FEATHER
Olivia Wildenstein
Contents
Title page
Angel Hierarchy
French Glossary
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Epilogue
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Also by Olivia Wildenstein
About the Author
Only darkness reveals the reach of a light.
Angel Hierarchy
Seraphim
Also known as archangels. There are seven of them. Highest ranking celestial being.
Verities (pure-blood angels).
Malakim
Soul collectors.
Verities.
Ishim
Rankers. They establish sinner scores.
Verities.
Erelim
Celestial sentinels.
Verities and hybrids.
Ophanim
Guild workers: professors and supervisors.
Mostly hybrids but open to Verities.
Fletchings
Young angels who haven’t yet completed their wings.
Verities and hybrids.
Nephilim
Fallen angels. Disgraced. Wingless. Mortal.
French Glossary
À la tienne. Cheers.
Absolument pas. Absolutely not.
Adieu. Farewell.
Allez-y. Go ahead.
Au revoir. Goodbye.
Bon, tu viens ou pas? Well, are you coming or not?
Bonjour. Good morning.
Bonsoir. Good evening.
Celle-là parle le Français. This one speaks French.
C’est elle, non. That’s her, no?
Elle est mignonne, celle-là. She’s cute, this one.
Elles sont peut-être des putes. They’re probably whores.
Flûte. Shoot.
Hé-oh. Derrière. Hey. Get back in line.
Il y a bien trop de merde dans ce monde. There’s way too much shit in this world.
Incroyable. Incredible.
Jamais de la vie. No way.
Je me la ferais bien, celle-là. I’d do her.
Je n’arrive pas à croire qu’elle a réussie. I can’t believe she succeeded.
L’amie. (in context) The girlfriend.
La bouteille. The bottle.
La petite est un peu jeune pour se prostituer, non? The small one is a little young to prostitute herself, isn’t she?
La Cour des Démons. The Court of Demons.
Le culot de celles-là. The gall of those two.
L’enculé. The asshole.
Les bons coups. Profitable business ventures or good lays.
Loge. Theater box.
Ma chérie. My darling.
Ma petite. Little one.
Ma plume. My feather.
Magnifique. Beautiful.
Merci. Thank you.
Mon amour. My love.
Mon argent. My money.
Non. No.
On va chez vous? We go to your house?
Où à Saint-Germain? Where in Saint-Germain?
Oui. Yes.
Pains au chocolat. Chocolate pastry. Similar to a chocolate croissant as it uses the same puff pastry dough, but instead of being rolled and folded into a triangle, it is a rectangle.
Pardon. Sorry.
Pardonne-moi. Forgive me.
Praliné. Praline (hazelnut spread)
Putain, lâches la meuf. Fuck, let the chick go.
Sablés. Shortbread.
Salaud. Bastard.
S’il vous plaît. Please (formal).
Suis-moi. Follow me.
T’es drôle. You’re funny.
T’es un ange. You’re an angel.
Tu peux aller lui chercher quelque chose à se mettre? Et un pansement. Can you find her something to wear? And a Band-Aid.
Tu t’occupes d’elle? Can you get her ready?
Une vraie merveille. Delicious (though, literally, the words mean: A real wonder)
Viens, ma chérie. Come, sweetheart.
Vous êtes perdue? Are you lost?
Vous êtes si beaux. You two are so handsome.
Prologue
17 years ago - JAROD
Snow drifted from a steel-gray sky the day my mother was buried, powdering the grid of gravestones and mausoleums in the Montparnasse Cemetery. A few people had rolled out of bed to join us, but their reasons for standing by our side were selfish—they either worked for my family or hoped to ingratiate themselves with Uncle.
“Jarod.”
I craned my neck at the sound of my name. Snowflakes hit my dry eyes, melting and coursing down my cheeks, substitutes for my absent tears.
Uncle nodded to the custodian holding a bowl under his arm. For a horrible second, I believed it contained my mother’s ashes, and my limbs seized up.
“It’s just dirt, son.” The cold wind batted Uncle’s words to me. “To toss into the crypt.”
Mimi tightened her arms around my shoulders before pressing a kiss to the top of my head and releasing me to perform my filial duty for a person who’d forsaken her maternal one.
Steeling my spine, I advanced toward the officiant, took the spoon from his thick, hairy fingers, and studied the crumbly soil a long moment before scooping it out and heaving it into the dark pit my mother would never again rise from.
