“Are you blind, angel? Can you not see she’s not ready?” His focus remained on the activity in the apartment while Seren’s focus remained on Agone.
Seren folded his arms. “Ready is a state of mind.”
“And her mind is not ready.”
“That matters not when she has grace flowing through her veins,” Seren said with a hint of bitterness. Less bitterness than his previous statements, but still there.
“Your disdain is false. You want to hate her and can’t because you desire her ass as much as I do, yet you fight it.” A wasted effort when it was so apparent.
The tightening of Seren’s jaw, the stiffening of his shoulders, his entire body ramrod straight, told of his fury.
“It is exhausting, is it not? That’s why I choose not to fight. To accept what’s meant to be.”
Nonplussed, Seren shook his head. “You cannot tell me you were fine when Belial came to you with thisassignment.”
Now Agone understood. He faced Seren. “When were you told about Eden?”
“Eden.” Seren’s mouth twisted into a snarl. “Her name is blasphemous.” He spun away to pace, hopeless tension dogging his steps only to have him return to the same spot in front of Agone. He held up a single finger. “One day. That’s how long I knew I’d be saddled with a human.”
Saddled, not gifted. Not blessed. Funny how a demon could see the treasure placed in his path and the angel couldn’t. “Nineteen years.”
Seren’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth pressed into a mulish thin line. His fingers did not twitch, a precursor to him reaching for his sword. Seren was a renowned swordsman in Hell.
He wanted to reach for the blade strapped to his back. If it were up to him, Agone would be in pieces. Well, he’d die trying to achieve his goal. Agone wasn’t an easy kill.
Millennia of rising through the ranks to become a First Order demon proved it. The angel warrior class in front of him wouldn’t slay a demon such as him.
“She was one when I first saw her. Belial trusted me with the information long before this night, when she came into her power. Did Iaiél not trust you with the knowledge?”
Too proud to answer, Seren glowered. A prideful angel, interesting.
“I watched her. Kept to the background. Visited her year after year on her birthday, the only day I allowed myself to invade her privacy.” She was an adorable child who had transformed into a beautiful woman. He’d kept to the shadows, watching her grow up, fall in love, fall out of love, become jaded. Become resilient. Her birthday was a month ago. He watched her get drunk, party, kiss a guy, almost take him home until he stepped in. A minor accident. The man survived with all his limbs, most of them working.
A sharp intake returned him to the present and Seren’s unwavering appraisal.
“I had nineteen years to accept this assignment.”
“You had nineteen years to fall in love,” Seren responded, again with the bitterness, but this time tinged with jealousy.
Agone wouldn’t deny it. “Do you know how they come into their power?” It was a rhetorical question. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Through grievous injury. A near-death experience is the only way for those seeded to access the gift. If it weren’t for the gift of grace and demon ichor, she would’ve bled out on the sidewalk within sight of an emergency room.”I should’ve been there.Not arrive after the deed was done. Even though death was the only way for her to gain her powers, the guilt would stay with him forever.
Seren waved his hand, dismissive and disrespectful to Agone. “If she had, another would’ve taken her place. There are ten other females. She is not one of a kind.”
A growl rumbled deep in Agone’s chest. Belial chose him for his level-headedness. Out of all the First Order, he was the most diplomatic and prone to think before killing everything in his vicinity. But Seren had spoken his last slur against Eden.
He studied the angel, used all his extra-sensory powers, treated him as an enemy, and scanned him. What he found surprised and worried him. “Your name is Seren. A take on serene. However, I sense a darkness in you.” Agone nodded, the world around him taking on a red tint as the demon in him edged to the forefront. “Oh yes. I know darkness intimately. It was my lover for millennia. A detox program weaned me from the addiction,” he lied. “But I can still recognize it when I see it, and I see it in you.” The angel wasn’t as holy as he seemed to be. That could be a threat to Eden, a threat Agone would eliminate.
Yet, if that happened, the balance would tip. They needed a third, otherwise there’d be too much darkness in the mixture and not enough light. Agone would lose Eden and, strongly suspected, also lose himself.
After seeing her, being in her presence, holding her, scenting her thickening desire, and drinking her in, he couldn’t lose her. But having her meant sharing her with his enemy. An enemy who wasn’t all that he seemed.
Emotion drained out of Seren’s face. The neutral façade fooled no one as they stood toe to toe. “Your name is Agone. A take on agony because, as a demon of the First Order, you enjoyed giving pain. Your brutality is legendary.” Thoughtful, Seren stroked his chin. “What century did you stop slaughtering humans? The 1700s? No, there was the Spanish flu. You aided Pestilence and killed five hundred million souls in 1918. And enjoyed the misery you caused. Entire families, entire generations erased.”
Agone didn’t want those memories crawling their way back into his mind from where he’d buried them. Buried them deep, though not deep enough if one mention of that time in his long existence triggered the overwhelming despair over his actions. He wasn’t that demon, ceased being that demon soon after he caged Pestilence with his brothers again.
“You are no innocent, searching for understanding. You shouldn’t be allowed near her.”
Agone’s blade was just a thought away. As was Seren’s. Mutual destruction. They could cut each other down with just a thought. “You speak the truth. I shouldn’t be allowed near Eden. And neither should you. Good thing the decision lay with neither of us.”