by Heather Long
He let go of her legs, stepping back as soon as she had her balance. His heart raced at what this could mean. What did it mean? Did it mean anything at all?
Seth wasn’t sure. This could be a side effect of his grace. It had to be.
“Holy fuck,” she repeated. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
He couldn’t. He didn’t know what to say. His disoriented body was caught between burning desire and utter bewilderment.
“You’re just like a freaking man. Nothing to say when clearly, you have wings.” Dahlia gestured to the wings behind his back. “Most men don’t have wings, but you know what I mean.”
The temperature cooled around him significantly as he searched for something to say. “I have wings.”
“I know you have wings.” Her face twisted as if she thought he was a bit touched in the head. “Angel, hello? Of course you have wings. I just didn’t realize they were something real. They’d only ever appeared as shadows before.”
“Shadows?” It was definitely the grace. But why now? If they were shadows before and now she could touch them, whatever allowed her to see the Keeper’s true form was strengthening.
“Flickers. There and gone.” She stepped forward and tried to touch his wings again, but he jumped back. “And there you go with the cockblocking.”
“I am not blocking my cock. You shouldn’t be able to see my wings.” She really shouldn’t. “And I’m not an angel.”
Arms folded, she glared at him. The pouty full lower lip beckoned to be kissed, and he had to drag his gaze up to meet a pair of very unamused, furious eyes. “What is your game, Seth?”
“My game?” He wasn’t playing any kind of game. “There is no game.”
“There has to be a game. There’s always a game. Even people who pretend to be nice and altruistic, there’s always something they want. You were very upfront with me in the beginning. But now you’re lying.”
His mind stuttered, his beast stood up, and the wings he’d retracted snapped out. “I do not lie.”
How dare she accuse him of that.
Head tilted, she studied him. The slender column of her throat seemed accentuated in that pose. Her dark hair had been trapped in a bun atop her head, but the wild tendrils escaped. The desire to pull the pins and let it flow free filled him.
“You really believe that,” she said softly. Memory told him her hair had been soft and thick, he could fist it quite easily. “You really believe you don’t lie.”
A shudder ripped through him as he dragged his gaze from her throat, past those luscious lips, to her eyes. “I have no need to lie,” he said. “Lies are necessary only to those who desire to hide something. I’m hiding nothing.”
“Oh boy.” She exhaled the two words with such disappointment, and maybe even dismissal, that his anger receded. “Yeah. Okay. Where I’m from, we call that denial.” Pivoting on her heel, she walked over to the balcony doors. “How do I open these?”
“You don’t.”
“So I am a prisoner here.”
He sighed. “No, you asked how do you open these, and I said you didn’t. I can.”
Lips pursed, she glared at him again. His chin lifted. At least she wasn’t ignoring him. “Seth, will you open these doors for me? I have been trapped inside for days. I want to breathe the air. I didn’t even get that when Karmen took me out. She promised me dancing, and instead, we went to Sinner’s. Even Alex liked that place. What is it with you people?”
The flood of words betrayed a faint quiver, and the ire she’d ignited with her accusation faded. He’d almost forgotten that she believed he’d locked her here and left her alone to torture her. Forgotten the loneliness vibrating beneath every syllable. Moving to the doors, he gripped them and pushed them outward. It let in a flood of spring air. The coolness rushed against him, ruffling his feathers, and he pulled his wings back.
“Oh.” She drifted closer, arms still folded as she took a deep breath. The balcony wall wasn’t high, it wasn’t meant to keep him in, but he studied it for a moment and then her.
“Do not go close to the edge.”
She shot him a look, but took a step out onto the balcony, and he shifted to move between her and the rail. It came up to her waist, but she could easily tumble over in the breeze.
An image of her tumbling down the stairs replayed itself for him, and he frowned. He didn’t want to see her fall. Not again.
The sun warmed his back, but he paid less attention to the feel of it on him as he did on the way the light played over her face. She stared out over Domum with curious eyes, the flashes of her earlier anger and irritation fading to wonder. The beast within him gaped much as he did, and need roared through him.
He wanted her to look at him the way she stared out over the city. Domum wasn’t like other cities, he supposed. Though try as he might, he wasn’t quite sure how she saw the tall spires and aeries. Not all of the Keepers lived here. Some took residence elsewhere, but this was where they had all been…born, he supposed was the right word.
As long as there had been Keepers, there had been a Domum. Some of the buildings stretched high, and walkways weren’t needed. There were almost no Keepers without wings. Those tragic few were better off not mentioned.
It was easy enough to step out, then step off and let his wings open to catch an updraft. He could be anywhere within the city in moments.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured. “But I bet you’re going to say this isn’t Heaven.”
Bemused, he glanced at her. A part of him wanted to be able to offer her that comfort. The constructs of Heaven and Hell, they were very personal to the humans. “You would win that bet.”
She smiled. “Next time, let me make it before you let me win it. I might have liked the prize.” As impatient and infuriating as she had been mere moments before, he found himself utterly intoxicated with this side of her.
