“I had no idea this was what you meant by getting a hotel room.”
“I could have been more conservative,” Lorelei smiled, “but you agreed to let me indulge you this weekend.” She shut the door behind them, threw the deadbolt, and then slipped around to his front and kissed his neck.
“You indulge me just by holding my hand,” Alex told her.
“No need to be so humble, master,” Lorelei breathed into his ear. She felt his heart begin to race. His flesh stiffened against her groin.
“No master business tonight,” Alex said. “We can play with that in the morning. Tonight I just want you to be you.”
* * *
It was a tall building. Seattle had taller ones, of course. The hotel wasn’t even half the height of the Columbia Tower several blocks uphill, nor was it the tallest among those closer to the water. But looking up at it from the sidewalk below, the hotel loomed more than large enough.
Her borrowed waitress’s uniform was gone now. Rachel stood on the sidewalk in her simple, thin white dress. No one noticed her, whether driving by or gazing out a window at the street. They didn’t see the blonde angel looking up to the sky, letting raindrops fall gently on her face.
Nor did they see the wings grow from her back, full and white and glorious in their spread.
She felt the stirrings of their recovery while in the church as her halo began to glow with its former brilliance. That had been alarming, seeing as Alex’s greatest deeds had been accomplished amid grave danger and harm. But when she caught up to him, seeing her charge and his companion getting into her car, she recognized the unmistakable look of love between them.
Love was in the eyes of a demon.
Rachel saw it there, and understood why her recovery enjoyed such a sudden leap ahead. She reaped as much of a personal reward as Alex. She couldn’t blame the demon, either. In mere days Rachel grew more attached to him than any mortal or angel she had ever known.
Rachel followed them as they left his home. She didn’t hear their conversations. Didn’t know every dynamic of their relationship. She knew the larger implications, though, and she began silently cheering them both on.
In the restaurant, with Lorelei facing the sins of her past and seeking redemption, Rachel knew her recovery was essentially complete. Rachel didn’t follow Lorelei into the restroom, didn’t eavesdrop…but she knew. She felt it happen. Through Alex and their bond, perhaps, or more likely just through proximity. All the other guardian angels in the restaurant visibly perked up when it happened, too.
One of Hell’s most accomplished destroyers had fallen in love with a good man. Fallen in love, and repented.
Rachel’s wings spread out, beat twice, and carried her into the air. She soared around the hotel tower. She rose and dipped and spun and looped. The angel laughed in gratitude and joy. She climbed into the air, taking her time and indulging in a broad, sweeping path before landing silently on the balcony of the honeymoon suite.
She knew where they were. She could see Alex in her mind now whenever she concentrated, regardless of Lorelei’s presence. Rachel looked in on them through the glass balcony door, unhindered by the dim light.
Rachel smiled as Lorelei crawled on top of Alex like a predatory cat toying with her prey. Her hostility toward the succubus died hours ago. On that first night, Rachel gambled on the chance that someone like Alex might be a good influence on her, but she never expected anything this profound. Now she couldn’t see in Lorelei what she had seen the day before.
For that matter, Rachel saw changes in herself. Lorelei had been right about her, and how she felt for her mortal charge. Jealousy simply didn’t count for much in Rachel’s emotional makeup, and what she saw between demon and mortal was far too important to disrupt for any reason. But she wouldn’t have to come between them to claim her happiness.
She thought about slipping inside with them. They would have her. She knew that. Lorelei would probably be thrilled. Rachel knew how Alex’s heart swelled whenever she was near. She heard it in his voice. Saw it in his eyes. Felt it in his kiss.
But there would be time for that. After tonight, she would have to endure another long conversation with the angels and archangels who watched over Seattle. Oh, what fun that would be.
Rachel leapt up over the ledge above to sit on the top of the building. She looked out across the Bay, unbothered by either the rain or the cold. Her lips spread into a quiet smile. Eventually, she began to hum, and then finally she softly gave words to the familiar tune.
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
“That saved a wretch like me.
“I once was lost, but now am found,
“Was blind, but now I see…”
Chapter 13:
“It’s sinful.”
“I’m sure my services to Christ and His holy Church will make that all better,” John scowled. He finished bundling up his few clothes for easier carrying.
“Do you think that will matter?” Henry pressed. The older man sat on the bench at John’s table, hunched over a mug of cheap ale-all John had to offer-as he watched his young neighbor pack. “Fight the heathens. Reclaim the Holy Land. Hell, walk back home wearing Christ’s own shoes. You’ll still be a man who abandoned his wife to another!”
“I am not abandoning her!” John snapped. He hurled the pack of clothing at the door to his small, one-room house and looked at Henry with pain and anger. “She’ll be looked after! She has you, doesn’t she? She has William and his family.”
“William is exactly who I’m talking about, and you know it, John. You’re a cuckolded man, and you know that, too, and you do nothing about it.”
“Cuck-Do you think it’s that simple?! What would you have me do, Henry? Beat her? Beat William? Murder him? I suppose I could expose them, to the ruin of his family and Katherine’s good name. Do you think that would that change her feelings for me? Would I find happiness in her public humiliation?”
“She’s your wife.”
“Because our parents arranged it! Not because we love each other. Do you think that was on their minds when they matched us?”
“You love her,” Henry frowned. “That’s why you encouraged your father to pursue this match. You just have to be firm with her! You’re the man of this house! Act like it!”
“Have you tried laying with a weeping woman? Have you?” It was a rhetorical question; Henry and his wife were the most openly affectionate couple for miles. “Because I’ll tell you, her tears do in fact leave me feeling unmanned. Quite so. Only an animal would react otherwise.
“Her heart was never mine, Henry. She was honest enough with that. Never misled me. She loves William, and he loves her. Since before I was even a suitor. I’m just in the way.”
“She’s your wife, John. It’s a sin.”
“Tell me how love is a sin, Henry,” John sighed painfully. “Tell me how locking up a woman who was forced to marry me and breaking her heart serves a greater good than what they have together.”
Henry’s silence made for a quiet house. John didn’t have all that much, but with his father’s untimely death from illness, it was at least his. It would be Katherine’s now, though, in all but name. That was fine. John wasn’t terribly worried about the family name.