WILLOW
I moved through the bedroom, Jonathan twirling around my feet. I groaned my frustration as he meowed at me, constantly getting in
the way. It took every ounce of balance I had to keep me from landing flat on my face regularly.
My foot connected with him, but the cat showed no sign of irritation.
He didn’t hiss the way he usually would have to show me his displeasure.
I furrowed my brow, staring down at the black cat for a moment before bending down to scratch his neck. My hand went through him, moving to the other side as everything within me tensed.
“I’m impressed,” a male voice said, forcing me to stand quickly and spin to face him. He waited in the doorway, his form alone enough to fill the gap that would have led to the living room and office beyond it.
If his body hadn’t been enough, the white, feathered wings that spread out behind him would have done it.
His face was so similar to Gray’s that it hurt, hitting me like a punch to the gut. He was clean-cut, his hair appropriately trimmed, and his features kind. His lips tipped up into a smile that felt more false than any of the mocking ones Gray had given me during his deception.
I ambled toward him, swallowing as I realized who he must be. “Michael,” I said, my voice as apprehensive as I felt.
“Willow Hecate,” he said, purposefully ignoring my married name. “Willow Morningstar,” I corrected him pointedly, raising my chin.
He chuckled, taking a step toward me. He moved until he was far too close for comfort, even in the realm of dreams where no normal being could touch me. I didn’t know what magic he had, or if it was similar to his twin brother’s, especially since Gray had managed to mark me in a dream once.
“Not in the eyes of God, you aren’t,” he said, his lips peeling back further. The teeth behind them were perfectly white and straight, unassuming and dull. Yet something about him made me wonder if he was even more ruthless than Gray, his righteousness a weapon to be wielded.
I shrugged, moving to the window to look out over the gardens. They were dark, without the illumination of the starlights that usually twinkled in the lanterns overhead. “I’ve never put much stock into what your God thinks of me,” I said, facing him.
Staring at him was disarming, his eyes the same shocking blue that Gray’s Vessel had possessed. I’d once thought I’d miss the blue of that stare when I lost it to the gold and the realization of what he was, yet staring at Michael I couldn’t help but realize he was nothing except a pale imitation.
“I wouldn’t expect someone like you to care. We both know where you will go when you die, Witch,” Michael said, the word far more malicious than the affection Gray gave me.
“Is that any way to speak to your sister-in-law?” I asked, smirking at him and channeling the attitude that Gray had so openly embraced in me. Michael only looked down his nose at me as if I wasn’t worth the dirt on his pretty white shoes.
“You are no sister of mine,” he snarled, stepping further into the illusion of the bedroom he’d created in my mind.
“Then why don’t you get to the point and tell me what the fuck you want so I can go back to sleep?” I asked, meeting that snarl with one of my own.
Michael scoffed. “You are everything He said you would be,” he said, drawing a smile from me.
“I’m just glad my reputation precedes me,” I said, waving a hand to tell him to get on with it.
“You have the ability to open the Hellgate again,” Michael said. And I raised a brow at him, crossing my arms over my chest. “He wants you to do it and to bring all of your kind and Lucifer’s family back to where they belong.”
“My kind were born here,” I said, uncrossing my arms and clenching my palms into fists at my side. “This place is just ours.”
“You are abominations that never should have existed. You’ve sold your souls to the devil, and you should go where all who choose his embrace belong,” Michael said, standing taller. He puffed up his wings as if his size might intimidate me.
“What’s in it for me?” I asked, tipping my head to the side as I studied him.
“He does not deal with the damned,” he said, a warning in the calm fury of his voice.
I stepped closer, taking his blue tie and straightening it as I looked up at him from between my lashes mockingly. “And what if I do not want to be a heathen? Would He accept me into Heaven, then?”
He backed away, revulsion on his face from the threat of my touch. He’d been solid even in the dream state, touchable and tangible.
Able to be killed in theory.
“Of course not. Your use of the Source taints your soul,” he said, and I understood the words very clearly.
“I do not use the Source. I am part of it, and He cannot stand that, can he?” I asked, my laughter filling the room. “You mean to tell me that any good acts I might commit will never matter? There is no heavenly embrace for me?”
He raised his chin, his indignation clear as he observed me. “You cannot change what you are.”
I grinned. “Thank you, Michael,” I said, turning my back on the archangel and moving to play with the petals of the rose I kept on my nightstand. I couldn’t touch it, my fingers filtering through it, though it still served its purpose and left me feeling fortified.
“For what?” he asked, that deceptively handsome face twisting in confusion.
“Giving me the excuse I needed to just do whatever the fuck I want from now on,” I said, closing the distance between us, that magic of life flowing over my skin like a whisper of what was real. “Tell your father I said fuck you, messenger boy.”
I placed my palms against his chest, meeting solid flesh as his eyes flew wide. I shoved him back, forcing him through the open bedroom door. The archangel stumbled back into the darkness, fading from view as quickly as he’d appeared.
I turned…
And I sat up in bed, glancing to my side to find Gray sleeping fretfully beside me as if he could sense his brother’s presence. Reaching out, I stroked the flower petals I’d touched in my dream. They crumbled to ash beneath my touch, the life I’d taken fading from them.
I curled back into bed, vowing to replace the roses in the morning. I had a feeling I’d need them.
