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  The screams that Max had tuned out for the first time in two years as he talked with his angel seeped back in to his consciousness, and he turned to look at Luke. “A little help here,” he said, nodding toward the angel in his grasp.

  Luke’s head snapped up from its bent position over Oliver. His eyes swept over Max and the angel, and both of his brows rose in silent question.

  “She’s trying to leave,” Max said, the desperation in his tone shocking him.

  Luke frowned. “And you want to … what, exactly?”

  “Capture her.”

  Luke’s chin lowered. “Capture her,” he repeated in dismay. “Capture an angel. Are you crazy? Or do you just have a death wish?”

  Max closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Luke’s religious side was showing. Damn pastor’s kid with his damn ideas about heaven and hell.

  “If she leaves,” Max said harshly, “I turn into him.” He gestured toward Oliver with his chin, and right on cue, Oliver thrashed and moaned on his cot.

  Luke stared at Oliver before muttering, “What do you want me to do?”

  Max tightened his hold on the angel’s wrist and began walking her across the cell to the other cot. “I need a way to tie her.”

  After several seconds, Max heard the sound of the threadbare sheets being torn. The angel stumbled along behind him, and Max was shocked that she was not putting up any sort of fight. When he reached the cot he and Luke shared, he pushed the angel down to the floor beside it.

  She blinked up at him in the dim light. Luke arrived at his side and handed him strips of fabric. Without even looking, Max knew the weak fabric would not hold her without her consent. But it was better than nothing.

  When Max knelt down in front of her and began tying her wrists to the cot, Luke shuffled his feet next to him. “I’m sorry,” Luke whispered. “Forgive me, angel.”

  Max bit back a growl and finished securing his prisoner as Oliver’s screams cut off abruptly. They all froze and Max’s eyes traveled up to Luke’s. The haunted expression on Luke’s face must have mirrored his own.

  Grief poured through Max. The screaming session was now over. Oliver was in a coma. At this point in Oliver’s cycle about two years ago, guards would have rushed the cell, jeering and calling out insulting things while Luke and Max tried their best to make Oliver’s last moments as comfortable as possible. Though Max felt himself brace for the shuffle of boots against stone, he knew no one would be coming now. No one ever came anymore. As Max gave a final jerk to the angel’s bonds, Luke plodded over to Oliver’s side to keep vigil. Max was sick with their current situation, but he couldn’t decide what was worse: ridicule or oblivion.

  Chapter Three

  Anahita sat on the floor, the coldness seeping through her robe and rendering her bottom numb. Her arms were pulled awkwardly to the left side of her body to accommodate her wrists being bound to the cot. Her Temptation had not looked at her once in the two days since he had captured her, but she could not tear her eyes from him no matter how hard she tried. It was times like this when a little personal reflection could come in handy.

  For example, perhaps Anahita should ask herself how she had ended up tied to a rickety piece of furniture in the middle of Afghanistan by the humans she was charged with killing. Certainly there were lessons to be learned from such an occurrence so the same situation could be avoided in the future.

  She had to fight with every fiber of her being not to simply break the weak ties that bound her wrists. Had they restrained her with steel manacles, she would have been able to escape, and they thought to detain her with what amounted to a bit of string?

  Yet, here she sat. As Max had charged her, Anahita had attempted to melt back through the wall and make her escape. For the first time in her existence, it hadn’t worked. Anahita longed to blame it on the jumble of her emotions, but she suspected that she was unable to make her escape because she was unable to leave her Temptation. She had heard rumors to that effect amongst her brethren. That was one of the downfalls of encountering one’s Temptation: you could never leave them. Made resisting that Temptation even harder, which, Anahita supposed, was part of the point.

  It was working. She couldn’t stand being this close to Max for much longer without touching him. She needed to flee, but beyond suspecting that she could not, she felt she should not. Now that she had allowed the humans to think they had captured her, she felt trapped into perpetuating the misconception. After all, she did still have to kill them. The Compulsion to do so was pressing against her skull every moment, begging her to decide on a course of action.

