“Yes, sir.” I touched my throat just to be sure he’d really released it, and allowed myself to breathe. Leaning back, I scrubbed my face. “What happens to me now?”
“You will join a regiment, find a new life, rejoice in it, and live to your full potential.”
“Again, you sound like my dad.”
“I would not compare me to your father. He is a mortal, after all.”
“But you did speak of him in present tense, so he’s alive.”
“Maybe. I suggest you don’t look for him.” The angel moved to sit behind the desk and pursed his plush lips. “I am curious what you would have done with your life waking at the ungodly hour of three in the afternoon.”
“You’re stuck on the three in the afternoon?”
He smiled.
My breath caught. This male was stunning.
“I am also allergic to waiting. When I ask a question, I expect you to provide an answer. Preferably before three in the afternoon today.”
“Are you everyone’s drill sergeant?”
“Much worse, dear. I’m everyone’s last hope.”
I chuckled. “That’s a joke. Right?”
“I don’t joke.”
Afraid to ask, I asked anyway. “The armies outside. You command them?”
“I command the mortal armies. The angel fleet. This is my house, the command center of my Court.” He waved his hand in a general direction, indicating all things.
“A Court?”
“Mm-hm.” He picked up a file and some blank papers, then plucked a feather from his wing. I stared in disbelief as he dipped the feather into a little bottle on the desk. Who wrote with his own feather dipped in ink? This one did.
I sat across from him. “Sir?” I asked. He lifted his head, eyebrow arched in question, so I pressed on. “You mentioned a Court. What Court?”
“The Court of Command. Welcome, Miss DeLuca. If you follow orders, you will have a pleasant stay.”
“And if I don’t?”
He pursed his lips again. He did this while thinking, I supposed.
When he didn’t answer, I leaned back in the chair. “What wouldn’t I give to crawl into your head right now.”
“You may crawl to my chambers. Top floor. You can’t miss it. My head, however, is not a place a mortal would survive.”
Chapter Five
The little mortal, a mere twenty-some years of human age, who tried to kill me the moment I descended upon this realm, remembered the Before. The other mortals reported glimpses of memories here and there, mainly in dreams, and we had dealt with those glimpses if they came too often. The mortals who remembered were eliminated.
In my ideal world, she would not remember anything at all. Unfortunately, other powers were playing games with me. But she wasn’t one of them. Didn’t act like one, didn’t smell like one, and definitely didn’t interest me in a murderous fashion like one of them often did. She interested me in other ways. Spiritual ones, of course, namely why she tugged at my very soul. So I decided to keep her.
If her wide eyes were any indication, my comment about my chambers surprised her. For some reason, mortals of Before believed angels did not reproduce and thus were not accustomed to sex. They carried on with the notion that desire for human flesh distracted an angel from his holy purpose, and many religious precepts deemed desiring another human unholy. Nonsense.
As I wrote up her file, I wondered where best she’d fit in. “Miss DeLuca, I am processing your short life and wondering what it is that you would have accomplished in the Before?”
“I’d have graduated college, found a job. Marriage, kids. The usual.”
“And you would manage all those things waking at three in the afternoon?” Never heard of such a thing.
“Well, no. You asked about a Sunday. On a Monday, for example, I’m up earlier.”
“Lies. I sense them.”
“Fine.” She swatted at me as if I were an annoying fly. “I’m willing to get up earlier now.”
“There is hope for you yet, mortal,” I mumbled.
“Thank you, sir.”
Tired of being called sir, I snapped my head up. “I am not a sir, mister, gentleman, or even a man. I address you as Miss DeLuca, and you will show me the same courtesy by calling me Commander. Correct yourself now.”
“Commander,” she said.
Satisfied, I smiled and called the pair of Guardians back into the office.
They entered, and I flicked two fingers, signaling they might approach. They flanked the mortal. Her eyes darted from one to another, and her chest moved up and down. Frightened, but with no place to run, she sat, alert, awaiting orders. A healthy exercise in patience. I was proud of her already.
The Guardians clasped their hands behind their backs and under the wings. Submission was always a welcome sight.
“Did you eavesdrop?” I asked.
Their faces fell.
“I see. Then you must know Miss DeLuca here remembers everything.”
“We’ll take care of her, Commander.”
“Thank you. For I have many things to do, namely plan her daily schedule, one that does not include waking at three in the afternoon.” I winked.
The girl smiled.
Cute. Small. Harmless. Young. What a pity her soul tugged at mine. “Take Miss DeLuca to the top floor. Settle her into the room opposite mine so that when she crawls, it’s a nice long trip to the other side of the hallway, which provides plenty of time for thinking her actions through.” I picked up the feather and signed the release of several mortals who’d asked for temporary leave. When the pair and the mortal still occupied my office, I lifted my gaze.
The Guardians’ feathers stood on end, and one of them shifted on his feet. “But she remembers.”
“Mm-hm. Go on and question my decision.”
The other Guardian stepped forward. “No, thank you, Commander. We’re not going to do that. If I may, I recommend she joins one of the mortal regiments.”
“Eventually, she will.”
“While staying in the House of Command and not with other mortals?” he probed.
“That’s right.” I couldn’t keep the girl with the others because she might jar their memories. I understood what kind of threat she presented, but killing this mortal
