Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

fundamentally incapable of telling the truth about our relationship.”
    “Whatever you want to tell me, I’m willing to listen.”
    But there was nothing.
    Nothing she could think of that she would want to say to Brandon. Nothing she had to say about Julian that didn’t involve entering into a world of bitterness and regret. What would she say? That Julian had treated a seventeen-year-old girl with casual disregard, stripping her of her virginity and abandoning her to fate. That, over the centuries, he had toyed with her emotions time and again, causing her to hope each time that he cared about something more than just her body or the power she could bring him in the demon world.
    “Nothing,” she said. “There is nothing I wish to tell you.”
    Nothing you would understand.
    “Have it your way,” Brandon said. Under the scrutiny of those piercing gray eyes, she felt like she had been shrunk to the size of a pea. “But for your sake, I really hope you’ll reconsider. There is more at stake here than you can begin to guess.”
    Let them take me, she thought, closing her eyes. Perhaps it will be a relief after all this time.
    “Forget about forgiving Julian. I don’t think that’s the real issue. The question is whether you can forgive yourself for all the suffering you’ve caused. If you were given the chance, could you let go of your guilt and start over again?”
    “The world doesn’t work like that,” she said. “I know Julian was redeemed. That the Company saved him. Now he gets to sleep with an angel every night, and go to bed scot-free. Good for him. I don’t know how Julian got over his guilt, but I know that’s not going to happen to me. Redemption is not an option.”
    “You’re wrong about that. If you give me a chance, I’d like to show you how wrong.”
    “That’s impossible,” she said.
    “Why are you so quick to believe in tragedy over miracles?” he challenged.
    She knew the answer to that immediately.
    Because her entire life had been steeped in tragedy.
    Because what little grace she had experienced during her brutally short human life had been ripped away and buried in an unmarked grave. Because everything and everyone she had ever loved had been destroyed or had soured against her. Because in the time since then, a very long time indeed, she had neither seen nor experienced anything that told her anything different.
    Because she had laughed at redemption, had mocked those who sought it.
    Because nobody had ever offered her redemption before.
    There was a myriad of reasons why she could not be redeemed. But how could she express that to Brandon, who seemed to have an infinite capacity to try to forgive, even if he never quite accomplished that task? Who was haunted on a nightly basis by the most unspeakable act a human being could do to another. Who simply bore his excruciating nightmare and got up the next morning, went on about his day.
    But she didn’t have the strength to explain any of that to him.
    Not now. Not tonight.
    “I don’t know why you stayed,” she said instead. “ Now you’re stuck here with this lunatic band of rabid do-gooders. I know you dislike them. Not as much as I hate them, but you understand.”
    “True. But I’m also stuck here with you,” he said. “Good night, principessa. ”
    He walked out and closed the door gently behind him.
    * * *
     
    Brandon was beginning to question his sanity and his motives.
    That night he lay in the room next to hers, which mercifully had not been converted into a prison cell. Separated only by a few inches of drywall, timber and dead air, he lay in the comfortable bed. The real barriers, the psychological, emotional and spiritual barriers between them were being stripped down to thin slivers that barely held them apart.
    Leave. Just get up and leave, said his brain. This is no longer an assignment. Let Arielle deal with Luciana. The demoness is not your problem anymore.
    What kept him there was the knowledge that beneath it all was a terrorized young woman whose life had gone badly off the rails at the age of seventeen.
    He closed his eyes and slipped into sleep.
    Sliding into dream, she came for him, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him with her.
    “I’ve had enough of revisiting my past for one day. What about your past?”
    Luciana took him to visit his wife, Tammy.
    “Don’t visit your loved ones,” was the order Michael had given him.
    Not every Guardian was given that advice.
    Many of them