“Nope.” I couldn’t pinpoint if that was relief or disappointment in her voice—or something entirely different. However, the face of the girl I had watched growing up, who I had been protecting by instinct almost as much as by choice, turned into that glowing texture that it only had when she was in her ethereal form. She had switched without noticing—again.
So I did, too—and within a second, the rush of sensations that came with being out of the solidity of the human form hit me. Everything was brighter, more intense, stronger. Full of the essence of things. I could see the light of Laney’s soul shining behind her eyes, could feel her goodness, through and through, like a song that was singing to me.
She noticed then, as I lowered the book into my lap, that we both had switched, and her pupils widened as she took in my ethereal form. A gust of air huffed from her lips, her posture relaxing out of defying the cold and the power that filled the room, and she turned in her chair, facing me in full.
My body responded instantly, mirroring her, turning toward her until our knees touched.
And at that touch, something zinged through me. An electric current that at the same time made me fly and grounded me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Laney
I had forgotten the book in Leon’s hands. What had we been talking about?
All I saw was that light in him, felt the overwhelming intensity of him in the tiny cabin. The entire space seemed to hum with force—no, with power. A sensation I couldn’t place; even stronger than when I had first switched into my ethereal form.
“How did that just happen?” I asked, my eyes taking in every angle and aspect of Leon’s face, the depth of his eyes, dark and bright at the same time, the stillness with which he sat, his lips open as if he was tasting the atmosphere rather than seeing his surroundings.
I hadn’t switched since that one time when Jo had slept in my living room. And I had thought I might find a way to control it before I accidentally exposed myself in public by vanishing into thin air.
“Some strong emotion, maybe,” he suggested. As he stared into my eyes, I could imagine what strong emotion he might have felt. But he was right. Strong. Fear from the world of the Shadowbringer. Wonder about how things worked in this new life that I seemed to be damned to.
And then … the miraculous creature that Leon was. The strong, angelic being.
For a long moment, we examined each other’s faces as if we were trying to read in the layer of light and the secrets that were hidden there. Then, with a twitch of his lips, Leon leaned forward and reached out with a hand, brushing aside my hair, his fingers lingering by my cheek when he had tucked the strands behind my shoulder.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered as if now he was anxious to keep those words between us and us only.
My stomach did that thing that felt as if thousands of little wings were winding through my insides, and heat flooded my cheeks. I blinked and turned to the side, my eyes examining the flames rather than acknowledging the obvious beauty of the Lightbringer before me.
“Don’t hide,” he murmured, his fingertips brushing along my cheekbone, down my jaw until they dropped into his scarf. He wrapped his hand around it and gently pulled me forward by the soft fabric. “Don’t ignore that things have changed between us.”
His words ran through me like searing heat and glacial cold all at once. He was right. Things had changed. Too much to pretend they hadn’t. Too much to act as if his embrace wasn’t the safest place in the world, as if his fingers around mine weren’t like a lifeline—I looked up, and his gaze met me with branding intensity—or to ignore how much my body was aching to close that gap between us.
“I am still Laney,” I whispered, our breaths mingling, so close was his face, his hand still tangled in his scarf, securing me into his lips’ reach.
“And I am still Leon.” His eyes grazed down to my mouth, thick lashes hiding the dark depths of them, and I wondered if he felt it, too, the need to seal our lips together. “Still the same Leon. Only, now you know who he is,” he whispered against my mouth, not more than an inch from releasing us from those chains of our friendship and allowing me to experience the man behind the best friend for once.
The door banged open with a crash, bringing in a flood of cold evening air and making both Leon and me shrink apart.
Leon was on his feet first, taking a protective stance in front of me while I was still struggling to keep myself upright. A growl escaped the man, so tame, so gentle a second ago, and I realized what had happened with a gasp when the storm-gray eyes of the Shadowbringer greeted me from the threshold.
“Bad timing?” He cocked his head and took a step into the room.
“You have no idea,” Leon glowered at the boy who had intruded on our private moment, his arms reaching back as if to check I was still there, safely within his reach.
It took a second for the shock to leave my system and for a mixture between fear and annoyance to replace it with the bubbling rush of adrenaline. The Shadowbringer had to have followed us into the forest. And now, he had come to take my soul.
“I have been known to show up when it is of the least convenience for your kind.” He lifted his chin at Leon, or at me, or both of us—I couldn’t tell—resentment in his handsome face.
“You can go back to hell for all I care.” Leon took a step toward the Shadowbringer, the layer of light on him shining more brightly as he moved in the direction of the enemy.
“Well, wouldn’t that be convenient for you?” The Shadowbringer chuckled darkly, his voice pure night, no stars and no brightness showing this time as he bent sideways to have a better view of me and said, “It would be most convenient for me if you just listened to your grandmother for once.”
I stared at him, clueless as to what he might be meaning.
All he did was hold my gaze, making me wonder if I should know what he was talking about, and added. “Mrs. Parker was a wise woman. Her advice should not be taken lightly.”
