"It won't matter soon. You're going to tell me where Gabriel's soul is, and I'm going to destroy it and then destroy you the way someone should have thousands of years ago."
Past-Death fell quiet. As uncertain as she was about how to be a good human, she was confident about how she had performed as a goddess. The underworld had flourished, and the souls were safe during the entirety of her reign.
Well, until the last few days.
"If you don't tell me, Gabriel will," Harmony added. "There is nothing he won't do for you. I watched him lust over you for years, follow you around like a fairy does flowers. Pitiful. Weak. Human."
Past-Death winced, fearing his devotion was true at one point but fearing more it wasn't anymore. There was a time when she thought the same about Gabriel, that his humanity was a vulnerability.
"You're wrong about him being weak," she voiced. "He's the strongest of you all, the only one who didn't walk away from the souls and lose faith in the underworld the way you did."
The familiar flash of heartache almost crippled her. She didn't want to think about how Gabriel was going to react. Though recalling the way he'd looked at her in the sacred closet, how gently he spoke to her about caring for her, how he'd held her …
He'd cooperate, not out of weakness, but because he did still love her. Love isn't weakness, she realized. It was the opposite: a source of strength, honor and self-sacrifice. Secrets Gabriel had known his whole life that she was finally learning.
They reached the roof, and past-Death took in the situation with astonishment. The bodies of death dealers littered the rooftop while a safe distance away, Gabriel and the demon Jared fought the two dozen remaining. Gale strength winds whipped her hair in front of her face, and she pushed it aside, entranced by Gabriel.
She watched her mate move, awed and aroused by his sheer strength. Gabriel swung the sword as if it was an extension of him, his masterful eye, agility and otherworldly instincts making him an unusually graceful, completely unstoppable killing machine. Thick muscles moved smoothly beneath his dark clothing. His biceps bulged beneath the t-shirt he wore, his roped forearms chiseled and rippling the same way the muscles of his back did.
He's so beautiful. Had she ever really noticed it? Or did she see it completely anew each time she saw him? Why did it take her losing him and her soul for her to realize a man as honorable and amazing as he was wasn't going to be manipulated into love?