Feather (Angels of Elysium Book 1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

She blinked at the bill, then at me, but didn’t say thank you. Hopefully, she’d use the money to feed her kid although I sadly doubted this. We had our fair share of beggars back in New York City, and most of them traded their cash for alcohol or gave it to their organization’s boss.

  I continued down the tunnel, hurrying when the grating sound of a train braking echoed against the tiled quay, and all but flew down a steep flight of stairs, lurching into the train right before the glass doors clasped shut.

  Four stops later, I changed trains at an even busier station and then spent another ten minutes rocked sideways in a metal tube snaking under Paris. When I emerged above ground, I greedily gulped in air that didn’t smell like a thousand bodies.

  How I longed to fly.

  I checked the navy plaque nailed to the building on the street corner to figure out where I was standing. Once I situated myself, I headed east toward the manicured square and the foreboding red doors. As I walked, I deliberated on the case I was about to plead to be allowed one more audience with the Demon Court’s leader.

  I shuddered at the idea of going back inside and facing Jarod, but when I reached the crimson entrance, I pressed the buzzer. Unlike yesterday, the door didn’t click open. I waited before ringing again. Nothing. I supposed Jarod had passed around the order not to let me in.

  He couldn’t stay locked inside forever, though. And considering his line of work, he was bound to receive a visitor. I was good at waiting people out.

  I took the book I’d brought along and settled against one of the arcade’s stone pillars, angling the pages toward the lamppost. I’d wait all night if that’s what it took.

  An hour later, I shut the book, shocked by the final plot twist—the duke hadn’t gotten the girl; the stable boy had. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the turn of events. I’d been so certain the heroine would end up with the duke that I’d discarded the stable boy, and here he was besting his sovereign.

  “I thought she was leaving the country,” a gruff voice said.

  I jerked my gaze off the cover, almost giving myself whiplash.

  Tristan’s light eyes sparked in the obscurity, and a smile flipped the corners of his mouth up.

  Before he could say I told you so, I wet my lips. “Monsieur Adler, I know you didn’t want to see me—”

  “Jarod.”

  “What?”

  He crossed his arms, stretching the sleeves of his fine navy suit. Skull-and-bones cufflinks gleamed on his white shirt cuffs. “Monsieur Adler was my uncle.”

  “Oh. Um, okay.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “To explain my motivations.” The only way he’d accept my help was if I packaged it as something else entirely. “I bet my best friend I could get you to do one kind act, and I stand to lose a lot if I fail.” I waited for a feather to loosen from my wings because I hadn’t actually placed any wagers. Angels weren’t allowed to gamble, not even if it wasn’t for monetary gain. For some reason, perhaps because there was some truth in what I’d just said, no feather detached itself from my wings.

  “Kind acts don’t benefit me in any way.”

  “They benefit your soul.”

  His nostrils pulsed with a snort. “I like my soul just the way it is.”

  I gaped at him. He’s a Triple, I reminded myself. Triples don’t care about their souls, the same way they don’t care about anyone but themselves. I glanced at the street that was empty of passersby and cars. What was I still doing here?

  Right . . .

  Celeste.

  Asherceleste.

  “You wouldn’t like your soul the way it was if you knew what it meant,” I said.

  “What it meant?” Jarod dipped his stubble-coated chin into his neck. “What does it mean, Feather?”

  I was about to feed him a basic explanation, the one we were allowed to share with humans, when my mind caught up with the word he’d just uttered. Feather. The pounding in my chest migrated to my temples. “Why did you call me that?”

  “Why did I call you what?”

  “You just called her Feather,” Tristan supplied.

  Time stretched on endlessly before Jarod said, “Because she looks soft and spineless. Like a feather.”

  I should’ve winced or balked at the use of the word soft—first Tristan, now Jarod . . . couldn’t I be described any other way?—but the nickname struck too close to home. “Worms are spineless; feathers have shafts.”