“You shouldn’t walk around, handing out advice either,” Leon warned the Shadowbringer. “In fact, you shouldn’t be walking around here at all. How did you find us?”
The Shadowbringer chuckled again. “As if your kind has ever been any good at hiding your tracks.” He sauntered into the cabin, hands in his pockets as if he didn’t have a care in the world, huffed out a set of candles on the cupboard, and coughed at the cloud of dust that rose in the air before him; then he leaned against the wood and raised his eyebrows at us. “You should be cleaning more often in here. It’s like a paradise for dust mites.”
“You shouldn’t be talking about paradise as if you had any clue what that meant,” Leon retorted.
In response, the Shadowbringer just chuckled and pulled one hand from his pocket, waving off Leon’s comment. “All I wanted to do was make sure Laney here remembers Gran’s precious advice. That’s all.” He pushed away from the cupboard and prowled back to the door as if nothing had happened. But before he crossed the threshold, he paused and glanced at me over his shoulder. “Nice scarf,” he said to Leon. “Didn’t you have anything better to offer her?” And then to me, “If you ever feel cold, Laney, call for me. There is plenty of heat where I came from.”
Dumbfounded, I stood and watched the Shadowbringer march out the door, and as quickly as he had shown up, he disappeared.
“What was that,” I ground out just before Leon rushed to the door and banged it shut with the push of one hand. It rattled on its hinges but didn’t break.
“This”—he gestured into the air—“was your new classmate interrupting the first time I worked up the courage to actually kiss you.” He eyed me from behind blond strands, fury the only emotion left on his beautiful Lightbringer face. He was still in his ethereal form as was I. I couldn’t, however, tell if Cas had been corporeal or not.
As he held my gaze, his words settled in, and the moment before the Shadowbringer had walked in flooded me like a mystical memory. Leon had actual
ly been about to kiss me. My skin tingled, and his gaze, no matter how furious, felt like a gentle touch as I understood what he had been saying.
But before I could say anything, react, tell him I was glad that was all the Shadowbringer had done, Leon turned to pick up his backpack and grabbed my hand.
“It’s time you learn to travel on angel essence,” was all he said, no softness in his eyes, no glowing excitement, no warmth. Just the dark depths that promised an efficient solution to the problem the Shadowbringer was becoming. “We need to get back to civilization where that bloodhound of the devil cannot just barge in like a maniac.”
My head bobbed automatically. Even if this new, soldier-like side of Leon was as unpredictable as the electric current his touch now made circulate in my body, I trusted him to know what needed to be done.
“You need to feel it,” he said and placed one hand on his heart.
I didn’t need to ask what he meant, for in my chest, something had started pulsing like a second heart—not the thudding, wild beat of the organ that ensured life but a resonating that made me feel alive on a different level. The essence of the angel.
Leon saw the question in my eyes and nodded. “Reach for it with your mind. Embrace it,” he instructed. “Become one with it.”
I tried and tried, but the sensations ebbed whenever I felt I might get a hold of it.
Beside me, Leon became nervous. “You’re pushing too hard,” he commented. “You need to be gentle. Cradle it. It’s the essence of a divine being through which we are able to do what we do. Invite it to assist you.”
As he spoke, I did feel the sensation spread. It vibrated along my chest and through my limbs into my mind until I felt light and bodiless.
“Good,” Leon’s voice was a distant trickle of words that was steering me. His hand, however, seemed to weave right into that new, shapeless being I had become. “Now, fly back to the car.”
He didn’t wait for me to panic at his demand but tugged on my arm, making me lift off into the air and flit through the trees as if their thick branches and solid trunks weren’t obstacles at all. I didn’t feel any more of them than a light breeze. And then, I was flying. Moving through the air beside Leon, zooming forward to where I could make out the edge of the forest. There was nothing that could hold me back. Nothing.
The words Cas had spoken hit me much later when I was alone in my room, back in my corporeal form, blanket pulled up to my nose, and listening to the sounds of the wind.
Leon was out there somewhere. I hadn’t invited him to stay the night. Not after what had happened—almost happened—at the cabin. I wasn’t ready to face what this shift in our relationship meant … or would mean if we got to that point of the almost kiss again.
Also, I couldn’t stop thinking about Gran’s advice. There had been two times she had given me advice in those final days of hers; my chest ached at the thought of how I had last seen her, dissolving into a silver star and vanishing into Leon’s mouth.
Stay away from him, Laney. That was the first warning, and Be careful who you give your heart to.
She had warned me about Leon first and then—
The second warning still didn’t make any sense to me. Had she warned me about Leon because she could see him and didn’t understand what he was? That he was taking souls to heaven … he was one of the good guys.
Had she even known the difference between the Shadowbringers and the Lightbringers?
I was no longer sure how much else she had been hiding from me.
The rhythmical footsteps climbing the stairs that could only be my mother approached, followed by a soft knock on the door.
As I called for her to come in, Mom popped her head through the door. “I just wanted to let you know I’m home, honey.” She examined me in the dim light of the small lamp on my nightstand and smiled. “I know I’ve been working day and night,” she said with the face that only a mother with a guilty conscience could show, “but I promise we’ll do something together on the weekend, all right?”
