Her lips parted as she tried to think of his name. She knew it… she could feel it… but she couldn't think of it, no matter how hard she tried. She blinked rapidly, trying to force it forward by sheer will, but it evaded her.

As did he.

Another glance across the street and the man was gone, like he'd vanished into thin air.

Sin.

It was everywhere.

Greed. Wrath. Sloth. Pride. Envy. Gluttony. Lust.

Luce could feel it permeating the air like a fog, growing denser as he approached the bar on the outskirts of the city. The place appeared rundown, like the remnants of a long ago abandoned saloon, the old porch falling apart, the windows broken, but people still frequented it.

Sinners.

It wasn't a place anyone with a stitch of self-respect would step foot into, so it didn't surprise Luce a bit that Abaddon's essence was all over it. While angels couldn't technically feel, the emotions of uninhibited humans tended to have an affect on the guardians. The sins were raw, pure power in the air, which called to them like an emergency beacon, feeding their energy.

The more depravity, the stronger the Guardians.

Luce could feel the humans because he'd been damned, fallen from Heaven, tapped into the sensations, but Abaddon was the closest to mortal as angels got. Humans often depicted Guardian Angels as lifesavers, guides that existed to keep them safe, but more often than not, Guardians were dicks, spending their days mingling with humans and mocking their mistakes. And they certainly weren't the beautiful beings all the paintings portrayed them as.

Abaddon, for instance, looked like a fucking pirate that hadn't bothered to bathe in weeks.

Luce lingered outside the bar for a moment, absorbing the unsavory sensations, before strolling inside. His gaze was immediately drawn to Abaddon, sitting casually on top of the very end of the bar and leaning back against the wall, his wings fully emerged.

Flashy son of a bitch.

Nobody saw him.

Nobody knew he was there.

He looked up as Luce approached, a sly smile twisting his lips. "Well, well, well... if it isn't the Prince of Darkness."

Luce slid onto the stool right in front of him, refusing to respond to the title. It was almost as bad as Satan. "Don."

"What brings you by?"

Truth be told, Luce didn't know. He was just tired of wandering all alone. "Was just in the neighborhood."

Abaddon laughed. "Can't say an Archangel has ever dropped by these parts before."

"Yeah, well, I don't know that I count," Luce said. "I'm more of a hybrid these days."

Curiosity twinkled in Abaddon's eyes. "You still got your wings, right?"

"Yes."

"Then you count."

Luce didn't agree, but he didn't argue. Archangels were holy, and Luce had drifted about as far from that as possible. He fit in more here with these ingrates than he did with the divine winged type.

A woman strolled by them, slipping onto the stool right beside Luce, absently waving for the bartender. She ordered shots of Tequila for her and her friends, and sat there, drumming her long pink fingernails on the bar as she waited. Her platinum blonde hair was teased, her black dress tight and short, low cut on her chest.

Lust coated her like a perfume.

Abaddon remained in his spot on the bar, his gaze fixed right on the woman's breasts as they bounced and jiggled whenever she moved. Luce shook his head at the angel's obvious ogling, and didn't need to tap into his thoughts to know what his old friend was thinking.

"So how do you do it?" Luce asked, raising an eyebrow in question.

"Do what?" Abaddon asked without even looking at him.

"Keep your Grace," Luce said. "Your mind is as corrupted as everyone else in this room."

"Ah, I think it, but I don't act on it," Abaddon said, turning to him when the woman got up and sauntered off with her alcohol. "My thoughts may be impure, but I own it, and resist temptation, so He forgives my wicked ways."

"That's not how it works."

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness," Abaddon said, his voice monotone as he quoted scripture. "Maybe you need to brush up on your Bible, pal."

An inkling of anger tickled Luce's spine. "I don't need to read it. I lived it. Forgiveness is for them, not us."

"You're wrong," Abaddon said. "It's a different world now than when you were sent downstairs. Things change."

"Why?" The question left Luce's lips as a growl. "Why is it different now?"

"Because of you," Abaddon said. "Losing someone special in your life has a way of changing you. If God's favorite son could fall so far, so hard, then no one was immune. I guess He realized we weren't as infallible as He made us out to be, and if He didn't extend the same courtesy, the same forgiveness, to us, He would lose a lot more than He could bear."

The explanation did nothing to soothe Luce's aggression. It was what he had fought for, what he had lost his Grace over, and he had spent thousands of years trapped in Hell for it, punished for daring to question their Father, and as soon as he was gone, everyone else was given exactly what he wanted. How is that fair?

"It's not fair," Abaddon agreed, tapping into Luce's thoughts when his guard dropped, his anger opening his mind. "And it's still not enough, frankly. Yeah, we're free to think as we want, but we're still shackled when it comes to what we do. If I slipped and acted on my impulses, Michael would show up here and annihilate me. How many brothers and sisters have we lost because they fell victim to temptation? Azreal, Dinah, Benjamin, Luna, Maylin, Samuel…"