Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

killed these women herself, but she had killed plenty of women and men in the past.
    And now, sent by the devil himself to perform the most sacrilegious and heinous act.
    To kill an angel.
    Not simply an angel, but a man who had grown to trust her.
    A man who had grown to love her.
    “What’s the difference between this version of hell and the one on earth?” she asked Corbin, genuinely puzzled.
    He slapped her. Full across the face, so hard that she felt the inside of her mouth split open and the coppery tang of blood flow down her chin. His neutral expression didn’t even shift as he said, “Watch your mouth.”
    She glared up at him. “Seriously. I don’t know. Whether being a slave in this hell or a slave on earth…both of them involve just as much suffering. What have those girls done to deserve this treatment? Nothing. Some of them weren’t bad people. Some weren’t even demons. They were human. Who gave you the right to take their lives?”
    “I have every right in the world. I am an Archdemon.”
    And perhaps if I stay down here, Brandon will just leave, she thought suddenly. Go back to America, realizing that I’ve gotten what I deserve. That his assignment has been finished, although not in the way he anticipated.
    “Oh, no, you don’t,” said Corbin, guessing her thoughts. “You’re not staying down here. You still owe the devil a sacrifice, and you’re going back up there to get him. If it’s the last thing you do on earth. Which it might well be.”
    He pulled her back upward. Toward the surface.
    When reality stabilized around them, they were back in her bedroom, amid the ruined jewelry scattered on the floor. And then he let her go. She fell to the floor, gasping for air and clutching the burning-raw place where he had held her neck.
    He dropped something next to her, a small object that hit the floor just inches from her face.
    A single emerald drop earring, twin to the one she had buried last night.
    “Why did you do it?” she said, tears finally spilling from her eyes.
    “Why?” he hissed, bending down to look at her. His amber eyes nearly glowed with the fervor of the kill, the spark of recognition kindling in their eerie depths. “Because I could, baronessa. Because I have the power. I don’t need poison. It doesn’t take me a week to kill. I can kill in the blink of an eye, without consequences and without recrimination from anyone.”
    “Maybe you can kill any human or any demon without answering for it,” she rasped out. “But you can’t kill an angel.”
    He went wild, grabbed the chair from her dressing table and smashed it against the wall. Around her, shards of wood splintered and fell. He knelt low to the floor, near her ear and growled, “Those whores are all back down in hell now, where they belong. Let it be a warning to you. Your time with that angel is almost up.”
    “I can’t,” she said. She closed her eyes, wishing she would just disappear.
    “My dear,” he said, his voice all the more terrifyingly for its calmness, “that’s simply not an acceptable answer.”
    He yanked her off the floor, pulling her into her closet, where he leafed through the racks of her evening gowns.
    “Most of these are far too trampy. You’ll never catch an angel in any of these.” Onto the bed, he threw a floor-length white evening gown. “This one’s appropriate. White. How virginal. Like a sacrificial lamb. He’ll like that. And it’s quite ironic, wouldn’t you say?”
    She stripped quickly, hating the feeling of him watching her, taking in the details of her naked body.
    He picked the emerald earring up from the floor, pushed it roughly through her pierced ear. Then he held her body against him. “Yes, very ironic indeed. I could fuck you right now if I wanted. But I’d rather wait until after. When there’s time to really enjoy it. When you’ve destroyed that angel and gotten all that pathetic hope out of your system.”
    He pushed her away. She resisted the urge to vomit.
    “Now, show me the poison you’re going to use on him.”
    Immediately, she reached under the bed for the syringe of cyanide she kept there.
    “Of course. Trust you to keep your most dangerous poison under the bed. Now, was that so difficult? I hope for your sake that you’re not too attached to this angel. Once I have his body, I plan to cut those tattooed wings off of him.”
    “What, do you mean skin him?”
    Corbin smiled, and the urbane, unfeeling look on his face made