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“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, if you leave, then I’ll leave with you.”
“Sarakiel, you cannot do that.”
“Helena has Micah, and it has Azrael. They’ll manage without me.”
Abaddon shook his head. “You aren’t listening?—”
“—yes, I am. And what I’m hearing is you, chastising yourself eternally instead of forgiving yourself and moving on. I won’t let you stay stuck in the past, but if you’re going to, then I’m going to be there with you.”
“I cannot let you do that. I refuse to allow you to wallow in my own…” he paused, realizing what he was about to say. “Self-pity,” he continued.
I shook my head. “Tyrants don’t pity themselves.”
“I am Tyrant no longer.”
“You chose to wear these marks. There’s still a Tyrant inside of you, only now you can choose to take the best parts about him, use those, and throw out the rest.” I paused. “I admired his strength, his passion, his need to protect those he cares about. Be the best version of yourself, but do it with me. With all of us.”
Abaddon looked at me, bringing the full weight of his gaze on me. He twisted his hand around so that he could grab hold of my fingers. “I will spend the rest of my days atoning for my mistakes,” he said, nodding. “If you would have me.”
“I don’t need you to do that. I only need you.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Isn’t it stupidly obvious?”
“Nothing about you is obvious to me.”
I took Abaddon’s hand fully, approached him, and placed my other hand on his chest. With my chin turned up, I smiled at him. “Because I love you,” I said. “I am in love with you. I can’t imagine a world where you and I exist apart from each other.”
Abaddon grinned a slow grin.
“What’s that about?” I asked.
His eyebrow arched. “I wanted to hear you say it.”
“You… wait, you wanted me to say it?” I lightly slapped my hand against his bare chest. “So, all this stuff you just said, you were just—” –Abaddon brought his lips against mine, closing the gap between our mouths in an instant.
He kissed me deeply just as a huge wave crashed into the side of the bastion of Helena, sending a rush of sea spray up and over the wall. We were drenched, but I didn’t care. I cupped his face with my hands and leaned more deeply into the kiss, savoring every last second of it.
“You are the spark that ignites the fires in my chest,” breathed Abaddon against my lips. “You are my Light in the dark, the reason I exist—the only being that could make me want to be better. I will spend the rest of my life proving to you all the ways in which I am worthy of the love you have given me.”
I tugged on his lower lip. “You had better,” I said against his mouth.
“Ahem,” came a voice from somewhere behind us.
It was Micah, the cherub’s face shining bright red with embarrassment. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”
“You are, in fact,” said Abaddon, but I rushed my hand up to his mouth and smiled brightly at Micah.
“Not at all,” I said, quickly separating myself from the angel I had just been furiously making out with. “What do you, uh, what do you need?”
“Well… I closed the portal to Heaven,” he said. “No one’s getting in without a cherub’s permission.”
“That’s good news.”
“It is, except there are other cherubs running around on Earth. We should probably get to work finding them, shouldn’t we? We wouldn’t want one of them going rogue and making a mess of things.”
