“Rise.”
Relieved to get off the ground, I stand and look up at Gabriel, who wears a smile on his handsome face. He is so beautiful that looking at him hurts my eyes. There’s something magnetic about this archangel that makes people want to rub on him and follow him around like puppies. Or maybe that’s just me. Nah, it can’t just be me. Men and women fall at his feet and do whatever he asks of them whether they like it or not, and they’re happy to do it.
Gabriel is a powerful angel, I remind myself. He projects and imposes power mortals can’t comprehend. Jailbait told me that the first day I came here. She said to guard my heart. I laughed. As if. I’m not laughing anymore.
“I am yet to approve?” he asks, amusement in his voice.
Okay, this is going better than I expected. I nod.
He laughs. It’s a wonderful sound and makes me want to hear it all day long, especially in the mornings around coffee after a really nice long night spent with him doing things… Okay, I can stop now. He can feel what I feel, and lust is definitely all the feels. Does it make him lust too?
“Ms. Combs, tell me about the party.”
“I’m planning a surprise unsupervised party for Luna’s birthday.”
“No.”
I knew he’d disapprove. “But she’ll go elsewhere, Your Highness. If we do nothing about it, she’ll seek trouble elsewhere, I promise you. Those girls won’t settle down. They’re young and vibrant, and they want to experience things.” I’m afraid they’ll visit the soldiers in the barracks, or worse, cross into the Veil.
“What things?”
“Um. Alcohol, sex, and other sinful things.”
“Alcohol and sex aren’t sinful.”
“They’re not?”
“Of course not, Ms. Combs. It’s how we approach those two and the result of our choices that may lead us to sin. A woman who drinks a glass of ale and a woman who drinks a gallon of ale, then beats her husband are different, and yet they both drank alcohol.”
And sex? I didn’t ask, just nodded.
He continues, “As much as I hate to disappoint you, there will be no party, and our rendezvous stands at nine sharp.” He steps away from the door. “You may leave now.”
I slip outside and hear feathers ruffling as he follows behind me.
“Ms. Combs.”
I stop and turn, and he doesn’t stop. He walks right up to me, and I find myself inches away from his broad chest and broader shoulders, staring up into his midnight-blue eyes no longer dark and broody, but lighter, with flecks of baby blue dancing inside them like tiny stars.
“We shall have a very good evening. I guarantee it.”
My brain translates. I’m gonna fuck your brains out and spank you while you recite the list of virtues. Having nothing to say, I smile. I keep grinning as I close the office door, move down the hallway, and go outside with a bounce in my step, completely forgetting I should be disappointed and mad he didn’t approve the unsupervised party.
Chapter 4
“Your students got it right. If you want to get past the soldiers, the goal is to look like a hooker on the prowl.” My friend Eve sips her coffee, leaning against her kitchen counter. I live with her off campus because she moves in and out of the Veil with ease. I never asked how, but when she told me some of her story, I figured she would know the ins and outs of the Veil.
Azrael, a fallen angel living inside the Veil, kidnapped Eve from her home. One night when he was drunk on Lucifer’s malice, she managed to escape. Outside the Veil, a soldier from the Court of Command took her into his tent. He couldn’t help but notice her beauty, and after he found out about her history, he decided to marry her and abandon his post. They ran away, but later that same day, Lucifer marked him.
The soldier attacked her, but Eve managed to escape, and on the run hid inside this little shack about half an hour’s car ride from the House of Virtue. She stayed here, farming, but she can’t stop returning to the Veil, and I can’t stop wishing to see my dad.
Eve agreed to help me get my dad the things he needs, and we plan to kidnap him one day and force him to leave the Veil. That day is not today, however.
Gabriel can never find out.
Eve puts the cup on the counter and moves toward the bedroom. “Follow me.”
Inside our shared bedroom, I stand beside her closet, which is packed with clothes I’d never wear. She dumps a pair of identical spandex cow-print tube tops on my bed. I stare at the items.
“We’re gonna look like cows heading for greener pastures,” I say.
“Guys love cows.”
“That’s awkward.”
Eve laughs, and her almond-shaped eyes lift at the corners. Eve is beautiful, and I would go as far as saying she’s the prettiest girl I’d ever met. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and her beauty and kindness, I presume, are what attracted a fallen angel. But they also attracted me, just not in a creepy way. She won me over with wit and kindness, and although I’ve only known her for a few weeks, I feel like I’ve known her forever.
Eve slips off her tunic, and I turn away, grabbing my top at the same time. I’d never needed to seduce soldiers to get close to the Veil before, and the thought of it makes my belly flutter, and not in a good way.
I pull the tube top over my breasts. It barely covers them, leaving my belly completely nude. When I turn, Eve has put her tube top on the bottom.
“Whaaaa…” I say.
She laughs. “It’s a tiny skirt, not a top.”
I make an O with my mouth and push it down and over my behind, then approach the mirror and turn. It’s barely covering my ass. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Are we wearing a top, or is that optional?”
Eve swings something that looks like a chandelier over my breasts. It’s made of black beads, and under it is a beige stretch fabric. I put it on and feel truly naked. I also feel pretty sexy and—briefly!—wonder if Gabriel would find me sexy in this. Eve is wearing the exact same clothes, so we match, except she has hips and thighs and breasts and legs for days. I’m five one. Pixie power.
“You look hot,” I tell her. “One of those angels is gonna faint.” Eve can’t shake off an addiction to Azrael, the fallen who kidnapped her. His power, much like Lucifer’s, attacks a mortal’s basic instincts, mating being one of them. She’s gone through a lot, much of which she’s never shared with me, but I deduced the rest.
“Ditto.” She does her evil-laughter thing and grabs a sack from the bottom of her closet. She yanks out a black plastic seven-inch-platform shoe and holds it up like a trophy.
“You’re a bad girl, Eve.”
She chucks the platform at me.
I catch it and try it on. “Too big.”
“Stuff toilet paper in it.”
In the bathroom, I’m stuffing the paper into the shoe when Eve pulls out a brand-new makeup sack and attacks my face first before doing her own. The pound of red lipstick should last for a week. I stare at the woman in the mirror. My hair is down and actually styled. I have a waist, hips, and tits. “I think I’m ready,” I tell her.
“Five minutes.”
In the bedroom, I pull a tunic over my clothes and stand by the window, waiting for Eve. Blue wings appear in the sky. “Shit, Eve, there’s Gabriel.” I squint, trying to see farther up because there’s something there… Oh no, it’s the Fleet. A sky full of white-winged angels wearing white uniforms with golden trim is blending with the clouds, probably wrapping them around their bodies as camouflage. I heard they can do that.