  She tried to rub her temples but the restraints jerked her back. She wrapped her fingers around the leg of the cot and sighed. A roll of her shoulders did nothing to alleviate the tension in them.

  A sudden rustle from Max’s direction drew her attention. When she looked his way, those mismatched eyes of his were pinned on her, and he was scowling.

  “Stop. Fidgeting.”

  Even from across the dim cell, Anahita could tell his fists were clenched and his jaw ticking repeatedly. Though his eyes were on her, it had been so long since he had acknowledged her presence that she looked over her shoulder to see if he was talking to another prisoner crouched in the corner. No—he was definitely talking to her. “I am fidgeting?” she asked, frowning. “I did not realize—”

  “Well, you are,” he snapped. “So, knock it off.”

  Her head drew back a little. She couldn’t help it. She was a Warrior, but even among them, no one spoke to each other in such a way. “You should not allow your anger to overtake you so,” she said before she could stop herself. Immediately, she wished the words back.

  His expression darkened. “Are you fucking kidding?” he asked. He gestured to the surrounding cell with a toss of his hand. “You don’t think I have plenty to be angry about?”

  She shook her head. “That is not what I said. I said you should not allow it to overta—”

  “No. You don’t get to tell me that.”

  He was right. She was here to end him. To proselytize on top of that was probably poor taste. She gave the slightest nod of acknowledgement.

  He jerked his head to the side, his hair flopping over his right eye, and he looked away from her. The same oppressive silence they had lived in for two days descended again but did not last beyond a few moments.

  Max launched to his feet so quickly, both Anahita and Luke jumped. Max made a noise deep in his throat and then began to walk to one wall of the cell before turning around and walking back. They watched Max pace for a few minutes before Luke turned his attention back to the unconscious man. Anahita, however, was riveted.

  As Max paced, he rubbed at the skin of his arms with rough strokes of his open palms, and while he did so, he continued to make those rough sounds of anger and distress. He was uncomfortable, that was certain, but Anahita suspected that his discomfort was passing into the realm of pain, which meant that Max had Impulse-paired with her, just as the poor man on the cot had Impulse-paired with someone and then been denied union with her.

  Her grip on the leg of the cot tightened. Her shameful secret roiled within her and pushed at her Warrior Compulsion. The thing she tried so hard to conceal was acting out in response to the knowledge that Max was in pain.

  Anahita was a Warrior, yes; she had inherited her mother’s fierceness. But Anahita had inherited her Guardian father’s nature as well. Anahita was an anomalous half-Guardian, half-Warrior angel. It meant she had two drives in play at all times—one to vanquish, one to protect—and that was a secret she had to guard with her life. If the others found out she was so untrustworthy, so unreliable, she would never be admitted into the ranks of the Warriors, and she might even be killed. Angels were too dangerous to be so changeable.

  She distracted herself from Max’s pain the only way she knew how: by watching his form as it moved. Her mouth grew dry as she watched the muscles beneath the seat of his pants bunch and releas
e. That part of him looked so firm. So round. She shifted where she sat as a longing to lay her palm over one of those powerful displays of muscle grew intense enough to cause some discomfort of her own between her legs.

  Max reached the end of the cell and turned to pace back, but he froze and sucked in a breath. When she looked upon his face, his gaze was fastened on her and his lips had parted. Anahita’s eyes grew wide as she realized he had just caught her staring at his bottom. She jerked her eyes away and looked up into the corner of the cell, praying he would say nothing.

  “Were you just staring at my ass?” he hissed at her.

  She had never longed for the ability to lie more than she did in this moment. “Yes,” she muttered after he raised his brows at her stubborn and ineffectual attempt at silence.

  “What the hell kind of angel ogles a man’s ass?”

  Not a very good one. “I … could not help myself,” she admitted.

