Page 22 of Touched By Darkness

My smile is saccharine, causing Dmitriy to narrow his eyes again. What I really want to do is to shake some fucking sense into him.Can you really not recognize me?

With one last warning glare in my direction, he says to his dad, “I have to be somewhere. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

He leaves, and as soon as the front door slams shut, I whirl on Amenadiel. “Explain!”

He chokes on his whisky. I never thought I would see a man like Amenadiel, evil incarnate, laugh like he is now. It’s a carefree sound I haven’t heard anywhere outside of Eden, and it allows me to see a flash of who he was before the fall.

“I think I would quite like to hear your theory first.”

“I don’t fucking know. Maybe everyone has lost their goddamn minds? Maybe you’re all playing a prank on me?”

“A prank…” He chuckles before tipping back the last of his drink and slamming the glass back down on the windowsill behind him. Then he walks up to me and taps my temple. “I’ve been stuck in here, remember?”

The sound of rain pattering on the windows mixes with the sparks in the fireplace as I try to think of a logical reason. “When I found myself back in Eden, I…” My eyes widen.

“She finally gets it,” Amenadiel teases.

“But it’s impossible. Besides, I thought time worked differently inside Eden. I didn’tactuallythink I traveled back in time.”

“Well, you did, and you took me back with you.”

“You knew…” I glare at him. “You knew and you still let me go to the academy and make a fucking fool out of myself.”

A simple shrug, accompanied by the quirking of his lips. “It was too funny not to.”

“You asshat!”

He shrugs again. “I’ve been called worse.”

I start to pace. “So this means what? They haven’t met meyet?”

“Don’t worry. Your true angel self won’t come tumbling through the doors. You erased that reality.”

I draw to a halt and blink, my lips pursed. “Erased?”

“Reset time… whatever. Don’t worry yourself with the ins and outs. It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”

“Okay,” I reply, as if it makes sense.

It doesn’t.

Not even a little.

“So they don’t know who I am?”

“Nope,” he confirms, popping theP.

“They’ve never met me?”

“Also true.”

“Fuck…”

He tries so fucking hard not to laugh. Even his face is blotchy and red from his attempt to school his features.

“Am I a virgin again?”

Now it’s his turn to blink, then he laughs. “What?”

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