The flickering light seemed to blaze, and he wanted to cup it in his hands, breathing more fuel into it so she would glow brighter. Because even that faint flame warmed him more than the sun. The wistful sigh she released, however, was his undoing. He held out his hand, and she glanced from it to him in question.
“Come,” he offered and flexed his wings. “Let me show you our city, and you can get more air.”
The wonder he’d longed for earlier crystalized in her gaze. “You’re going to take me flying?”
It was a terrible idea. He shouldn’t. They had other things they needed to address, but he waited, hand extended. “Yes.”
She settled her palm against his, and electricity skittered along him at the contact as he fluffed his wings a little wider, legs braced against the wind buffeting him. “Promise you won’t drop me?”
“I promise,” he said without hesitation, and closed his hand over hers. She came to him easily, fitting against him as he wrapped her tight. Then he stepped forward and up onto the balcony wall before he dropped off, and she let out a whoop as his wings went wider, the updraft sending them higher.
Something inside of him unlocked as she clasped her arms around his neck and turned her wild smile to the city sprawling below him, and he grinned. Wings in tight, he sent them into a dive, and she squealed until he snapped them out again and they climbed, riding the eddies of air and her laughter.
It wasn’t much, a moment of time, a beat of his wings, and an element of the sun. Not much at all, but the flickering light burned a little brighter, and he basked in it as he carried her.
A second longing filled him inexplicably, but he put it away and flew, extending this moment, like her last breath. It had been a mistake to send her to his brothers.
A mistake he wouldn’t repeat.
9
Whoever said ‘bring one to justice’ clearly didn’t know him. His happy ass took whoever he wanted whenever he wanted. And I was so ready for my next turn. - Dahlia
Zhan
Bish shoved away from him as soon as they landed in Zhan’s secret hideaway.
It wasn’t a complete secret. Tarus knew about it, but as far as the rest of the Keepers were concerned, this place didn’t exist.
Zhan stumbled back a step, then caught himself on the rough stone wall. Eyeing Bish warily, he waited to see how he would react. Among their kind, it was taboo to transport someone without their permission. In some cases, it could be considered an act of war. Not that he had any way to keep him here, only that hadn’t occurred to Zhan when Seth walked in. All he knew was that he wasn’t done with this conversation, but he sure as hell wasn’t ready to talk to Seth either. There was a reason he had avoided him for so long.
“What is this place?” Bish ran a hand over his short, black hair. Curiosity was good. It would make him stay for a little while at least.
Looking around at the space through new eyes, Zhan tried to imagine what he was seeing. A glorified cave. Or a barren, pathetic room.
To Zhan, it was beautiful. An opening above let bright, natural light into the chamber, and a warm spring took up the entire right side of the cave. There was no other entrance, preventing any poor soul, animal or human, from wandering in.
He’d found this place more than a thousand years before. Stumbled into it was more like it, when he’d been on a nature escape to calm his grace down. It had been much harder to ignore back then.
The serene tranquility in the silence was glorious and exactly what he needed at the time. Whenever life got a little too loud, he’d slip away for a few hours, or maybe even days, and recharge. Over the years, he’d acquired a few pieces of outdoor furniture to make his time here more comfortable. While he never cared what it looked like, they were clearly worn and weathered from the dry heat. Even the short hours of sun had bleached out the fabric so much, it resembled something that should have been tossed out a decade ago.
“I’ll answer a question of yours if you answer a question of mine.” Zhan took a few steps toward him, casually, so as not to alert Bish to his thoughts. He nearly snorted. The man had to have known if he tried to leave, Zhan would do everything in his power to stop him.
He had too many of the answers he wanted. Needed, really.
Who was Dahlia? Who was she to Bish? How did she have such an allure to burrow under his skin for days?
Okay, he knew Bish couldn’t answer all of those, but he could clear up the basics, and Zhan wouldn’t back down until he at least knew that much.
“You can stop with the manipulation. I’m not as gullible as you might think.” Glancing up, then around, Bish betrayed that he was at least a little gullible.
And here, Zhan thought curiosity killed the cat. Turned out, it applied to Bish too.
“You wouldn’t like to know where we are? Or what this place is to me? Surely you’d like some sort of leverage over me, given that I’ve fallen.”
Bish laughed, tossing his head back. His long, lightly muscled body shook with every inhale when he tried to catch his breath. “You and your brothers are really something. I have to hand it to you, I’ve never met any Keeper who was more self-centered or egotistical than you three. How did you come to think you’re so important?”
He dropped his chin and pierced Zhan with such an intense stare, he had the immediate urge to answer him. Even bloodshot eyes from a copious amount of Nectar couldn’t diminish the power in his gaze. Shaking his head, Zhan sauntered over to a lounge chair, satisfied that he would stay for now.
He shrugged. “I don’t think I’m so important, I just know the stigma around the fallen. We’re the outcasts, the ones who have cut off their grace. You’re one of the precious Keepers with an important role, right? Without you, the world would crumble. So why wouldn’t you want something to hold over my head in case you ever wanted to knock me down a peg?” The funny thing was, Zhan had thought he had a pretty important role too, once upon a time. Until he realized the world wouldn’t crumble without him. And it hadn’t, not in the millennia since he and Tarus had fallen.
