Prologue
Cohen
Okay, yeah. I’m drunk.
But notthatdrunk. Not “celestial hallucinations” drunk.
Yet I must be, because what I’m looking at can’t be real. It just can’t. What I’m looking at is an angel.
And yes, I’m in a room full of them. I’ve counted at least fifteen. Sixteen, if you include the brunette with the rhinestone halo who keeps pretending she’s not giving a lap dance to Mark in front of all his jackass clapping friends.
Best bachelor party ever—though I’m pretty sure that idiot Mark doesn’t plan on saying goodbye to bachelorhood anytime soon.
Honestly, I hope for Audrey’s sake he never makes it down the aisle.
Call me an asshole, fine, but Dominic took at least three high-def photos of Mark’s tongue in places that don’t legally appear on the image of a ready-to-marry man, and I’m a hundred percent certain he plans to show them to Audrey before she gets to choose the wedding cake flavor.
Me? I’m an idiot, too, sure. Just not that kind of idiot.
For example, if I were two months away from getting married (yes, this is actually a pre-bachelor party... whatever the hell that means), I probably wouldn’t be staring at Angel No. 3’s tits like that. Or even thinking about getting my tongue so far down her throat I’m practically checking her tonsils.
Revolting.
I’m not judging. Okay, yes, I’m judging.
It’s not like I’m at risk of getting married anyway—different story, different trauma, file that under ‘later.’
Let’s go back to the part where I might be in a coma.
Because The Angel isn’t like the others.
The other girls are wearing shimmering white outfits, halos, and plastic wings with elastic bands. It’s all very “chic,” but still “bachelor party chic,” if you catch my drift. Glitter, champagne, and rented morality.
She… isn't.
Her wings look real.
Layers of soft, enormous white feathers, arcing high over her shoulders like those old Victoria’s Secret runway shows that I, of course, never watched for "research". The feathers catch the light with every move, stroking the air. They make her look ethereal. Untouchable.
She’s wearing red.
It’s the first thing that hit me in the chest. All the others are white, glittering, fake-innocent. She is a blood-red, lace poured over a body that shouldn't be in the same room as people like us. She doesn't look like she's on our level at all. She doesn't look like a common mortal at all.
The bodysuit cuts high on her hips, small satin bows on the sides, and there's this sheer panel down her stomach that does absolutely nothing to hide how flat and taut she is. My brain shut down there for a second.
Long legs. Smooth skin, so pale it makes you want to lick it just to see if it tastes like cream or sin. Big, impossibly blue eyes, framed by lashes she knows exactly how to use. Full mouth. The kind of mouth you’d sell your soul for, if you had anything left to sell.
So, yeah.
Vision. Coma. Heaven. Something like that.
“What is it, Lucifer?” she asks me, and her voice—Christ—her voice is silk dragged over bare skin. “Regretting your fall from Grace already?”
Lucifer.
That’s new. It takes me a moment to realize. Then I remember I’m wearing a costume too.
Black wings. Dark pants. A chain around my neck.
