AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Thick, wet snowflakes fell like petals from the sky.
I stood in the darkness of my bedroom and watched as they swirled and pirouetted through the wide beam of the floodlights. The wind howled. It struck the window, and the glass rattled in its frame.
The nor’easter had rolled in from the sea sometime in the late afternoon. According to Grifin, it planned to stick around until the same time tomorrow. I’d loved storms like this when I was a kid. They’d usually meant school was canceled and lazy days with my mother in our pajamas drinking hot cocoa. And if my father dropped by? That’s when the fun really kicked off. Jack Callahan could rally a neighborhood snowball fight like nobody’s business.
The lights flickered and I hugged myself a little tighter.
New Englanders had a saying that they swore by: if March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb. And vice versa.
I wondered if it applied to things other than the weather. Like whatever Lucifer had in the works.
Four nights ago, he asked if I still wanted to marry Raphael, and I’d told him that I wouldn’t marry his brother.
The following evening we were intimate again—in the chapel of all places—and though he couldn’t tell me how or why I wouldn’t have to marry Raphael, I believed him. I also trusted that as soon as he could, he’d come to me and we’d have that talk he’d promised.
Lucifer and I had enough secrets between us to fill the Vatican, but I was ready to offer him my heart, and with it, all my truths—including the real reason I’d asked Aiden to send me to Boston, and why I’d changed my mind when it came to getting my pound of flesh.
I’d decided that my life meant more to me than Raphael’s death.
You had to be alive to be in love.
And I’d fallen so very far in love with Lucifer.
A solid knock rapped on my door. Goose bumps spread up my arms. I shook them off the best I could and padded across the room. It was probably just Grifin. When he brought me food earlier—because Sosanna had gone home before the roads became too slippery, and apparently, I was either too dense or too untrustworthy to feed myself—he’d said he’d be by later with a flashlight in case we lost power and the generator failed.
I opened the door with a premature smile in place. “Looks like I’ll need that—”
All the blood in my body sank to my feet.
Raphael’s mouth drew a straight line. His typically clean-shaven face had sprouted a passable beard. But that was the least distressing thing about his presence. He was wet. No, he was soaked from head to toe. His Armani suit hung from his body like a used rag, and tiny snowballs stuck to the laces of his Italian leather dress shoes. He smelled like he’d used his clothes to clean the chimney.
“Raphael?”
He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. The vein dividing his forehead bulged in a way I’d never seen, and it took a few beats for his gaze to focus.
The last time I saw him was at the warehouse. That was Friday. Today was Wednesday. But he looked like he’d aged ten years.
“What’s—”
“Come with me,” he ordered. Then he turned and walked away.
I stared after his retreating frame, my heartbeat erratic. Were we alone? I was pretty sure Lucifer wasn’t here, but maybe Liam? Grifin? I’d even settle for Katarina. Cillian had been living his best life in Providence since Monday.
I couldn’t remember the last time I wasn’t in danger. It was a way of life for me. And I’d learned a long time ago to keep an even keel and take this fucked-up life in stride. Which meant when real, healthy fear coursed through me—like it was right now—I took it fucking seriously.
I stumbled back and darted for the nightstand and yanked open the lower drawer.
No!
My hand slapped against the bottom, determined to make a liar out of my eyes, but failed.
Someone had taken my phone. Sosanna? Grifin?
I hadn’t left my room in days. Had Raphael been in here while I was sleeping? Or showering?
My stomach roiled.
“Willa!” Raphael’s voice echoed off the hallway walls like a creepy Gregorian chant.
