AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ve also prepared a list of questions and answers we can expect from the press.” Yet another dossier appeared from the armpit maw. He was halfway convinced there was the entrance to a parallel dimension beneath that YSL suit. “Make sure you go over them carefully with him. I don’t need to remind you what happened with the last incident’s press conference.”
Incident. Almost like a bus crashed into a streetlight. It hinted at something that was absolutely avoidable. Between their senator’s libido and his staggering Napoleon complex, disasters like the one they were currently navigating were a certainty.
He had been born a forgettable man for a reason. Until he’d received his call to action in the parking lot, he’d never understood. He’d been resentful of his endlessly gray nothing life. But now his blinders were off, and his path illuminated in front of him. He would bring them all down. Quietly, unobtrusively, working away beneath their noses, he would right their wrongs and expose their rot.
Helmet hair, he refused to use her given name in the privacy of his thoughts, straightened her suit jacket. “I’m sorry I can’t be here, but POTUS calls.”
Marcia–there he’d said it–grinned smugly at the perceived glory of her new position. She almost skipped out of the office, which given her age, seemed obscene.
He looked at the dossiers in his hands and crossed to the shredder. Turns out, after a lifetime of always doing the right thing, he had a taste for anarchy that he loved to indulge. The caption on his high school yearbook: Most Likely to own a Minivan by Thirty no longer stung. Little gray men moved the wheels of power, and nobody ever looked at them when the giant engine ground to a halt—merely a harmless cog, a nothing, an inconsequential part of a greater whole.
Chapter Fourteen
“Oh my.” Ava lounged on her throne and popped another chocolate whatever into her pouty mouth. “I don’t see you for years, and now, here you are again.” The grin she threw him made Wrath want to break shit.
After his confrontation with Ramiel, followed by a lecture from Gabriel, and then a quiet conversation with Dee, he was back in the avarice demesne. He didn’t tell Ramiel and Gabriel that he had always intended to come back and fetch Haziel. They were so fucking annoying bitching at him, that he’d decided against it. Dee, however, was a different matter. As the grandmother of his child, he owed her respect and consideration, and so he’d let her in on the truth. He had always intended to fetch Haziel.
Still, he didn’t feel like dancing a jig as Ava strummed her fiddle of resentment. He didn’t have the inclination, and Eddie for damn sure didn’t have the time. “Cut the crap, Ava. I’m here for Haziel.”
“Haziel?” Ava frowned and tapped a forefinger against her chin. “Remind me who that is.”
Wrath breathed deep and reached for his tiny store of patience. He needed to grab Haziel and leave. Lucifer wouldn’t wait for Ava to finish playing, and he couldn’t bear to think what was happening to Eddie right this minute. “You know exactly who she is.”
Rapace stepped closer to her throne. Aside from the creepy orange eyes, he was a good-looking bastard with bronze muscles barely concealed by the scraps of white fabric he wore. “I believe Haziel is a seraph, your grace,” he said to Ava as if Wrath wasn’t standing right there. “From Ramiel’s host. Pretty thing with big green eyes and lovely skin. Sweet as a peach.”
If that fucker had laid one finger on Haziel, Wrath would end him. “Where is she?”
Ava looked confused and blinked at her second. “Can you answer that?”
“Alas.” Rapace laid a hand on his overdeveloped chest muscles. Despite being a pretty fucker, Rapace could swing a sword like a master. Not as good as his Vexia, but certainly skillful enough for Wrath not to completely dismiss him. “I lost track of her earlier this morning. She mentioned something about being inconsolable.” He uttered a theatrical gasp. “You don’t think she might have…”
“Don’t even think that, Rapace.” Apparently, Ava was not immune to amateur theatricals as she clasped her hands in front of her chest and blinked at her second. When Wrath found his daughter, he’d make sure to mention they had two prime actors right in this demesne. Their talents would be put to much better use for the Paradise Players. The need to find Eddie lashed through him and reminded him he was wasting time dealing with Ava and her crap.
Ava fastened her gaze back on him. “What could be so bad as to drive an angel to such dire straits?”
Clasping his hands in front of him, Rapace lowered his head and gave it a sad shake. “Abandonment, rejection, desert?—”
“All right, Ava.” Wrath knew when he was outmaneuvered. Learning the right time to retreat was as much a part of winning the battle as knowing when to attack. “You’ve had your fun. I’m here to fetch Haziel and be on my way.”
Clearly not done with him yet, Ava turned soulful eyes on Rapace. “Tell me what overset her so?”
“Her nails.” Rapace heaved a sigh and shook his head. “Our darling seraph was horrified to discover the color did not compliment her skin tones.”
Wrath suppressed the desire to bellow. His back burned where his wings were demanding to be released. He needed to retrieve Haziel and then get back to finding Eddie. But losing his shit wouldn’t work with Ava. She had legions at her beck and call, and here in her demesne, she was virtually unassailable.
“Tragic.” Ava shuddered.
“Enough,” Wrath spat. “Just get her for me, and we’ll be on our way.”
Rapace managed to look passably apologetic. “Regrettably, hell prince, that is not within my purview.”
“Then make it so,” he snapped. Ava was one thing, but her dancing princess of a demon was another entirely. He wouldn’t tolerate disrespect from that flashy popinjay.
“Oh, Wrath.” Ava giggled. “You’ve made some fairly basic mistakes here.”
He remained silent. Ava would have her say, and things would move faster if she did.
“Firstly, you mistake us for thinking we have the authority to make Haziel do anything she doesn’t want to do.” She straightened on her throne and grinned at him. “When you made her a guest of this court, you gave her control of when she leaves.” Leaning forward, she gave him a mischievous wink. “And to tell you the truth, I rather like having her here.”
