Torment Read Online Free PDF Page A

was relieved that she had guessed it, so he didn’t have to be the one to spell it out.
    “The very first time I saw you,” Daniel continued, “it wasn’t any different than any other time I’ve seen you since. The world was newer, but you were just the same. It was—”
    “Love at first sight.” That part she knew.
    He nodded. “Just like always. The only difference was, in the beginning, you were off-limits to me. I was being punished, and I’d fallen for you at the worst possible time. Things were very violent in Heaven. Because of who … I am … I was expected to stay away from you. You were a distraction. The focus was supposed to be on winning the war. It’s the same war that’s still going on.” He sighed. “And if you haven’t noticed, I’m still very distracted.”
    “So you were a very high angel,” Luce murmured.
    “Sure.” Daniel looked miserable, pausing and then seeming, when he spoke again, to bite out the words: “It was a fall from one of the highest perches.”
    Of course . Daniel would have to be important in Heaven in order to have caused such a big rift. In order for his love of a mortal girl to be so off-limits.
    “You gave it all up? For me?”
    He touched his forehead to hers. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
    “But I was nothing,” Luce said. She felt heavy, like she was dragging. Dragging him down. “You had to give up so much!” She felt sick to her stomach. “And now you’re damned forever.”
    Turning off the car, Daniel gave her a sad smile. “It might not be forever.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Come on,” he said, hopping out of the car and coming around to open her door. “Let’s take a walk.”
    They ambled to the end of the street, which didn’t dead-end after all, but led to a steep, rocky staircase going down to the water. The air was cool and moist with sea spray. Just to the left of the steps, a trail led away. Daniel took her hand and moved to the cliff’s edge.
    “Where are we going?” Luce asked.
    Daniel smiled at her, straightening his shoulders, and unfurled his wings.
    Slowly, they extended up and out from his shoulders, unfolding with an almost inaudible series of soft snaps and creaks. Fully flexed, they made a gentle, feathery fwump like a duvet being flung over a bed.
    For the first time, Luce noticed the back of Daniel’s t-shirt. There were two tiny, otherwise invisible slits, which parted now to let his wings slip through. Did all of Daniel’s clothes have these angelic alterations? Or did he have certain, special things he wore when he knew he planned on flying?
    Either way, his wings never failed to leave Luce speechless.
    They were enormous, rising three times taller than Daniel, and curved up into the sky and to either side like broad white sails. Their broad expanse caught the light of the stars and reflected it more intensely, so that they glowed with an iridescent shimmer. Near his body they darkened, shading into a rich earthy cream color where they met his shoulder muscles. But along their tapered edges, they grew thin and glowed, becoming almost translucent at the tips.
    Luce stared at them, rapt, trying to remember the line of every glorious feather, to hold all of it inside her for when he went away. He shone so bright, the sun could have borrowed light from him. The smile in his violet eyes told her how good it felt for him to let his wings out. As good as Luce felt when she was wrapped up in them.
    “Fly with me,” he whispered.
    “What?”
    “I’m not going to see you for a little while. I have to give you something to remember me by.”
    Luce kissed him before he could say anything else, lacing her fingers around his neck, holding him as tightly as she could, hoping to give him something to remember her by, too.
    With her back pressed to his chest, and his head over her shoulder, Daniel traced a line of kisses down her neck. She held her breath, waiting. Then he bent his legs and gracefully pushed off the