His memories haunted him. Oliver screaming, burning, dying. Blood dripping from numerous wounds, half his head bashed in, and missing his right hand.
Killian couldn’t breathe. He had to get outside. Somewhere he couldn’t hurt anyone. Pushing through the back door, he sucked in deep lungfuls of the cool autumn air, staring out over the misty landscape.
“I would not leave that envelope untended for long,” Tiny said as she padded lightly into the tall grasses off his back porch. “The New Orleans coven’s magic is legendary, and they do not take kindly to being made to wait. If the cottage is destroyed, you are not putting me in a kennel.”
Fuck me.
Stalking back inside, he swiped the envelope off the table and broke the seal before he registered that Beatrix was no longer there. “What the bloody hell—?”
His entire body folded in on itself, twisting and compacting until he was no more than a speck of dust in the air. And then, as if the world’s largest vacuum cleaner had suddenly turned on, he flew. Over the lights of London, the black nothingness of the Atlantic Ocean, the eastern seaboard of the United States, until he found himself in the middle of Bourbon Street, New Orleans, where with a subtle pop, he was suddenly returned to his original form.
“Fucking magic.”
MADDOX
The celestial realm was boring.
Maddox leaned against a pillar in Azrael’s foyer, waiting for the Angel of Death to grant him an audience. Even here, where archangels came and went frequently, ferrying souls—some willing, some very unwilling to leave their bodies—to the realm, he still couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to care.
His immortal life stretched out before him, endless time he couldn’t break into hours or days like his brother could. Sinclair had been banished hundreds of years ago, consigned to Hell for a century after his part in one of the most depraved crime sprees the world had ever known.
Prohibited from returning to the celestial realm and made to live among humans on earth, Sinclair was trying to atone for his sins, but, his ledger was weighted so far to the negative that it would take him a thousand human lifetimes or more to even be able to visit Maddox for a short time. His soul had been fractured into pieces, and only a very small part of it remained within his body. The rest…lost to the demons who’d used him, controlled him, and forced him to do their bidding.
Maddox missed Sinclair. They’d grown up together, earned their wings together. Once Sinclair had been released from Hell, Maddox had been able to visit him. They’d walked among the humans so Maddox could experience the earthen realm. He’d tried alcohol, watched a football match, and enjoyed something called a movie.
Unlike Maddox, who was half angel and half human, Sinclair’s angelic parentage was mixed with that of a demon. A succubus, to be exact, making Sin an incubus. And while Mad had watched, Sinclair had fed from half a dozen humans, taking their sexual energy and leaving them with pleasant or thrilling memories.
He never took from anyone unwilling. One of the conditions of his sentence—but also something so very ingrained within Sin’s personality after what he’d been made to endure, he could not possibly do anything else.
When he required energy, he’d glamour a human into ducking into an alley or a closet with him, search their minds for their deepest sexual fantasies, and use those thoughts as his meal. If the unsuspecting human kissed Sin, all the better, but it wasn’t required. And when he was done, he wiped their memories and replaced them with something happy.
Maddox didn’t need sexual energy, but he’d been so curious, he’d chatted up several humans, both males and females, and even kissed two of them—one of each sex. He much preferred the male human to the female.
“Both men and women are sexual beings, Mad,” Sinclair said as he and Maddox walked down a busy street in Seattle after spending time in what was called a pub. “I can take from either, but I prefer those of the female persuasion.”
“I felt nothing kissing the woman,” Maddox replied. He’d been so disappointed in his first kiss, he’d almost left the pub and returned to the celestial realm immediately, but Sinclair had urged him to talk to a few men before he left, and the last one…he’d been delicious. Maddox’s dick —which he’d never given much thought to while in the celestial realm—had hardened, and a deep ache had started in his balls.
And then he’d been called back to the celestial realm by a very impatient Azrael, who demanded to know why Maddox had been about to have sex with a human. It wasn’t exactly...forbidden, but highly frowned upon. One too many angels had succumbed to human temptation and decided never to return, and Azrael, one of the few who could grant access to the earthen realm, was tired of losing his angels to earth.
Mad sighed as he watched another soul struggle in an archangel’s grip, wailing, “I want to go back! I don’t want to die!”
Why would any soul want to return to a body that was decaying? Sin had talked about pain. About how he’d been injured while working for a human law enforcement agency. How earthen bodies took time to heal. As a half-demon, half-angel, Sin healed quickly, but humans often did not.
And they aged. Broke down. Could not move quickly or without pops and creaks and...noises. Maddox would have to ask Azrael one day why a soul would not want to be free from pain. Or, perhaps the souls simply knew how completely devoid of fun the celestial realm was.
A golden door burst open, and the Angel of Death strode across the foyer. “If you want an audience, Maddox, you will follow me. I have little time.”
Mad trailed behind Azrael, into a sparkling, lavish bathing chamber with a bubbling fount in the center. Azrael shed his robes and stepped into the water, his corded muscles flexing with each small movement.
Unprepared, Maddox gaped at the pure beauty of the angel, and under his robes, his member started to throb. Quickly, he clasped his hands in front of himself and stared at a point over Azrael’s head until the angel was submerged up to his neck. “Well?”
“I wish to ask for an indulgence.”
Azrael waved one of his hands—he currently only had two, but they multiplied when he was recording the various births and deaths on earth—urging Maddox to get on with it.
“Sinclair. His sentence in the earthen realm may never end without assistance.”
The angel’s eyes narrowed. “And you think you can help him with his redemption?”