A pit I’d put her in even though Uncle insisted it was my father’s death which had stopped Mother’s heart and not the letter opener.
Chapter 1
Today - LEIGH
I’d never shed a feather.
Which wasn’t to say I was perfect. Perfect angels didn’t have a devastating sweet tooth or an addiction to romance novels. I simply hadn’t lost any feathers because none of my imperfections were true sins. Bless Elysium for that; otherwise, my wing bones would’ve been as bare as a cherub’s bottom.
Over the unrelenting rain and inc
essant honks of cars stuck in after-work traffic, I caught Eve’s dragging groan. “It’s Ben again.”
Although we weren’t encouraged to date, my best friend and I were both a few months short of twenty-one, so boys were never far from our minds, thoughts of them wedged between helping humans and ascending to Elysium, our future home.
Somehow, a yellow cab found a way to speed down the bottlenecked road and splash gutter water over my navy dress and heeled booties. I gasped as cool ochre beads dribbled down my calves and into my shoes.
“It’s not that shocking. He’s been calling me nonstop since—” Eve raised her eyes off her cell phone. When she spotted the wet carnage, she whipped her head in the cabby’s direction, her damp black hair smacking my arm, and yelled words that sounded like obscenities but weren’t.
Unsavory words cost feathers, and although Eve had lost some, she was so close to completing her wings she was extra careful about using angel-approved vocabulary.
“Seriously,” she huffed, offering me the paper napkin we’d picked up in the ice cream shop on our way back to the guild.
We’d run in to take cover from the downpour, but the sweet milky scent had led me straight to the counter. Where Eve had ordered coffee—black—I’d gotten a thick, farm-fresh raspberry milkshake.
She glared at the cab’s taillights. “Some humans are so inconsiderate.”
Balancing precariously on one foot, I scrubbed a questionable brown glob off my ankle.
Eve growled as her phone started ringing anew. “I dance with this guy once at the guild’s Spring Fling, and now he’s calling me several times a day. Ugh.”
“Did you tell him you weren’t interested?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Maybe use more words? Honesty is the best policy,” I added with a smile.
“Fine.” She rammed her finger into her phone’s screen, then mouthed “I’ll catch up in a sec” before gushing, “Ben, hey.” Her voice took on a breathy quality that made me roll my eyes.
If angels bet, I’d wager she’d have plans to hang out with Ben before the week’s end. For all her annoyance with this poor guy, Eve enjoyed attention—especially male attention.
I crossed the road toward the building that housed my angelic home on Earth. The first year I’d been allowed to venture into the human world at the ripe old age of twelve, I would only enter it once the sidewalk was clear of passersby. Which was silly considering humans couldn’t see the opulent quartz residence that sprawled behind the nondescript green door.
I tugged on the handle, feet squishing inside my boots. So gross.
Unlike the wet mess that was New York City, the guild was, as always, warm and sunny, because the sky looming beyond the domed skylights that sheltered every room and hallway was Elysium’s and not Earth’s, and it never rained in the land of angels.
As I skirted around the fountains in the Atrium, a rainbow-winged sparrow dove toward me, then veered right, probably put off by the reek of city rolling off me.
“I’d do the same,” I sighed, just as someone squealed, “He’s coming tonight.”
As I turned down the hallway that led toward my dorm room, I caught the tip of orange feathers swishing around a corner and the squeak of rubber soles on the white quartz floor.
We didn’t have many male visitors in our all-female guild, so who was this he?
I magicked my wings into existence, feeling like they, too, were waterlogged and deserved a little sunshine even though feathers were impermeable and weighed as much as powdered sugar. As I slurped down some of my milkshake, I dug through my bag for another napkin but came up with my dog-eared paperback instead.
“Watch where you’re going, Fletching!” a strident voice I knew oh so well from my endless celestial history classes, screeched right as I banged into a large body.
The contact ripped the paper straw filled with raspberry milkshake from between my teeth and sprayed the thick pink liquid onto the torso of . . .
Of a . . .
I gulped as my gaze climbed up a leather-clad chest that ended in a face chiseled to such perfection it seemed cast from metal instead of flesh.
Before milkshake could drool out of my mouth, I snapped my lips shut but then remembered I owed my victim an apology. I swallowed. “S-Sorry.”