  Max grunted and fell back a little, his shoulders meeting the wall. He rubbed at his ribcage. “I, uh … don’t think my body likes knowing that about you,” he said on an exhale.

  Her Guardian side surged. “Is it bad?” she asked. He frowned at her. “The pain?” she clarified.

  His head tilted to the side. “How do you—” His body jolted, and then he straightened and began walking toward her, his eyes narrowing with each step. “You know things,” he said, his tone making the simple statement an obvious accusation.

  Oh, heaven. “You do not?” she asked, her heart in her throat. She had been told that the humans knew all about the side effects of the fruit. “Impulse-pairing” was a term the humans had coined.

  Max stopped right in front of her. “They have not been forthcoming with information here, angel,” he said, before crouching down, putting them face to face. “But you’re about to be.”

  “I … I thought you knew.” Stuttering? She took a steeling breath. She, of all creatures, knew the difference between a secret and sharable information. This was not a secret. “Ask your questions. I will answer them.”

  He rocked back on his heels, and in his crouched position, it nearly caused him to topple over. “You will?” He shook his head. “You don’t know the slightest thing about war techniques, do you?”

  That hit its mark. “I am a Warrior,” she said, enunciating every word. “You merely assume your petty circumstances mean more to heaven than they do. There is only a need for secrecy when the information is consequential.”

  Even she could recognize that the bite in her words was inappropriate, and she felt immediate shame.

  Max cocked the eyebrow over his left eye. “I’ve heard it said that one should not allow anger to overtake oneself.”

  Now she understood the inclination to snap at others. Many retorts perched on the edge of her tongue. “You and your sick friend have Impulse-paired,” she said abruptly.

  All evidence of smugness vanished from Max’s face.

  Anahita gentled her voice a little. The content of her words was harsh enough. “The Impulse, as some humans call it, was developed to aid in the world’s creation at the beginning of time. That is not needed anymore, obviously, but then that is why you should not have tampered with the holy Trees. The pain you feel is a direct consequence of human disobedience.”

  “The pain is a purposeful side effect?” Max asked.

  “Yes,” she said simply. “It goes away when you experience pleasure with your partner, and then after that initial instance, you are able to make the pain go away on your own.”

  Max’s face grew red at the same instant Anahita heard what she had just said and how she had said it, as though intercourse and self-pleasure were a part of her daily conversations. She cleared her throat and looked away from him.

  “Then why has Luke not suffered from it?” he asked in a whisper, lowering his voice even more on Luke’s name.

  Her chest got tight. His worry for his friend was obvious. “He has not yet met the person who is his perfect match,” she said softly.

  “Perfect match,” Max repeated in a mutter. He ran a hand over his face. “I’m guessing that doesn’t have to go both ways with angels, huh?”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I used to be handsome, you know,” he whispered.

  Something within her melted. “Max,” she began.

  A noise from across the cell interrupted them. Anahita’s gaze swiveled around to glance at the spot where Luke hovered over the prone form of the third prisoner.

  He was no longer prone.

  • • •

  “Luke?”

  Max froze. He hadn’t said Luke’s name, and that gravelly voice had certainly not come from the angel. Max closed his eyes and took a deep breath before turning to the cot that held Oliver. Blinking up at Luke, Oliver was lucid once more, as he always was moments before he died.

  The end was here. Even though it had happened for two years, this part never got easier.

  Luke sighed raggedly as he reached for Oliver’s hand and held on tight. Here at the end, they could touch Oliver without causing him more pain. At least the poor man could be comforted as he died. It was a small mercy.

  With a heavy heart, Max made his way over to his friend. He resisted looking at the angel as he passed. The baffling read his right eye gave him when he looked at her—that she was both good and evil—was a major distraction. It had sidetracked him so severely that he’d spewed that line about being handsome once. While he moved, even though he did not look her way, he felt her eyes travel with him to Oliver’s side.

