The Sinner

I bow my head and walk away, the smell of my own burned flesh hanging in the room. The servitors mewl and cower in the shadows at Ashtaroth’s feet like stray dogs, still hungry.

Let them all starve.

“Casziel.”

I stop, turn.

“I know you believe her happiness is the only redemption you’ll ever know but you will fail. She will hate you before it’s all over. Do you know why?”

My human blood runs cold in my human veins. I say nothing; there is no correct answer but his.

“Because you cannot hide your true self from her.” Ashtaroth’s voice carries the darkness of countless nights within it. “Because your atrocities cannot be forgiven, not even by one who shines as brightly as she. Because you belong to me. Your black heart and your blacker soul, they are mine.”

He grins, showing rotting teeth.

“And I will never let you go.”

Five

When I woke, sunlight was streaming through the open window, and the dream of the black-haired woman lingered in my thoughts. It reminded me of other dreams I’d had. Extremely lucid dreams set in different—and much older—eras. This latest felt even older. Ancient.

I glanced around. Dad’s trench coat was a rumpled heap on the couch and Casziel was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe I dreamed him too.

Despite the mess of cereal at my kitchen counter and the empty pizza box on the coffee table, it was the most plausible explanation. The twinge of disappointment took me by surprise. More than a twinge, honestly. Casziel was rude and arrogant but had his own kind of strange charm. And sex appeal, if I were being really honest. He’d been a warrior and it showed in every hard line of his body, in the way he moved, muscles ready to spring to action. Power and danger radiated off of him, but against all logic, I felt safe with him.

But if my mind had created Casziel, it also meant that everything he’d told me about Dad was a figment of my grieving imagination too.

“No,” I said softly, picking up the trench coat. “I can still believe you’re here. You’re just in the next room.”

I returned the coat to the closet. The pipe smoke and cologne smells were overpowered by Casziel’s exotic scent; maybe it was real after all. But where the hell was he?

Hell. Obviously.

I ignored that and made my bed, every corner tucked, every line smoothed until it looked like no one slept there. No one had slept there but me, ever. The last time I’d shared a bed with a guy was my sophomore year at NYU.

Jeff Hastings had been in my study group and a virgin like me. We decided to not be virgins together. The whole experience was clumsy and awkward but not wholly unpleasant. I even wondered if there was something more between Jeff and me, but having sex bolstered his confidence. He thanked me for “doing him a solid” and went on to date Cindy Nguyen for the rest of the year. For all I knew they were married and had three kids by now.

Since then, I’d gone on a few dates that went nowhere. I told myself I was too focused on my studies for a serious boyfriend. Before I knew it, college ended, Dad passed away, and I got a job at Ocean Alliance. I’d tucked myself into a little life—uneventful, quiet, safe. Small.

A purgatory of my own making.

My phone rang, breaking me out of my thoughts. Cole Matheson wanting to FaceTime.

I smiled and hit the green answer button. “Hey, you.”

“Did I wake you?” He tossed the light brown hair that fell over his brow. “At ten a.m., your time, on a Saturday?”

“Not quite.” I laughed. “Do I look that tired?”

“Actually, no. You look good.” Cole pushed up his square, black-framed glasses. “There’s something different about you. Your hair is all loose and rumpled. Sexy, even.”

I touched my hair self-consciously. “I…had a long night.”

“Oh? Please tell me you participated in nocturnal activities of the adult persuasion.”

“No, nothing like that. Strange dreams.”