“He loves you, Jai. Don’t tarnish what should be a beautiful memory with guilt that isn’t yours to bear.”
Jai didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure he believed Noel’s words. Maybe he would. Someday. Once they had Riley back. But for now, the guilt sank its teeth into his conscience, refusing to be unseated.
They lay wrapped around each other, and eventually, Noel drifted off to sleep. Jai hovered on the edges of unconsciousness, dancing across the no-man’s land between sleep and awake. That was where Riley found him.
He pulled Jai close and clung to his neck. When Riley begged Jai not to leave him, he promised he wouldn’t. And when their lips met and Riley’s body opened for him, Jai indulged in his Committed’s sweet taste and smokey warmth. Jai memorized his every stuttered breath and desperate moan. He lost himself within Riley’s embrace, praying it was real even when he knew it wasn’t.
But it didn’t matter. If Jai could only have him in his dreams, then he would go to sleep and never wake. Because Riley was his, and he was Riley’s.
“I wanna come home,” Riley whispered against Jai’s lips as their sweat dried and his cum cooled between their joined bodies. “Please, bring me home.”
“We’re gonna bring you home, baby.” Jai kissed Riley’s chapped lips as salt from their tears mingled on their cheeks. “We’re coming for you. I promise.”
Chapter Five
The council room burst at the seams with angels; there was barely enough space to maneuver through the crowd. Several sets of councilmen sat atop a makeshift platform, creating the largest sitting Council ever recorded in the Archive scrolls. His brothers sat amongst them, even as Gideon stood to the side, doing his best to melt into the sea of faces.
Crimson stained the marble floor, puddled before the Council’s stage. Streaks of scarlet paved the way to the double doors like a gruesome tapestry where countless Cursed had been dragged away. After weeks of bloody trials, the air had long since soured, boiling with deep-seated anger, sorrow, and pain. Every angel in the room felt it, smelled it, tasted it.
Twelve chairs stood before the congregation, but only eleven were filled. Raf had the best of intentions, but there would never again be a time Gideon would sit next to him at the Council’s table. There was only so much redemption he could achieve after the sins he’d committed.
The council room doors creaked open, and his throat swelled as a familiar head of blonde hair bobbed through the throng. Tabitha stumbled behind two stone-faced Seraphim, her hands shackled together as she fought for traction on the blood-soaked floor. With a cruel shove, they forced her to kneel in the pool of blood before the Council. Like the coward he was, Gideon shifted further into the shadows, praying she wouldn’t spot him.
“Tabitha.” Methuselah, the most ancient of councilmen, rose from his seat, his white robes swirling around him as the atmosphere sparked with his might. “You have been weighed and measured by the Council before you and have been found guilty of treason. You turned your back on your people, on the realms which your very existence demanded you protect, and on our most holy Maker.
“You are sentenced to a life of banishment from the heavenly realm. You will walk the lesser realms as a curse. Everywhere your foot falls, death will surely follow. You will drink but still thirst. You will eat but never be satisfied. You will depend on the creatures you so despise for nourishment, and by decree of this Greater Council”—Methuselah waved his hand at the ten angels on either side of him—“you will be stripped of your angelic title, your honor, and your wings. Do you have anything to say before this assembly?”
Ever the stubborn female, Tabitha raised her head, chin out, eyes defiant. Even covered in bruises and filth from the dungeons, she was regal. In the beginning, Gideon had admired her strength and confidence. They had once been her greatest qualities, but they were now her greatest weaknesses. Because of him.
He had broken her, dragged her into a war she may never have entered without his encouragement, and now, he stood where she should have. It should have been him kneeling in the cooling blood of his brethren, accepting a fate he had narrowly escaped.
“You self-righteous men stand on your makeshift thrones and profess holiness,” she seethed, baring her teeth like a common beast. “But I know your secrets, the things you whisper in the dark. Your hands are no cleaner than mine.”
She ended her speech by spitting at the base of the platform, a disgraceful act made even more vulgar coming from a female. Roars of outrage echoed off the gleaming pillars, but Tabitha merely threw her head back and laughed. Deranged, maniacal. He really had ruined her.
“You dare mock the very people you betrayed? Accuse the ones whose loved ones you stole?” Gabriel stood, his body vibrating with potent rage.
For a moment, Tabitha’s contempt softened to pain and yearning. Gideon knew of her love for his brother—he always had. It was why she’d settled for Gideon for a short time, an unsatisfactory alternative. He knew all this, but it didn’t stop the painful stab of rejection in his chest as he witnessed the split second of unadulterated longing in her eyes.
But the crack in her facade smoothed over, her expression hardening. “Shaina always was a bore.”
Thunder clapped as Gabriel roared, and Tabitha flew through the air, smashing into one of the marble pillars. Michael and Raphael practically tackled Gabriel, holding him back as several guards rushed to Tabitha’s side. They dragged her back to the podium by her hair. The crowd buzzed with righteous anger, and Gideon’s guilt mounted. She’d never been this spiteful until he invited her to Lucifer’s side. Had she?
“Enough!” Methuselah barely spoke above a whisper, yet the room fell silent. “Your irreverence and malice will not bring you honor. May the Maker have mercy on your soul, Tabitha, disowned daughter of Heaven.”
The cursed chant rose from the Council, filling the room with an unholy hiss. Invisible flames of Hades seared the atmosphere, and sweat dotted Gideon’s brow as he watched Tabitha ignite with a crimson glow. She screamed as the curse burrowed into her body, infecting her angelic soul until it pulsed black and damned.
He had heard the words so often these past weeks that he knew them by heart, but his soul shied away from them in horror. It was an ancient curse, one never utilized until Utopia was thrown into turmoil. And now, he would never forget the incantation.
When the Council fell silent, Tabitha slumped to the floor with a cry. She whimpered when the councilman on the end spoke the ancient command, “Open,” and her golden wings sprouted from her back. This was the hardest part to watch.
“I have a demand.” Gabriel interrupted the process, freezing the executioner in his tracks as he approached to remove her wings.
When no one voiced opposition, Gabriel smoothed his robes and glared down at Tabitha with so much abhorrence Gideon was shocked she didn’t burst into flame. Then Gabriel turned his hatred on Gideon.
“Gideon will deliver the final punishment. It’s rather fitting, don’t you think?”
Angels gasped, and Raphael cried in wordless protest. Michael cringed but remained silent as Gideon’s brother, his best friend since their creation, stared at him like he was scum. His blood turned to ice as he shook his head.