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I turn back to face the ceiling, wondering what it is I want to know about the man who leads the war. He mimics the movement beside me, the sheets tugging at my arm as he shuffles.

“Have you ever been in love?”

The archangel stills. I turn my head to look at him, relieved to see that he’s just stunned. Though I regret the foolishness of checking, because as his eyes meet mine, I’m sucked straight back in.

“No.”

I draw in a breath, regretting my offer for him to share the bed. “Ah, so you’re a virgin?”

The archangel snorts. “Yes, want to be my first? Be gentle with me. I’m nervous.”

He bumps my arm with his playfully, a dull warmth to the touch.

“Gentle’s not my style.”

It comes out in a more suggestive way than I intended, and my cheeks flush. The rope tightens around my stomach, pulling at the guilt strings that tie me to Jeremy.

As if the archangel senses my discomfort, he clears his throat. “Why do you want to know what I do behind closed doors?”

“Doesn’t it get lonely? Don’t you ever wish for companionship?”

The truth is, I want to know what kind of man he really is. I want to know why it is that he’s chosen me to protect. He detests humankind, blames us for the death of his mother. So why am I any different?

“I’m the archangel,”

he says. “I lack the luxury of worrying about companionship.”

It almost sounds as if the fact makes him sad, as if he wishes he were someone else. In a strange way, I understand. I said no to Jeremy’s question about marriage because I’m a soldier in a war. I acted as if it would be a ridiculous thing to be happy and in love when there are much more pressing things going on in the world. When I have bigger duties.

Though there was some truth to it, that wasn’t the only reason I didn’t say yes. I still can’t quite decipher what it was that terrified me in that moment. I search my mind again and again for the reasons that I love Jeremy, but every time, the only words I find in the depths of my subconscious are trust, safe, love.

Pain shoots through my head, a migraine that could be the result of a plethora of things. Exhaustion, lack of water, lack of sleep, lack of food, injuries sustained in battle, thinking too hard – take your pick.

I rub my temples. “Do you ever get lonely?”

“Not lately.”

My eyes snap to his. A soft smile plays on his lips. The ice I was feeling towards him thaws, the look in his eyes melting it away.

Maybe I do know him. Maybe he is who I thought he was. In his view, he was trying to protect me. He was putting me first, and can I really fault him for that?

“Are you going to kill Cain?”

The archangel’s voice is strained with expectation. “I’m going to try.”

I watch his expression change when he says the words, as if he himself doesn’t believe them.

“He has to die, archangel. He’s committed too much evil to be allowed to live.”

He shuffles beside me. “I know. I promise you, I will do everything in my power.”

“I’d kill him myself if I could,”

I mutter under my breath, half joking. Half wishing I could be the one to cause the light to leave the fallen angel’s eyes.

“Hmm,”

he grunts. “Tell me, does anything scare you?”

I consider ignoring his question, or perhaps lying. I’ve always wanted to be brave and fearless. I turn back on my side, my cheek resting on my hands. “Everything.”

He follows me, one hand slipping under his pillow and the other falling between us. “What is your greatest fear, Slayer?”

I freeze. I’ve never been asked that before, but I already know the answer.

“I know you’re an orphan, that you moved from home to home because no one wanted you around for too long.”

Vince’s words haunt me and I squeeze my eyes shut.

“I grew up not leaving much of a mark on anyone. I bounced from foster home to foster home with no friends, no family, no one who would notice if I were gone.”

I open my eyes and take a deep breath. “When I disappeared to join the army, I was the only soldier who never received any letters or calls. I had no one to receive them from. I could’ve died in service and there wouldn’t have been anyone at my funeral.”

The sad reality washes over me, the thought that has lingered in my mind for years but that I’ve never said aloud.

“I don’t want to end up buried in an unmarked grave.”

“Amara…”

He says my name as a quiet breath, a promise.

“But I have Jeremy now, Xavier, Layla…”

I trail off, Sam and Kate’s names stuck on my tongue.

His sigh isn’t born of frustration, but rather disappointment. “Well, I promise to speak at your funeral. I promise to engrave your tombstone…”

He lifts his hands in the air and draws the words as he says them. “Amara Jones. Stupidly brave, annoyingly witty.”

I snort, an unattractive sound that I’ve been blessed with since I was a child. “Nathaniel the archangel, constantly compensating for something.”

His name rolls off my tongue as if it’s done so hundreds of times before. Yet…

He freezes, no laughter in his eyes, no offence at the insult. “That’s the first time you’ve called me by my name.”

The fact wasn’t lost on me, but hearing him say it as if it’s a blessing makes me hesitate. “It’s the first time I’ve wanted to.”

I evade his gaze and change the subject. “I’ve never told that to anybody before.”

His lips tug to the left. “You trust me?”

I roll my eyes and point a finger at him. “Don’t take advantage of it.”

“Never.”

“So what are you afraid of? Nathaniel, the angel of all angels?”

“Nothing.”

The smirk that plays on his lips tells me otherwise.

“Everybody’s afraid of something.”

He falls silent, contemplation weighing on his features. “I’m afraid that my entire life was planned for me before I was born. That everything I do, every move I make, is because the fates said so. I’m afraid that I have no free will.”

“Is fate really that powerful a thing?”

“More than you could imagine.”

“So you prove it wrong.”

I shuffle, my head falling to the edge of my pillow. My face lies an inch away from his. “All you need is one thing, one thing that wasn’t planned, to prove that you have free will. Do something that the fates would frown upon.”

His gaze drops to my lips before flicking back up. The silver in his eyes is hard to see, and as I look at him lying on his side with one hand under his pillow and the other under his cheek… I see the man I thought I’d gotten to know over the past few days. The man who has surprised me time and time again.

I suck in a breath.

I see a man who stares at me like I’ll quench his thirst. A man who looks at me like I’m the body of water he’s been hallucinating in the desert. Like I’m the deity he’s been praying to.

I see silver seafoam waves in an ocean that I’d gladly drown in.

“You are…” he says.

I bite my lip to suppress the girlish smile that fights its way to the surface. To try to hide the red that paints my cheeks. “Not what you expected?”

“Exquisite.”

The word falls from his lips breathlessly.

I hadn’t realised that I was holding my own breath until now. “Goodnight, Nathaniel.”

“Goodnight, Amara.”