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Casziel gives a start, then shakes his head, confused. “I can’t remember that life. It’s a haze now. Like a nightmare that’s fading.”
My lip curls. “Convenient.”
“I didn’t forget how you helped Lucy that day. She told me what she felt from you. How you cared about me.”
“A lot of good it did me. You wanted Oblivion.”
“I thought I had no choice,” he says quietly.
My heart softens toward him, but I ignore it. The bloody organ has done nothing but cause me grievous injury for centuries. I look to Cole walking ahead, and the ache becomes a roar. I want to roar with it.
“Pardon me if I don’t cry my eyes out for you, Casziel,” I snarl. “Did you think for one moment where your choice would leave me? No, of course not. Not one spare thought for your loyal servant. Yourfriend. Another abandonment. I thought I’d escaped that particular misery in life but to have it happen in death was a particularly cruel twist of the knife.”
“Ambri—”
“I’m not interested in your excuses. You have your happy ending. Coming here to rub it in is overkill but not unexpected.”
“I didn’t…” He carves his hand through his hair. “You’re as maddening as ever. I don’t remember the Other Side well, but I distinctly recall you being a colossal pain in the ass.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
Cas looks like he’s trying not to smile as he glances at me fondly. “I’ve missed you.”
I struggle to hold onto my anger too, the bastard. “Get in line.”
“Behind him?” He nods at Cole.
I wince and cold despair floods me, instantly washing out any warm feeling.
“You’ve got us all figured out already, I see. Impressive.”
“I know what I see between you,” Cas says, unperturbed. “How he looks at you and you him. As if you can’t stop and don’t want to.”
Damn him.
“You know nothing,” I say and cut him off when he starts to protest. “Enough,Casziel. You were once my superior but no more. Now, hush. You’re spoiling the stroll.”
He grits his teeth but says nothing more. By the time we reach the flat, Lucy is giving me a warm smile and Cole regards me with fresh hope, likely because she’s filled his head with fairy tale notions of redemption and love conquering all.
I can’t look at him. His handsome face that dominates my every thought is even more beautiful now. And those lovely dark eyes look at me with something I’ve never seen before. Not even from Armand, who I now know was false and shallow—two words that could never be used to describe Cole.
He is honest and good, and I’m going to lose him before he was ever mine.
In the flat, I direct everyone to sit in the living room. “Make yourselves at home. I’ll just open this”—I examine the bottle of wine I’ve been carrying—“and pour it down the sink. I have better on the shelf there.”
I move to the kitchen and hear footsteps behind me. “I’m teasing, Cole. You tried—”
But it’s Casziel, looking severe.
“We need to finish our conversation.”
“Needis a strong word.”
He crosses his arms over his broad chest, and I roll my eyes. “Yes, my liege. This way.”
Cole has taken Lucy on a tour of the flat—I hear her squealing over my portrait in his room. It’s finished, or nearly, and I haven’t the slightest inclination to look at it. Like Cole’s show, it’s become a beacon of my impending departure.
I lead Casziel to the library, and he shuts the door behind us. I lean casually against the bookshelf.The Adventures of Pinocchiorests on top, not stowed with the rest. I casually trace my finger over its cover as if it were inconsequential instead of what I’ve been reading every night, all night, for months.
