Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
W hen I left Kinley’s playroom, I was pissed that Sylas once again managed to have spectacular timing. It was like that motherfucker had a sixth sense that was determined to ensure he arrived just in time to be a certified prick. In this case, he disrupted a ravishing of Kinley on a whole new level.
My balls still ached heavily while I sat in an all-white waiting room. Everything in this place was practically a clinical, blinding shade of white. The walls, the furniture, the floor, and even the damn doorknobs were a glossy white hue that made me question how anything here stayed clean.
I knew it had been a while since I had checked in with my superiors about my assignment as guardian to Kinley. But the longer I waited to be called into Evangeline’s office, the more I grew concerned that this wasn’t as simple as a check-in.
Lightly, I bounced my knee as I sat there with my hands loosely folded in front of me. My thoughts were beginning to stray back to my interaction with my sweet angel, and it helped to distract me from the nerves making my gut twist.
The look in Kinley’s eyes may have started off with violence, belying a pain she had been suffering, but the need for comfort in the form of pleasure had been there as well. A sense of guilt tugged at my chest that I hadn’t been able to provide that for her. Instead, I found myself pulled back to my bound duty as an angel.
Even sitting here, the sound of her breathy moan echoed in my mind. It was a sound I could listen to on repeat for all of eternity. Thinking about it again had my dick growing between my legs. Then, I imagined her lips around my length, and that only prompted me to harden even further.
“Atlassian.” The stern voice of a woman immediately dashed away the salacious thoughts from my mind, and sadly, my dick suffered for it.
Clearing my throat, I stood from my chair as my eyes looked to the door across the room and the woman who stood there. She looked annoyed or constipated; I wasn’t sure which.
As I approached, she held the door open for me. I glanced down at the threshold, and even the damn welcome mat was a pristine white.
Psychopaths .
“Evangeline will see you now,” she said with such a bland tone that I was pretty sure that her personality had taken a nose-dive off of several cliffs and into a pit of despair. One could only hope that it was frozen at the bottom of St. Cassius to be thawed at some later date.
I gave her a polite nod as I walked through the door into the equally stark white hallway, following her lead down the corridor. We passed a handful of closed office doors before stopping at one that was the next to last in the hall.
The front of the door was as plain and colorless as you’d expect, except for one marking on it. A simple gold letter was nailed to the front: E.
Before either of us had a chance to knock, Evangeline’s cold voice could be heard from the other side. “Stop dawdling and come in.”
Stepping aside, the woman who had escorted me gave me an expectant look. I drew in a full breath before allowing myself inside the office.
I hadn’t gotten more than two steps inside the office before I was nearly blinded by the change in the color scheme. No, it wasn’t just a deviation from the neutral white throughout the other spaces in the building, but it was downright criminal what was before me.
Everything was in a horrific pea soup green that should have never left the 1970s. It was a staggering sight to behold. The color saturated every surface in the office; it wasn’t just there as an accent.
My thoughts began to get the better of me as I stood there, shell-shocked. How was Evangeline the supervisor of all guardian angels? The color of her office alone should have sent her straight to purgatory.
Evangeline spoke up, disrupting my stupor. “I see Sylas communicated with you the urgency of my need to speak with you.”
I shut the door behind me and took a seat in one of the two chairs positioned in front of her desk.
“Uh, he did, but he didn’t provide any details,” I responded, still half-distracted from the offensive color of my surroundings.
Finally, I forced my eyes to focus on my superior. Evangeline had brunette hair in a long choppy bob with a rounded face that reminded me of a cherub. Given her exterior appearance, if one had never interacted with her, you would have assumed her to be sweet as pie. That was until she opened her mouth.
She adjusted her mocha-colored cardigan draped around her shoulders, where it blended in with a silk blouse in the same shade. Sitting back, she folded her hands in her lap.
“Sylas did not provide any details because he was not given them to provide,” she firmly replied. “It has been brought to my attention that your,” she paused. “Your performance on your current assignment is not in alignment with our standards and guidelines.”
Both of my brows shot up at the unexpected topic of conversation.
“My performance? So, what, this is some sort of review?” I tried to gather clarification on why I was brought here.
She released a heavy sigh as she sat forward, resting her folded hands on the edge of her metal desk painted in the same horrific shade of green as the rest of the room.
“Atlassian, I’m not going to sugarcoat this. If it were up to me, I’d have you demoted to polishing the harps.” Her deep brown eyes locked on mine without any trace of humor in them.
Sitting straighter in my seat, I cleared my throat as I gathered my response to her. “Look, Kinley is alive and well. I think that ought to count for something.”
She let out a singular sharp laugh in a high enough pitch that I almost expected glass to crack.
