No, she wouldn’t be able to. Only souls on the cusp of their transition into the next life would be able to see her wings. “I’m sorry you’re sick.”
“Yeah, it sucks.” The girl sighed. Her brown eyes were direct and uncompromising as they met Haziel’s. “Are you here to take me?”
“It doesn’t work like that.” Haziel nodded to a hovering waiter to refill her wine. If only the alcohol could wash away the tragedy of this child’s rapidly dwindling existence. “What’s your name?”
“Issy.” She made a face. “It’s short for Isabella but nobody calls me that.”
“Hi, Issy.” Haziel held out her hand. “I’m Haziel.”
They sat in a silence for a moment longer.
Across the lobby, Issy’s mother was crying as she spoke into her phone. Her shoulders were slumped with a defeat too great for them to bear. The end was near, and human doctors could offer little help anymore.
“How does it work?” Issy cocked her head. “I mean, if you’re not here to take me.”
“You’ll just drift away,” Haziel said.
“Will I be scared?”
“No.” Haziel took Issy’s skeletal hand in hers. “Not then, you won’t. You’ll feel really peaceful, and you’ll be ready.”
Issy looked over at her mother. “My mom is not going to be all right.”
“No, she won’t.” Even if she could, Haziel wouldn’t taint Issy’s trust with lies and platitudes. “She will miss you every day, until your souls meet up again.”
“But they will meet up again?” Issy stared deep into her. “Won’t they?”
This Haziel could tell her for sure. “Yes, they will. Your soul and your mother’s are joined. You have traveled many lifetimes together, and you will travel a few more before you’re done.”
“Good.” Issy nodded. “Can I ask you a favor?”
Haziel wished with everything in her that she could give Issy an unqualified yes. “I can’t heal you.”
“No, not that.” Issy shook her head. “Nobody can heal me anymore. It’s about my mother. Could you maybe, I don’t know, visit her after I’m gone and let her know I’m all right?”
If she had to tie Ramiel up and lock him in a cupboard. “I will do that. I won’t be able to appear to her as I am now, but I can send her a message that she knows is from you.”
“Thank you. We’ve been bird watching since I got too sick to go to school. My favorite bird is the European bee eater. They’re such pretty colors.” Issy stood. “She’s finished her call. She’ll need a minute to make herself look like she hasn’t been crying. She does that because she thinks I don’t know.”
A mother’s love was one of the purest forms of love in the universe, and Haziel ached for the woman with a smile on her beleaguered face as she made her way back to them.
Issy turned to her. “How long?”
“Three days,” Haziel said.
“Will you come for me?”
“No, but I will see you once your soul is freed from your body.” She took Issy’s hand. “In your next life, you will get to grow up and get married. You will have children and a wonderful future, and your mother in this life will be one of those children.”
Ramiel would lose his shit if he heard what she’d said, but Haziel didn’t care. Humans suffered so much tragedy and pain. If she could spare this child one moment, it was worth it.
“Good.” Issy giggled and looked at her clothes. “I’d like to stop shopping in the children’s section at some point.”
Haziel watched her walk across the lobby toward her mother, and the two hugged. She needed another glass of wine—STAT.
“Ramiel would shit himself if he heard what you told her,” Wrath said.
She whirled to find him standing beside her table dressed like a human male in jeans and a snug T-shirt with a plaid shirt framing his gorgeous chest.
“I didn’t feel you approach.” Her heart thumped against her breastbone.
Wrath smirked and pulled out the chair Issy had vacated. “Because I didn’t want you to.”
At a cursory glance, he looked like a human male, but if you looked closer, those clear blue eyes gave him away as other, not to mention the low-grade aura of power that hung around him. He’d muted it, but it was like trying to turn the sun to low.
Several people in the bar watched him, their expressions caught between intrigued and admiring. You could take the prince out of hell…
So many questions spun through her mind that she had trouble picking one. The wheels spun and landed. “What are you doing here?”
“Finding you.” He smiled at the starstruck waitress who had appeared beside their table. “I’ll have whatever the lady is drinking, and another for her.”
“White wine?” The waitress blinked.
“Perfect.” Wrath flashed his pearly whites at her.
“You were looking for me?” She shoved a handful of nachos in her mouth to stop her pick-me why from spilling out.
Wrath tilted his head and studied her. “You look good as a human.”
