AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Once she remembered everything, she’d recall all of our past moments of intimacy, yes. But she’d still have this new experience in addition to that, and I’d make sure it was one she’d always cherish.
After Zoe had woken in my arms, we’d fallen right into another make-out session—naturally—before we’d finally managed to put our clothes back on and start the actual training exercises.
It had taken no small amount of effort on my part to focus on sparring with her without tackling her to the floor and summoning the clothes off her body—yet again. I’d had to remind myself every few minutes to give her actual advice on how to improve her form.
And Zoe herself hadn’t seemed to fare any better. She’d been distracted, slow, and prone to unnecessary mistakes, her pupils dilated and the scent of her arousal perfuming the air. One time she’d licked my neck when we’d gotten close while sparring.
“Other parts of my body,” I’d murmured, unable to resist inserting a quote from our shared past, hoping it might help chip away at her wall, “are even more delicious, if you’re hungry.”
Zoe had shivered, making a needy sound, but otherwise hadn’t reacted to the brief reenactment of a scene from her memories.
In the end, I’d cut the training session short and tumbled her onto the cushion again, eating her out as if faced with starvation if I let up. She’d reciprocated with fervor, and now we sat snuggled on the cushion with her on my lap, my back to the wall, while I fed her bites of cheese and grapes.
“Tell me about yourself,” she said while chewing.
I stilled. This could be dangerous territory. “Well,” I said with all the earnestly faked seriousness I could muster, “I’m six foot six, my eye color is gray, my hair is black, my wings are snowy white, I have perfect teeth?—”
Her slap against my chest made me choke on a laugh.
“Cut it.” She glared at me in that impossibly cute way of hers. “I mean, where are you from? Like, who’s your archangel?”
That kind of dangerous territory. I didn’t want to outright lie to her, and I’d tried to stick to the truth as much as possible when we’d talked, but when she asked me a direct question like this, I needed to lie, or risk arousing suspicion.
“I’m from Sariel’s domain,” I said, choosing the archangel whose territory was farthest from here. Chances were slim that Zoe had had dealings with someone from there.
Her eyes widened. “That’s a long distance to fly to get here. How long are you in the air every day?”
I shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
She worried her lip. “And here I thought flying an hour to come here was far.”
I fed her another grape, and she chewed thoughtfully. When she spoke next, it froze me to the bone.
“Are you related to Azrael?”
I plopped a piece of cheese into my mouth to win a few seconds before I answered, trying to disguise the shock to my system her question had caused. “What makes you think that?”
“It’s just…you guys look very similar. Like you could be brothers or something.”
I took another moment to choose my words. “There are no family ties between us.”
It was a half-truth, after all.
Officially, Azrael had renounced us all when he’d received the pardon and had been allowed back into Heaven. He’d repudiated Naamah and disavowed the children he’d had with her, formally breaking all family ties to us.
Unofficially, those bonds of flesh and blood still remained to this day, evident in the fact that I’d been able to call on him in my moment of need when Zoe had lain dying in my arms.
“Huh.” She frowned, and I stuffed her gorgeous mouth with a bite of cheese to forestall any more questions.
Instead, I asked one of my own. “How do you know Azrael?”
“Well,” she said after she was done chewing, “after he made me ascend, he kind of kept checking in on me. He said it was his duty, seeing as he turned me from human to angel, and he just wanted to make sure I was doing okay.”
I stared at her in complete bewilderment. None of what she’d said made any sense to my brain compared to what I knew of my father.
I tried for a casual tone when I asked, “So, you’re well acquainted?”
She shrugged. “I mean, he comes to visit maybe once or twice a year. I wouldn’t call it frequent, but it’s a regular thing. He asks me how I’m doing, we talk a bit, I roast him for being a robot without a sense of humor, and then he says goodbye and goes poof again.”
