Angels of Darkness

resisting something that I want. So I’m trying to find out as much as I can before I jump all over you.”
    His eyes lit like green flame. With a single step toward her, he leaned forward and flattened his hands on the table on either side of her hips, caging her between his arms.
    Bringing his lips within an inch of hers.
    The ice cream seemed to evaporate from her tongue. Oh, yes. This was what she wanted. This intensity, this focus, this heat—and Marc.
    Glowing brilliantly green, his gaze searched hers. “So you want answers first?”
    â€œYes.” Though right now, waiting seemed a more foolish choice than rushing.
    â€œAnd it’s a test to see whether I’m good enough.”
    Oh. “When you put it that way, it’s not what I meant—”
    â€œI know it’s not. And I don’t want to hurt you, either. I’ll do everything I can to keep from doing it again.”
    And with that simple statement, uncertainty slipped away from her, as easily as a breath. I don’t want to hurt you. That was all the reassurance she needed, wasn’t it? Either she believed that he’d try not to hurt her or she didn’t.
    She didn’t know everything about him yet, but she believed that. Maybe he would hurt her, someday—but if he tried not to, if he made the effort, that mattered more.
    But he was already straightening, turning away. Fine. She’d lure him back. She reached for the knot tying the scarves at her hip.
    â€œSo, you want to know what happened during the Ascension?” He repeated her question before facing her again. “I almost went with them.”
    Radha froze, her fingers suddenly nerveless with shock and disbelief. “What?”
    â€œYes,” he confirmed, smiling slightly.
    Maybe he could smile about it. He’d had over a decade to get used to the idea that he’d almost chosen to ascend to the afterlife.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWell, it was the ultimate test, wasn’t it? How much faith do I have?” As if amused by the memory of it now, he shook his head, still smiling. “I wasn’t even in Caelum that often, and I saw the Ascension coming. A movement, sweeping through the Guardians—half of them believing that just by existing, they were an insult to God. After all, if He takes care of everything, what does He need Guardians for?”
    â€œ If He even exists,” Radha interrupted. Oh, but she remembered those Guardians. They’d been intolerable. She’d avoided Caelum as much as possible in the year before the Ascension.
    The truth was, they just didn’t know. Only their leader, Michael, had ever met any angels, when they’d passed on their powers and Caelum to him, along with the responsibility for protecting the Earth. Those powers had enabled him to create the Guardian corps, transforming humans who’d sacrificed themselves. Demons were fallen angels who rebelled against Heaven—but no one she knew had actually seen Heaven. That some power existed was obvious, but the source of it . . . ? Who knew.
    Just to piss off some of the more self-righteous Guardians, Radha used to argue that the angels were aliens. She’d almost convinced a few with her illusions, too.
    Good riddance to the lot of them.
    â€œWe’ll debate that later.” Marc grinned briefly, as if recalling their old arguments—or looking forward to another. “You know what I think about it. And you know that there were other Guardians saying that the humans needed more faith. That if their belief was strong enough, they’d have enough faith to defeat the demons on their own, that we were getting in the way. That humans didn’t need us.”
    â€œAnd you believed that?” She couldn’t believe he had.
    â€œNo. That was the problem. I’d seen too much, killed too many demons. I knew humans needed us. But I wondered if I should believe it—and I wondered if the reason I’d spent the past forty years being so fucking miserable was just because I didn’t believe it enough.”
    Miserable. Her throat tightened. “Forty years?”
    â€œAfter I came to Earth and became that celibate warrior I’d always planned to be. And I did it well, Radha. If I wasn’t chasing down a demon then I was searching for another. I never faltered. I never stopped hunting. I never did anything else at all.”
    How could that be? “Nothing else at all