Prologue
Asher — 4 years ago
I’d never loathed a city before, but never had a city destroyed me like Paris.
Paris, the cradle of love and sin.
For years, I’d deemed Jarod Adler the wickedest sinner of all. Tonight, I merited the title and a score far worse than a Triple’s.
I’d harvested the soul of not one but two nephilim and absconded with them through the rain-slickened skies of the French capital.
Underneath a cherry tree in full bloom, I held out my palms and relaxed my fingers around the golden orbs. What in Abaddon had possessed me to lift them from their bodies? This act of folly would not only have me questioned but also demoted and tossed out of Elysium, stripped of the appendages that made me who I was. All I was.
As raindrops dribbled through the pale pink petals and curved around the gilded spheres, spilling onto my boots like fresh blood, I shut my eyes and tipped my head back. If gods existed, I would’ve implored them for advice, but we, archangels, were the ones who decided between life and death, who weighed fates and judged souls.
Tonight, though, I was no more a deity than the ant crawling across my thumb.
I wrenched my lids open and closed my fingers, springing the unsuspecting creature off. Souls pulsating against my palms, I spread my wings and readied to return to the Demon Court. But the harsh, wet winds possessed a different plan for me.
They chartered a new course, shattering my moral compass, destroying the honorable angel and awakening the flawed man within.
1
Celeste — today
I walked the length of the busy bar before squeezing in between Mister Big Man on Campus and two twittering underaged girls, sporting too much makeup and too little fabric.
“Excuse you,” the blonde high schooler grumbled, her short hair swishing around a pair of hoops that could’ve doubled as bangles.
Without sparing her a glance, I slid my forearm across the sticky wooden bar top, giving my full attention to the guy wearing a backward baseball cap and a tight muscle tee that surely chafed his nipples.
“I’m thirsty,” I mewled. “Mind if I drink that?”
He spent a hot second looking me up and down. “Are you legal?”
I pretended to bristle, even though I gave zero feathers about my flat chest and narrow hips. I licked my lips, making sure to do it nice and slow. “More legal than those two.”
His pale eyes sparked as he slid the beer he’d bought the still-grumbling blonde toward me. “All yours, beautiful.”
My assortment of rings clicked against the chilled glass. “I like generous boys.” I pretended to lift the glass to my lips, but before the rim made contact, I stretched my index finger and ran it down the scruff on his jaw, then lower, along the column of his throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed, mirroring the excitement widening his pupils. Distracting him with a slow knuckle over pecs hardened by way too many hours at the college gym, I fished his wallet out of his low-slung jeans.
My wing bones thrummed as though readying to evict a feather. Except thieving wasn’t my style. Catching criminals red-handed was.
I pushed up on my toes and leveled my lips to his ear. “If you ever dose someone’s drink again”—I flipped open his wallet and dragged out his driver’s license—“Matt Boyd from Lafayette, California, I’ll call the cops on you myself.” And then I dumped the beer down his chest, getting a huge kick out of hearing him swear when the cold liquid hit his crotch.
I dropped the empty glass and his wallet on the bar, then extended the guy’s ID toward Jase, my bartending vigilante sidekick and best friend with numerous benefits.
“You crazy bitch,” Matt Boyd sputtered. “If anyone’s going to get arrested, it’s you.”
I shot him a saccharine smile. Although I’d been gifted with superhuman blood, I hadn’t been gifted with superhuman height, so I had to tilt my head up. “And for what crime will I be arrested? Saving an unsuspecting girl from getting drugged and raped?”
As Jase relieved me of the laminated card, his fingers brushed over mine. “I’m closing your tab. That’ll be twenty bucks, Mr. Boyd. Cash or credit?” He snapped a picture of both sides of his ID.
The guy’s reedy lips pulsed around angry breaths. “The fucking beer’s on me. Not in me!” He grabbed his wallet and shot away from the bar but came pec-to-pec with a wall of brawn.
Leon, The Trap’s owner and Jase’s much older brother, clapped both his hands on Matt’s shoulders, then steered him back toward the bar. Where Jase was slim, Leon was a mountain of a man with more tattoos than most convicts on the guild’s holo-rankers.
Leon flashed me a smile lacking a tooth from a recent brawl. Although his Harlem bar was trendy with the college kids, it was also ‘all the rage’ with neighborhood druggies and dealers. “Nice catch, Celeste.”
Matt began to growl obscenities that would’ve cost him a whole bunch of feathers had he been a fletching.
“Why, thank you.” I’d started hanging out at The Trap after meeting Jase last semester in my Criminal Justice class. And then I kept hanging out at the basement bar and grill for Leon’s extra-greasy, extra-delicious cheeseburgers and Jase’s easy company. And because you could take the girl out of the guild, but not the guild out of the girl, on busy nights, I kept an eye out for licentious activity.
“Cash or credit?” Jase repeated amiably.
Matt cranked his stubbled chin up. “The fuck I’m paying.”
“You dose a girl’s drink in my bar,” Leon growled, “then try to rip me off? Jase, get Tommy.”
“Who’s Tommy?” Matt’s voice lost its defiant edge.
“A retired Marine who just so happens to be a real talented sous-chef.”
Tommy was the strong, quiet type with facial tattoos that inspired fear in most people. He’d always been perfectly indifferent to me, so I had no beef with him.
When Jase started toward the kitchen, Matt extracted a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet. “No cops. I’m leavin’. And I promise, you’ll never see me again.”
“That’s nice, but what I want you to promise is to never drug a person ever again. Think you can do that?”
“Yeah. I’ll never—” Matt gulped. “Never do that shit again.”
“Good. Now hand over that stash of pills you brought into my bar.”
Matt slid a hand inside his boxers and pulled out a small Ziploc, which he shakily lifted.
Leon slapped his arm away. “I don’t want your fucking ball sweat in my face.” He snatched my empty beer glass. “Toss it in here.”
Matt dropped it in, then flipped his cap around, attempting to shade his face from the growing attention coming our way. I heard him mutter a shit when the head waitress and Leon’s on-again-off-again girlfriend Alicia said, “Got it all on film, Leon.”
“Thanks, babe.” And then he dropped his voice and murmured something in Matt’s ear that made the gym rat squirm and turn as white as the diamonds frosting the cross dangling around Leon’s neck.
For the first fifteen years of my life, I’d been taught to reform misbehaving humans gently, by offering them a hand to guide them toward the right path. During the ensuing four years, I learned that threats and brute force worked just as well, if not better. And way faster.