AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lightning gleamed in his eyes, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “And what would your reaction have been if I’d revealed my demon nature to you that very first day? Would you have even let me speak? Would you have given me a chance to explain? Or would you have run to report me to your superiors? Even now, after getting to know me and falling in love with me, you responded by nearly ramming your sword through my chest, barely willing to hear me out. Don’t tell me you’d have listened if I’d told you who I was right at the start.”
I clenched my teeth, unwilling to admit he was right.
His voice gentled as he went on. “I know you might not fully remember, at least not consciously, but those memories are there. I know they are. I’ve seen glimpses of them, moments over the past week when a scene from our past would play out word for word, and there was recognition in your eyes. Sometimes I’d nudge you there by trying to reenact a moment from our past; sometimes you’d come up with it yourself. Your memory of your human life is buried deep inside you, but slivers of it have been coming loose and rising to the surface. You want to know how to tell whether what I’m saying is the truth? Look inside you. It’s right there.”
I sucked in a breath. Memories… Those dreams I’d had. All those scenes that I’d thought were visions—could they have been memories instead? I mentally reexamined all the times I’d had that sense of knowing, of recognition, and had attributed it to part of a vision coming true.
And there were so many more dreams I remembered that hadn’t yet played out in reality. I’d chalked it up to them maybe relating to sometime farther in the future, that they might happen over the coming days, weeks, months, or even years.
Only that didn’t seem likely now. If I’d truly had visions of the future, and they featured Aziel, how could any more of those dreams come true after today? He was a demon in Heaven, and no matter my personal feelings about this, or him, or us, there wouldn’t be a future here for him.
And there were also some aspects of my dreams that had always seemed rather unrealistic, not likely to truly take place here in Heaven. I frowned as the image of a black cat rose up from the depths of my mind. A black cat with wings.
Such a creature did not exist in Heaven. But I’d seen it in a dream, the same dream that Mysterious Stranger—Aziel—had appeared in.
Dully, the throb of a headache started behind my temples.
Another image floated to me, another detail from a dream that did not fit my experience up here in Heaven.
“There was a dog,” I said, my voice but a whisper. “With three heads?”
His smile lit his eyes. “Her name is Vengeance. You picked her as your personal hellhound because you liked how clumsy she is.”
Vengeance. I knew that name. I knew that dog.
The pain in my head intensified, making me flinch.
“I’ve seen her,” I rasped. “In my dreams.” I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Same as you. I’ve been dreaming of you since I woke up here.”
He took a shuddering breath, the movement of his chest making the point of my sword slice further into his skin. “Dreams,” he said with a half smile.
On an impulse, I rushed to demand, “What is the other animal? Besides the dog, what is the other pet?”
Something he could only answer correctly if what he was saying was true. If those visions of mine weren’t actually visions, but memories. Memories that he shared.
“A hellcat.” His eyes glowed quicksilver as he steadily held my gaze. “A black cat with wings. He’s an obnoxious little shit with no sense of boundaries or sarcasm, but he’s loyal and intermittently helpful. You were the only person he ever allowed to pet him.”
“What’s his name?” I whispered, every word of his feeling like a missing puzzle piece clicking into place, confirming what I’d seen in my dreams.
“Mephistopheles.”
Mephisto. My eyes widened. I’d spoken that name in one of my dreams.
But I needed more, needed further confirmation. Something that couldn’t also be part of a vision of the future, something he could only know because it had already happened exactly like that.
“That moment with the dagger,” I said breathlessly. “The first day we met here, when you gave me that dagger and made me hold it against your throat.” I swallowed, my mouth feeling dry. “You asked me if we could talk. What did you say next? Not here in the cave, but in…the past. You said something else. What was it?”
I still remembered those words, had wondered why he hadn’t spoken them that day the dream had supposedly come true. Later, I’d chalked it up to the future being fluid, and changeable, thought that maybe not everything from a vision would necessarily play out exactly like I’d seen it.
Aziel lifted his chin. “I have never touched you with the intent to harm, and I never will.”
And every word of his was the death knell for my suspicious resistance to believing him.
Because he couldn’t know those words unless he’d said them in the past, in a shared history I didn’t remember…except in my dreams.
“It’s true.” My voice was hoarse as I refocused on Aziel, the floor falling out from under me. “It’s all true. You’re—I’m?—”
“Zoe,” he murmured, raising his hand to cup my face, his features ravaged by love and pain. “You’re my Zoe.”
