Pure & Sinful (Pure Souls) - By Killian McRae Page 0,87

he’d never have risked making himself corporeal. Angels, they aren’t a one-chance-to-play like demons are, but rules exist to make sure everything’s equitable. Lucifer may have fallen, but the essence of his being is still angelic. There’s a moratorium whenever one of the elite on either side is vanquished. He can’t return personally to Earth again for twenty-nine years.”

Her anger melted into confusion. Dee continued.

“I know, ‘twenty-nine years,’ right? It was a negotiation process, and the particulars really aren’t that interesting. But, unless you’re planning a trip to the underworld, which by the way, isn’t possible for a living human, you’re going to have to put off the personal vendetta thing until you’re well into your sixties.”

As though it could do nothing else, Riona’s frame slackened. Her eyes glistened, but fighting the tears was too much of an effort. They began flowing again, dropping into her teacup like rain.

“How can you be so… calm?” she sobbed accusingly at Dee. “How can you not show any emotion over this? I thought he was your best friend!”

“I am emotional,” Dee boasted as a Texas-sized smile crossed his face, drawing a sneer from Riona. “I’m proud.”

“Proud?” she asked, like it was a foreign word.

“Riona, if it really went down the way you and Ramiel said, how could I be anything but? You both were willing to throw away salvation to save the other. Marc just upped the ante beyond anything you could do. Do you really think Lucifer would have let his soul go? Naw, he would have found a way to keep it, just because he can’t stand having to lose pride to anyone. That bastard could find loopholes like a drunk finds trouble. No wonder, with Jerry helping him out…”

“Jerry.” Clouds moved over her countenance.

Dee barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Yeah, Jerry… Anyways, loopholes. He’d have released the punishment for that sin, but all he’d have done is found another way to tempt Marc later on. And if he had you as a demon, just imagine how easy that would have been. So Marc beat him to the punch by committing the only cardinal sin there’s no loophole for: suicide.”

“You’re saying, Marc killed himself…”

“…to save you from Satan, yes,” Dee confirmed.

She chewed on that like a piece of tough meat. “What did Lucifer mean, about the stars aligning and me being a bride of Hell? Dee, am I … You said there’s no such thing as predestination.”

“There’s not.”

They both turned to find Ramiel filling the doorway, his expression looking like a wrecking crew had been using it for training.

Despite her somber state, Riona gasped when she realized that the two slips of white behind him were the wings she always suspected he had, but never seen. Their appearance shocked her. She didn’t know what she expected — probably something like you’d see in a painting: billowy, feathery, bird-like wings, blown up to a superhuman scale — but they were nothing like that. The two alar masses that jutted up from his back weren’t like a dove’s in any way. They were radiant, burning, as though in motion even when at rest, and made of light. Or fire. The effect wasn’t regulated to just those features, however. In the glow of his angelic aura, all of Ramiel was transfigured. The same shape of his face, the same contours and flow of wavy, blonde hair, but purer, simpler. Less sexy and more reverent, for lack of a better term. He was… heavenly.

“What?”

Dee looked at her, dumbfounded, as though worried. Sure, Riona realized, Dee had known Ramiel for decades. The whole winged-warrior incarnation was probably nothing new to him. The thought reminded Riona of how, despite the magnitude of what had just occurred, she was still so new to this way of life. Maybe if she hadn’t been, she’d have known earlier on that something about Lucy was fishy, or found another way to save Marc.

As though realizing he’d left the kitchen light on his way back to bed, Ramiel took account of himself and somehow turned down the ambience. As his skin faded from brilliance back to “colors that exist on Earth,” the wings dissolved from view, leaving the less-interesting panorama of the living room behind him.

He took a few steps into the room, all the time his eyes fixed on Marc’s body with mistrust, as he continued. “There’s no such thing as predestination. What would be the purpose of living if there were? But there is something akin to destiny.