I blinked and my apartment slowly began to take shape around me. I couldn’t help but to clutch my sheets in a death grip. In fact, they were twisted so tightly it would have taken a miracle to get me to release them. Slowly my breathing eased while my wits returned.

I was home, in my own bed; the sense of the familiar eased into my pores while it pushed away the darkness like a bad omen. With a slow, quivering sigh, I realized that the dream had been just that...a dream. However, the question of how I’d gotten here was yet one more to be piled among so many.

Believe me, the list was growing longer with each night’s passing. Especially with all of the strange ass shit that I’d endured recently. But, of the things that needed to be answered, I was afraid that this one wouldn’t keep. Well, that, and who the hell had taken my clothes?

The smell of fresh coffee mixing with the clean scent of soap brought my attention back to my apartment and away from my state of undress beneath my bedding. I tried, without luck, to fit the pieces of the last few hours back together. My memory was too hazy.

Water running in my bathroom forced me to think of who could possibly be in my shower, but a flash dance of images shifted through my mind like rays of sunshine; each one burning the flesh.

My first coherent thought was of Rafael and the cemetery. Then there was his golden body against mine in that very same shower, water trickling down desire-soaked bodies.

My spine stiffened at the heated memory, yet chills pimpled my flesh. I could feel the warmth of his breath, the softness of his lips on mine. The memory stirred deeper fires as I recalled his strength beneath my fingers, the hardness of him as he filled me. Devoured me. My body had never felt so alive. The flames of want and destruction scalding while my soul so willingly burned.

How could he, of all beings, have done this to me?

Anger tore through my belly like a festering wound. Then I was tossing the sheet back, storming across my small apartment, indignation and fury leading me blinding in the direction of my bathroom. All I could see was the red of fury. All that I felt was the wrath of anger.

He had caused this to happen to me—Rafael. I had trusted him with my life. With my soul. And because of his betrayal, Salvitor had taken me and…

I stopped dead in my tracks. My hand froze mid-turn of the door handle. The roar of my heartbeat pounding in my ears while my resolve shattered.

Blackness rushed through my mind as my brain locked onto another dark memory; Salvitor’s sleek, muscled body above me, grinding and pumping into me. His black wings spread out behind him like the harbinger of my original sin.
My throat closed off while dread filled me. Could Salvitor be the one behind that door, waiting to take me again? My blood crystallized in my veins. I couldn’t remember why I’d risen from bed or what my intentions had been. I only wanted to turn and run. Run from the fears that plagued me. Run from the shadows and darkness that seemed to be filling my life. But my feet wouldn’t move.