I propped myself up on my elbows and returned her smile. Normal. This was normal. Mom sneaking in late, worrying about the weekends, making plans, dropping them last minute. It was comfortable. Not like the sudden crossfire of heaven and hell I had gotten in-between.
“That would be great, Mom,” I said and felt my heart warm as all guilt vanished from her features, leaving a broad smile on her tired face.
“I love you, Laney. Sleep well.”
“Love you, too, Mom.” I watched her retreat from the room, and the familiar sounds of the shower and her footsteps suffering back and forth through the rooms carried me into a light sleep that randomly showed me Gran’s face and Leon’s and Cas’s. And it wasn’t a nightmare.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The weekend came fast and with all the relief of not being exposed to Lucas Ferham’s unreadable stares for two short days. It also came with a twenty-four-seven plan of Leon’s on how to stay safe from the Shadowbringer. It involved him hanging out at my place, him walking me to Santoni’s, him all but sleeping on the floor beside my bed.
He wasn’t happy when I shut the door in his face on Saturday morning after explaining that some mother-daughter time was in order. But he was a good soldier and swallowed my rejection—on different levels.
Neither of us had brought up that almost-kiss again. He hadn’t pushed for anything but to stay around me and make sure I was safe. And I—well, I hadn’t brought up that my grandmother had warned me about him the first time she had met him.
I had spent every unoccupied second, wondering what exactly Gran had known that wasn’t apparent to my eyes—
Then, this whole Lightbringer and Shadowbringer thing hadn’t been apparent to my eyes for seventeen years before it was shoved right into my face at my Gran’s deathbed.
I ground my teeth and stirred my hot chocolate.
“You don’t think we could have invited him to come along?” Mom wondered again. She had observed my fierce denial of needing Leon’s presence for breakfast and had come to her own conclusions. Ones that, unfortunately, were very similar to what Leon had let his own parents believe.
“Honestly, Mom, I’d rather hang out with you today. I see Leon’s smoldering gaze every day.”
Mom didn’t truly buy it when I smiled. I could tell by the way she pulled on the short strands of her hair, nervous for some reason, while the late morning sun flooding the space behind her made the dirty dishes on the counter sparkle.
“You know you can tell me anything, Laney.”
Of course, I knew. And I did tell her everything … everything that didn’t involve knowledge of heaven and hell and the pretty boys who delivered souls to either destination. Or that I one day would be one of those messengers who sucked souls in with a breath and took them to heaven. That an angel-parasite was living inside of me—I shuddered. The concept of the angel essence was still something I couldn’t fully wrap my head around even with the books Leon had brought for me from his cabin. I’d read about how the essence of the angels was mainly light, and that was what created the glow in the non-corporeal form. Also, with Lightbringers being mortal and needing to learn about their abilities when they emerged, it cost Team Heaven a lot of time that Team Hell didn’t waste with their smaller group of immortal Shadowbringers.
With a sigh through my nose, I eyed my mother and said, “There is a lot going on at school, Leon being just one of those things that are making my days more draining.” It was the truth, and Mom recognized it as such.
She lifted a plate from the table and held it out for me to pick up a raspberry Danish. I didn’t hesitate.
“He’s such a good kid,” she said, watching me bite into the pastry and chew.
She had no idea just how good. So good he had been chosen to deliver souls to heaven. To bargain with the Shadowbringers for those who stood a chance of going to heaven. Too good—
Too good for me.
“He is also my best frien
d,” I pointed out, knowing that this argument was no longer valid. That ship had sailed.
“When I see the two of you look at each other, I see something different,” she noted with a wistful look.
I had nothing to say to that. So I lifted my cup and took a sip, waiting for the chocolate to do its magic and lift me up, and glanced out the window.
Leon was there, leaning against a tree—in his ethereal form, of course—a smile painted on his face. He waved, acknowledging that I had noticed him, and pushed himself up into the air within a fraction of a second until he sat on a branch. I noticed the glow even now that I was in my common, inconspicuous form. My stomach gave a jolt that shouldn’t be there.
“It’s okay when feelings change, Laney,” Mom continued her thoughts on Leon and me. “It is common that friendship becomes love and—“
“I don’t think I love Leon, Mom,” I stopped her. No, I couldn’t allow this conversation. Not now that Leon was out there, potentially listening to every word we were speaking.
From the way his face changed at my words, I had an idea he had heard—
Again, my stomach jolted, and I knew it wasn’t the big sip of hot chocolate. The feeling of Leon’s breath on my face, of his lips an inch from mine … I had to look away from the window in order to hide the heat that was rising in my cheeks.
“Oh,” was all Mom said in response before she picked up a Danish and bit into it. She chewed thoughtfully and swallowed then said, “I ran into Jo and her Dad at the drugstore the other day.” She poured herself a glass of juice and leaned back in her chair. “Something about her looks different.” She seemed to be searching for words. “Tired, somehow.”
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