“Clumsy, clumsy girl. Here, let me get that off you, Seraph.” Ophan Mira’s entire hand ignited with golden flames, which she ran over the archangel’s brown leather tunic, burning away the pale splatter before it stained the supple hide.
I blanched. Seraph? I was in the presence of one of the Seven?
Oh, holy baby demon.
The fire must’ve thinned the amount of oxygen in the pale stone hallway, because breathing became supremely arduous.
“Thank you, Ophan.” The archangel had the molten voice of all my imaginary book lovers. “What’s your name, Fletching?”
“M-my name?” I stuttered.
Archangels were at the top of the celestial food chain; Fletchings were at the bottom. I’d never known one to take an interest in us. Then again, they didn’t come around to Earth all that often, too busy reigning over Elysium where a handful of new inhabitants arrived each second.
“This is Leigh,” my history professor said, obviously deeming me incapable of stringing words together.
“Ley, not Lee,” I corrected. How many times had I told Ophan Mira of my preference? Granted, she so rarely used my name, favoring the term Fletching.
“Leigh.” As the archangel pronounced my name, which sounded like warmed honey dripping from his tongue, he inspected my wings.
Although my best feature, I tucked them into my back. Our lineage caused our kind to have two types of feathers: colorful—human-angel mix, colloquially called hybrids—or colorful and metallic—pure angel, otherwise known as Verities.
And then, there was me.
“Verity. Pure Verity,” he murmured in awe. “How rare.”
What my feathers lacked in pigment, they made up for in luster.
“I didn’t even know pure Verities were still being born,” he added, tracing my silver down with his eyes. “How many feathers are you from joining us in Elysium, Leigh?”
“Um . . .” I moistened my lips. “Uh.” His stare was short-circuiting my brain.
I’d heard many stories of the golden boy of Elysium, most from Eve. Only a century and twenty-some-years old and he’d won one of the coveted seats on the Council of Seven after several acts of bravery—most in the human world, but one in the celestial world. That was the one that had landed him the promotion. We weren’t given specifics as to what had happened, just that it had taken place in Abaddon, where he’d volunteered as a guard during his formative years even though most new angels kept away from the dark place infested with high-ranking sinners.
An elbow jammed into my ribs. “Leigh’s missing eighty-one feathers, Seraph.”
He arched an eyebrow in surprise. “Eighty-one?”
I scowled at Eve for volunteering my number. I couldn’t have lied—lies cost feathers—but perhaps, I could’ve deflected the archangel’s question with one of my own.
Anything to drag his focus off my lacking wings.
My friend’s skin began pulsing with light, which thankfully stole his gaze away. Eve was shameless. I would’ve been mortified to display my attraction so publicly. I discreetly checked my bare arms, hoping I wasn’t lit up like a glowworm. Thankfully, I was my usual, pallid self, only wetter.
The archangel crouched, his coppery-turquoise feathers catching every particle of celestial sun drizzling over us. I had the sudden urge to run my palm over his wings, but deliberately touching someone’s wings was a big faux pas. Once you were wed, you could grope away at your partner’s feathers.
When the archangel unfurled his muscled body, I trailed my eyes up to his—turquoise with a swirl of brown around the pupil. Although our feathers didn’t usually match our irises, his did.
“I’ve already e
arned nine hundred and eighty-seven,” Eve chirruped, even though he hadn’t asked, probably because he’d noticed her wings were practically full. “Only thirteen to go.”
“You’re almost ready to ascend.” He shot her a blinding smile before lowering his attention to what was clutched in his hand—my paperback. He studied it, then gave it back without comment. He probably thought it was trashy. Angels weren’t big on romance, deeming it a human trait, in other words, a paltry flaw.
I dragged my hands through my peach-colored hair, cheeks blazing. Not literally. Angel-fire would only be bestowed upon me a few years after I ascended to Elysium and proved my worth.
Ophan Mira angled her thin body between us. “Excuse me, Seraph Asher, but the Ophanim are eagerly awaiting you.”
I backed up because her red feathers tickled my nose.
“My apologies, Ophan,” Asher said, winking at me beyond my professor’s shoulder.
He extended his wings as though he were stretching, but angels only spread their wings when they were about to fly or in a show of dominance. Since his booted feet hadn’t lifted off the quartz floor, I assumed it was to put me back in my place for not averting my gaze, which would’ve been the customary procedure to abide by in the presence of such a powerful being.
Feather (Angels of Elysium Book 1) Page 1