  “Shafts aren’t spines.” A smile played on Jarod’s lips. “But if you’d rather I call you Worm—”

  “No! Feather’s fine.” I licked my lips. “Does this mean you’ll give me a second chance?”

  “Well, you’re nicer to look at than Tristan.”

  “Salaud,” Tristan cursed, but his chuckling told me he wasn’t angry.

  Jarod pivoted toward the porte-cochère. “This should be amusing.”

  This wouldn’t be amusing. Not in the least. But if I could get him to amend just one of his terrible ways, then it would be worth it.

  As he rang his own doorbell—did he not have a key to his house?—he turned back toward me, “How long before your bet expires?”

  “A month.”

  Click.

  He pressed his fingers into the lacquered wood. “You have twenty-four hours.”

  “What?” I squeaked.

  “I’m yours for a day. Once your time’s up, you’ll never seek me out again, and you’ll stop stalking me.”

  “I’m not stalking you.”

  He tipped his head to the pillar I’d been leaning against and the book still clutched in my hands. “What do you call frequenting my doorstep? Sightseeing?”

  Okay, perhaps, I had been stalking him.

  “In twenty-four hours, I want you gone from my life forever. Take it or leave it, Feather. Makes no difference to me.”

  My heart ticked like a bomb inside my chest. Could I reform this man in a day? “The hours you sleep don’t count in my allotted time frame.”

  “She drives a hard bargain,” Tristan mused.

  “Fine,” Jarod said.

  Tristan sidled in close to me and murmured, “Well done, Leigh.”

  I turned wide eyes on him, wondering why he was congratulating me.

  His hand landed on the small of my back. “Jarod isn’t in the habit of giving second chances.”

  “The minutes you spend flirting with my staff count triple.” Jarod’s voice snapped my gaze and body away from Tristan.

  “I wasn’t flirting,” I said, scrambling toward the door Jarod was holding open.

  Tristan started to follow, but Jarod said, “Go home. I have everything under control.”

  A flicker of hesitation crossed Tristan’s face, hesitation that made my stomach clench like a fist. I didn’t really know Tristan any better than Jarod, but he felt like a buffer, and I sort of wanted a buffer. I kept my mouth shut, though. I wouldn’t show weakness. This was my one shot. A hundred feathers could be mine before the day was even over.

  Injecting as much courage as I could muster inside my spine, I squared my back and walked past Jarod. Would he give me a fair chance, or did he have nefarious plans for me?

  “What’s on your mind, Feather?”

  “Are you going to call me that all the time now?”

  “You mean for the next twenty-four hours we’ll know each other? Yes. Unless you like Leigh better.”

  Why did he have to make my name sound so awful? “I don’t like the way you say it.”

  “What’s wrong with the way I say it?”

  I narrowed my eyes to show him I wasn’t buying his mock act of innocence.

  He smirked. “Feather it’ll stay, then.”

  When the heavy door clanged shut, I let out a muted gasp. Open air stretched over the courtyard, yet I had never felt so confined.

  Jarod stared at my parted lips, then at my eyes, and then at my hair, which I tucked behind my ears nervously. He took a step forward and flicked a lock, holding it up t
o the thin light dripping from the iron and glass lantern above us.

  I pushed his fingers away. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking if the color’s real.”

  “That’s really none of your business.”

  “I like to know what sort of person I’m dealing with. Women who color their hair a brash color do so to stand out, and yet you strike me as an introvert.”

  “It’s real, okay?” Under my breath, I added, “Trust me, if I could change it to something normal, I would.” Dyes didn’t take to angelic hair. I’d tried. Several times.

  “If you could change it?” His eyebrows dipped. “Is it against your faith to dye your hair?”

  “I’m not wasting the twenty-four hours you so generously allotted me on a discussion about my hair, okay?”

  A corner of his mouth tilted up. “What shall we discuss then? The weather?”

  “Ways you can become a better man.”

  He snorted. “I’m a lost cause, Feather. If I were you, I wouldn’t bother.”

