“What?” It made his butt clench the way angels always had to make word games of a conversation and couldn’t come right out and say what they were thinking.

“I’m going to guess you’re here because you have strong feelings for her.” Ramiel gestured around them. “I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve been here, and those were only because we had urgent matters to discuss. The serious intent behind your visit is not lost on me.”

Didn’t that make Ramiel a super brain. Irritation had him finishing his goblet before he tossed it at the fucker. “If I speak to my feelings, I will speak those words to Haziel.”

“Fair enough.” Leaning forward, Ramiel topped up his glass. “But let us speak first.” He took a careful breath. “What I did to Haziel, putting her at risk like that, it was wrong.”

“Damn fucking right it was.” Wrath would still like to rip Ramiel’s head off his shoulders over that. Actually, he pretty much always wanted to perform a beheading on Ramiel. “If I hadn’t been with her, she would have…” He couldn’t say the words. The idea of a being of such light and joy ending did not bear even considering for a fleeting moment.

Ramiel met his angry stare. “You’re right. I fucked up, and I have no excuse, other than that I am a jealous ass.”

The open admission caught him wrong footed, and it took a moment for him to catch up with the meaning.

“Jealous?” Vexia had suggested as much to him, but Wrath had never really believed it. How could Ramiel be jealous? He’d had Haziel’s love and devotion for centuries, and he’d done nothing about it. Hells! Wrath had only experienced it for a handful of days, and now he would do anything to get it back.

“Sadly, yes.” Ramiel grimaced and sipped his wine. “It does not reflect well on me that I have known I had her love for all this time, and it was only when I sensed that love slipping away that I did anything about it.”

Fury lashed its tail inside him. “And killing her was your idea of a grand romantic gesture?”

“I never meant for her to be hurt.” Ramiel’s tone sharpened. “You may not believe it, but I didn’t. I merely reacted in the moment. I wanted her away from you, and I grasped at the first opportunity to do that.”

Wrath leapt to his feet. End of the world be damned. This fucker had almost killed Haziel because he got his dick in a knot. “You’re a fucking asshole.”

“Yes.” Ramiel glanced up at him. “I’ve come to that unfortunate conclusion myself.”

Wrath had been dealing with Ramiel their entire existences, and he found himself lost. This was not the archangel he was accustomed to dealing with.

Ramiel indicated he take a seat again.

And Wrath sat. “What are you saying?”

“I love her too.” Ramiel shrugged. “And it’s my stupidity that made me squander the gift of her love.”

Wrath found himself struggling to keep up. He didn’t know what to make of a humble and contrite Ramiel. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, the archangel seemed genuinely regretful about what he’d done.

“You know what it’s like.” Ramiel studied his wine. “We have all this power and beings who fawn over our every need. It becomes ridiculously easy to believe that one is as special as one is led to believe.”

He wanted to deny Ramiel’s words and fling them back at him, but he couldn’t. When he’d fallen in love with Rosabella, it had never occurred to him that a mere human woman would reject him, find him wanting, choose her freedom over him. After all, he had offered her himself and the world. Then she had said no.

It was a humbling thought that he and Ramiel were not so very different. If he had never encountered Rosabella and never had to face failure and the harsh truth that one being did not find him worthy of their love, he would have been the same. He couldn’t think he would ever have sent Vexia knowingly to her death, but it would have stung to know that he was no longer the most important being in her existence. “You’re saying that you love Haziel.”

“Yes.” Ramiel sighed. “It would have been extremely beneficial to all of us if I had extracted my oversize head from my ass sooner, but alas, here we are.”

Weariness washed over Wrath, and he leaned back in his chair. “Where does that leave us?”

“I have declared myself to Haziel.” Ramiel met him stare for stare. “I have thrown myself at her mercy, as it were.”

Gorge rose in Wrath’s throat. Haziel had loved Ramiel for most of her existence. She had finally gotten what her heart had desired for so long. He couldn’t sit here and stare at the fucker who’d gotten the gift of Haziel’s amazing heart. He wasn’t a big enough being for that. Wrath stood.