  When he arrived, Max leaned over and smoothed the ragged, dirty hair off of Oliver’s forehead, the skin of which was scorching hot. “Hey, Oliver,” Max grumbled past the lump in his throat.

  Oliver turned glassy eyes upon him. He attempted a smile, but it turned out closer to a grimace. “Max,” Oliver breathed. “Hey, yourself.” A dimple flashed in his left cheek. “You look like shit.”

  A sharp laugh burst from Max’s lips. “Always do.”

  “A different kind of shit.” Those glassy eyes seemed too perceptive, and Max turned his scar away.

  Oliver’s eyes closed and crinkled at the corners, and Max could see from the blanched knuckles of Oliver’s hand that he was squeezing Luke’s hand hard. “Damn her,” Oliver groaned. “Why do I want her so much?”

  “Shh,” Luke said. “It’s not your choice, you know that.”

  Oliver groaned again, his torso writhing slightly. “I want to hate her so bad.”

  “Then hate her,” Max growled. God knows he did. That fucking woman had destroyed his friend.

  “I can’t,” Oliver said on a desperate moan, his back arching.

  Luke cast Max a black look, and Max felt the intended rebuke. He knew Oliver could never abide anyone talking down about his woman, despite what Max now knew for sure she had done to him.

  “Okay, okay,” Luke said softly. “You don’t have to hate her.”

  The hell he doesn’t. Max kept the thought to himself.

  “I’m sorry,” Oliver mumbled through dry, cracked lips. “For this.”

  Max closed his eyes. Oliver always—always—apologized to them before he died. “You don’t say sorry, Oliver,” Max ground out past a clenched jaw. “Ever.”

  “You’ve done nothing wrong,” Luke said, leaning over Oliver more and smiling. Luke was always so calm and composed in this situation, as though he had been trained from a child to tend to others in need.

  Max grimaced. Luke probably had been trained that way. Duties of a pastor’s family and such. Luke always waited until after Oliver was gone to show any grief, and then he was withdrawn to the point of being almost catatonic. Yes, Luke was one of those bury-the-emotions people.

  “Fuck,” Oliver groaned. “It hurts.”

  “Yeah,” Luke said simply.

  “It’ll be over soon,” Max said softly.

  Max’s words were cut off by a pained shout that escalated in volume and
pitch until it became a shriek. Oliver’s body bowed off of the cot, and his head thrashed back and forth, his mouth wide open around that ungodly sound.

  Luke continued to hold Oliver’s hand and offer comfort just by being near, but Max felt like he was coming undone. This was his future. He’d be going through this exact same thing a couple of days before Oliver went through it again. They’d leave Luke shackled to tending to their needs, and he’d be practically alone watching over a dead body and a prone one for the rest of his life.

  Oliver screamed again, and Max cursed. Max was shaking so hard, he could barely stand. He was going to commit violence if he didn’t get a hold of himself, and fast.

  As Oliver’s latest scream died in intensity, he did something he had never done before: he began to sob. “I c-can’t … do this anymore,” Oliver cried as his chest heaved. Another ragged sob burst from his mouth, and he cast an arm over his eyes and broke down for the first time since this hell had started.

  Max’s mouth fell open. “Oh my God,” he mumbled, taking a stumbling step toward Oliver, not at all sure what he could do to make things better if he got any closer. This was not something he thought he would ever be witnessing. Oliver was stronger than Max and Luke combined.

  While Max just stood there like an idiot, Luke gathered Oliver into his arms and held the man against his chest.

  Oliver’s fingers clenched Luke’s T-shirt, and even though his face was buried in Luke’s chest, Max was able to hear him say, “Kill me. Please. Find a way to make this be the last time.”

  Max covered his mouth with a trembling hand. Luke exchanged a loaded glance with him, but simply rocked Oliver back and forth and said nothing.

  Another scream began in Oliver’s gut and rose to a height yet unreached. Oliver’s fingers turned claw-like, and Max could see blood well up around the places where he clutched Luke’s shirt and the skin underneath.