“Alive and well ? That girl hasn’t been well in centuries.” Evangeline shook her head in what appeared to be disbelief before continuing, “Need I remind you that your role as her guardian isn’t just about keeping her from keeling over? It is about providing her protection in all its many forms; it is about instilling a sense of betterment to her existence, and most of all, it is preserving her humanity.”
I watched as Evangeline’s fingers massaged over the small wrinkles on her forehead, a testament to the stress this conversation caused her.
Calmly, I attempted to reassure my supervisor. “Evangeline, I assure you that I am doing the best I can.”
That’s when her eyes narrowed their focus on me, and I saw the ticking in her jaw.
“The best you can? Tell me, Atlassian, where were you when a man associated with her was burned to death in her tub? Even better yet, can you tell me where you were when she snapped the neck of some woman in a diner parking lot?”
Hearing her speak of both incidents, I cringed internally. I rubbed my hand over my jaw, lightly scratching at the short layer of facial hair.
“I know what it looks like,” I began somberly. “Trust me when I tell you that the normal rules do not apply to Kinley. Maybe if someone could tell me why precedent is being broken by having one angel guarding another, I could?—”
Evangeline cut me off. “That’s above my pay grade. All I know is that somewhere in the upper echelons of the chain of command, it was determined Kinley needed your guardianship.”
The way she made the statement indicated that she was neither in agreement with the decision nor did she understand why it had been made in the first place.
For several long moments, there was nothing but silence in her office, in literal terms at least. The puke green was brazenly loud enough for Helen Keller to flinch.
Leaning back in her chair, Evangeline let out a weary sigh as she shook her head to herself.
“Look here, Atlassian. We all have our orders. All I can tell you is that I’m getting pressure from my superiors to ensure that you step up your game. Not only that, but there are a lot of hushed whispers going around about the state of affairs of the balance between the wicked and the righteous.”
Giving her an acknowledgment in the form of a nod, I knew I was going to need some guidance here. “I understand, but I can’t control what circumstances arise around her.”
Evangeline gave a roll of her eyes in annoyance. “Of course not. But you can be her rock, and you can appeal to her humanity—what’s left of it anyway.”
Running my fingers through the loose strands of my blonde hair, I struggled to come up with a game plan for how I could be doing things differently.
“I am giving Kinley what she needs the best way I know how. If she’s pushed in one direction, she will go the other, no matter the cost. It’s not as simple as keeping an eye on her and shoving her out of harm’s way.”
My words appeared to resonate with Evangeline, her face softening for a second as she considered what I had said. Then, the firm set in her jaw and the rest of her face returned, erasing all evidence that she had given thought to perhaps utilizing a different approach. Possibly even deviating from the rule book.
As she stood, she finally spoke, but this time in a more sympathetic tone than I’d ever heard from her. “I’m going to give you a suggestion, and if you ever tell anyone that I told you this, I will make sure that you never so much as become a guardian for a squirrel.” Evangeline gave me a pointed look that made it clear she would follow through.
“Understood,” I replied, now scooting forward to the edge of my seat in anticipation of any insight she could provide on how to help my girl stay safe.
She let out a sigh in an effort to shake off the words she was about to speak. “My suggestion is that you do as you would have done before your salvation. Kinley responds to messages and actions that are consistent, for better or for worse.”
I let what she had to say sink in. While I rolled the thought over in my mind, Evangeline continued to expound upon her thought.
“There are things that happen that are even beyond our control as guardians. Sometimes, we aren’t shown the bigger picture. Do you understand?”
“So, you’re saying that I could do everything right and still fail?” I hated that I even dared to put that thought out there. I couldn’t fail Kinley. I had failed her once when I died on St. Cassius; I refused to do it again.
Evangeline nodded in confirmation before softening her tone when she offered me some sort of consolation. “I’m not saying that is the case here at all. I am merely trying to put it in perspective.”
Everything she had just told me left my head full of more questions than answers, and it didn’t sit right with me.
While I was stuck in my thoughts, she spoke up once more. “Do what feels right. The right thing is rarely the wrong thing in our line of work.”
She rose up from her seat behind her desk. “With that said, I have other guardians to speak with. You are dismissed to return to your duties.”
I pushed against my knees as I stood. “Thank you.”
As I headed to the door, Evangeline spoke up just as I put my hand on the avocado green doorknob.
“Oh, and Atlassian?”
I turned and saw that the look on her face grew more stern. “Prayers, no matter how intimate , aren’t just for one set of ears. You may want to remember that the next time the urge strikes you to memorialize your…activities.”
My muscles stiffened as I realized she was likely referencing my time in the ice cream parlor’s bathroom with my angel on her knees. I should have felt embarrassed by this little revelation, but instead, I felt a smirk tugging at the corners of my mouth.
I was certain that Kinley had known my prayers would be broadcast amongst a larger audience, and it was just like her to want to stir the pot.
That’s my girl.