Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
I smiled at the adorable man ranting at me.
“Michael knew better than to put me in charge, it’s not like I wasn’t clear about what I would and wouldn’t do,” he continued, talking with his hands now. “Technically, for second-guessing me, this was all his fault, not mine.”
“Maybe don’t bring that up,” I teased him.
“I told him, I was not made to rule.”
“I think you’re selling yourself short.”
He shook his head. “I want to drive my Jeep. I enjoy being a general contractor far more than I enjoyed hunting demons, and I want to go back to work. I miss my crew, I miss our friends, I miss our house,” he finished, his voice cracking.
“You do?”
“I want to go home. And yes, someday, when you’re very old, we’re going to leave our life there in San Francisco and return here, or to another heaven, and you’ll be again as you are now, and we’ll be like this forever. Because I am endless, and therefore you must be as well. I can’t ever be without you. I can’t live without my heart.”
I grabbed his hand and yanked hard to get him to drop back down to his knees in the sand beside me. Flinging my arms around his neck, I kissed him hard and then hugged him tight.
“I want to go home. Let’s go home,” I murmured, smiling at him and then suddenly jolting with fear as I thought of something.
“What’s the matter?” Raphael asked, sounding panicked. I’d obviously scared him.
“How long have we been gone? Is there anything to go home to?”
It took a moment for him to react, and honestly, the fact that he was so calm, looking a bit annoyed even, calmed me. Finally, he squinted at me.
I was instantly defensive and crossed my arms as I stared at him.
“Do you ever pay attention when people talk to you?” He let out a frustrated huff of air.
“I have no idea what you’re––”
“Vaya told you that Remiel promised to have time move in this realm just as it does on earth,” he groused at me. “I know that because Remiel told me he did.”
“Yes, and that’s great for the present, and the future, but not for the past.”
“Remiel’s decision instantly becomes the past, the present, and the future in this heaven,” he corrected me, apparently annoyed that I didn’t know that. “Did you somehow miss the part about him being an archangel?”
I breathed in through my nose and held his gaze.
He grunted. “So what you’re conveying with this charming non-verbal communication, is that you had no idea it worked like that.”
“That’s correct,” I replied curtly.
“Well, shit,” he grumbled.
I couldn’t help but smile.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make that clear. But as soon as Remiel told Vaya how it would be, that’s how it became. His word transforms time just as it did the seasons and the weather. He rules this heaven completely.”
“Thank you for explaining,” I soothed him. “And what about when I was in hell?”
“Time moves slower there, it’s made to. That’s part of the punishment, that an hour can feel like an entire day. The suffering is meant to be endless.”
“Which means what?”
“I lived through two weeks without you, a fortnight,” he explained, and his slight shiver told me how hard it had been, if I didn’t already know. I’d been fighting for my life; he had been locked in a cell with nothing to do but think and worry. “While for you it was days.”
“Too many,” I said, sighing deeply.
“Yes,” he agreed sadly, “but on earth, it’s been a month, just like here, so we’ll easily make it home for Malic and Dylan’s wedding.”
The news made me happier than I thought it would. “So when will we leave?”
“Tomorrow morning, after breakfast with Remiel and Vaya, we’ll—what is that?” he gasped, startled, whirling around as we both heard baying in the distance.
“Oh,” I cried, standing up in time to see two of Baz’s dogs, the ones who’d slept with me that night in the inn, come racing down the sand toward me. “Raph, my dogs!”
“Your what?” He sounded unsure and horrified at the same time.
I laughed at him. “My dogs!”
“Jackson, honey, those aren’t dogs. Those are hellhounds!”
They were huge, like the Irish wolfhounds I’d taken them to be, but now no longer all white, just bits here and there, as well as the expected coloring of gray and black. Both of them were still wearing the thick, heavy, sharp-studded collars they had on the last time I saw them, which in the light of day, I realized were encrusted with dried blood.
Reaching me, they whimpered and whined, licking my face, and when I sat down, they climbed all over me, trying to get in my lap.
“These are my dogs,” I told him excitedly. “How did you get my dogs here?”