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Opening rifts had always been easy, a simple thought of wanting to be somewhere else coupled with the intention to open a way there. This was different, like reaching through a wall of viscous goo in order to open a window stuck tight with years of paint. Lances of pain shot through Kheone’s head, adding to the torment already inflicted upon her.
They landed with a heavy thud, arms and legs entangled. Embarrassing if the situation wasn’t so dire. The dagger clattered away. The blanket Michael—that son of a bitch—had covered her with made the journey with them, wrapped around her leg. Kheone kicked at it, suppressing the shiver threatening to begin at the base of her spine now the danger had passed.
The archangel she trusted had betrayed her, her age-old enemy saved her, and she had no time to figure out what any of it meant. Not if she wanted to live. On top of the pain that Kheone already felt, the fall knocked the wind out of her. She lay gasping on the cool, tiled floor in the oddly lit room.
“Oh, Christ, that hurt,” Shax said with a groan from where he had landed, right on top of her. He levered himself up to look her over. “Where are we?”
“Museum,” she wheezed. “Should be safe. Only Serel—”
God, it hurt to breathe.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, finally taking in a deep breath. The pain in her body ebbed as oxygen flowed through her, replaced by pure rage.
“Get off.”
Kheone shoved Shax away, unable to bear having him so close. He sprawled on the floor, his expression hurt.
“What did I do?”
“What did you do?” Kheone stood, towering over him, and spewed out her anger. Even as she did so, she knew Shax didn’t deserve all of it. He was merely the closest target. “You lied to me. You betrayed me. You—”
“I saved your ass,” he said, rising from the floor. They stood toe-to-toe, his amber eyes snapping.
“I saved yours.”
Kheone jabbed him in the chest with a finger, the pain of the Rite forgotten in her anger. Shax grabbed her hand, and molten need swept over her still-sensitive skin, dousing her fury. His eyes flared, echoing her desire.
“You kissed Michael,” he said, soft and accusing.
“Michael kissed me.” Some of the heat left her voice.
“You wanted him to.”
“Yes, I did.”
Shax let go of her hand and turned his head, focusing on a point behind her. She missed his touch, though he stood within easy reach. A blanket of regret she wished to toss off fell over her heart.
“I don’t anymore,” she said. His gaze snapped back to hers. “You kissed me, too.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“I’m a demon, Blue. Why not?”
Kheone grabbed his jacket with both hands and pulled him to her. No more lingering gazes, no more smoldering caresses. No more games. She had to know if what she felt was real. She had to know if he felt the same.
“Don’t give me garbage, Shax. Why?”
“Because,” he said, his liquid honey voice doing obscene things to her insides. “I thought I’d never see you again. And in all my life, the only thing I would ever regret was not kissing you.”
How in the nine spheres of Heaven had he given her the exact right answer? Desire washed over her, and she closed the last few inches between them. Kheone sealed her lips to his, dipping her tongue into his mouth. She tasted him in long, languorous strokes. Salty and spicy. Shax melted into her, his heat mingling with her own until every inch of her was on fire with wanting him. She tore the jacket off him and slid her hands under his shirt.
His skin was smooth and silken over hard, lean muscle. She’d never felt something so exquisite. Shax moaned at the contact and pressed her back to the wall. Framing her face with his palms, he eased his tongue between her lips.
With her own moan, she wrapped a long leg around his. His hard cock pressed into the juncture between her thighs. She rubbed against him, wanting him, needing him.
“You’re killing me, Blue,” he said, letting her come up for air.
She smiled and pulled off his shirt, running her hands up and down his chest, teasing the line of skin at his waistband. A frustrated growl escaped his lips, and he yanked her shirt over her head. Shax trailed kisses down her neck, lingering a moment over the scar he’d given her. Had it only been a year ago?
He ran his tongue along the line of her bra as he undid the clasp in the back. Shax brushed the straps off her shoulders and fastened his lips around one of the hard buds he’d revealed. Kheone leaned her head against the wall behind her. He slid his hands around her, gently tracing the outline of her wings. Kheone bit back a cry of pure pleasure.
“Oh, God, Shax,” she murmured against his mouth.
He arched into her. Kheone nearly lost her mind with need.
“Less clothes,” he mumbled.