  “But you’re not me.” I brushed my forearms to ward off the nippiness of the April night.

  “I’d much rather discuss your hair.”

  “And if you truly believed you were a lost cause, why give me a second chance?”

  No longer smiling, he said, “I have my reasons.”

  My skin broke out in goose bumps. “Which are?”

  “Unimportant.”

  I should’ve signed off and picked someone else. Someone who didn’t look like a predator who enjoyed playing with his food.

  “Are you going to lock me up and torture me?” I found myself asking.

  “I promised you twenty-four hours, not an explanation for making that promise.”

  He started toward Amir, who stood on the threshold of the limestone mansion like a steel beam, glowering at me as though I were some rat Jarod had plucked out of the sewers and brought home to keep as his pet.

  “Are you coming, Feather? You only have twenty-three hours and forty-seven minutes left to make me amend my terrible ways.”

  The mocking tone of his voice wasn’t lost on me. He didn’t believe I could change him. Truth was, I didn’t believe it myself, but I desperately wanted my missing feathers, so I jolted forward, my bronze heels scraping against the cobblestones. As I passed by the fountain, my gaze wandered to the statue’s ruined back.

  Not an omen, Leigh.

  Then why did it feel like one?

  A full body shiver skittered through me as I entered the house.

  “You seem captivated by my fountain,” Jarod said.

  I looked up into his dusky face. “Shame it’s broken.”

  “I thought you had a fascination with broken things.”

  I examined his hooded eyes. The lighting in the vestibule was low, but I could tell they were a shade of brown so deep they could be confused with black. “Duty, not fascination,” I answered as I sidestepped him.

  Muriel wasn’t there tonight, and the door that led to the incubi den was propped open, so I treaded over to it.

  “Your bag, Feather,” Jarod said. “I don’t allow cell phones inside my home.”

  I tucked the supple leather against me. “I won’t use it.”

  “Another reason to leave it behind.”

  I bit my lip, then shaking my head, I unhooked the bag from my shoulder and held it out. Amir seized it.

  “He’ll take good care of it,” Jarod said.

  His bodyguard didn’t seem like the type to take good care of anything. He seemed like the type who crushed throats with his giant fists and skulls with his meaty head.

  As I started to turn, Jarod asked, “Are you going to fix her up once you’re done with me?”

  “What?”

  “The statue in my fountain.” He unfastened the collar of his white shirt.

  “Depends.” I watched him undo another button, revealing a scattering of dark chest hair. “Did you keep her wings?” I raised my gaze up the length of his neck, catching the sharp bob of his Adam’s apple.

  “No. I turned them to dust.”

  “Then there isn’t much I can do for her.” I treaded past him, praying my fate would be kinder than his statue’s. That I’d leave La Cour des Démons with my wings intact.

  Or heavier.

  Heavier would be good.

  Chapter 13

  The den that had been used for the party was in fact an outsized dining room. The long, varnished table must’ve been pushed to the side last night, because I couldn’t recall seeing it, and considering it could comfortably seat sixteen people, there was no way I could’ve missed it.

  A faded tapestry of a hunting scene stretched the length of one wall; three sets of French doors, all giving onto the courtyard, ran the length of the other. The ceiling was the most spectacular part of the room. Cherubs—the way humans pictured them to be, winged and chubby—flew across a blue sky or peeked out from behind fluffy clouds.

  “Uncle had it decorated for my mother as a wedding present. It was her favorite thing in the house. I’ve been meaning to have it painted over.”

  I whipped my gaze off the mural.

  “I was thinking eggshell. Or maybe I should go with black. To match my soul.”

  I sensed he was trying to rile me up. If he’d wanted to erase his mother’s favorite thing, he would’ve done it before. “Why do you want to get rid of your mother, Jarod? Was she not nice to you?”

  The sharp lines of his face hardened. I wasn’t sure if he was angry with me or with the woman who’d found cherubs endearing. I suddenly wished his file had told me more about him.

