The Kiss of Angels (Divine Vampires Book 2) Read Free Page B

practice was optional. 
     
    “Go on, Jari.” Muriel waved her away.  “I’ll be along soon.”
     
    “Don’t be too long.” Jari sighed, her wings drooping.  Muriel had done this enough that Jari knew when she was beat. 
     
    She didn’t really pay close attention, but she sensed when Jari had gone.  Muriel hovered over the hospital bed, watching the couple, fascinated by the way the man’s soul had begun to change. 
     
    “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
     
    Muriel whirled around at the sound of the voice, determined to be fast enough to catch the source this time, and she was. 
     
    “Who are you?” she demanded, bringing herself up to her full height—her wings gave her a little extra—but she was only about half the seraphim’s size.  How in the world had she missed him? She had only ever encountered a dozen or so seraphim before, and had never had one speak to her. 
     
    “I’m Chariel.” The seraphim gave her a nod.  His wings fluttered lazily behind him, an impressive span, more than twice her own.  “You can call me Char.”
     
    Char—his name burned in her mind like that, like fire, leaving only charred remains. 
     
    “You were the one who spoke to me… before?” Muriel remembered the presence behind her, the whispered words.  “But I didn’t see you? How?” 
     
    He smiled.  Angels’ expressions were quite human, even if they weren’t made of flesh. 
     
    Then he disappeared.
     
    Muriel gaped at the space where he’d been.  No cherub she’d ever known had the power to disappear or make themselves invisible.  She didn’t know much about the seraphim—except that they were the caste of angels closest to The Maker .  Presumably, they knew almost as much, although she didn’t know that for sure. 
     
    Before she could open her own mouth to ask where he’d gone to, he was back again. 
     
    “How… where…?” she sputtered, but the cry of pain from the man in the hospital bed interrupted her. 
     
    “Do you want me to call the nurse?” Eliza glanced toward the door, then back to Norman in the bed, concerned.  “Is it time for your pain meds?” 
     
    “No,” he croaked, shaking his head.  His eyes were open now and Muriel saw they were blue, surrounded by a yellow that was almost orange where there should have been white.  His skin, too, was sallow, jaundiced.  “They just make me sleep.”
     
    “But it takes the pain away.” She smoothed his hair, leaning close.  “I hate to see you in so much pain.”
     
    “I don’t care.” He clasped her hands, both of them now, in his.  “I’ll take the pain.  I want to be awake.  I want to be with you.”
     
    This moved Muriel beyond words. 
     
    “You can come home with me,” she told him softly.  “I talked to the doctors.”
     
    “With you?” He frowned, shaking his head.  “I don’t want to burden you, Liza…”
     
    “They said they would call in hospice to help,” she countered.  “You’re not a burden to me, Norm.”
     
    “Look at that, the more they talk,” Muriel murmured, as if her words might be overheard.  She talked to the seraphim, Chariel, who hovered beside her, watching the couple.  “I’ve never seen a black soul before.  Have you?” 
     
    “A few.”
     
    “I thought it would be different,” Muriel confessed. 
     
    “Different how?” 
     
    “Oh I don’t know.” She shrugged.  “I thought he would be… evil.”
     
    “Evil?” The seraphim looked at her in surprise.  “What is evil?” 
     
    “You know.  Like that awful Hitler the humans just warred with.” Muriel was often shocked by the way humans behaved.  Hers was the language of love, not war and death, but so many couples had been torn apart by that horrible war.  “I guess I thought someone with a black soul would have done truly heinous things.” 
     
    The seraphim chuckled. 
     
    “What?” Muriel frowned back at him, narrowing her eyes.  “Why are you laughing at