Everyone, except maybe Angelica.
The blonde anxiety bomb of a hermit rarely ventured from her apartment. Everything was ordered in, including her online classes. Thanks to her family’s—wealthy—intervention, she got to study as she liked, providing she kept her marks up. Angelica was no party girl risk, and her grades never fell below a highdistinction level, leaving her exactly where she wanted to be—alone.
I sipped my scalding, ashy coffee, twisted my way through the streets, and took as many different options as possible.
Angelica, your paranoia is infectious.
Just as her laughter and cheeky sense of humour that no one ever saw was contagious. It was sad, really. She was such a beautiful person, and kept it all to herself. But, preferences, and I was glad I had one commiserator in this weird little existence until I was freed from both Rippton and my family’s ever-present expectations.
I laughed to myself, snuggling the warmth of my tall take away cup to my chest. The streets behind the rows of shops were silent, save for the light drizzle of rain that stopped and started on a whim. Townhouses and narrow residential alleyways turned into gritty lanes filled with rubbish of mechanics shops and commercial properties.
Somewhere behind me, tin banged on tin, the sound reverberating along the narrow light industrial street.
I quickened my steps, pushing my pace ever faster until I came to a corner, and picked the path back to suburbia. Which would have been a solid strategy on any other night, barring not-date-night, anti-Taco Tuesday.
Tonight, my choices led me straight into the arms of devils.
I barreled around the next corner, head down, hell bent on getting home to my apartment out of the rain, sending Angelica a message stating how she’d skewed my sense of everything when I slammed head first into a solid something that unfortunately for both of us wore my burnt coffee.
“Damn, I was enjoying that.” I looked up, my apology on my lips. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t–”
I kept looking up. And up, and up.
Right into the face of an angel.
If angels were monstrous creatures born of pale skin, white hair so fine the moonlight left traces of celestial dust on each strand, and palest blue eyes highlighted with a sliver of demonic red.
This one stood at least six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders, and felt like steel to run face first into.
He also wore my coffee.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, reaching out to—pat him dry, try to wipe the mess away—but his expression stopped me.
Disgust.
“Oh. Um, I hope that comes out. I’ll just be?—”
A second angel appeared slightly behind the first, as close to identical as my artist’s eye could tell in the dark night, despite the starlight tracing their sharp features made for demons and put in the wrong body.
I twisted back,knowingmy instinct served me wrong, only inciting the predators lurking within those beautiful bodies, and stopped, already face to nipple height with the next. The first turned on his heel in a delicate as fuck pivot better suited to a dance floor than an alley I should never have set foot in, sandwiching me between their bodies, effectively blocking my path.
I bit my lip, edging sideways. They came too, reducing my exit options to exactly zilch.
The second angel raised his hand, stroking a slicked finger across my cheek. “She’s so much prettier when she’s awake. I thought it was the other way around.”
“Much prettier,” the first agreed. “Especially with the addition of blood.” A cool hand caught my chin, tilting my head back from behind me so the angel-demon there could stare into my upside down eyes.
I blinked, recognising the features I tried so hard to wash away with my wakefulness as the truth I tried so hard to ignore and deny in my waking hours slammed into me.
“I painted you. My angel,” I blurted. “My seraph.” That last came out on a whisper. A breath.
A confession.
CHAPTER SIX
KASH
Recognition flared in her eyes, and I smiled. Not something I did often, but with Helia, I couldn’t help the emotions that ran riot through me, unchecked. A dangerous ripple of energy flowed through me, echoing in my brother. His body tensed, and I knew he felt it too.Her.
