When Ramiel had brought her back, he hadn’t taken her to the infirmary, or even to her old quarters, but brought her to his and laid her in his bed. He’d brought in healing seraphim to help her between the times when he could heal her, and then sat by her bed and waited, those brilliant green eyes on her constantly.

Haziel wanted to scream at him to go away and leave her alone.

“Haziel.” Ramiel stood from the armchair beside her bed and leaned over her. “You’re feeling stronger.”

Connected to her as he was, he would know, so she barely even bothered to nod.

“Right.” Ramiel shoved his hands in the pockets of his lounge pants and dropped his chin to his chest. “We should talk.”

She didn’t want to talk. Or think. Not that her wishes mattered to the constant barrage of images playing through her mind. Top of them was Wrath’s face as she’d begged him to let her go with Ramiel. She’d seen in his eyes the same betrayal she’d felt when she’d realized how callously Ramiel had sent her to the horsemen’s resting place to die.

“I’m sorry.” Ramiel perched on the side of her bed. “I should never have done it.”

“Why did you?” Her voice sounded rusty and hoarse. Even as she asked, she didn’t know if his answer would matter. Centuries of love and devotion she’d showered on Ramiel, and he had used her as if she was expendable.

He reached for a glass of water and handed it to her. Even the water in heaven tasted different, pure, essential and of nothing but the atoms that made it up. On earth, the water tasted of the place it sprung from, and all the pipes and mechanisms humans used to bring it to people.

Ramiel sighed and clasped his hands. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he dropped his head. Light gleamed off the golden strands of his hair and accentuated the broad expanse of his shoulders. For so long, it was a sight that would have struck her dumb with longing. “There isn’t a simple answer for that.”

And Haziel wanted to laugh at his words. Because unlike her, he could choose whether to be honest or not. The irony of the truth imperative Ramiel had imposed on all his close circle, but not himself, had never felt sharper to her or cut deeper. She had loved this being for countless millennia. Content to merely bask in his shadow and gather the crumbs of affection he tossed her away. Until he had sent her to follow Wrath, and she had known what it was like to be treated as if she mattered. Even after he’d abandoned her to Ava in the early days of their time together, Wrath had come back for her, insisted she came away with him. She wouldn’t have known any of that if Ramiel hadn’t sent her on that mission. She could have thanked him for that.

Until he had knowingly set her a task that would end her. If Wrath had not been there, she would be no more.

Wrath. A fist constricted around her chest. His blue eyes filled with hurt and then bitterness haunted her.

Ramiel took her hand. “Haziel?”

“What?” No accompanying thrill followed his touch.

“Are you listening to me?”

“You’re sitting within arm’s reach of me.” And way too close. She pulled her hand away. “I cannot but hear you.”

“Indeed.” Ramiel took a deep, careful breath. “I have earned your anger.”

He had cursed her with this truthfulness, and she saw no reason to spare him. “Yes, you have.”

Anger flashed in his brilliant green eyes, and his face hardened.

She met his stare, daring him to get angry with her, challenging him to pull his archangel crap on her.

He sighed and his shoulders drooped. “I was jealous.”

“Eh?” That shook her out of her righteous anger.

“I was jealous.” He reached for her hand and then stopped. “The way matters have been between us for so many years, I had grown accustomed to you always by my side, always putting me before all others.”

“By matters, you mean me loving you?” Haziel couldn’t spend countless more millennia dancing around the truth and pretending what existed between them didn’t.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, that.”

“Then let me put your mind at rest, I no longer feel the same.”

Flinching, Ramiel stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You are angry, and you say things that will wound. I understand.”

“No, you don’t.” His condescension enraged her and made her head pound. “You made it so I could never lie to you. I am not spewing venom in my anger; I am speaking my truth.”

“Your truth at this moment,” Ramiel said. “Your truth as you believe it to be.”

His arrogance was beyond insufferable. He’d always been this way, but it had never made her want to punch his perfect face like it did now. “Are you implying that I don’t know my own feelings?”

“No.” He held up one hand as if to pacify her. “I do not doubt that at this moment you despise me and are furious with me.” Regret clouded his eyes. “And I have deserved all that and more. I knowingly put you at risk to get you away from the influence of that hell prince.”

“Wrath.” She took delight in speaking his name. “You mean Wrath.”

“Yes…Wrath.” He sneered. “It never occurred to me for a second when I paired you with him that you would not continue to see him as you always have. That you would not despise him.”

“You despised him.” Haziel didn’t see the point to this conversation, but Ramiel had effectively trapped her here with him, and she was done tiptoeing around his sensibilities. “I always liked Wrath. You were the one who despised him.”

Stilling, Ramiel frowned at her. “Always?”

“Yes, always. He was kind to me, in his gruff and forthright way.” She shrugged. “And yes, he had a temper, but he’s Wrath. It’s not like his seal was going to allow him to be any other way.”

“Kind to you.” Ramiel tapped his chin. “Yes, I suppose he has been. I should have seen that before now, but I suppose I saw only what I wanted to see.”

She didn’t need to respond to what was patently obvious. “I did what you asked me to. I went to hell with him, kept an eye on him, and for the most part kept him out of trouble.” Barring that fight with Ava.

“And you fell in love with him.” Ramiel cocked his head and studied her. “There is no use denying it, I can sense it in you.”

As if she could deny what was true, so she stared at him.

“I’ve been a fool.” Sighing, Ramiel dropped his chin to his chest. “A fool that only saw that he wanted a thing when it was lost to him.”

A ringing sound started in Haziel’s ears. She couldn’t have heard him right. “What?”

“You see, I always knew you loved me, but I became complacent in that love, sure that it would always be mine. You are such a creature of constancy, Haziel. For as long as there was me, there was you beside me, loving me. And then that love was gone, and I finally understood how precious a gift I had squandered.”

If he hadn’t looked so crushed, the irony of it might have made her laugh. How many times had she fantasized, longed for him to say these things to her. And now…

Now she understood that love was not a thing of awe and hero worship. Love was vital and primal and messy and glorious. It was in the tiny things like the way Wrath’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. Or the way he very rarely laughed, but when he did, it came from the depths of him and made her want to hear it again and again. In the way he touched her, at times reverent and at times raunchy, sometimes both together. No, love was not a distant pining for an illusion, but a soul deep understanding of another being that made you feel like you were home.

Ramiel was staring at her. “Say something.”

“I don’t know what to say.” For the sake of their history and their future, she would not tell him what she was thinking, but she could only ever be honest. “My feelings have changed.”

“I understand.” He cleared his throat. “But we have been together for many years, Haziel, and on the basis of that, I would ask something of you.”

“What?” Tension and dread knotted in her stomach.