Feather (Angels of Elysium Book 1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  The sommelier filled my glass before topping off Jarod’s and leaving with the bottle nestled against his chest as though it were a newborn infant.

  “Who did?” I picked up my glass and sniffed the liquid curiously. Delicious notes of spun sugar and candied apricots eddied off the golden surface. I took a small sip and all but purred when the nectar hit my tongue.

  Maybe, I did purr, because an even heftier smugness draped over Jarod’s already complacent self. “Good?”

  “Ambrosial.” I took another sip, then licked my lips.

  Jarod’s gaze lingered on my mouth before moving to the golden-framed fabric panel depicting a head of cabbage and various other pastel vegetables behind me.

  I set my glass back down beside a plate so ornate it belonged on a wall instead of on a dinner table. “You were saying someone came by to see you.”

  “Right.” He cleared his throat and returned his attention to me. “My dear cousin stopped by.”

  My eyebrows jolted. So that was why Asher had returned to Paris . . .

  I sat up straighter. “What did he want?”

  “He wanted to know what lies I’d been feeding you.”

  My pulse detonated, speeding my blood flow to the point where my limbs felt vaporous. “And what did you tell him?”

  “The same thing I told him when he arrived on the scene seventeen years ago.” Jarod reclined in his chair, nursing the wineglass that looked like it belonged to a doll’s tea set in his hands. “That she’s dead because of me.”

  My spine locked up. “But that’s a lie. Muriel told me what happened.”

  “You never considered Muriel fabricated a story to protect me?”

  Had Muriel fibbed to cast Jarod in a better light? Had I just raised Heaven and Hell over a lie?

  I caught the flutter of a nerve beside his temple. Even though he had no wings to shed feathers from, the mixture of pain and anger lacquering his irises told me Muriel’s account was truthful. Not only that, but if she had lied, she wouldn’t have placed him on the scene of the crime. She would’ve cast him as far away from it as humanly possible and would certainly not have mentioned he’d touched the murder weapon.

  “A woman who cares so deeply about someone else would’ve invented a much better lie. One where the little boy she loved wasn’t in the house and wasn’t clutching the blood-soaked letter opener.”

  He pressed his lips together.

  “And before you try to convince me otherwise,” I said, my voice barely over a whisper even though his bodyguards had stayed in the street and there was only one other table occupied at this late hour, “sliding a blade out of someone’s heart isn’t what put the hole there in the first place.”

  “The best lies contain some truths.”

  “I’m certain you’re well-versed in lying, Jarod Adler, but I’m also certain your eight-year-old self did not murder anyone.”

  A tendon flexed in his neck. “I wanted her dead. I wished it so often. I even told her.”

  “Your loathing wasn’t what killed her.”

  A waiter arrived with a platter, which he placed on a little stand. He removed my pretty plate and replaced it with another equally sumptuous one at the center of which stood a work of organic art—a toasted brioche cleaved in half and topped with a thick slice of pink foie gras, upon which had been pinwheeled a fig and spice paste. The delightful sight and smell buffeted some of my anger and indignation.

  Once the waiter left, having deposited a delicate poached egg with chanterelles in front of Jarod, I said, “You have to tell Asher the truth.”

  “I have.” His lips barely stirred around his words.

  “You told him you didn’t plant that letter opener in her chest?”

  Jarod smacked the tabletop, and it made the cutlery jump and the wine shiver. “Doesn’t fucking matter who planted it in her fucking heart.”

  “It does matter,” I hissed, sensing the eyes of the sommelier and the couple seated by the window. “You’re a Triple, Jarod. A Triple doesn’t get a chance at another life. If your number doesn’t go down, this one’ll be it for you. When you die, it’s game over.”

  Every line on his face tensed, which led me to deduce he’d never been told any of this. But then he leaned further forward and spat out, “One’s plenty. I don’t need a second life.”

  “Needing is beside the point. Your soul shouldn’t be annihilated because of some technical error.”

  “Will you let it go?”

  “It’s not fair, Jarod.”