She dropped her leg and fumbled at the button of his jeans, kicking off her shoes. She pushed the thick denim down along with the silken boxers he wore, freeing the hard length of him. Kheone grazed him with her fingers and smiled as he shuddered in pleasure. Shax returned the favor, stripping her bare, then cupped her ass. He lifted her up, using the wall as leverage.
Kheone wrapped her arms around his neck, and he slid into her wet depths. She cried out in pleasure. Once again, he reached around her, his butterfly touches to her wings changing to firm pressure, the heat settling low in her belly, the tension unfurling. She shattered, clenching around him, while his kisses swallowed her cries.
Shax removed her hands from around his neck and held them against the wall above her head. He pinned her there as he increased his thrusts, the dull thud of their two bodies hitting the wall loud in the otherwise silent room. His rhythm became frantic, and with a long, low groan, he came.
He released her and leaned his head on her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him until his breath slowed. Shax lifted his head, and Kheone forced herself to let him go. As impossible as it sounded, she could have stayed like that for hours. He kissed her again, softly, the last ember of their passion flaring between them.
“I’m—” he started.
“If you say you’re sorry, I’m going to hit you,” she said with a small smile. God knew she wasn’t sorry. “I wanted it just as much as you.”
He answered with a fierce grin and pulled up his jeans. They dressed quickly, and Shax looked around.
“Where the Hell did you say we were, again?” he asked.
Kheone pushed aside her emotions for the moment. Survival had to take priority over whatever had happened between them. She’d chosen the one safe place that came to mind as she regained consciousness and realized how totally screwed they were. But something was off. If she could wrap her head around what. She closed her eyes. The pain ebbed some more without the light.
She was exactly where she wanted to be. She’d glimpsed the storeroom crammed full of extra chairs once when attending a lecture in the basement. Except—
“What time is it?” she asked, her eyes flying open.
“Not sure, but it was near dawn when I found you.”
“I don’t think the museum is open yet, so where is the light coming from?”
Together, they looked up at the ceiling. They clearly saw the light fixture in the middle of the ceiling, a standard industrial fluorescent model which was definitely not on. A blue-gray light suffused the room, nonetheless. Shax’s expression changed from confused to worried.
“What?” he whispered, echoing her own thoughts.
He took her hand in his, grasping for whatever comfort he could find. Sweet heat snuck up her arm, setting her body on fire again. Now was not the time for more wall banging. There were more important puzzles to figure out.
Looking for something to distract her from that idea, Kheone grabbed the dagger off the floor and idly twirled it.
“Be careful,” Shax said, stepping away from her.
“Why?”
Kheone stopped fidgeting with the dagger and examined the black blade and bone handle, oddly cold in her hand.
“It’s a weapon of oblivion,” he said so matter-of-factly it took a moment to register.
She nearly dropped the damned thing, all thoughts of more sex driven from her mind.
“How do you know?”
“Let’s just say that dagger and I go way back. Unfortunately, it’s the least of our worries at the moment.”
True, having a soul-eating dagger was a worry, but it could wait. One problem at a time. What number were they on? Fifteen?
She turned the knob and cracked the door open. Dead silence greeted her ears. No whir of ventilation, not a creak from the hinges. The same twilight filled the hall, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once, but not from the industrial light fixtures lining the low basement ceiling. She stepped into the hall.
“Kheone—”
She held up a hand, and he snapped his mouth shut, letting her take the lead. Her sneakers made a soft squeak on the tiled floor as she slowly crept down the hall. It was the only sound until Shax’s booted feet followed her out of the storeroom. Together, the sound of their brief journey echoed irregularly off the walls, ceiling, and floor, as though the air was thicker here.
Kheone glanced over her shoulder, unable to tell how far behind Shax was, but stopped mid-stride. The door to the storeroom was closed. There had been no noise to indicate it.
“Did you close the door?” she whispered.
Shax shook his head and looked back.
Kheone fought the urge to run in the opposite direction. No footsteps, no breathing, no evidence at all anyone else was here. She lifted the dagger and returned to the storeroom. Shax stood behind her with a hand on her shoulder, ready to pull her out of harm’s way should they have both missed another person sneaking behind them. She turned the metal knob and pushed the door open. No one was there in the gray-lit room.
She took a step back and looked at Shax, who pointed. The door was shut again. They had been standing right here, no one else was there, and the door to the storeroom stood implacably shut as though they had never opened it. What the Hell was going on here?
