FIVE
Lilith
My eyes took a few seconds to adjust from the brightness of Gabriel’s teleportation. Blinking the blurry smudges away, my gaze bounced around the room he’d whisked us away to. It was a small bedroom, and goosebumps pebbled my skin as reality sunk in.
I’m alone with Gabriel, and my powers aren't working. Fear skidded down my spine, and I straightened.
“Do you like it?” He walked toward the white bookshelf and ran a long finger across a shelf lined with books and hummed. “It’s not much, but I figured you’d be comfortable here.”
I snorted and pursed my lips. Everything was white. There was no light in the room and no windows, but it was so fucking bright. Pearl white epoxy resin covered the floor, and the walls were such a bright white, it caused my head to throb. The queen-sized bed with the rectangular headboard was positioned against the far wall and had a white comforter and pillows. Next to where we teleported in was a toilet and a clawfoot tub, so I had zero privacy.
There wasn’t a door inside the room, and without being able to teleport, I didn’t know how I’d get away.
He blew out an irritated breath, stalking over to stand beside me. “That’s the bathroom. This room is all created by magic, and you’re in a sealed tight box, darling. There’s no escape.”
I snapped my head toward him and took a step back as I noticed how close he’d gotten. “What kind of magic?”
He bore his heated gaze into mine and stepped forward. I stepped back, and we repeated this until my back smacked into the wall and his hands caged me in. “The kind you can’t fight against.”
I gulped. “Why did you really seek out my family?”
His white eyes shined brighter, and he moved in to brush his nose against mine. “Lilith, I wasn’t lying to you. They may not be able to tap into their angelic powers, but they belong away from...Earthly sin.”
Trembles of dread seeped through my bones, but I straightened my shoulders. “You had them kill themselves. That’s the biggest sin there is other than killing an innocent.”
He tsked. “Approved by Queen Astral herself. She wanted those with angel lineage inside them to be away from sin.”
“You realize I am sin, right?” The back of my head was aching from being pressed so hard into the unbreakable wall as I tried to get further back from him. If it was regular drywall, it would’ve given way. But it wasn’t.
He swallowed hard, his eyes darting to my lips before his arms dropped to his sides. He stepped back, and I moved away from him to get some distance between us when my knee smacked into the tub.
“Fuck!” The small pain rippled through my knee, and I didn’t realize how dependent I’d been on my healing powers.
“Here, let me.” He moved forward again, but I held my arm up and he stopped.
“No! I’m fine. I don’t want to be healed.” My voice wavered, and I rubbed my knee, leaning against the tub. “Why don’t I have a bathroom? What if I need privacy?”
He bit down on his bottom lip and raked his eyes over me. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before, Lilith.”
A sickly heat curled in my throat. “That was before…”
“Before you cheated on me with your guard?”
“No!” I narrowed my eyes in slits, gripping the side of the tub hard. It was too painfully obvious how weak I was. Any other time I used that much strength, the porcelain would’ve shattered. “I didn’t cheat on you. We were never exclusive.”
“I was exclusive!”
“But I wasn’t! You knew I was sleeping with Brann and Oren. And you fucking knew I started to have feelings for Aziel. I never hid anything from you. The only person I hid anything from was my father.”
Anger pulsed between us, and his halo flickered above his head. The memory of his tongue trailing along the swells of my breasts as he lapped up the blood shed from his handy work assaulted my mind. Nausea swirled in my gut, and my vision blurred. I recoiled, covering my chest with both hands, and fell into the tub.
The back of my head smacked the edge as my ass hit the bottom, and my legs flew up. A scorching heat split open the back of my head as blood leaked down my neck, trickling down the suit, following the curve of my spine. I squeezed my eyes shut as a heavy blackness claimed me...all I could feel was the way his tongue felt against my skin as he licked the blood seeping out of the wounds he’d caused.
Fuck. What was this?
Gabriel’s icy hands were on me as he lifted me out of the tub and placed me on the ground next to it. My instincts screamed at me to push him off me, but I couldn’t fucking move. I was so dizzy.
He ripped open the rest of my top and let the suit fall down at the waist. “You can’t move in this thing, and it’s already ripped enough.” I covered my breasts with my arm as my skin crawled from his touch. It was like there were phantom hands all over me, reminding me exactly where he touched me in the past. “You’re practically human with that fucking bracelet on. She didn’t say it would do this to you,” he growled as his hands covered the wound on the back of my head. “I’m sorry.”
