One of the warriors was being tormented by hundreds of demon minions. Because of that, he was inadvertently poisoning those around him. I was part of another army at the time, and we were sent in to save him, or kill him if we couldn’t. His friends…protested. I had never before interacted with their kind, and soon realized they’d fought their demons, were still fighting the demons every day, somehow braver, better, more honorable than others I’d encountered. They would never allow the evil to dominate their lives.”

“Well, you’re brave and honorable, too, Zacharel.”

He did not taste a lie. She truly thought so. “Then why would you wish to leave me?”

“Because” was all the stubborn woman would say.

Because she did not know the truth about him?

He had never spoken of the events that had led to Hadrenial’s death. Not to another angel, not even to his Deity. But he would tell Annabelle, he decided. He would tell her everything. She would finally know, and they could build some kind of future from there.

“My brother was abducted. We were together, escorting a spirit to the heavens when a horde of demons attacked us. I fought them, and I thought Hadrenial managed to whisk the spirit to safety. But…” He swallowed a mouthful of bitter regret. “Though the spirit made it to the heavens, Hadrenial did not. He had simply disappeared.”

She traced a heart over the smudge on his chest. “Not knowing what happened must have been torturous.”

“Yes. I searched. For an entire year I searched, yet there was never a sign of him. I interrogated every demon I could, and always they denied knowledge of him. But then, one day, I came home and he was there. Just…there, tied to my bed. He was a mere shell of himself, for his captors had starved and beaten him. Worse, they had pitted his morals against his need to survive. For every scrap of food, every day without a fist in his face or gut, he had to do something reprehensible, like hurt a human they threw into the cell with him.”

Warm liquid dripped onto his chest, and he knew tears were sliding down Annabelle’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

“I am not the one who was forced to endure such misery.”

“But you were miserable.”

“Not like my brother.”

“Pain is pain.” She kissed the center of the heart she’d traced. “Did you remain celibate all of these years because of what he endured? He found no pleasure in life, and so you wouldn’t, either?”

“No. Of course…not,” he said, catching himself there at the end. He had never thought about it that way, but stated so bluntly, he found it hard to deny. “I do not know.”

“When I was first arrested and taken to the institution, I didn’t fight back when other patients harassed me. I didn’t argue with my doctors, and I took every pill handed to me. I wanted to be numb, but more than that, I had seen how much my parents suffered and knew I had failed them in every way, so I felt like I deserved whatever bad things happened to me.”

“You were a child. What more could you have done?”

“Like you were a child when your twin was taken?”

His jaw clenched painfully. She was trying to absolve him of his own wrongdoing. While he liked that she tried, there was a difference in their stories. She had fought for her parents’ lives; he had taken his brother’s.

“Hadrenial begged me to kill him. I couldn’t do it, though. Not at first. I loved him with all that I was, and I finally had him back. I thought he would heal, and physically he did. But he was determined to die and kept hurting himself in the worst of ways. Kept hurting others in an attempt to force them to act against him. I knew one day he would succeed and if that happened, his spirit would be cast into hell. I would never again see him.”

“So you finally did it.” Her voice was layered with sadness.

“Yes. I killed him to save him.”

He expected disgust. He expected horror. Instead, Annabelle calmly asked, “And also ensured you would one day be together?”

“No,” he croaked. “He did not wish to live, even in the afterlife. I ensured he experienced the true death. I poisoned his spirit.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Like humans, we are spirits, the source of life. We have a soul, or the embodiment of our logic and emotions—and we live in a body.”

“So…what is the spirit if it’s not the same as the soul?”

“The soul is the middleman, so to speak, intertwined with both the spirit and the body. Without the spirit, the body could not survive, for the spirit is the outlet, where the electricity awaits, the soul is the plug, and the body is that which is propelled into action. Make sense?”

“Yes.”

“For a true death, you must destroy all three. I poured water from the River of Death down his throat, killing both spirit and soul, and then burned his body.” And yet, some small part of Zacharel still hoped for the best, imagining that Hadrenial had not truly died even then, but that his spirit had passed into the Most High’s kingdom, where he awaited Zacharel’s death so they could be reunited one day.

“I’m sorry, Zacharel. The agony of such a choice…the pain of such a loss…”

If he said any more, he would break down. He sensed it, grief churning deep in his gut, ready to spill out. “Sleep now, Annabelle.” He kissed the top of her head. “Tomorrow you must face your brother.”

* * *

BY MORNING, HOLDING ANNABELLE in his arms had sharpened Zacharel’s newfound need into a deadly edge. She had tossed and turned, rubbing her body against his, tracing her hands all over him.

He had done nothing about it. And he wouldn’t, not until he had her pledge to remain with him.

While she showered—and he fought the urge to join her—he summoned Thane and commanded the warrior to procure for her a pink T-shirt and a pair of jeans, as well as new undergarments. Also in pink. Zacharel wanted to see her in the feminine color, and so he would. It was as simple as that.