“So, I’m an irritant. Something hard and foreign?” I should be angry, but the way he says the word…I like it.
“You are an unknown. A surprise. A beautiful, beguiling puzzle. And I very much want to figure you out.” Sin leans forward, keeping me close, and retrieves our wine glasses. “Will you indulge me?”
“In what? A drinking game?” After today, I wouldn’t say no to a couple of rounds of shots, but not even someone as rich as Sin would play a drinking game with wine this good.
Sin chuckles. “No. Merely some questions about your past. And a test or two of your abilities.” He takes a sip of wine, then stares into his glass. “You mentioned your grandmother when we first met. Can you tell me about your parents?”
“They…” I swallow hard. “I never knew them. They were in the army and they both died when I was eight. I don’t even remember them.”
“And your grandmother raised you?” Sin plays with my hair, then starts to massage my scalp in the most delicious way. Sexy, but also comforting.
“Uh-huh.” The wine must be going to my head, because it’s like I’m dreaming and awake at the same time. I’m here, sitting on Sin’s couch, staring out over the San Francisco skyline, but I’m also somewhere else, somewhere I can’t move, with a movie of my life playing out before me. “She always said I was her miracle.”
“Why?” He brushes his lips to my ear, and I wish I could lose myself in him again. Like this morning—was it only this morning?—and forget about everything else. Thorn and Regina. Velma. Temple. All of it. “Zoe?”
“She was all alone,” I say, the words hard to form now that he’s moved on to massaging my shoulders. The wine gone, the pizza mostly untouched, it’s just the two of us. Close enough it feels like we’re one soul. “Said I came to her—oh, yes, right there—when she was about to give up. ‘Like a gift from God,’ she said.”
“Do you have any photos of her?” Sin asks.
“On my phone.” Snuggling closer to him, I reach into my pocket, enter my passcode, and scroll through the couple of dozen pictures I’ve taken over the past year or so. Shit. I need to get out more. These are the only ones I have? I’m pretty sure Temple’s nieces take more photos in one day than I’ve taken since I got this phone. “Here. This is her.”
After he eases the device from my hand, he stares at the older woman’s smiling face. She’s outside in a garden. Our garden from the little house in Novato with the apricot trees that bloomed every spring. I can feel Sin’s frown as he studies Nana’s photo. “Are you certain you were…related?”
I jerk up to find him tapping the screen, emailing himself the picture. “Hey. That’s a shitty thing to say. Give me back my phone.”
“Zoe, answer the question. It could be important.”
“Nana was my father’s mother. I can’t…” Tears spring to my eyes and I blink hard to force them away. “She didn’t keep any pictures of him. I don’t remember him.”
“Look at me, Zoe.” Sin sets my phone down and cups my cheeks. “Listen to my voice and focus on me.” His sapphire eyes darken, turning almost black, and my head starts to ache like a storm’s coming in. “Tell me you love me.”
“What?” Shoving at his chest, I push him back hard enough he almost tumbles over the arm of the sofa, then get to my feet. “This was a mistake. Coming here. Shit. You just tried to use your talents on me. To make me say something you know I don’t feel. How could you?”
He rolls to standing and moves so quickly, he’s between me and the door before I even register the motion. “I had to prove to you that you are other. I am very strong, Zoe. Perhaps one of the strongest incubi alive. My angelic parentage only enhances my power. And yet you, who believed you were human three hours ago, not only resisted me, but knew exactly what I was doing.”
I can’t do this. I can’t…stand here listening to him with all of his logical excuses and rational explanations when my heart is beating half out of my chest. “Sin. I can’t do this. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. I don’t want to know what I am. I’m Zoe Dawes. Granddaughter of Seraphina Dawes. Human. Cop. And scared as fuck.”
He calls my name as I race down the hall towards the guest room, and when I slam the door in his face, I know the anguish on his handsome features will haunt my dreams.
Sin
Seraphina. Her grandmother’s name is Seraphina? As in the Seraphim. Celestial beings tasked with doing the Almighty’s work. The most trusted. The most holy. And based on how she resisted me, Zoe’s grandmother was one of them?
I pull out my tablet and examine the photo I took from her phone. Even the Almighty makes mistakes on occasion, and this is one of those times. Despite the photo’s time stamp being a solid fifteen years ago, the digital metadata—the underlying code that marks where and when the picture was taken—is mostly missing. And what is there…fuck.
Two years ago. It was taken less than two years ago. When Thorn and Regina were mistakenly freed from Hell.
Zoe—my Zoe—is a celestial being. Of what sort, I have no idea. Why does she not remember? Why give her a human history, human memories, a very human personality, and send her here?
Tablet in hand, I stride for the guest room door, but just before I knock, I hear her crying. Everything inside me aches to comfort her, but her emotions hit me like a tidal wave. She is terrified of me. Of the moment we just shared. Of falling prey to my talents and losing herself.
Pressing my hand to the door, desperate for even a single moment of connection, I whisper, “You have nothing to fear from me. I will walk away before I will ever harm you, even though it will be the hardest thing I will ever do.”
And it is. Each step towards my bedroom feels like I am mired in quicksand, and the pain in my heart deepens with every footfall. But eventually, I close the door. Tomorrow, we will need to find a way to work together to stop Thorn once and for all. But for tonight, I will leave her be.
Zoe
I’ve cried so much, my eyelids are swollen to twice their normal size, and I don’t know how I’ll ever sleep tonight. My head still aches from resisting Sin’s influence—not that I even knew I was doing it at the time—and as I flop down on the bed, all I see are images I don’t understand.
Dark stone. Blood. Flames. And Sin. But not like he is now. Could…could he have left me with some of his memories when he fed from me? That’s not possible. Is it?
It’s still early, and while I”m exhausted, I’m not sleepy. So I pop in an earbud. I need a friend. Need to take my mind off of everything that’s happened in the past forty-eight hours. But as I dial, it strikes me as so odd that I literally only have one person I can call.
“Hey, hon,” Dion says, her voice smooth. There’s music in the background, but it’s quiet, relaxing. Jazz or maybe Blues?
“Hi. Um, shit. I didn’t even think. You’re not working tonight?”
“Nope. I’m only at the club on weekends. I work the streets the rest of the time.” As soon as I start to sputter because I’d never have guessed she was a sex worker, Dion chuckles. “Oh, I wish I could see your face right now, luv. I’m kidding. Kinda. I’m a counselor for at-risk BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ youth in the other community. Which usually involves me walking the streets of the Tenderloin and the Haight all day.”