I took a single step forward and felt a sharp rock cut through the sole of my sandal, biting into my skin.
Joriel leaped to his feet faster than I could blink and lunged at me. The chain pulled tight, stopping him before he could reach me.
“No!” I cried as the collar around his neck dug in, cutting off his air and turning the growl rumbling from his chest into a choked gasp.
None of that stopped him from reaching for me with a hand covered in black blood. It waseverywhere—coating his hands, his hair, his pants.
My heart constricted as I took in the fresh cuts on his arms and the jagged wound in his side several inches below the brand on his chest.
How was he even standing right now?
I wanted to cry, or scream, dosomething, but I could barely breathe at the moment. I gasped for air that didn’t seem to do me any good.
Joriel never took his eyes off me. That hunger I’d seen earlier was amplified now. He looked at me like he was starving and I was a feast of all his favorite foods. And not in a good way. His lips peeled back from his bared teeth, making him look more like a wild animal than a man.
His parting words echoed in my mind, cutting deep into my heart.Someday you might show up here and find a monster who doesn’t remember that he used to be an angel.
He’d been right. I hadn’t wanted to believe him, had been so sure that he was stronger than he was giving himself credit for. But there was no mistaking the truth that was currently growling at me.
Joriel didn’t know who he was or what he’d been.
But that didn’t mean he was gone. Maybe I was being naive and stupid, but I refused to accept that option. He had to be in there somewhere, and I was going to find him even if it killed me.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I could do this. I wasn’t losing the only good thing left in my life.
I opened my eyes and leaped forward, trying to catch him off guard. Even injured, I was willing to bet Joriel was stronger than me. And I knew for a fact that the kind of desperation I saw in his eyes could give a person strength that shouldn’t normally be possible. It was what allowed human women to lift cars to save their children or people to keep fighting after being shot.
My fingers slipped over his cheek for the briefest second before his hands grasped my shoulders, spinning us around and shoving me against the wall behind him.
I couldn’t hold back a startled cry of pain as my back slammed into the wall of rock behind me. The wounds on my back didn’t actively hurt anymore, but they weren’t healing the way they normally should have. The skin there was still sensitive and raw.
Joriel’s hand closed around my neck, pinning me in place as his gaze zeroed in on the pulse point in my neck.
“Jor,” I pleaded, knowing it was useless. He was far past the point where my words could reach him.
I curled my fingers over his wrist, holding on tightly. In my experience, my calming powers were strongest when I was touching a person’s face, but I didn’t have the luxury of being picky right now.
I closed my eyes, doing my best to ignore my surroundings. This wouldn’t work if I was panicking. I focused on happy memories—Jonah’s smile, painting in my room while music blared, eating at the table in the great hall with Shahar and the other humans, the garden bursting with flowers and fruits, the village Roth had shown me before we’d left Heaven. I poured every beautiful thought into Joriel, through the connection at his wrist, urging them to wrap around him and soothe the pain and turmoil in him.
My body trembled with the effort I was putting into using my powers. I’d soothed countless humans over my twenty-one years, but there’d never been so much riding on it working.
Please, Joriel. Come back to me.I couldn’t do this without him. It wasn’t just the thought of being left alone. It was that I couldn’t stand the idea of losinghimspecifically, of his life and stories fading away.
Hair brushed over my shoulder, and then Joriel’s face pressed against my neck.
My breath hitched, and it took everything in me not to tense up while I waited for the sharp bite of pain I knew was coming.
I’d put two and two together. The hunger in his eyes could only mean one thing. He wanted at the heavenly fire that flowed through my veins. And the only way he could get to it was to make me bleed.
I held my breath and waited, but all I felt was Joriel’s breaths against my neck.
And then he was gone.
He moved so fast it was impossible for me to continue holding on to his wrist. My eyes flew open as I felt the power that had been connecting us like a live wire break abruptly. Joriel was now standing as far away from me as the chain would allow him to go.
I couldn’t decipher the expression on his face. It looked like some mixture of horror, confusion, and pure agony.
“Joriel?” I whispered into the silence that hung like a thick cloud between us.
