The pain hit first.
Not the fire when my wings burned off. Not the crushing weight of falling through three dimensions at terminal velocity.
The worst pain was realizing I'd been right about everything.
God never loved me. The Council never trusted me. And Michael—perfect, beautiful Michael—had set me up from day one.
The only thing I hadn't seen coming was the skyscraper.
I crashed through forty-seven floors of glass and steel at exactly 3:17 AM. My burning wings shredded curtains and demolished cubicles as gravity dragged me down. Office chairs scattered like frightened birds. Computer monitors exploded in showers of sparks. Someone's forgotten coffee mug—white ceramic with a chip on the handle—bounced off my shoulder and shattered.
When I finally stopped falling, I was face-down on an expensive Persian rug. The smell of smoke and ozone filled my nose. My left shoulder throbbed where my wings used to be. When I tried to move, every muscle screamed.
That's when I heard him.
"You're bleeding on my carpet."
His voice was too calm. Way too calm for someone who'd just watched an angel crash through his office window. I lifted my head, silver hair falling across my face, and found myself staring at the most dangerous man I'd ever seen.
He sat behind a massive desk like nothing had happened. Black hair fell slightly over his eyes—green eyes that seemed to hold secrets I didn't want to know. His charcoal suit probably cost more than most people's cars. There was something hypnotic about the way his fingers moved as he signed documents with a silver pen that gleamed under the emergency lighting.
But his expression made my blood freeze. He wasn't shocked. He wasn't afraid.
He was waiting.
"I—" My throat felt like sandpaper. When had I last used my voice for anything other than singing praise?
"Don't talk yet." He set down his pen with deliberate care and stood. "You've had a long fall."
As he approached, I caught something that made me doubt my sanity. A diamond stud earring glinted in his left ear. What CEO wore jewelry to work at three in the morning?
I tried to push myself up, but my arms gave out. The man—because he had to be just a man, right?—knelt beside me without hesitation. His expensive suit apparently immune to bloodstains and ash.
"Easy," he said. His hands were surprisingly gentle as he helped me turn over. "You're in shock."
Up close, I could see the sharp angles of his face. The way his dark eyebrows drew together in what might have been concern. A small scar near his temple, barely visible unless you were lying on his office floor looking up like a broken bird.
Like a fallen angel.
"How long have you been sitting there?" The words came out as a whisper.
A smile tugged at his mouth. "Long enough."
That should have been my first warning. Instead, I found myself fixated on how he moved—too smooth, too controlled. Like a predator pretending to be domesticated. When he reached into his desk drawer, I tensed, but he only pulled out a first aid kit that looked well-used.
"This might sting," he said, dabbing something on a cut along my hairline.
It didn't sting. Nothing could hurt worse than the memory of Michael's face when the Council pronounced my sentence. Nothing could compare to the sound of my own wings tearing away as I fell.
"What's your name?" he asked, though something in his tone suggested he already knew.
I opened my mouth to lie. I'd spent hours during my fall constructing the perfect human identity—Sarah Laurent, administrative assistant, recently relocated from somewhere generic. The lie sat on my tongue, ready.
Instead, I stared into those impossible green eyes and said, "Seraphina."
His smile widened. "I thought so."
The antiseptic bottle slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor. "What did you just say?"
"I said I thought so." He continued cleaning my wounds like angels crashed through his office every Tuesday. "You have that look."
"What look?"
"The look of someone who just learned everything she believed was a lie."
My hand moved automatically to my left shoulder blade, searching for wings that were no longer there. The gesture felt permanent now—like phantom limb syndrome for the divinely dispossessed.
He noticed. Those sharp eyes missed nothing.
"They'll grow back," he said conversationally, reaching for something on his desk. "Different, but they'll grow back."
I bolted upright so fast my vision went black. "Who are you?"
"Damien Cross." He was holding a coffee mug now—black ceramic, steam rising from whatever was inside. He took a sip before continuing. "I own this building. Well, my company does. Cross Industries."
The coffee smelled strange. Rich and dark, but with something else underneath. Something that made my nose wrinkle.
