Steel

Chapter 10

"Funny how things work out. Now that I need to be taken care of, we're not together," I mumbled, shuffling over to the bed and plopping down. I watched as Grey walked over to me, icy gaze glued to mine.

"Funny."

"Since you refuse to leave, do you feel like telling me about that whole 'smite' thing back there? You never told me anything about you being the Angel of Death. After God told me, you took off and then we-," I paused and Grey let out a deep breath.

"Yeah, I remember just fine, thank you. What do you want to know?" He eyed me before taking a seat next to me on my bed.

"Why were you named Angel of Death? Is that what you wanted?" I asked, watching as he took a deep breath in.

"I was created this way. Some Angels go through training and what not before they become an Archangel, and after assessing their aptitudes , God will name them Angel of whatever. That was what they had done with the Angel of Death before me. But she wanted a different life than what she had been given, so she Fell and nobody has heard from her since. So, God corrected his mistake and created me as an Archangel of Death so I knew nothing aside from what I'd always been," he explained.

"What did you do before you Fell? And after you Fell, I know you acted as a mercenary, but did you still have, I dunno, duties?" I questioned.

"Before I Fell, I merely observed which souls Pledged to Heaven and which Pledged to Hell. Occasionally, I'd show up at their death and bring them to their final destination, but I had lower Angels that would normally do that for me. I did the same thing when I Fell, but I was more active in the recruitment side of it. I would help convince souls for whichever side paid me the most," he chuckled dryly.

"Do you have power over Death?" I narrowed my eyes a little.

"Yeah. But it's taxing, so I don't use it often. I could flatten the state of New York with a flick of my wrist and leave nothing alive," he replied coolly as if it were the most nonchalant thing.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked softly and he turned his head to the side, eyes meeting mine.

"I didn't want you to know what I could do, what I had done. I didn't want you to be scared of me," he murmured back.

"Grey. I could never be scared of you," I furrowed my brows together in concern.

"Because you haven't seen what I can do, Greene. I can wipe out millions of life forms in an instant if I wanted to. I could suck all the life out of the Amazon, all of the life out of every continent on the planet if I wanted to," he clenched his jaw tightly, eyes watching me like a hawk.

"Your power doesn't scare me, Grey. But if you're the Archangel of Death, why does me dying scare you?" I scowled.

"There are some things I can't save you from. Myself being one of them. If you die, I have to let you. Just like I had to let you in the Hellfire. If I could've kept you mortal, I would've," he explained tightly.

"Why?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Because you deserved a human life. You deserved to follow your dreams, get your heart broken and fall in love with a good man, have a family and grow old,  see things in the world that make you wonder if Heaven is real without knowing for sure that it is. You deserved so much more from life than what I gave you," he spoke softly, as if the words pained him when they left his lips.

"Screw grey hair and wrinkles, first of all. I did follow my dreams and I did get my heart broken. I did see things in the world that made me wonder what Heaven would look like, and then I saw Heaven. But don't say I didn't fall in love with a good man, Grey, because I did," I frowned slightly.

There was a long pause, the air so thick with unspoken tension I could feel it weighing down on my chest. 

"How can you say that knowing who I am? What I can do and what I've done? I've leveled cities, Greene. I did it on orders, but it was my power that took their lives," he grumbled out.

"You are more than what you've done," I murmured back.

He didn't respond, but rather continued to stare at the ground at his feet.

"Grey, how high are you? Compared to everyone else," I asked quietly.

"Unofficially or officially?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Both," I shrugged.

"Officially, I'm only outranked by Michael, Rafael, Gabriel, and Uriel because I Fell. Unofficially, I'm only outranked by God," he explained with a dry chuckle. "It's why Lucifer doesn't like me either."

Holy. Motherfucking. Son of a bitch.

Grey was the most powerful Archangel in all of Heaven.

"Please tell me what you're thinking," he whispered softly.

"How Michael had the balls to treat you like he did when we were on Earth," I shook my head in disbelief. "And you Fell because you didn't like what God was telling you to do?"

"Yeah, I don't like taking orders. Especially ones to flatten cities and ecosystems. He claims those deaths- they're for the greater good. I didn't believe him. So I Fell," Grey shrugged.

How could he believe for one second he wasn't a good man? Sure he's a dickwad like 70% of the time, but giving up your spot as top Archangel in Heaven because you don't want to kill innocent lives? Sounded like the definition of a good man to me.

His icy blue eyes flicked back and forth between mine and I could feel my thunderous heart echoing inside my chest, shaking my bones. His eyes slowly fell down to my lips and electricity surged through my body once I realized he had begun to lean in. I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted to actually kiss him, not just brush our lips together like we had last night. I wanted to breathe him in and never let him go. 

The tip of his nose brushed against the crux of skin between my nose and my cheek, his breath fanning my skin and intoxicating me. I could hardly think straight. He was going to kiss me. My heartbeat echoed loudly within my ears, thundering in my chest like a lightning storm. I could hardly breathe.  

"You uh-you didn't answer my question about what that smite thing was," I pulled back awkwardly, trying to calm down my heart rate. 

We had been so close to kissing. So. Close. And I had to go freak out and pull away. Why did I do that? 

Grey sucked in a deep breath and leaned back, clenching his jaw slightly as if trying to get his own heart rate under control as well. "If an Angel is higher than you, they can smite you with the power of their soul. Whereas your soul may be as powerful as mine, you currently don't have a ranking, which is why you felt my smite," he explained coolly. 

"Why have you never done that before?" I questioned. 

"I don't normally feel the need to flex my position or power over others. Most Angels just know I'm more powerful, so they watch themselves around me," he shrugged nonchalantly, glacial eyes glued to mine once more. 

"Grey, I-," I began, but didn't really know where I was going with that sentence, so I trailed off. 

"I need to apologize to you," he murmured abruptly, narrowing his eyes slightly. 

"For what?" I asked softly. There were a multitude of things that he had done in the last few weeks and months that had pissed me off. 

"Doing this to us. I shouldn't have pushed you away like I did, treated you as poorly as I did. I get so self destructive when I'm-," he sighed, "-when I'm afraid."

HI!

I am so sorry this took so long for me to write. I've been going through some difficult stuff lately and I just moved back to school and have been literally swamped with homework and studying. Mentally, I'm just in a 'meh' place right now, so it's been hard for me to write. 

My apologies. I hope this chapter tides you all over for a little while. 

-TJ