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“I’m not sorry,” he decided to admit. “I wanted every bit of what I did and a whole lot more.”

“That’s because you have no idea what’s at stake, what I do.”

He undid his seat belt and faced her more, his eyes on her heaving body. “Then show me what you do,” he said simply. “Help me understand.”

She kept her stone-cold face pointed at her window. Just when he was ready to give up, her hand shot out to him, palm up. He regarded the tiny thing with a keen awareness of all the painful things she could do with it right before his mind saw that same hand sliding along her body and gripping her tits in a hunger so potent it still rocked him. “Take... my hand, Kollaborator. I will show you.”

There was no missing the utter warning in her quiet words, but he reached out and closed his fingers around it nevertheless. Their palms connected and the power inside him bucked.

She gasped, clutching him tight as her eyes closed. “Be still,” she whispered around labored breaths. She’d just begged his powers for permission, and it suddenly stepped aside, allowing her full control.

And she took it. Swiftly and without mercy.

Five seconds, five minutes, five days, weeks, years, he didn’t know how long the Bellatore soared him through centuries of her life with humanity. From the desert days of old to the bustling cities of every major corner of the world, the Mother of Angels filled his molecules with the hope and innocence of a million girls till his soul was bursting with theirlives. Then she sailed him higher and higher till they rose above the earth and hung immobile in some balance.

“See.”

The command whispered through him as her hand clutched his tighter and they soared back down. This time she dragged him through those same lives now ravaged with pain and hopeless despair. Millions of these girls crucified by inconceivable evil until his entire soul bled out of him.

And then she showed him the complexity and burden of her job. The war was lost. The Mother of Angels was out of time. There would be no more nourishing women into a beautiful motherhood. There was only keeping them alive long enough to hopefully save their souls.

The scales had tipped in evil's favor.

The end of humanity was imminent.

“Release me.”

Reuban wanted to but he couldn’t. The agony of millenniums held him pinned in place. He realized it was becauseshecarriedit. She held all of it, used the pain as asacrificefor morepower. To help those who could not help themselves. To buy mercy and time while everything she loved burned around her.

He squeezed her hand tightly in his, listening to her lungs sucking in huge gulps of air and letting it go. “Now I see,” he said, forcing his hand to disengage.

Her breaths filled with flutters as if they’d grown wings to fly far away from him. “Thenhelpme.”

The tiny words trembled with the rest of her body as pride and desperation battled inside her angelic heart. It was a rare beseeching, he realized. “I will,” he assured, wanting to take her hand again and discover it with his. She’d called him to help her with humanity. But to do that required first helping her.She would fight him, he knew. What he intended would go againsteverything she thought she believed to be right. But she was altogether wrong. And he was more than happy to teach her all about the error of her beautiful ways.

****

Larena kept at least four feet between her and the Kollaborator at all times as she marched from rack to rack in the clothing store, throwing items in a basket. Why had she done something so foolish? In showing him everything she’d endured, allowed him too far inside. She’d intended to brutalize him while opening his eyes to her plight. Then she’d begged him for help because she’d been keenly aware of two things: he possessed powers she needed, and she was at his mercy. Wouldn’t be the first time she’d been at the sympathy of others for the sole purpose of securing power. But with him, it was very different. She’d had sex countless times in her existence and scoured each incident for a single shred of the kind of pleasure he’d made her feel. She was protected from witchcraft and sorcery so it couldn’t be he’d used those things.

He was a good soul even if he was very inexperienced. It had to be the dark powers in him that had caused it. I’m not sorry. I wanted every bit of what I did and so much more. Her body flashed to a thousand degrees as she barreled the basket to the checkout counter. Once again, she experienced the odd sensation of trying to run far from him only to feel like she’d ended up that much closer to the flames.

Thank God he gave her space. She’d been physically, mentally and emotionally rattled to death in her existence before, but never like this.

He continued remaining disengaged in conversation while providing everything she needed when she needed it, all without question or comment. Other than showing kindness and manners, which seemed to be characteristics woven intothe fabric of his existence. As though no matter what was happening, he would always be polite. A few thousand years ago, she would have welcomed such a thing. But not now. God, of all times, not now. He was the biggest distraction, the biggest danger she ever remembered facing all while bearing no particular threat about him. Other than his incredulous good looks and the manner in which he assaulted her with them at every turn. Obliviously.

He was a trap. A divine one. She needed to avoid falling headlong into him no matter how tempting he was. And dear God of the highest heavens, never had she encountered a more inviting quarry.

By the time they made it to the hotel, she felt fevered and in need of a cold shower. His silence continued like a plague now as she struggled to find a way to lay out the evening’s plans to him. Everything in her said telling him what she intended on doing was a suicide mission by itself. She would have to find a way to hide it somehow. He’d only ever seen her in her angelic form. She’d have to do a human body double. Enter the location in one body and swap when the time came to need another. Assuming his peculiar powers wouldn’t be able to know the difference. She could do identical twins but that would require more power than any demonic abuse would earn her.

Simply amazing that after she’d dragged him through the fires of thousands of years of human suffering he’d come out on the other end caring about her, rather than the humans she was commissioned to helping. She’d never experienced this kind of fury while being at the same time flattered.

She was again tempted to waste her powers to find out where his mind was with her. Once she took human form, she’d be relying solely on experience of which she had plenty. Knowing his intentions would surely help. But then that meant running the risk of meeting those dark powers of seduction while pokingabout as she had foolishly done before. She couldn’t survive being sucked into that domain for another sexual playdate.

She’d operate blind as usual and trust her intuitions. They’d become nearly as accurate as her angelic ones.

When it came time to deciding on a body type to wear, she found herself doing more contemplations than usual. Every time she went to choose her innocent look for the purpose of tempting monsters, Kollaborator’s opinion butted in as if it should matter.

Did it matter?