Michael stormed through the portal from Gabriel’s secret garden, barely able to catch his breath. Continuing at speed through the blinding corridors, his wings beat to propel his body on faster. Ire swam in his veins, and his whole body shook with the need to take action.

He wanted so badly to rush back in there, to come face to face with Lucifer as he stared down at the unworthy angel. He wanted to lay his strong hands on his brother, to curl his fingers around his neck and squeeze the recklessness right out of him. He wanted to bloody the angel’s face until any thought of whispering seductive and persuasive words were lost to his lips. And he wanted to break every bone in the angel’s hand that Michael knew Lucifer desired to reach out and touch her with.

Everything Lucifer had done and said when it came to Gabriel had been pushing so far beyond the boundaries that they as God’s archangels existed by that he should have been banished from their sanctuary. Even if any of his musings or desires were not against every law that they stood by, Lucifer would be the last of the archangels worthy of one as pure as their Gabriel. His menial obedience to spread the word of God was not enough to overcome or excuse all the wrong he continued to harbor and act out.

Michael stopped suddenly, realizing he was standing outside the opening to the scribe vault. He glanced down at himself, seeing his leather war clothes and the bloody remnants of the war he had fought alongside humans in God’s name while his maker’s power concealed his heavenly wings. The war he had helped win for God’s people.

Of all the angels, if a physical connection was ever allowed, Lucifer was not the one that was worthy of one such as Gabriel. Not now. Not ever. If any angel was to be worthy…

Teeth gnashing, Michael quashed the simmering thought before it could take root inside of him, before it could fester and grow. As the protector of all angels and as the Warrior of God, he had his duties. He had his calling. And now that the flashes from Below had almost ceased to streak around him, it was time to report on all he had witnessed.

Striding into the scribe vault, Michael glared at the mess. Papyrus scrolls lay strewn across the luminous floor, left by other angels who’d rushed in to note their findings before rushing out to behold more from below.

Michael waded through the mess, shoving the rolled paper aside with his bare feet as his draping wings brushed the ground behind him. He sat atop the large log positioned before the horizontal platform that levitated in place and was unmovable because that was how God had created it. Forcing the tight muscles up his arms to release, Michael plucked a feather from his wing—a feather that would make the sender of this report as clear as God’s light. Ignoring the sting as the quill came free, he glanced around the vault. The area was not so wide, but it stretched out for an eternity before him. Beneath the soft glow that radiated from the walls were countless pigeonholes, each identical and perfectly sized to house a stack of tablets or a set of scrolls that had entered the central blue fire for delivery to God, and been returned in historically chronological order of all of existence below. Though the message he was set to deliver—which would not be about his venture below—would not get returned to one of those rectangular homes.

Thinking again as he held the feather up to his tense mouth, rather than inking the tip to press it to paper, the released muscles up his sinewy arms bunched. Heat burned in his heart and spread like wildfire through every inch of him. In sharp words, he detailed all that he had beheld in Gabriel’s garden: their reunion, the way they had touched, the desirous thoughts Lucifer’s eyes had betrayed, and lastly, his words. Michael could see it even if Lucifer had not yet made the realization. He wanted what humans had, the ability to do and feel without restriction.

Lucifer wanted to be free, and he wanted to damn Gabriel with that same freedom.

Michael snarled at the thought of losing his heavenly sister. Of God stripping her light and position from her. She belonged here in the sanctuary of the Realm of Light, beside her brothers and sisters. Beside him.

Snatching up the feather in a tight fist, Michael worried not at the damage caused to the delicate vanes. His report was complete, and no destruction could muddy its message of importance. He stood and was around the platform and yards ahead in a few long strides, kneeling before the round fire well. Feather to lips, his final words left no confusion. “Lucifer and his sinful infatuation must be stopped.” Then he reached out, delivering the crumpled feather toward the licking and hissing flames.

“What are you doing?”

Michael stalled right before the dancing blue and white could kiss his offered feather.

Over his shoulder, he saw an angel entering the vault in black robes with wings that looked like they’d been brushed with ashes. Azrael. With one arm folded across the angel’s abdomen like a platform to prop his other elbow up, his raised hand partially cover his worried face.

“I am reporting of all I beheld between our dearest sister and that snake Lucifer. He shall know about their continued interaction.”

Azrael’s eyes fell at once, his head tilting to one side. His voice broke when he spoke. “Can…can we not confide in Lucifer ourselves? Explain the importance of our duties? Remind him of his stature?”

“Lucifer does not adhere to warnings.” Not even painfully violent ones, Michael mused, remembering the time he had delivered God’s will and struck Lucifer with a blast from their maker. “The past tells us as much.”

“Perhaps if we knew why it is forbidden—”

“Are you switching sides, Azrael?” Michael spun up from his kneeling position, striding right up to the angel so that he was breathing down on him. On occasion, he’d caught the Angel of Death watching his dark-haired sister Ariel across the looking glass. Was the transporting of souls from Below that darkened his wings polluting his purity too? “Is your loyalty in question, brother?”

Azrael refused to shrink back even though Michael was a whole foot taller and towering in his muscled form. He sighed deeply and shook his head. “You know it is not. My loyalty is only to Him. Though that does not diminish my faith in all of our heavenly brothers and sisters, including Lucifer. I only wish to do what is best.”

“Which is why I am the commander of all angels, and you are a transporter.” Michael returned to the fire, giving not a second thought as he lit the edge of the feather. The tip caught alight, sizzling as it curled back on itself, being eaten away like an invisible caterpillar eating a leaf. “You may leave now. Those souls you harbor will stain your very soul if you contain them much longer, brother.”

Michael didn’t look behind himself, but he felt Azrael leave as the sensation of his presence dulled off. Now alone, Michael cupped the feather in his palm, relishing the burn as it smoldered into hungry flames. “Lucifer defies you in his thoughts and in his actions. It is only a matter of time before he ruins her purity, before he betrays you to take what he covets.” The fire died, leaving dust in his palms and scorched flesh surrounding the remnants as he withdrew his hands from the flames. The open welts that oozed blood wept as the skin renewed and replenished, cleaning away the proof of his sent message and leaving his hands unblemished once more.

The light all around him suddenly flared infinitely brighter, stealing Michael’s ability to see. At the same instant, his maker’s almighty presence filled the scribe vault, fluttering the blue flames. Unfiled scrolls skittered outward to hit the side walls and disappeared down the seemingly endless chamber. In Michael’s blindness, the images God delivered to his mind almost floored him. The temptation to question God’s certainty in his plan was strong, but Michael refused to let himself do so. God’s will was God’s will, and he was a devoted soldier who would do as he was commanded. He bowed his head, worry and hope for the right outcome joining his hands in front of his heart. “I will go to her now. It will be as you wish.”