Chapter 1
Cori
Cori used to have a cranky old lady for a neighbor who nagged her incessantly about her numerous faults, but Ms. Callahan had recently been replaced by a cranky immortal with a lack of social skills who rarely made an appearance outside of his cabin. She should have appreciated the change. Truly, she should have been happy that her one and only neighbor for miles in the Alaskan wilderness kept to himself. Except the immortal was half angel—also known as a nephilim—who’d just come from a hundred-year prison sentence in Purgatory. And yeah, it was the same Purgatory from religious texts that most people thought was only a myth. A place on some other plane of existence where souls were tortured for their crimes on Earth.
Bartol, the nephilim, needed someone to bring him out of his shell and show him how to live again. Cori believed she was the right woman for the job. Not that she was looking to get into a relationship or anything. Neither of them was in a place where they were ready for that, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t give Bartol the kick-start he needed to get going again, and they could have a little fun along the way. She liked focusing on other people’s problems, rather than her own. Especially since her problems were in the past and not exactly fixable.
Cori headed for the kitchen, entering the only part of her two-bedroom cabin she’d remodeled since moving into the place a few years ago. It had black marble counters, dark wood cabinets, and stainless steel appliances. A window was set over the sink so she could view the forest behind her place and a bit of the blue sky above. She loved cooking in the kitchen even if she had to eat alone most of the time. Her regular customers at the tattoo studio would have never guessed she enjoyed preparing meals as much as permanently marking people’s skin with artwork.
The lasagna she’d baked sat cooling on the stovetop. The aroma wafted from the dish, overwhelming her senses and making her stomach growl. She grabbed a spatula, cut through the pasta, and scooped out a large chunk to put in a plastic container. Then she took a few slices of the garlic bread she’d also made and put them into a plastic baggy. Bartol would eat at least a couple of decent meals a week if she had anything to say about it. Left to his own devices, he only ate baked potatoes or canned soup. As a man who was born when the Roman Empire was still around, and who’d missed out on the biggest technological changes in modern history, he had a lot of catching up to do if he wanted to survive in this era.
After grabbing a pre-made bowl of salad from the fridge as the final piece of the meal, Cori put everything into a plastic bag and left the house. Cool air touched her face as she stepped outside. Though it was mid-September and the days were still long, autumn had already arrived to the Alaskan interior. She had lived in the state her whole life and was used to the weather being colder than most other places. Forty degrees might seem a bit cool to southern folks, but she had no problem wearing jeans and a tank top until it hit below freezing.
She carried the food bag as she walked down a narrow dirt road lined with evergreen trees. The rutted path ran for about half a mile until it reached the highway. Bartol’s cabin—a smaller one-bedroom place—wasn’t quite as deep in the woods as hers, but it only took a few minutes to reach. She caught the smoke from the chimney before she saw the actual home. Only during the warmest days of summer had she not seen it going.
According to Cori’s friend, Melena, the bowels of Purgatory where Bartol had been imprisoned were freezing cold. The ice set into the bones of whoever stayed there, so that the inhabitants could never truly feel warm. Melena had gotten over her stay fairly quickly, but she’d only been confined there a few months. Bartol, whose stay was longer than most people’s life spans, acted as if anything below seventy degrees was too cold for him and kept his fireplace blazing day and night. The poor guy probably should have moved to Florida, but his friends had talked him into living in Alaska instead. He had a lot of catching up to do in the modern world, and at least here he could ease into it a little slower.
Cori skipped up the wooden steps to his front porch and knocked on the door.
No answer.
“Bartol!” she yelled. “I’ve got dinner for you.”
Curses and grunts came from inside. A minute later, the door flew open and an annoyed man with golden eyes filled the opening. Cori couldn’t help dropping her gaze to his bare chest where he’d filled out over the past few months—mostly thanks to her cooking. A healthy nephilim tended to be large and strong due to the angelic half of their DNA, but years of wasting away in Purgatory had left Bartol unnaturally lean. He’d grown to a healthier weight recently, and his muscles were more defined now. Black sweatpants covered his long legs, and he had a pair of thick socks on his feet. For all that he complained about the cold, he didn’t like wearing shirts for some reason. Cori didn’t mind that little quirk at all.
“Here.” She shoved the bag of food at him. If she wasn’t brusque and demanding about it, he’d try to refuse her. “I cooked more than I can eat again.”
Bartol took hold of the bag, sparing it a brief glance. “Then why don’t you try cooking less?”
And the game resumed with him pretending a complete lack of interest in her food, but she wasn’t fooled. The containers always appeared on her porch the next morning empty and freshly washed. He liked her cooking, but he’d never admit it.
“Because most of my recipes were designed to feed a family.” She didn’t dare admit she’d had a family once and that was how she’d picked up her love of cooking. It wasn’t something she ever wanted to discuss, not even with her closest friends.
He narrowed his eyes. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d stay away from me.”
“About the only thing I do that might be considered good for me is take long walks through the woods.” With a rifle, just in case a bear or other wild animal made an appearance. “Bringing food to you doesn’t even rate on my list of bad.”
He set the bag on a side table next to the entryway and braced his hands on the door frame, leaning closer to her. “Look at me. Do I look friendly or nice to you?”