  “Life isn’t fair,” he growled. “When will you get that through that coddled brain of yours?”

  A strong desire to bolt wound up my muscles, but I stayed seated, because me leaving was what Jarod wanted, what he expected. My fingers curled around the arms of the chair. I wasn’t strong yet felt like I could tear the wood clean off. Maybe, I should. At least then, I’d have something to throw at the pigheaded sinner.

  “Get out!” I thought he was snarling at me, but he was turned toward the sommelier and the couple.

  “Who do you think—” the man started.

  “Sybille!” Jarod shouted, and the perfectly coiffed matron who’d greeted and seated us clip-clopped inside the room. “Please escort monsieur and madame out. And put their meal on my tab.”

  “Of course, Monsieur Adler.” She squared her shoulders, then calmly explained how terribly sorry she was to abort their meal in such an abrupt matter.

  Chair legs scraped the parquet, and then muttering how he’d never been thrown out of a restaurant before, the man yanked on his date’s hand and pulled her up and out before she managed to hook her quilted bag’s chain strap onto her shoulder.

  Even though I felt bad about their dismissal, I was also grateful to no longer have an audience.

  I turned my glare back down to my plate, the pinkish liver, yellow bread, and muddy paste smearing together.

  “Leigh?”

  “What?” The word snapped out of me like Cupid’s arrow—not that Cupid existed. Angels only dealt in souls, not in hearts.

  “Let me worry about my soul, okay? Let it be my burden, not yours.”

  I lifted my wet eyes to him. Great Elysium, how this man could infuriate me! “It’s too late for that.”

  His face had been scrubbed clean of anger. In its stead was confusion. “What do you mean, it’s too late?”

  I closed my eyes and palmed my cheeks. When I opened them again, he was right there, his chair tucked in next to mine.

  He captured one of my wrists and towed it off my face. “What do you mean it’s too late?” he asked again.

  “Do you know how celestial missions work?”

  He twisted his lips. “You earn feathers for helping people.”

  I nodded. “But we only earn them for the people we sign up to help on the Ranking System. Sinners are ranked by degrees of sinning, the worst rank being one hundred.” I locked my eyes on his, and slowly, like a ripple smoothing, he came back into focus. “A Triple.”

  “What I am,” he said slowly.

  “Exactly. If I’d managed to get your rank down, I would’ve earned your number in feathers, and since I was only missing eighty-one before taking you on, I would’ve ascended. But your score is locked, because the Ishim—the rankers—are certain you killed a Nephilim—a fallen angel—and even though, in my world, Nephilim are detested, especially those who choose to give up their wings . . . like your mother.” I paused, allowing him a moment to digest all I was sharing. “Spilling angel-blood is the gravest and most unforgivable sin.”

  A flurry of emotions took flight over Jarod’s face. “Whether I killed her or not, Feather, my soul is far from shiny.”

  “I can work with far from shiny.”

  He lowered his eyes to the starched white tablecloth. “It’ll be a waste of your time.”

  I cupped his prickly jaw to bring his gaze back up to mine. “No deserving soul is a waste of my time.”

  He laid his hand over mine, and
the heat of his palm penetrated into my knuckles and warmed my chilled skin.

  “Don’t tell me to let you go, Jarod. Because I can’t. I won’t.”

  He glided my hand off his jaw but didn’t release it. “You said it was too late. What did you mean?”

  “I can only earn feathers for the mission I’m signed on to. If I don’t sign off from you, I don’t complete my wings. If I don’t complete my wings, I can’t ascend.” I left out the part about them falling off my back in fourteen months’ time. I’d laid enough on his plate for one night.

  His grip became bruisingly tight on my fingers before slackening and vanishing altogether. He moved his hand to his armrest. “Why?” His voice simmered with rage again. “Why would you sacrifice your wings for a stranger?”

  “Because my people—our people—robbed you of your right to access Elysium. I will not let them rob you of your soul.”

  “Feather . . .” he whispered, but his voice carried no more heat.

