Iniquity (The Premonition, #5)(76)

Byzantyne turns his anger on me, pointing his finger. “You will beg me in your next life to save you from Emil.”

“I always beg…in every life. I’ll pray this time will be different.”

“Still so na?ve.” He shakes his head in disgust. “Until we meet again, Simone.” Byzantyne folds in his crimson wings. He falls to the stone floor below, landing on his feet as if it were nothing at all. Without a backward glance, he strides toward the door. His booted feet make almost no sound as he slips outside and vanishes into the night.

Atwater’s gaze travels from Reed to me. “I will give you a moment to say goodbye, after which I have to send Reed out into the night without any memory of this.” Atwater retracts his wings and falls to the floor below. He leaves the carriage house.

I shift my eyes to Reed, knowing that we don’t have much time left together. I’ll be called home to Heaven soon. Strategy and the details of my mission will be undertaken and debated by high-ranking Seraphim. They’ll work out angles of pursuit and arsenals in which to endow me for survival. Upon my return here, my memory of this event will be erased. I need to discover a way to survive him when we meet again.

“Do you—did you find me attractive?” I ask. “My former body—Simone?” Reed just stares at me, clearly reluctant to answer. “I’m not looking for compliments.” My words come out in a rush. “I need to know what about me made you want to help me so that I can try to replicate it in my next life.”

“I did—” he closes his eyes as he misspeaks, “—I do—” he opens them, “—find you attractive.” I could lose myself in his green eyes.

“Me too. I’m attracted to you, too.” I’m so glad I don’t have a body. If I did, I’d be blushing.

“I promise you, if you’re anything like you are now, I’ll want to help you.”

“You like what I looked like?”

“It’s more than that. I’m attracted to your radiance…not just your beauty, it’s you.” He places his hand over his heart. “It’s as if there is an invisible string wound around my heart and you control its beat—with a look—with a gesture. I feel the mark of you here.” His finger traces his skin above his heart. “But there’s nothing there.”

“The sensation is more like butterflies for me.”

“Oh, I have those, too,” he admits. “They threaten to consume me.”

“What should I do when we meet?”

“Just be you. I’ll be unable to resist you.”

I stare at him. “Be…me?”

“It’s rare for me to notice humans anymore. I go out of my way not to see them, but I couldn’t help seeing you. You smile and I feel as if I’m living on the edge of Paradise. There is no one like you, Simone. You are unique. I will always notice you.”

Atwater returns from outside, his blond hair soaked again with rain. He calls to us above him. “A Reaper has arrived outside, her name is Suni. She’s here to help Simone ascend. It’s time for you to leave, Reed.”

Reed nods and folds in his dark wings. He drops to the stone floor below, landing on his feet. I have the most peculiar feeling. It’s as if I’m losing my heart as he walks away toward Atwater. I call to him, “Why does it suddenly feel like the end of the world, Reed?” I fight the urge to go with him.

He pauses. He turns back to me, his smile radiant. “It’s not the end. It’s just the beginning, Simone. It’s the beginning of us.”





I open my eyes to Reed’s breathtaking green ones. My head is in his lap. He stokes my long hair, smoothing it away from my brow, just as he’d done for me when I was Simone. He exhales in relief when he sees me focus on his face. “Love, you’ve come back to me,” he whispers. Leaning down, his lips skim mine. Primitive hunger awakens inside me. I return his kisses, drawn in by the soft glide of his bottom lip. All too soon, he straightens to look at me. Touching my cheek with the back of his hand, he caresses it lovingly.

I stare at him, unable to speak. My eyes blur and cloud with tears that I can’t see past as my bottom lip quivers. He’s a virtual stranger to me in terms of the hollowness of time we’ve spent together. I hardly know him at all. He barely knows me, and yet, he’s become such an essential part of me. An all-consuming ache squeezes my heart, contorting it with indescribable anguish. No matter what I do now, I’ll lose Reed. If we fail to kill Emil and Byzantyne, we cease to be. If we manage by some stunning twist of fate to beat all the odds and accomplish our missions, we lose one another. Reed will be called back to Paradise as part of the deal I made. I don’t know what will happen to me, but I know Heaven. I know they’ll never take me out of the fray here while I live. I knew that going in. Once I accepted my role as an archetype being, there was no going home until my angelic body dies and my soul ascends. I am their pawn for life here.

Covering my eyes with my hand, I feel the burn of tears in them. I thought I could save this stranger who, on a whim, had rescued me from Emil. But I didn’t know—I didn’t see that I would come to love him so desperately—would need him more than I’ve ever needed anyone or anything.

I sit up, tears falling onto my cheeks. Crawling onto Reeds lap, I wrap myself around him, burying my face in the hollow between his shoulder and his throat. I choke back a sob. He wipes a tear from the edge of my jaw. “Shh…Evie, it’s okay. Tell me what happened. What did you find out?”