Cori swallowed. She had a knack for pretending not to notice the burn scars on the left side of his face. If she ignored that half, he was stunningly beautiful, but if she stared at the part where a guardian from Purgatory had burned Bartol from his hairline down to his chin—only leaving the area around his eye intact—then his skin bordered on grotesque. Everything from next to his nose to just before his ear appeared to have melted, begun to heal, and then got locked in place by some sort of magical spell.
That was the story she’d been told by others, anyway, since Bartol would never talk about it. Nephilim could normally recover from any injury, but what happened to him was an exception to the rule. His wounds couldn’t be fixed, and he would have to live with the scars for the rest of his life. He didn’t even have the glamour capabilities some of his kind had to cover it up. At best, he could make himself invisible, but then no one would notice him at all. It was kind of sad since she had a feeling there was so much more to him that he kept hidden away.
“I see you,” Cori said, forcing herself to stare at the damaged half of his face. He’d grown a light beard that obscured some of the scarring, but not all of it. “So what?”
Bartol let out an exasperated breath and pulled away from her. “Did you come here just to look at the poor man who lost his face?”
“It’s not that bad, and you have both your eyes. There are other people out there who have it way worse than you.” She took a step closer until their noses almost touched. “Stop being a baby and get over yourself.”
His golden eyes blazed. “Go to Hell.”
The door slammed in her face almost hitting her nose. They’d had this conversation a few times, so Cori wasn’t daunted. She pounded on the door and screamed at him, “I will keep coming by, and I won’t stop until you quit hiding in there and start living your life again!”
Silence.
“If he just got laid, he would feel so much better,” she muttered, looking up at the sky. “He might as well be a virgin after a hundred years without a woman.”
The door flew open, and Bartol stepped out, his face a mask of fury. “And you think you’re the one to take care of that problem?”
Cori lifted a brow. “Maybe, maybe not, but someone has to do it. I’m right here if you need me.”
He growled and stomped forward, forcing her backward until she almost reached the porch steps. Cori gripped the railing next to her for support. Maybe she’d gone too far this time with the virgin crack, especially considering how Bartol had ended up in Purgatory.
His nostrils flared as he stared down at her. “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last woman on Earth—or anywhere else.”
He always thought it would hurt her feelings to say things like that, but he didn’t know she’d suffered far crueler insults in the past and learned to ignore them. Cori knew she wasn’t that bad looking. Men hit on her all the time at the tattoo studio, and she went out on dates—once or twice a year.
She cocked her head. “Really? I can’t be that bad of a choice unless you were castrated along with having your face screwed up.” She dipped her gaze down to the slight bulge in his pants, pretending horror. “You weren’t, were you?”
He might be the one with burn scars, but she was the one playing with fire. It was just too hard to resist. The only way to get any kind of reaction out of Bartol was to poke sticks at him, and it worked every time.
“I assure you that everything down there is intact.” He looked her up and down. “I would not choose you because you are human…and annoying.”
“You’re not exactly Mister Approachable. If I wasn’t annoying, you wouldn’t talk to me at all,” she pointed out.
Bartol stepped back, allowing the dark shadows of his home to obscure him. “I don’t need your charity. Find someone else to bother.”
At the rate she was going, it would be another six months before he even let her enter his home. “Are you going to live like a monk for the rest of your life?” She cocked her head. “Because for you, that’s going to be a very long time.”
The only way he could die was if an archangel cut off his head since they were the only ones strong enough to do it. Cori had been hanging around the supernatural community for over a year now, and she’d learned quite a lot during that time.
Bartol gripped the door. “If I do change my mind, it will be long after you’re dead.”
She let a slow smile spread across her face, taking a step closer. “Maybe, but I’ll make sure you remember me while you’re doing it.”
His jaw hardened. “I sincerely doubt it.”
Cori jumped when he slammed the door on her—again. One of these days he was going to take that sucker off the hinges. She sighed in resignation, figuring she’d reached her limit with him for this day. It was just long enough that Bartol had been forced to socialize, and he’d have something to think about while he ate. The fact that he didn’t ignore her knocks told her he didn’t hate her visits half as much as he claimed. Though it was probably a good thing she knew how to cook well, or else he might never open the door.
Taking a fortifying breath, she headed back down the road to her own cabin. The sun was beginning to set with the trees casting long shadows across the ground. Unease filled her as she reached her home. There was a red envelope tacked to the wall next to her door that she hadn’t noticed before. This evening was the first time she’d left her cabin all day since her tattoo studio was closed on Sundays, and she’d had no reason to go out before now. The envelope could have been left there any time since last night. But by who and why? Most people called or emailed if they had something to say to her.
She took the envelope and broke the seal, finding a folded white sheet of paper inside. Opening it slowly, she took in the neatly typed message on the page. Her heart began beating harder, and her throat swelled as she scanned the words.
Next time you leave someone for dead, make sure they’re dead.
See you real soon, babe. –G
Cori fell to her knees, the sheet of paper crumpling in her hand as she hit the wooden planks of her porch. He couldn’t be alive—he couldn’t. No one could survive what she’d done to him, and she’d buried him in four feet of snow in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention there’d been no signs of life when she’d dumped him. She was almost positive of that, but niggles of doubt wormed their way into her mind now. Cori hadn’t checked his pulse. She’d been too far out of her mind at the time to think about that.
Even if he hadn’t been dead right then, he couldn’t have survived for long, and no way could he have crawled over a mile to the nearest highway for help. This had to be some kind of cruel joke. Someone—though she didn’t know who or for what reason—had found out what she’d done nearly four years ago, and now the past was coming back to haunt her.