  Before he could plead for me to let him go again, I said, “I want no part in a bigoted world.”

  “This one’s not much better.”

  “At least humans don’t pretend they’re something they’re not.”

  His lips bent a fraction. “Some do.”

  I tossed my hands in the air, then banded my arms in front of my chest. “Fine. You win. This world isn’t better than ours. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Hey . . .” Jarod clasped the back of my neck, which I tried to keep twisted away from him but failed to. “I’m sorry for being such a venal, ungrateful ass.”

  I side-eyed him.

  “Thank you for fighting for my soul.”

  I still didn’t say anything.

  “But I don’t want your soul to get damaged in the celestial crossfire.” His thumb set on my neck.

  “Don’t worry about my soul, Jarod,” I said in a toneless voice.

  “I’ll make you a deal.”

  I felt my eyebrows lower.

  “I’ll stop worrying about your soul when you stop worrying about mine.”

  I was surprised my hammering pulse hadn’t knocked his thumb off my skin. “I’ll stop worrying about it when you admit to Asher you didn’t plant that letter opener in your mother’s chest.”

  “I already did.”

  I broke free of his hold. “What?”

  “I told him I only removed it.”

  “You couldn’t have led with that?”

  “I could’ve, but then, I would’ve missed out on all the fun and surprises of our sparkling dinner conversation.”

  I gaped at him, then snapped my jaw closed. “I would’ve told you all of it if you’d asked.”

  “I know.” He plowed his hand through his hair.

  “You’re so infuriating.”

  “Hey, I didn’t sign up to me.” He smirked. “You did that all on your own. Should’ve spent more time scrolling through available sinners and vetting the contenders.”

  Telling him my best friend had forced my hand was on the tip of my tongue, but it felt venomous. Hadn’t I been spiteful enough for one evening? Besides, I wasn’t focusing on the most important aspect, which was that Asher had heard the truth from Jarod’s lips. Maybe the archangel was adjusting my sinner’s score as we spoke. Or, at least, unlocking it.

  Soon, Jarod’s soul would lighten, and his rank would drop. Perhaps, one day, he’d even dip beneath the bar of fifty and avoid Abaddon altogether.

  My chest flared with hope and with something else . . . nostalgia. If Asher was correcting Jarod’s score, the countdown to my ascension would begin. I would be locked out of this world for a century until the archangels bestowed the key to the Channels upon me.

  My gaze strayed over the beveled mirrors hung in thin gold frames, the crystals dripping like fat raindrops from the lavish chandelier, the crushed velvets, and sculpted granite mantles before returning to the sharp ridges of Jarod’s face.

  How I would miss this world and these imperfect humans.

  “You haven’t tasted the foie gras yet,” Jarod said, scooting his chair back across the table from me. “I’m dying to see what you think of it.”

  I concentrated on the here and now. “See?”

  He picked up his diminutive glass of wine, swirled it, then tipped it inside his mouth. “Your skin is very expressive, Feather.”

  On cue, my cheeks warmed, so I angled my face toward my plate and focused on my food. “And your skin is very hairy,” I muttered under my breath.

  He rended the quiet room with a bark of laughter.

  Chapter 34

  When we got back to his home after our delicious meal, my body couldn’t decide whether it was sinking or floating. I’d had too much to eat and drink, but I’d also tossed an anvil off my shoulders.

  “Do all angels enjoy food as much as you do?” Jarod’s gaze lingered on his statue, on her chopped wings.

  “No. We’re urged to live a life of moderation. Haven’t you noticed how thin all the others are?”

  Jarod shifted his attention from the stone to my flesh. “What exactly do you think you are?”

  “Certainly not thin.” I suddenly regretted overindulging tonight—not that it had cost me any feathers. The thought that it might had crossed my mind and stuck like a fly to a cobweb. Hadn’t kept me from eating the three desserts Jarod had ordered, though.

  “And thank God for that.”

  “God doesn’t exist,” I deadpanned.

  He snorted, but a smile tugged at his lips.

  I sighed, touching my full belly. “Next time, don’t order the entire menu.”