Ramiel blinked at him. “Where are you going?”

“You want me to wish you well?” Rage simmered inside him like live flame.

“I wish that you could.” Ramiel chuckled, but the sound was forlorn. “But she does not want me.”

Wrath’s knees felt weak, and he sat again. “What are you saying?”

“I offered myself to her.” Ramiel waved his hand about him. “All that I am and all that I have. Haziel is a generous soul, and she agreed to give me a chance to plead my case, but even in my arrogance, I can see that her heart is already given…elsewhere.”

Needing to hear it spelled out for him, Wrath kept his seat and stared at Ramiel.

“Do you need to hear me say it?” Ramiel grated.

“Yes.”

“She loves you.” Ramiel exploded from his chair. He hurled his goblet across the room. Glass and red wine splattered the brilliant white floor. “She loves you.” Ramiel’s shoulders slumped. “She stays out of a loyalty to me that reflects far better on her than it does on me.” He pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. “But she does not love me. Anymore. She has a new love.”

Like he was frozen, Wrath sat there and stared at Ramiel. He hadn’t known what to expect when he came here, but he had come prepared to do whatever it took to get Haziel to hear him out.

Although he stood as tall and proud as ever, there was a brokenness to Ramiel that Wrath recognized. It was only when a being was brought face to face with their own failures that they truly experienced the depth of who they were. And Ramiel had failed. Not because Haziel loved another being, but because his own flawed love had made him act in a manner that he couldn’t be proud of. It had been the fire that forged Wrath, and he hoped that Ramiel found it the same. “She has not said that she loves me.”

“But she does.” Ramiel straightened his shoulders. “And may the heavens help the two of you, because you still have to get the gathering to agree to let her be with you, but I will not oppose you.”

“As much as I appreciate that”—Wrath stood—“those are words that need to come from Haziel. We are not able to sit here and discuss her future as if we have the right to do so. I am here because I love her. It rests with her what to do with that knowledge.”

Chapter Forty-One

Haziel stopped in the middle of her training session with the younger angels and lowered her sword. For a minute there, she felt sure she could feel Wrath, but that couldn’t be. Wrath rarely came to Ramiel’s demesne, and it was merely wishful thinking on her part.

Zephon winged into the training ground, looking like he was ready to rip heads off and apologize later. She wasn’t in the mood for one of Zephon’s tantrums, so she turned her attention back to her trainee. Taking him by the hand, she shifted the dagger in his clasp. “Like this. You keep holding it the other way, and it’s too easy to knock out of your hand.”

“Yes, Haziel.” He nodded and gave her his shy smile.

His smile reminded her of Issy, the sick human girl, and the promise she had made. She would need to journey to the earth plane and fulfill her promise soon. Not that she foresaw any issue getting permission from Ramiel. He was contorting himself to make her happy, and it made her feel a bit guilty. Not guilty enough to stop taking advantage of the situation, but she did feel a mite of pity for him. After all, very few knew as well as she did the constant pain of unrequited love.

Her own feelings had shifted so suddenly that she might be accused of being fickle. But then she remembered Wrath and all the things that made her heart beat faster. It was more than his raw, primal beauty. It had to do with his quiet sense of humor, his intractable honor, the way he cared so deeply for those he loved, and his strength and determination. These were all qualities she’d seen in Ramiel, only to discover that they existed in her imagination.

“Fucking hell prince.” Zephon thwacked a small bush with his sword. “They have no rights here.”

The hair on Haziel’s nape stood on end. Her pulse throbbed erratically in her throat. Could she have felt Wrath?

She turned to Zephon. “There is a hell prince here?”

“As if you don’t know.” He sneered at her. Her fellow seraphim had not been happy about her association with Wrath and were keen to share that opinion with her. She didn’t care about the opinion of beings who swaddled themselves from experiencing the life they had been created to preserve.

But Haziel did care, very much, about the possibility of Wrath being there. She cared so much she might hang around in the background to catch a glimpse of him. He wouldn’t have come here for her. She’d left him and followed Ramiel. Despite what her stupid heart wanted to believe. “Is Wrath here?”