“Now what?” Shax asked.
She shrugged. She was in the right place, but not, somehow.
“This is definitely the basement of the museum, but something is wrong.”
“How safe are we here?”
“I kept my off-hours to myself. Serel was the only one who knew I liked to come here. If they can perform a tracking spell, they’ll find us, eventually. But if I’ve somehow taken us back or forward in time, we’ll be safe for a while.”
“Is time travel even possible?”
“Is it possible for the Archangel Michael to betray God in order to free his accursed brother?”
“So, yes, maybe?” he said, a smirk twitching up one side of his lips at her sarcastic tone that felt raw and new.
Kheone huffed out a breath and turned on her heels, striding toward the stairs at the end of the hall.
“I can only think of one way to find out,” she said.
“Can you open another rift?”
“I don’t know, Shax. It really hurt to get here. I will try again if Michael and Aeshma show up, but for now, I’d really like to know what in the bloody blue blazes happened the last time.”
“Fair enough.” The clomp of his boots followed her down the hall and up the stairs to a gallery.
Kheone walked into the middle of the large room. One thing stood out. The colors were all wrong. In the utilitarian basement, painted an off-white, it hadn’t been apparent. Here in the gallery, the gloriously colored paintings of her memory were muted, the colors muddied, laced with grays and browns. The clean lines of the painter’s hand fuzzy and out of focus. Realization dawned on her.
“Oh, shit. Purgatory,” she whispered.
She had seen it before, quick glimpses while escorting those sentenced to Purgatory to its Gate. Kheone had noticed the blue-gray eternal twilight and the muted colors, a shadowy copy of the Earth, as the souls had stepped through. Purgatory was a punishment, though a sentence of self-reflection rather than torment. The things which brought joy on Earth were subdued or missing to encourage introspection and reduce distraction. No hunger or thirst, but no cheer or song or comfort. None of the things that made life worth living.
“Seriously?” Shax asked, face pale.
“Yes.”
“How the fuck did you do that?”
Kheone glared at him.
“Okay, okay,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “Can you get us out of here?”
“Give me five more minutes, and I’ll try.”
She turned around and headed toward the stairs. Before she reached them, Shax gripped her elbow, halting her in her tracks.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We might be safer here. I mean, who would think to look for us in Purgatory?”
Kheone shuddered. “I don’t like it here.”
He tugged gently on her arm, and she turned to him. Shax reached up and hesitated, his hand hanging in the air before he lowered it back to his side. Kheone grasped his hand, holding onto it like she would a bit of flotsam in a great, wide ocean. An ember sparked in the depths of his golden eyes.
“I don’t either, but until today, I thought the only way to Purgatory was through the Garden. How long until anyone thinks to look for us here? Is there any place on Earth where Michael couldn’t find you?”
At the mention of Michael’s name, Kheone lost the fragile thread of control she’d been clinging to. The tears started falling. The ones she’d been keeping in since she realized Michael was not who she had thought he was. He had betrayed her trust and wanted her dead. Shax tugged her into a tight embrace and held her as she cried. He made no demands, just held her until she stopped.
“I’m sorry,” she said many minutes later, voice hoarse.
“Nothing to be sorry about, Kheone. You’ve had a crappy day.”
She wheezed out a laugh. That was putting it mildly. Shax gave her a crooked grin. Master of the understatement.
“I’m tired and scared, Shax, and I don’t want to be here. But you may be right. I’d like to open a rift to Earth, though. If anyone figures out we are here, we’ll need an escape hatch. We don’t have to step through.”
“Okay.”
She’d expected more of an argument, but he trusted her to make the plan.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go back to the storeroom. Maybe it’ll be easier there since that’s where the rift opened.”
Kheone walked down the hall and pulled open the door without hesitation. Shax followed her into the cramped room. Taking a shaky breath, she reached through the mental goo. Lightning flickered through her mind and down her arms and legs, the pain excruciating, rivaled only by the rite she had just endured. The other side of the rift remained out of reach.
“Kheone, what’s wrong?” Shax’s voice came through like an old phonograph, tinny and faint.
She did not have the energy to reply. The stakes were high. Trapped in Purgatory forever if she couldn’t open a rift. She had to do this, no matter the cost.
Kheone did not see the red light as the rift formed. She was too busy blacking out.