  “Next time, huh?”

  “Not that there needs to be a next time,” I mumbled, surely turning the color of the candied beets, which had been served atop a small mound of tangy goat cheese.

  “Would you like there to be one?”

  I side-eyed him, and then I side-eyed Luc, steeped in the shadows of the porch. He didn’t seem to be paying attention, but how could he not? Nothing else was happening around him.

  I tossed the ball back in Jarod’s court. “Would you like there to be a next time? And don’t play the I asked first card.”

  His smirk reached all the way into his eyes that seemed as luminous as the glass chandelier Muriel had left on in the checkered marble foyer. “Surprisingly, I’d love to share another meal with you, Feather.”

  “Surprisingly,” I muttered.

  “You did hear all I said after that word?”

  Considering my heart had grown wings of its own, yes, I’d heard all of the words that had followed. Would there even be a next time, though? I wished I could magick my wings into existence to test their weight, but Jarod hated them as much as he loathed desserts.

  “I did,” I said, starting up again, but Jarod barred the entrance to his house by extending his arm.

  “You have to answer my question to gain entry into my domain,” he said.

  “I just did.”

  “I meant the question I asked before that one.”

  “Surprisingly, I’d love to share another meal with you, too.” Lunch. Whatever happened, I would still be around for lunch.

  His smile didn’t grow, but it firmed up like the caramel cage around the praliné ice cream I’d devoured while he’d watched on, nursing a second brandy. “Zero points for creativity, but one for enthusiasm.”

  “What?”

  “You rank us; only fair I rank you.”

  I shook my head but smiled.

  “Don’t worry, your superior looks earn you lots of points.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to blush or balk, so I did both, which made Jarod chuckle. He retracted his arm, then held the door open for me.

  It took my legs a moment to work after that offbeat compliment. Superior. Did that mean he considered me beautiful or a notch under? What was a notch under anyway? Cute? Puppies and children were cute. Was that how Jarod saw me? Like a child? More importantly, though, why did I care how he saw me? H
e was my sinner, not my love interest.

  Sighing, I stepped past him and into the house that was so quiet I felt the need to whisper, “I’ll just get my bag—”

  “How about one more drink?”

  I twirled around as Jarod clicked the door closed behind him, no bodyguard in tow. “I don’t need one more drink.”

  He circled me. “Since when do we need the things we want?”

  “I don’t want one either, Jarod.”

  My answer blotted his pleasant mood.

  “But I’d enjoy spending more time in your company.”

  By increments, the darkness cleared from his face. “You could’ve led with that,” he finally said, which elicited a cheek-splitting grin on my part.

  “Zero points for creativity, Monsieur Adler,” I teased him. “You just recycled words I used earlier.”

  My mind blanked when he linked his fingers with mine and pulled me into his study. After he sealed us inside, he flicked on the sconces and the light fixture over the oil portrait of the horse, then released my hand, crossed the wide room, and heaved the curtains closed.

  I watched him move around the room with a manner so elegant and dark it was bewitching. As he poured himself a tumbler of something, my gaze slid down the length and breadth of him. He was a man sculpted from obsidian and starlight, not flesh and sins. If anyone was the sinner in this room, it was me.

  The girl who couldn’t stop watching.

  The girl who couldn’t stop wondering if his breath would taste like fire and spice, or mineral and sweet like his fragrance.

  “Tired, Feather?”

  “What?” My voice sounded like it was coming from miles away.

  “You’re sparkling.”

  The rushing stilled in my ears.

  Oh . . . sweet cherubs . . . no.

  I feigned a yawn, which made his mouth tick up as he stalked back toward me.

  “Do you need to be plugged in?”

  “Very funny.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “You could always take a nap in my bed.”

  Even though there was no mirror, I suspected that even my eyeballs had started glittering. Did that happen?

  When he got close enough that I could smell the smokiness lifting off his drink and the sweetness lifting off his neck, I eyed the drapes, keen to cocoon myself in them until my skin returned to normal. But then, what?