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

me?” 
     
    “I saw Hitler’s soul,” he informed her.  “White as snow.”
     
    “How is that possible?” She gaped at him in disbelief. 
     
    “The soul becomes a reflection of who humans think they are,” he said.  “Not who they really are.”
     
    She turned back to the couple, considering this information.  They were talking close, in whispers, even though they were all alone.  Muriel knew the sound of lovers, the sweet intimacy.  They shared things only the two of them would ever know.  There was something tender in their tone, even though she couldn’t hear the words.  If Chariel hadn’t been there, Muriel would surely have been eavesdropping much closer. 
     
    “That bothers you?” Chariel asked, his wings brushing hers. 
     
    “Not exactly.” Muriel shrugged.  It made some kind of sense.  “It just makes me wonder… who are they, really? At their core, I mean…”
     
    “You’ll see, if you hang around with me a while.” He nodded toward the hospital bed. 
     
    “You’re going to take it, aren’t you?” Muriel looked up at him, the realization suddenly hitting her.  “His soul?” 
     
    He gave a slow nod.
     
    “You’re an angel of death?” 
     
    “I am,” he agreed. 
     
    “But they’ve just fallen in love!” Muriel protested. 
     
    “And look how healing it’s been already.” Chariel pointed to the man’s soul.  It hadn’t been long since she and Jari had shot an arrow into them both, but the dark cloud above the man’s head had already lightened from black to a dusky gray. 
     
    “But his body is going to die,” Muriel lamented.  Of course, she’d known this all along, given the circumstances.  A man in a hospital bed who looked and sounded as badly as he did usually didn’t get better, but worse.  The fact was, she knew that every human coupling she’d ever created would someday end in pain or death. 
     
    “It is,” he agreed again. 
     
    He wasn’t cavalier or matter-of-fact, like Jari and so many of the other cherubim often were about the fate of humans.  It was the side-effect of the job, she supposed.  There were so many humans, and each of them had their own story.  But Chariel didn’t look at the couple with that sort of celestial indifference Muriel had come to expect from most angels. 
     
    He looked at them like she did.  He sounded as if he understood the gravity of the brief time humans spent in this realm.  Like, just maybe, he understood that the experience of joy and love might actually outweigh the inevitable end to come. 
     
    “He’s going to leave her alone.” Muriel moved closer to the seraphim beside her, feeling his wing covering her back.  “She’s going to have to grieve him so soon after getting him back.  It’s cruel.”
     
    “It is.” Chariel nodded, meeting Muriel’s searching eyes.  There was a depth of understanding there she hadn’t seen in her peers.  What did he know? She wondered.
     
    “Can’t you give them more time?” she asked, brightening at the thought. 
     
    “It’s not up to me.” He shook his head, the soft beat of his wings a gentle pat on her back.  “ The Maker tells you where to shoot your arrow.  The Maker tells me when to retrieve a soul.”
     
    “So it’s going to happen soon?” She sighed, knowing those constraints well.  “Today?” 
     
    “It’s going to happen now.”
     
     

Chapter Three

     
    Muriel had never seen a human die this close up before.  How had she avoided it this long? And she knew, as she watched, that she had been avoiding it.  She’d seen humans killed by accident, but she was rarely called to a place where the dying were getting busy, well… dying.  This was an exception, a strange request from The Maker , that she join this couple just before one of them passed on. 
     
    “What happens?” She glanced at Chariel.  He waited patiently, face impassive, watching.  The man was asleep again—the nurse had come in with