  “Do you eat anything besides rainbows, Feather?”

  His question jarred me. “Rainbows?”

  The sharpness dulled from his features. Which wasn’t to say he looked soft. There was nothing soft about Jarod Adler.

  “Pots of gold, but only for breakfast,” I ended up saying.

  My answer earned me a smile I might’ve called devastating if I weren’t still terrified about what lurked beneath it.

  “I’ll let Muriel know.”

  “Does she have a supplier?”

  “And here I assumed zealots were dull.”

  “You have a surprisingly large number of preconceived notions about zealots. I’m assuming I’m not the first zealot you’ve encountered.”

  His gaze dug into mine.

  Before I could ask him about the others, the doors of the dining room opened.

  “Pardonne-moi, Jarod. I didn’t know you were entertaining.”

  “You’re mistaken, Mimi. I’m the one being entertained.”

  Mimi? Did Jarod have a nickname for every woman in his life? Not that I was a woman in his life—even though, technically, I was a woman and would be in his life for the next twenty-three and some hours.

  Muriel raised an easy smile. In spite of her heavy makeup, she was a beautiful woman. “Would you like some dinner?”

  “I’d love some dinner.”

  Her smile grew. “Will your guest be joining you?”

  “She will,” Jarod answered for me.

  “Thank you,” I said before she left.

  “Of course.” She shut the door.

  “She cares a lot for you,” I said.

  Jarod shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the back of one the upholstered dining chairs before dropping into the seat at the head of the table. “She’s paid to care.”

  I startled. “That’s not why she cares.”

  He scooted back and crossed one foot over his knee, his pant leg riding up, revealing a red sock that matched the pocket square I’d spied adorning his jacket. “She wouldn’t stay if I cut her off.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Of course, you don’t. In your world, everyone’s good and kind.”

  My throat went dry. “In my world?”

  “You obviously live in a bubble, Leigh. It takes someone supremely guileless to stroll into my lair expecting kindness.”
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  I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or offended.

  He stretched his neck from side to side, and it cracked. “So, now, tell me why you need to win this bet. What is it you stand to lose?”

  “Something I want.”

  “Which is?”

  “Unimportant,” I said, tossing the word he’d used earlier back at him.

  “I have no doubt it’s unimportant, doubtlessly superficial, but color me interested. What is it you want so badly you’re willing to spend a day with someone as terrible as me?”

  “Why do you do what you do?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why do you kill or torture, or whatever else you do in your organization?”

  I was expecting him to lob another question at me, but he leaned back and draped his arm over the carved wooden frame of his seat that looked more throne than house chair. “Because I enjoy punishing people.”

  A frisson went through me. “Why?”

  “Why do you feel the need to fix people, Feather?” Jarod was a professional deflector. Every time I got too close to something, he either mocked me or changed the topic.

  “To give them a chance at a better life.”

  “Well, I enjoy punishing people because it gives the ones they’ve wronged a chance at a better life.”

  “How do you choose who gets punished?”

  “Usually by large donations, but the first of every month, I allow the destitute to come and plead their case. I’m like a real-live Robin Hood.”

  I took the seat to Jarod’s left. “Robin Hood was a robber and murderer who considered himself above the law and gained notoriety by being a petty criminal. You shouldn’t pick him as a role model.”

  That wiped the easygoing expression right off Jarod’s face. “You’re not a feather; you’re a quill,” he grumbled.

  Before I could tell him I wasn’t trying to make him mad, the tall double doors swept open, and Muriel trotted in along with two men wearing starched gray uniforms. While one placed embroidered placemats and fabric napkins folded like fans before us, the other set down dinner plates topped with roast chicken, thinly sliced carrots, and a dollop of what smelled like mashed potatoes.

  Muriel proffered a gravy dish.

  I seized the silver ladle to drizzle sauce over my fragrant meal. “Smells delicious.”