My chest tightened as he moved, shifting his lanky body in the passenger seat.
I yawned fiercely, my eyes heavy and my body aching from the long drive.
We’d been driving for two days.
Just beyond the lights I could see a sign.
Welcome To Jasper Springs.
I was startled by a knock on the cabin door.I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the light pouring in from the window.Endor’s head rested against the side of the window, Mercy’s head in his lap, his fingers dangling over her shoulder.The sight warmed me.They looked rather peaceful like this, and I hated to move, but the knocking would not cease until I opened the door.I sheathed my wings and headed toward it, but there was no one there when I looked out.Whoever it was, perhaps had the wrong cabin, or perhaps they were just jostling about.
The strange feeling of déjà vu washed over me.
It was like...it was like I’d been there before, though I knew I never had.
The loudspeaker came on to alert us we would be arriving at the station in thirty minutes.
We slept all night.
Reality hit me.I slept with ademonall night!
And a human, too.Do not get dramatic.
I was not sure if the lost soul wedged between us was better or worse, because there was no denying that I was comfortable.
Endor’s fingers entwined in mine.My head rested against his shoulder, the warmth of him and Mercy like a balm to my soul.
But before I had a chance to even grasp all that had happened—in the last twenty-four hours, in the last five minutes, even—Endor’s gravelly voice groaned, making my skin prickle with goosebumps.Mercy moaned in defeat.
“Don’t want to get up,” she said sleepily, and Endor chuckled, the sound of his voice dark and smooth.
Like French roast coffee.
“Sleep is for the dead, Mercedes, and last I checked, you are not dead yet.”
Reality dawned on me that in less than thirty minutes, our train would be pulling into the station, and the last leg of our journey would begin.Perhaps that’s why I’d had such strange thoughts and dreams.Being linked to Mercy provided a safe context to aid her in sorting her memories, but perhaps the closer we got to discovering her body, the closer we got to discovering the very thing that brought her to the Annex in the first place.
I turned to see Mercy standing and stretching, along with Endor.He flexed his wings and they shook just the slightest as he stretched his arms high above his head.The motion made his shirt ride up just enough to show his skin beneath, the slight curve of muscle along his hips just enough to make me stare and wonder where his labyrinthian definition led.
His words echoed in my brain.
It is not the desire that is the sin.
I’d been told most of my life the exact opposite.Desire itself, at the root of all things, was a sin.Wanting, coveting, pleasure...All of it was temptation and temptation itself was the original sin.An apple offered by a serpent.
Desire offered by a demon.
Heaven was supposed to have everything I could ever want.
But I realized, as I watched Endor and Mercy, that it wouldneverhave everything I want.
And that itself was terrifying.
I shoved my dangerous thoughts down into the pit of my stomach, tearing my gaze away from Endor and his sinfully gorgeous form, his captivating demonic gaze.
I knew that angels could fall.Everyone knows the story of Lucifer, for God’s sake.
But until I met Endor—and Mercy—I never knew falling would be so easy, or that it would feel so...good.
