“I had dreams too,” he said.
She frowned.
“Dreams about you and me. A sex dream, and…another one.”
She laughed nervously, pulling her hair over one shoulder. “Well, I suppose we were dealing with a lot of pent-up tension, sexual and otherwise, and a dream is a logical outlet—”
“I called you Shamsiel.”
She stiffened.
“I know that used to be your name. Dan told us. I thought it was just my subconscious being random.”
“But…?” She searched his gaze, confused. “What are you saying?”
He took a breath before asking, “Did you know me in the past, Sunshine? Have we ever met before?”
“No,” she replied immediately. “Of course not. Like I said before, the time I saw you in the bar with Daniel was the first time I’d ever seen you. I had no idea who you were. I was drawn to you, yes, but that doesn’t mean I knew you. Why would you even ask me that? Wouldn’tyouknow if we’d met?”
“I’m missing three hundred years of memory.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“You didn’t know that? I thought you knew everything about me.”
“I— No, I didn’t know that! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just thought you knew. Or it didn’t seem important.”
“But…how? Why?”
“I don’t know.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “That makes no sense.”
“I broke the rules in some major way.” His mouth twisted, and he bent one knee up, draping his arm over it. “I don’t know what I did, but it must have been bad. Because as punishment, three hundred years of my memory was erased. I have no idea what happened to me. I’ve been trying to figure it out for ages and never found a clue. Until now.”
“Why now?”
“Sunshine…” His gaze was intense. “I think we knew each other. In the past.”
“But that’s impossible.” She leaned over and briefly squeezed the hand draped over his knee. What he’d been through must have been terrible, and she wanted to help him, but she couldn’t give him false hope.
“I would remember if we’d met,” she explained, “and I can assure you I’ve never had amnesia. Well—” Her stomach flipped as thoughts of the past suddenly bubbled up. “There was one time I suffered temporary confusion while healing from a traumatic event, but it was a short period and I remembered everything afterward.”
His gaze instantly sharpened. “What traumatic event?”
“I—” She looked down at her hands. Talking about this was never easy, and it hadn’t gotten easier because no one dared mention it. Every angel in Heaven dodged around her past like it was a dirty secret that might taint them too if they admitted to knowing it.
But this was Raum. He wasn’t concerned with such things, and she trusted him not to react in a way that would hurt her. She took a breath and said, “I was captured by demons.”
His eyes flared. “You were what?”
“It was a stupid mistake. A group of demons were stirring up trouble in a human town, and I went to confront them. I was a Principality then, and it was normally a job for an archangel, but I wanted to help, I guess. I foolishly went alone. I underestimated their numbers. One managed to sneak up behind me and strike me with a blade so I was too injured to flash away.”
She gathered her courage and told him the rest. “They took me to their lair in Hell, and I was held for months in an underground cell. They drained me of blood again and again and cut my wings off to sell every time they regrew. I wasn’t sexually abused—these particular demons weren’t interested in that—but they did pretty much everything else. They sold my…parts at the Blood Market and became rich off of them. I supplied all of Hell with angel blood for years to come, I’m sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s still some out there.”
“What the fuck?” His hand dropped and he sat up stiffly. The gold of his eyes darkened to that same furious amber she’d seen before when he fought with Belial. “Who?Who took you?”
