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“I won’t,” I said. “And if you truly haven’t forgotten who I am, you know I’m stubborn enough to stay here.”
“I am still not convinced you are who you say you are. I have not been able to trust my senses in a long time. But I am offering you this chance. Take it and go.”
“If I can prove I am the Sarakiel you know, would you leave with me?”
“You are wasting time.”
“Remember the day you found me on that long stretch of road. It was raining. I had just killed two men, raptured them without knowing I could do that. You took me in and brought me to your bastion.”
Abaddon turned his head slightly to the left, enough to see me with the side of his face without looking at me directly. “I thought you were a spy.”
“And you were an asshole to me, but you never let anyone touch me or hurt me. You broke the wings of both of the angels who ever dared.”
“Karn…”
“Remember Helena?” I said. “Remember how we fought Medrion and his forces off together. Remember the volcano…” I ventured.
Abaddon turned around fully, and while his countenance was still dark, and pained, I saw the angel I knew once more. I saw memory dancing across his face. He was trying to remember those moments, to relive them. I felt pain, now, watching him. What had Lucifer done to him?
“It is you…” he said.
I nodded. “I came back,” I said, taking a step toward him. “I clawed my way out of the Pit, I fought my way through Hell, and slipped through the portal to Earth just to get back to you.”
“Sarakiel, I…” he tried to speak, but then thought better of continuing.
I took another step toward him, nodding. “That’s right,” I said. “It’s me. I don’t know what’s happened to you or what Lucifer has done to you, but I’m here, and I’m asking you to leave with me.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. The things I have done… these sins cannot be washed away.”
“I don’t care about what he made you do. I only care about how much it’s hurt you.”
“I am not the same angel I was. I am an angel no longer…” he lowered his head. “Soon, I fear, I may become Wretched.”
“Don’t say that. Come with me and let me help you.”
“I am beyond help, Sarakiel.” He turned his eyes up at me. “I am the King of the Ashes. Ariuk’s prophecy came true.”
I shook my head and ran up to him, closing the distance between us in a heartbeat. Looking up at him I tried to catch his eyes, but he didn’t want to look at me. I dared get a little closer and place my hand on his chest like I used to.
For me, it wasn’t that long ago I had last done this. For him, it may have felt like a lifetime ago—or longer still. I felt his chest rise, then fall. I felt his heart beating beneath his skin, pulsing slowly, and calmly.
“Come with me,” I said. “Please.”
Abaddon gave me his eyes. “You will not love me like you once did when you hear of the things I have done,” he said.
“Let me be the judge of that.”
I surged toward him, reaching for his lips with my own, when a chorus of resounding laughter filled the chamber.
CHAPTER TWENTY
My stomach fell, my skin prickled all over, and I suddenly felt exposed. Naked. I was being laughed at, laughter that seemed to come from the very shadows created by the Light shining from between my wings. I couldn’t see the people around me, but it sounded like there were hundreds of them.
Abaddon likewise seemed to tighten. He scanned the darkness with narrowed eyes, his wings unfurling and curling around his shoulders as if to protect him from harm. There was a time when he would’ve wrapped me up as well, but not today.
I heard someone start a slow clap, a sound that seemed to shut up all the laughing and jeering going on around me.
It could only have been him.
