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I crossed to the couch and placed a hand on his bare shoulder, shaking him lightly. “Nate, wake up.”
He didn’t respond.
“Nate.”
His eyes flew open. He met my gaze for a fraction of a second, and then he was sitting up, wrapping his arms around my waist, burying his face against my stomach. His whole body shook as he held on to me like he was afraid I was going to disappear.
I ran my fingers through his hair, trying to soothe the tremors that ran through his body. His breathing slowly evened out, but he didn’t loosen his hold on me.
“Are you okay?” I murmured, continuing to stroke his hair.
“I couldn’t save Alana,” he said into the fabric of my shirt. “I couldn’t save her, and I couldn’t kill him, and now he’s coming after you and I’m afraid I won’t be able to save you either.”
I didn’t understand most of what he said, but I focused on replying in the way I thought he needed. “Youhavesaved me.”
“But Dantalion won’t stop. Not after you killed Valac. And I just made everything worse. Now it’s even more personal.”
“Who is he to you really?” I tugged on Nate’s hair, forcing him to pull back and look at me. “You told me you’ve been to Hell, but there’s more. You two have history.”
He closed his eyes in what looked like pain.
“Nate.” I wasn’t taking no for an answer this time. I was tired of always feeling like I was missing half the story. “Talk to me.”
His eyes opened with reluctance. He stared up at me and slowly nodded.
I gently pried his arms from around my waist and moved to sit beside him on the couch. He grabbed my ankles, pulling my feet into his lap and massaging them.
He didn’t look at me as he spoke. “I used to have a sister. She was the most kindhearted angel I’ve ever met in any order, the best that Heaven had to offer. Alana was born into the sixth order, but she didn’t want anything to do with Heaven’s war with Hell. So she left.” He shook his head, still not looking at me. “I didn’t understand. She was born to be a warrior, she had a place in Heaven, she had me, but she chose Earth. She wanted to live the human experience.”
I could hear the old hurt in his tone. I’d be willing to bet he saw Alana’s choice as a personal rejection.
“She’d been living as a human for years when she ran into Dantalion. He killed her for what she was and who she was related to without caring that she’d never so much as wished a demon ill. She was guilty by association in his eyes. She was born to be a warrior, her wings were as red as mine, but she’d given up her heritage, never trained beyond basics. She never stood a chance.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, knowing the words were useless. There was nothing I could say that would make anything better, but I needed him to know I cared.
“He took her wings, leaving bloody gashes in her back. I don’t know if he did it before or after he killed her. I wasn’t there to protect her.”
“How did you know it was him?”
“It was his sword that killed her. A demon’s blade, like an angel’s, is unique to them. It leaves an imprint behind, like a signature. Dantalion’s signature was all over her.”
“I don’t understand. When I watched that angel die, the night I killed Valac, she vanished. There was nothing left but glittering dust.”
His fingers curled around my ankles. “That wasn’t a result of her dying.” His voice sounded hollow, like this story was taking everything from him and leaving him empty in the process. “Angels of the seventh order who are sent to Earth will return to Heaven even in death. The angel you watched disappear’s body was called back to Heaven.”
Neither of us said anything for a minute while Nate stared off into space without looking at me. I was tempted to talk, to fill the silence with words, to distract him, but I couldn’t. He hadn’t finished explaining what happened between him and Dantalion. I could feel that there was more, so I waited for him to tell me the rest.
“After I lost Alana, I went looking for Dantalion. I went to Hell to search for him. It wasn’t the first time I’d been there, not even the first time I’d been in the bleak, rocky land that Dantalion rules over, but usually I had a plan, instructions and orders. As an angel of the sixth order, I couldn’t just waltz into Hell without an approved reason. This time I didn’t have any of those things. All I had was a need for revenge that burned hotter than logic could stifle.”
Nate’s grip on my ankles had grown tighter, nearly painful, but I didn’t say anything. I was hardly breathing as I listened to him talk.
“I told myself I was there to get Alana’s wings back. I couldn’t stand the idea of them hanging on his wall like a trophy. But really I wanted to make Dantalion pay for what he’d done to her.
“I didn’t get far before I was stopped by an archangel. My revenge plan failed before I could even come face-to-face with a demon. I knew what was coming next. The archangel was going to strip me of my heavenly fire and banish me from Heaven. I would become one of the Fallen, doomed to a life of exile. It wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I had managed to get my revenge first.”
Even though I knew he couldn’t have been banished or lost his heavenly fire since I’d seen that fire when he fought, I couldn’t help the way my chest squeezed at the thought of anyone hurting him.
“Instead, the archangel offered me a deal. If I swore an oath to the secret order, Heaven would pardon me for coming into Hell without permission and he would also help me get Alana’s wings back. I took the deal, and Micah held up his end of the bargain. He helped me steal Alana’s wings, but no one ever knew we were there. I never got my revenge.”
