Free Dark Admirer by Charlotte Featherstone

so quiet Anael wondered if he had only heard it in his mind. As his glance swayed from Sariel’s face, he saw another angel step around the wide shoulders. Samael .
    His brother looked just as he had two thousand years ago when they had plummeted from Heaven together, shunned from His grace.
    Samael was still tall, still wearing his dark brown hair to his shoulders. Still had those fathomless empty eyes that betrayed so much pain.
    Anael nodded, acknowledging Samael. He’d always liked this brother. Hell, they’d sinned together, fallen together, and Anael had the feeling they were both suffering under Sariel’s imposed punishments. In that, they had a bond tighter than the shared blood of mortal brothers.
    “Would you like your voice back?” Sariel asked in a taunt. “I took it away, but I can give it back to you.”
    Anael looked away, not wanting his punisher to see the yearning in his eyes. Yes, he wanted his voice, wanted the freedom of speaking, of hearing his thoughts out loud and not in his head. He wanted to talk to someone other than the mortals he served. He wanted to talk to…yeah, he couldn’t think of her.
    “All you have to do is ask.”
    He would never ask Sariel for anything. He had never begged him before, and he wouldn’t beg him now.
    “Still so proud,” Sariel said with a shake of his head. “Like Lucifer your pride knows no bounds. Pride caused Lucifer’s fall, will you succumb again, Anael? Will you fall once more to your pride and your vanity?”
    “I am not vain,” he said, his voice coming out of his lips strong and assured and smooth as glass. “But I have my own sense of honour and it refuses to be relinquished so that I may beg of your mercy. Samael,” Anael murmured, looking at the angel next to Sariel. “It has been a long time since our paths have crossed.”
    “So it has, brother.”
    “And you are still the angel of—”
    “Transformation,” Samael said in a low fervent voice.
    Anael chuckled as he leaned back against the booth, spreading his thighs wide. “Is that what He is calling death these days?”
    Samael scowled and Anael did not miss the pain that flashed in his brother’s dark eyes. Samael’s calling had never sat well with him. Out of all the angels God had created, Samael had been the most feared and despised by humans. The humans had adored Anael and all his brothers. They had prayed to them, believed in them—but not Samael. Samael was just as much despised amongst the mortals as Lucifer was. No matter what he did, Samael always left grief and tears in his wake, and Anael could see the pain and anguish of thousands of years of killing and death in Samael’s fathomless eyes.
    Yeah, well he had his own millennia of pain to deal with to be too concerned with Samael’s.
    Raising the bottle to his lips, Anael considered Sariel and Samael and wondered what the hell was going on. “God’s messenger and the Angel of Death, here in this dive of a bar on New Years day. What does it all mean?” he asked. “What does He want me to know?”
    “You have done well, Anael. You’ve nearly fulfilled your punishment.”
    “You should know,” he drawled, glaring at Sariel, “you set my punishment. Such power He gave you over us. ‘Sariel, the great seraph who decides the fates of angels who stray from God’s path’ . And he gave that gift to the right angel, didn’t he, because you certainly have a hard-on for power, don’t you, Sariel?”
    Sariel’s lips twisted. “After two thousand years you’re still bitter.”
    “After two thousand years, I’ve only grown more so.”
    “May we?” Samael asked, motioning to the empty benches of the booth.
    “Suit yourself, although I doubt you’ll find me scintillating company.”
    “Come now, Anael,” Sariel chastised him as if were an errant child, “I’ve just allowed you your voice back. Such a beautiful instrument should not be wasted. Talk to us,” Sariel commanded as he rested back against the