Page 19 of Grave Revelations

“He’s an angel. You’re a demon. Who do you think I’m safer with?” That hurt expression flashed across his face again. Then, just as quickly as he’d appeared, he disappeared.

“Azazel. Wait…” She stepped over branches moving into the darkness behind their dirt hut. “Azazel.”

Raphael spread his wings, lifting from the ground. “Come, little lamb. I will take you home.”

Home.

The word resounded through her, cracking more of the wall she’d built to cage the pain from all the recent events. Was there anything there for her? Simon and the others were most likely with Elizabeth, trapped by her. But her bed, in her house, sounded like heaven.

She took one step, then another, toward the angel.

He stretched his arms out toward her.

“I can’t.”

Raphael raised two golden brows. “He’ll corrupt your soul, little lamb.”

Rebecca wrapped her arms around herself and hoped it wasn’t true.

When the chill in the air had seeped into her bones, Rebecca climbed through the opening in her temporary house and crawled onto the bed of vines.

Had she made the worst mistake of her life by refusing the angel? Even if she'd wanted to leave, she couldn't have endured the pain.

Staring up at the night sky through the jagged hole in the side of her hut, her mind wandered to the first memory she had of Gabriel: the night Allie died on the gymnasium floor. It was a vague, dark blur of a memory, something so painful her mind had obscured it.

The next time she saw him, he’d come to train Allie for reash duty, introducing her to a world lying just beneath human notice. In those early days, Allie had had many confusing feelings about him. Gabriel was a father figure, a male role model, a hero. She’d fancied herself in love more than once.

But never in the six years she’d spent with him had it pained her to leave him. She’d also never been the one to go.

That couldn’t be right.

Their first sparring lesson, he’d taken her to the mat nine times before he’d stormed away, grumbling something about her inadequacies, and disappeared for days. When he returned, he brought her a practice sword.

“You’ll need to be good at hand-to-hand, not just swordplay, but let’s start here and work backward.”

She’d been miserably unprepared for a life of demon hunting, and he’d been horribly disappointed. The ache of that disappointment lingered even now.

Rebecca fast-forwarded through those early memories, snagging on one and pausing to replay it. He’d grimaced, tossed his practice sword to the floor, and left. Allie had thought she pegged him, injured him. She’d been so proud. But that wasn’t right. She’d never landed a blow.

Rebecca continued playing memories through her mind, focusing on each time they parted.

Healways lefther.

The realization was a punch to the gut. It couldn’t be true. She spun through six years of interactions, landing on tonight. He knew she wanted to leave with Raphael, and he had gone first.

To spare her the pain.

“No,” she breathed.

The cold bit into her arms through layers of clothes, and she pulled the blankets up, wrapping them tight. He couldn’t be that chivalrous. This was Gabriel. Stubborn, grouchy, stalwart, Gabriel. He didn’t put anything before his mission. But he had saved her from her father’s demon.

Condemning him to Primoria.

If everything he’d said was true, he trulywasher soulmate. What about Simon? Simon had loved her for her whole immortal life, had been through one hundred years with her. Her jailer hardly acknowledged her existence, was constantly angry with her, and was a Prince of Hell. In what universe wasthather other half?

A shiver stole through her as her eyelids drooped. It had been the longest day of her life. She blinked, straining to keep her eyes on the gaping hole overhead. With Azazel gone and limited access to her magic, she was a sitting duck if any of Elizabeth’s creatures came for her.

Rebecca blinked slowly, straining to open her eyes again.

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