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Doesn't it?" He walked back to his desk and set the mug down carefully. There was something ritualistic about the way he handled it, like it contained more than just caffeine. "You crashed through forty-seven floors of my property at exactly the time and place I expected. I'd say that answers your question perfectly."
The room tilted sideways. "You were expecting me?"
"For quite some time." He poured amber liquid from a crystal decanter into two glasses. It smelled like expensive mistakes. "Though I have to admit, you're more beautiful than I imagined."
Beautiful. The word should have been a compliment. Instead, it felt like a trap.
"You're in shock," he continued, settling back into his chair. "It's understandable. Falling from grace is traumatic, even when it's by design."
"By design?" My voice cracked.
"Oh, Seraphina." He picked up that silver pen again—and now I could see symbols etched along its surface, symbols that seemed to shift when I wasn't looking directly at them. "Did you really think your exile was random? That you just happened to fall in love with exactly the wrong human at exactly the wrong time?"
The phantom pain in my shoulders flared, hot and vicious. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you don't. That's what makes this so perfect." He resumed signing documents, pen moving with mechanical precision. "Tell me, how many angels do you think have fallen in the past thousand years?"
I didn't answer because I didn't know. Falling was supposed to be impossible. We were created perfect, incapable of sin, bound to serve without question.
Except I had questioned. And I had doubted. And when Marcus—sweet Marcus with his poetry and paint-stained fingers—had whispered that he loved me, I had loved him back.
That had been my first mistake.
"Seven," Damien said. "Seven angels have fallen in a millennium. Want to know what they all had in common?"
The untouched glass of liquor sat beside me, amber liquid catching the light like liquid fire. I couldn't tell if it was beautiful or dangerous.
"They all fell in love with humans who were already marked for damnation," he continued. "Painters, poets, musicians—creative souls who burned too bright and died too young. Men destined for Hell from their first breath."
"That's not—Marcus wasn't—"
"Marcus Chen." His voice went soft, almost gentle. "Brilliant artist. Terrible addiction problems. Dead of an overdose three months after you fell for him. Currently residing in Hell's fourth circle, where he paints portraits of his regrets for eternity."
The room went silent except for the sound of my heart breaking. Again.
"You're lying."
"I never lie, Seraphina. I might omit truths, and I'm definitely not above manipulation, but I never lie. Bad for business."
I wanted to scream. Instead, I heard myself asking the question I was afraid to have answered.
"Why are you telling me this?"
Damien set down his pen and leaned forward, elbows on his desk. In the emergency lighting, his features looked carved from shadow.
"Because, my dear fallen angel, I have a proposition."
The words hung between us like a curse waiting to be spoken. Outside, Manhattan slept on, oblivious to the fact that one of Heaven's warriors had just learned her greatest act of love had been an elaborate setup.
"What kind of proposition?"
His smile was slow and dangerous and absolutely beautiful.
"The kind that could get us both exactly what we want," he said. "But first, you should probably put on some clothes. We have work to do."
I looked down and realized my makeshift human disguise—a simple white dress that had seemed so clever during my fall—was now torn, bloodstained, and see-through.
Heat flooded my cheeks. Angels aren't supposed to feel shame about their bodies, but I wasn't really an angel anymore.
"Bathroom's through that door," Damien said, pointing to a discrete entrance I hadn't noticed. "You'll find everything you need. Take your time. We have ninety days, after all."
Ninety days. Ice shot through my veins.
"How did you—"
But he was already back to his paperwork, that silver pen moving across documents. The dismissal was clear.
I stood on shaky legs and walked toward the bathroom. Each step sent fresh pain through my body. At the threshold, I turned back.
"You never told me how you knew my name."
Damien didn't look up, but I caught the flash of his diamond earring as he tilted his head. He took another sip of that strange-smelling coffee.
"You'll find out soon enough," he said. "But I promise you this—by the time our ninety days are up, you'll understand exactly why I've been waiting for you to fall."
The bathroom door closed behind me with a soft click that sounded like a cell door locking.
And as I stared at my reflection—silver hair streaked with ash, blue eyes wide with shock, left shoulder bearing the faint outline of wings that no longer existed—I couldn't shake the feeling that Damien Cross knew exactly what those ninety days were for.
The question was: did I want to find out?
End of Chapter 1