Page 43 of Sleeping Redemption
His voice prompted Kinley to pause partly up the stairs, halfway turning to look down at the three of us. “I’m tired, it can wait. Bad news doesn’t get any better with time.”
I looked at Sy, and he may as well have been wearing a stone wall for an expression. His eyes locked on Kinley without any shits given about what she had just said.
“The lass has a point, Sylas.” I spoke up, trying to play mediator as I stepped toward him.
The archangel’s pale turquoise eyes flicked over at me, annoyance flashing through them before he looked at Atlas. It seemed the cambion-turned-angel was as smart as I had always imagined, and his fingers ran over the scruff outlining his mouth while he considered his words.
“Sy, fill me in and let Kinley get some rest,” he offered as an alternative.
Sylas tilted his head slightly, appearing to now notice that the lad was in nothing but his underwear. He shook his head, his jaw visibly clenching and hands balling up in fists at his sides.
Kinley picked up on the silent pissing match and grumbled. “Jesus, where is Christina when you need a fucking aspirin? The days can’t go by quickly enough until she’s back here.”
“Kin, she’s not coming back,” Sylas said. “She’s dead.”
Happy Trails, Christina number sixteen.
Chapter Nineteen
Just barely dodging Rook’s cane nearly colliding with the back of my skull, I straightened and glared at him. “What the fuck?!”
He had pulled me into the formal dining room after I told Kinley of her house manager’s demise.
Rook jutted the end of the cane in my direction. “Bloody hell! You’re just gonna drop that sort of news like you’re announcing the winner of a beauty pageant?”
“Give me a damn break, Rook. You and I both know that it was only a matter of time before she did the job herself.” I shoved his cane away from me as I walked past him.
With a quick burst of speed, he put himself in front of me again. Fucker was fast when he wanted to be. I stopped short to avoid walking right into him. Drawing my shoulders back, I was ready to physically move him if it came down to it.
“Perhaps, but are you going to tell me you weren’t planning to break the news differently before you got here?” His hazel eyes cast their judgment on me.
I didn’t owe the demon any sort of response, what I had intended to say and what transpired moments ago were no concern of his.
“That’s what I thought,” Rook said knowingly. Deciding not to pick a physical fight, he backed away and turned to leave the dining room.
Once he was out of sight, I blew out the breath I had been holding. Recalling the way I pieced together the situation after seeing Atlas sitting there in his damn shorts and Kinley wearing the blanket that did little to conceal that she was lacking clothes underneath, it got the better of me.
I tried to justify my feelings that Atlas was going against his sworn duties by involving himself so intimately with Kinley. It had nothing to do with how I wished Kin and I hadn’t taken our separate paths, the way I would have given anything for her not to follow Lucifer’s lead and leave us—me—behind.
Deep down, I was frustrated with every aspect of the situation. I had just transported the soul belonging to Molly, otherwise dubbed as Christina by Kinley, and it hadn’t been pretty. The woman’s body had been abandoned on the train tracks that led out of Brixton, but that wasn’t the unsettling part of it all. Her soul had been severely traumatized, held captive inside her physical body. I couldn’t recall ever seeing a soul so battered and broken that I struggled to transport it. There were very few things in our universe that were capable of being so destructive to the spirit.
Leaving the dining room, I was determined to smooth things over. Atlas was just coming downstairs, shaking his head as he saw me. He walked by, not saying a word.
Not easily swayed off course, I followed him into the living room, where he began tidying up.
I tried to explain myself. “Atlas, you have to understand there are rules in place for a reason.”
“Fuck your rules, Sy. That had nothing to do with any goddamn rules and everything to do with your ego.” He pitched a decorative pillow back onto the sofa with more force than was necessary.
Nodding, I wasn’t sure what to say to something that was absolutely the truth. “How’s she taking it?”
Atlas uprighted a basket full of magazines before storing it back underneath the coffee table. He turned and sat on the edge of the table, looking over at me. There was a momentary pause as he reflected on the situation before responding. “She bitched about having to do job interviews for a replacement. All things considered? Kinley is taking it in stride. Rook is upstairs with her right now, insisting she eat something.”
That sounded promising. Well, it was more promising than her going on a mass murder spree. All things were relative when it came to Kin.
I shoved my hands into my pockets as I stood there and nodded. I was never very good at apologizing, making this all the more awkward as the silence lingered between us for much longer than it should have.
“Look,” I began. “I wasn’t in the right head space earlier.”
