Angel's Curse Read Online Free Page B

to sleep. Why the beds then?”
    “We bonded our minds, not our bodies.”
    That didn’t sound like much fun to me. Certainly not the way I’d want to express my love, apart from verbalising it. Maybe I’d overreacted. What had gone wrong? Why wasn’t she here, at the cottage?
    “What happened to her?”
    Danny ran his hands through his hair. I’d noticed he did this when I asked questions he found difficult — or painful — to answer. It was his way of ordering things in his mind — of gaining precious seconds to determine what he would say and how he would phrase it.
    He sighed and let his hands fall to his legs, lightly drumming the sides, apprehensive and nervy about having to respond. That it was an uncomfortable topic was clear.
    “She was cast out of heaven, with Satan,” he whispered.
    “It was Amy, wasn’t it?”
    Amy was the name Danny had called out often during his fevered state. When I asked him about her, he simply told me that she was a fallen angel whom he’d had to kill. I knew there was more to it than that. Why else would he call out her name again and again?
    Danny nodded his head. Perhaps his tastes ran to those who were predominantly evil. Did that mean, after all this time, he really did think I was evil?
    “I don’t understand.” I shook my head a couple of times. “You’ve only been here, in the cottage, for a few centuries. How could she have been here?”
    “The cottage is a recreation of our heaven, before Inigrael fell.”
    Great. I was living some other angel’s dream.
    “And when she fell?”
    “I deliberately sought her out. After an aeon I found her.” Danny looked at his hands. “I begged her to repent. I told her that He would forgive her and she would be welcomed into heaven again.”
    I could hear the pain, the bitter emotion, in his voice. This was still a fresh wound to him, no matter how long ago it had taken place. I lightly touched his hand.
    “And?”
    “She wouldn’t. Instead she tried to convert me, of all angels. I killed her. I had to.” Danny sounded like he was trying to convince himself that he’d chosen the correct course of action. “There was no other choice open to me.”
    I stroked his cheek lovingly. “And you’ve been punishing yourself ever since.”
    “Yes.” He really was beating himself up over it. “I should have known. I should have known she’d choose the wrong side. I failed Him. ”
    I took his face in my hands and kissed his lips.
    “Everyone makes mistakes,” I said.
    “Not angels.”
    “Even angels,” I replied.
    I kissed his lips again, trying to distract him. The idea of bonding fascinated me, though it didn’t sound half as much fun as the way we bonded. I wondered what they shared via the bond.
    “How do you bond?”
    I kissed his cheek and neck. My distraction was beginning to work.
    “It’s very simple,” he sighed, enjoying the feel of my lips on his neck, not in the least concerned I might bite it. “We place one hand on each side of the other’s face, covering the temples, and open our minds to share what’s within.”
    I drew him to me and we forgot our worries and concerns. When the time was right I took his hands in mine and placed them over my temples. I knew from experience he was too far gone to resist. I placed my hands over his temples, my fingers in his hair. I opened my mind to him, hoping he was doing the same for me. The emotion, the love, and the joy rushed through me, and washed over my entire body. I felt our bodies rise in the air as if we were ascending to a higher plain. In a way we were.
    I could see how I looked to him. How he felt about me. I knew, without a doubt, that he loved me more than his own life and would do whatever was in his power, and then some, to protect me — keep me safe and alive.
    He also shared with me some of his past, though I was too caught up in the tumult of emotions and pleasure to look closely at the gift he’d given me — that would be for another