Chapter 1

Demi's POV

My husband is an angel on an earthly trial. Every time he feels something for me, he endures divine punishment — like his chest is being ripped open from the inside.

But he told me he'd take that pain gladly, as long as it was for me.

He left a mark on my collarbone. Activate it when you're in danger, he said, and I'll rip through anything to get to you.

I believed him.

Then came a mission where I got grabbed by an armed fugitive gang and held in an abandoned warehouse for three straight days of torture and abuse.

No water. No sleep. The tendons in my hands and feet cut one by one.

Half-dead, I used the last of my strength to activate the mark.

And I heard him talking to his angel companion.

"Beckett, why did you give those people Demi's location? You know what they'll do to her."

He didn't even flinch. "She'll be fine. She's the Chosen One — she can't die. They were going after Macie. I didn't have a choice. Once this mission's over, I can petition to stay on earth. I'll make it up to Demi. She gets it."

So that's the price of being understanding. Dying inside a trap he built for me.

My heart just shatters. And I stop fighting.

--

"Captain Hartwell. Not so tough now, huh? You took out a lot of my guys. Ever think you'd end up like this?"

The fugitives circle around me, laughing.

I hang upside down from a heavy chain, the tendons in my hands and feet already severed, blood dripping from my fingertips onto the concrete floor.

A man with a deep scar carved across his face holds a length of rebar heated red-hot and waves it slowly in front of my face.

No hesitation. He drives it against my thigh, searing the skin.

The burning tears through every nerve at once. I bite down on my lip and force the scream back down my throat.

"Tough girl. You won't even scream?" He pulls the rebar back and shakes out his hand like it's nothing. "Alright. Let's go again."

The rod comes down on the same spot.

This time I can't hold it. A low, strangled sound escapes me.

The laughter gets louder.

Three days.

Three days without water, three days without sleep. I can't tell anymore where one pain ends and another begins. Every inch of my body is a dull, relentless ache, like a rag that's been stepped on one too many times.

I just keep taking it. Keep telling myself to hold on.

But my focus keeps slipping, and the pain keeps pulling me under.

Then, half-conscious, the mark on my collarbone goes warm. Beckett's companion's voice comes through.

"Beckett. You can see what's happening to her. Three days. Are you really going to keep letting this go on?"

Beckett's voice follows, calm as if he's talking about something that has nothing to do with him. "I don't have a choice. If it wasn't her, it would've been Macie. She saved my life. I have to do this."

"You keep telling yourself that." The companion's voice drops, and there's no hiding the exhaustion in it. "You say you owe Macie, but you know the truth. You know who actually saved you back then. It was Demi."

A long silence. Then Beckett speaks. "Macie's been in love with me for years. I chose Demi, and that's already tearing Macie apart. I can't put her through this too."

I hang there swaying, completely hollow.

Three years ago, during a federal pursuit operation, Beckett got pinned under a collapsed structure. I cleared the rubble with my bare hands, dug him out piece by piece, and carried him almost two miles on my back. I passed out just outside the safety perimeter, completely spent.

When I came to, he told me Macie had saved him.

I thought he was confused, that he'd gotten it wrong. I tried to explain, kept bringing it up. He just looked at me, calm as always, and said, "Demi, don't. Macie is the bravest person I've ever met."

I thought it was a mistake. It never once crossed my mind that he was doing it on purpose.

But he knew. He always knew.

Macie had loved him for years, so her pain was worth my life to him.

And me?

What did I even mean to him.

I almost want to laugh.

The pain is numb now. So is my heart. I stop fighting.

The scarred man notices something dead in my eyes and pauses, head tilting. "What, you giving up on me?"

He grins and drives his boot hard into my stomach.

My whole body swings on the chain.

Something rips through me from deep inside, different from anything before. I look down. Dark red is spreading down the inside of my thigh, dripping onto the floor.

The scarred man goes still.

He stares at the blood on the ground, then looks up at my face.

"Wait — is she pregnant?"