For a moment, Bish didn’t answer, merely watched Zhan with too much knowledge in his eyes.
“And what, you think knowing you have a secret clubhouse is going to make me bend to your bidding? I hate to break it to you, but almost every Keeper I’ve ever encountered has something similar, including myself. Sorry, you’re not as special as you thought you were.”
Fuck, he was grating on Zhan’s nerves, and they hadn’t even been here for five minutes. Sighing, he got to the point. “Just tell me who Dahlia is and why you are so interested in her?”
Zhan should have prepared himself for Bish’s irrational reaction. The bar was proof he wouldn’t willingly talk about her, but their little faux heart to heart had lulled him into a false sense of security.
Any ounce of friendliness disappeared, not that there had been much to begin with. “Fuck you.”
Then he snapped out of existence, leaving Zhan to stew in his anger.
“Fuck!” he screamed up at the sky. No one would hear him down here. This place was too far from civilization for that. He needed answers, or better yet, he needed to see the little minx again. Then at least, he could draw his own conclusions.
Rolling his head from side to side, he flexed his wings and then tried to focus on the silence around him. The tranquility he’d found for a millennia in this spot eluded him, and the grace he’d worked so diligently to suppress—going so far as to sheer it away at times—unfurled, much like his wings. The ferociousness of it scraped against the inside of his skin, a growing hunger he struggled to suppress.
A flash of the minx’s eyes as she stared at him, pleasure simmering in their depths. The decadent heat of her skin beneath his lips. The taste of her still coated his tongue. His cock went hard and stiff, need flexing its claws to sink deeper into his flesh, and threatening to rip him open and unleash the beast.
Dahlia.
The curl of her name on his tongue had him rising from the lounger. He paced a slow circle. Bish had vanished. Had he gone straight to her? Would he try to secret her away to keep her from Zhan? Fury plunged through him with the shock of being submerged in icy water. A sword burned into existence, the hilt filling his palm and heating his flesh. The blade shimmered, the edges gleaming sharp as if he hadn’t discarded this more than a millennia ago.
A shudder ripped through him as he stretched his wings, and the muscles along his arms and legs bulged. Screams rent the silence, and he snapped his head back. The demands. The need. The pleas.
Those weren’t the voices he wanted to hear. It had taken him so long to block them out, and they shredded him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he closed the fist of his left hand and dug the fingers into his palm.
No blade.
No cries.
Answering them didn’t save anyone.
Didn’t change anything.
He wouldn’t listen.
“What the hell?”
“You’re the biggest jackass I’ve ever met. You’ve made cockblocking into an art!”
Wrenching his eyes open, he spun, half-expecting his minx to be right there. Her rich, husky voice had been a shriek, and this time, he had his blade ready. Only… No Dahlia.
Strain as he might, her voice vanished. Even the trace of its echo vanished into the void with the others as he blocked them out.
Defining irony, the very thing he did not want demanded he go to her. Again. That night in the bar, the beast had roused from its drunken stupor, rustling the chains after decades upon decades of silence. All because she walked in. When he let her leave with the man marking her for death, the beast had slumped again.
The threat to his peace of mind had been vanquished until she’d strutted back into Sinner’s a couple of days later, sassy, vivacious, and so alluringly alive. The blade grew heavier in his hand, but the heat of it threatened to scald his flesh.
He had to see her again.
Had to sever whatever tie this was, because his beast wasn’t in a stupor, and not even the Nectar would quiet it now. It didn’t want alcohol or peace or silence.
It wanted Dahlia.
Damn her and all of humanity.
Forcing his right hand to open, he banished the blade to the ether. It wasn’t gone. Not hardly. His fingertips itched to reclaim it, wield it at the ready for whatever justice demanded he mete out.
There was no true justice, just a never-ending gaping maw of hunger and demand. It could consume him whole, rend him apart, and toss him out the far side to do it all over again. Nothing would change.
They still died.
They still killed.
What was the point?
Dahlia.
He had to find her. Between one breath and the next, he stepped from his cavern of solitude to the back hall of Sinner’s. Music pulsed from the speakers, drowning out the hum of conversation from other Keepers, humans, and staff alike. Not that there were many humans present. With his beast aroused and restless, he cloaked himself and stepped out to study the patrons.
No Seth.
No Tarus.
No Dahlia.
Longing pricked him again. The rattle of chains and the snapping bite of teeth gnawing into him. If she wasn’t here, he need not stay.
Irritation spreading like a rash over his flesh, he turned to leave when the world tilted to the side. A human brushed past him with red-rimmed eyes and shaky hands. Suffering rolled off her in cataclysmic waves. It reminded him of that first night he’d seen Dahlia. Only it wasn’t her suffering that drew him but the incandescent nature of her soul, a bright light being swallowed by darkness but refusing to be extinguished. This woman’s light wasn’t one-tenth that power, the flame curling the rapidly disintegrating wick.
She would be dead by dawn. The injustice of the world pressing in until it suffocated her.
Walk away, he told himself.
Nothing he did would change anything.