Iniquity (The Premonition, #5)(74)
“Someone has to know.”
“Atwater can know—Heaven can know, but they can’t tell you or the players in our game.”
“Xavier will never agree to leave me.”
“Then Heaven will have to force him back. He doesn’t get to stay with you.”
It’s as if he has punched me in the stomach. I want to curl into a ball and hide. What he is proposing is sure disaster for me. I try to imagine it. I’ll be a new being alone in the world, weak and transitioning into angel with no protection. I scrutinize the warrior angels surrounding us. They’re not what one would term as open-minded. I glance at Reed. His clever eyes see the torment of my decision. Restrained from me, his face is a mask of agony, watching me struggle through this. “What would you do if you met an angel with a soul, Reed?” I ask as if we’re the only two beings in the room.
He doesn’t smile, but there’s a tender quality in the look that passes from him to me. “If it were anyone else, Simone, I don’t know. But, because it will be you, I’d have a better chance at harming starlight. I would protect you. You can trust me.”
Byzantyne barks with laughter. “A Power with the eloquence of a poet! Do you believe him, Simone? He’s programmed to murder anything that could be seen as unnatural. It’s innate in him. He’d be made blind as well. He wouldn’t remember any of this the moment he leaves here.” Smug humor resonates from the Seraph.
Reed strains against the Cherubim holding him. Their blue feathers rustle and thrust, trying to maintain control and subdue him. It takes four of them to hold him back from Byzantyne. His voice hardens, “You believe you know me? You think I’d slaughter innocence—that I am a mindless drone? Give her to me to guard when you drive away her guardians. If you’re right, I’ll shatter her heart for you, and then you’ll win before it even starts,” Reed challenges. “But if you’re wrong, you’ll only have an infinitesimal Power with which to contend.
Byzantyne’s eyebrows twist like threads above his brown eyes, arching as Reed uses the Seraph’s boastful words against him. “Oh, this is interesting! Should I give you to the Power, Simone? He has been stalking me for months now. It was fortunate for me that you’ve been a dazzling distraction for him. I may not have known he was near if it were not for his penchant to watch you. He hovered around you as if he’d never seen a female before in his miserable life. Will love triumph, Simone, as you so desperately want to believe? Will you stake your eternity on his love for you?”
Reed’s green eyes pierce me. “I will not fail you, Simone.”
The deep, mesmerizing quality of his voice slices through my fear and I reply, “I will stake my eternity on it.”
Byzantyne, looks from me to Reed in disbelief. I hardly spare the Seraph a glance because I’m entangled in the radiant smile on my knight angel’s lips. The dark-haired demon hums with superiority.” You’ll blow into this Power’s life, a dead leaf on and autumn breeze. He’ll tear you down and bathe in your blood within the first hour of your meeting.”
“Why are you afraid then, Byzantyne?” I ask.
“I fear nothing.” He wants me to believe he’s already won.
“You should fear us,” Reed mocks him. “We’ll slay the demon you keep on a leash.” The divine Power turns a menacing grin on Emil. Emil flinches, more smoky essence curling off of him. Reed looks back at Byzantyne once more, “And then we’ll come for you, wherever you are. You can hide in fire and we’ll find you.”
“You will lose,” Byzantyne replies, the muscles in his face tightening as he attempts to be unemotional.
“Then you won’t mind if I add one more thing if I win?” I interrupt.
“Name it,” Byzantyne croons condescendingly.
I turn to address Atwater instead of Byzantyne, because this has to be granted by Heaven. “I want a love of my own choosing.” I force myself not to look in Xavier’s direction.
Byzantyne laughs with derision, as if I’ve asked for the most inane thing imaginable. “So this is truly all about Xavier after all. You would sever the ties to your soul mate and challenge me just to be with him? Such fealty and loyalty to an angel who watches you get butchered in every lifetime you live—and for him no less. He orchestrates your demise. You do know this, don’t you? If it’s to his advantage for you to die in order for him to defeat me, he does not hesitate to use it. No matter what price you have to endure. You are his pawn. And, yet, you love him still. Love is blind.”
“We both know the risks going into every life.”
“Yes, but do you know how easy it would be to get you out of some of the torture he allows you to suffer? He’s ruthless when it comes to you. He absolutely does not care what happens to you.”
“He’s doing his job.”
“Always at your expense,” Byzantyne gives me a fake look of pity. “I only tell you this because I would not do that to you. If you were mine, I would cherish you.” There is some truth to what he says. It’s in the yearning in his eyes as he looks at me. He does want me, maybe even more than I ever imagined. But he wouldn’t cherish me. He wouldn’t even know how.
Atwater replies to me, “It will be done. You will have a love of your own choosing.”