I slid my mouth off his and panted his name into his mussed hair followed by: “We have to stop.”
He sighed, and the sound was muffled by my skin. When he vaulted off the bed, cool air slicked over my warmed skin, pebbling it. I missed the weight and heat of him, the mineral and musky scent of him, and yet the reasonable part of my brain, which had shrunk considerably during the night, celebrated having been listened to.
Jarod smiled down at the mess of limbs and scattered heartbeats he’d made of me before extending his hand. I took it, allowing him to pull me up. I bumped into his body, unsteady like a toddler learning to walk.
Splaying his palm on my waist, he tilted his head down. “Do you want to meet Celeste on your own?”
“Celeste?” I was fully awake now. “Celeste’s here?”
“That’s what Mimi said.”
Crap. Crap. Crap. I swirled away from Jarod and rooted around my handbag for my phone. Ten missed calls. All from Celeste. I was the worst friend. I should’ve called her or sent her a message that I was safe and sound. I pulled out a violet crepe slip and was about to yank off my T-shirt when I remembered Jarod was in the room.
His gaze was riveted to me. “Don’t stop on my account.”
Skating my fingers through my hair in an attempt to tame the thick mass, I said, “Turn around.”
When he didn’t, and I’d given him ample time to do so, I turned, pulled off my T-shirt and slipped on the dress that coasted like hot oil down my body, stopping mid-calf, then fastened the strip of brown leather I used as a belt. It was only after I was done buckling yesterday’s espadrilles that I looked up at Jarod. He hadn’t moved, and his eyes had gone serial-killer dark.
I walked over to him and chucked him under the chin, giving him a dose of his own medicine. “I’ll see you downstairs.” I kissed his scruffy jaw. “Maybe give me a little time alone with Celeste, though, okay?”
His Adam’s apple worked in his throat as he offered me a heavy nod. My pleasure at leaving him in such a perplexed state—only fair—faded when I remembered our wake-up call. I hoped Muriel didn’t think terrible things of me . . .
Steeling my spine, I went downstairs to find out.
“Bonjour, ma chérie. Your friend’s in the dining room. I laid out some breakfast.” Muriel sounded so cheery that I was both relieved and mystified. “Would you like scrambled eggs? I’m making some for Celeste.” She smiled wide, revealing the thin gap between her front teeth that somehow added to her classical beauty.
“Um. Sure.” Even though the guard who stood in the checkered foyer didn’t look my way, a blush pricked up my neck. “Thank you,” I added, all but diving into the dining room.
Celeste’s gaze rushed to me, but she stayed seated, rigid as a breadstick, amber eyes rimmed with circles that rivaled the tint of my dress. “Had a good night? Because mine sucked.”
“I’m so sorry, honey. My phone was on silent mode.” I took the seat next to hers. “But I told you I was coming here.”
“You didn’t tell me you’d be sleeping over! This is a freaking mobster’s house,” she hissed.
“I know.”
“Do you?” she said so harshly I bristled.
“He’s my sinner; not yours.” Even if her heart was in the right place, her words were out of line.
She must’ve sensed she’d overstepped because her brow pleated. “I started imagining—I was so worried.”
I laid my hands over the ones buried atop her narrow lap. “I know, sweetie, but I promise you don’t need to be worried. Jarod didn’t force me to stay, and he was a perfect gentleman.”
Celeste must’ve trusted me, because her gaze didn’t stray to the rug underneath my chair for a fallen feather.
I squeezed her clammy hands. “Thank you for checking up on me, though.”
Her big eyes filled with tears, and she lunged toward me, hooking her arms around my neck. “I’m going to miss you so much.”
I smiled into her hair. “Just because I stayed over one night doesn’t mean I’m moving in with Jarod.”
“Oh, Leigh,” she sobbed.
“How about we spend the whole day together? And tonight, we can go to that Japanese ramen place in the First you wanted to try.”
Sniffling, she pulled away. “You’ll be gone before tonight.”
“Gone?” I frowned. “Where is it I’m going?”
“Asher revised his score.”
My pulse went from zero to a hundred in a second. “What?”
“Asher changed Jarod’s score.”
Ice. I became ice.
“You’re going to ascend today. And I won’t see you for—” Her lower lip overtook her upper one and wobbled. “For so many years. Maybe forever at the rate I’m building my wings.”
Asher had altered Jarod’s sinner score? He’d admitted his wrong and made it right?
Even though a part of me had dared hope for this, had even prepared for this, I had trouble wrapping my mind around it. “Wow. I’m—I—wow.”
Celeste palmed her shiny freckled cheeks. “You did it, Leigh.”
I stared past her at the silken sashes hooked around the heavy drapes, letting in the morning sunshine. Even though the fountain wasn’t carved from polished stone, the angel seemed to shine.
“Now you just have to get him to pick you so that you can—so that you can keep changing things.”
I blinked away from the statue. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Celeste’s dimples made an appearance. “You’re not going to be able to change the century-year rule until after you’re married.”
“Celeste, I’m not getting married, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“But—I—what?”
I slid my lower lip between my teeth, trying to decide how best to explain my self-inflicted predicament. “Last night, I decided I wasn’t ready to leave so I . . . so I chose to lighten my wings.”
Her dimples vanished.
“I made a lot of feathers fall. I’m not certain how many . . . just enough that if Asher changed his mind, I wouldn’t be dragged away from Earth. I’m not ready to leave.” Jarod’s face flashed behind my lids—his crumpled hair, his heavily lashed eyes, and his chiseled body. I shivered as I recalled the gentle strokes of his hand and his not so gentle lips.
Celeste’s mouth popped open.
I smiled. “So, you’re not losing me today.”
She neither closed her mouth nor said a thing.
“Or tomorrow.”
As I watched my confession work itself through her, I wondered if Asher had changed Jarod’s score because he realized he’d made a mistake or because he’d sensed my growing affection for the sinner and wanted to take me away from him. Then again, I hadn’t sensed it, so the archangel probably hadn’t either. Unless the Ishim had somehow watched me interact with Jarod and told Asher I’d smoldered the sinner. I chose to believe he’d unlocked Jarod’s score out of righteousness.
I magicked my wings into existence, curious to see if their weight had changed. Bringing them out awakened a shallow ache. I stretched them out under Celeste’s watchful gaze, casting tinsels all over her dazed face and the heavily upholstered dining room. Their weight hadn’t changed so much as their breadth. Even though my new feathers were mere puffs of down, they edged my wings like the softest fur, prolonging their gilded range. In a few days, they’d be fully grown.
I stroked them, pondering what memory of my time with Jarod each one contained. How did the Ishim slip memories into the shafts? Did they sift through my mind and allot memories, or did their well-oiled system attribute memories at random? I suddenly wished I’d asked more questions about the Ishim instead of focusing on the Malakim, whose ranks I’d wanted to join since I was a pintsized Fletching.
The doors of the dining room opened, and Jarod swooped in, hair combed and slicked back, body ensconced in a tapered navy suit and white dress shirt which he wore unbuttoned at the collar. My breath caught. Would it ever stop catching
at the sight of him?
Celeste twisted around in her chair, then twisted back toward me as though on a spring. She still didn’t say anything, but her jaw stiffened.
“Good morning, Celeste. Hope I’m not interrupting any idle chitchat,” Jarod said, and I rolled my eyes. He’d perfected his dull and dominant pitch to such perfection that, had I not tasted the honey beneath all the snark, I might’ve taken offense.
“And here I was, almost missing you,” I said, beaming at him over Celeste’s shoulder.
He answered me with a smile that barely dented his smooth flesh but made his eyes glow. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Celeste?”
Celeste’s brows drew together at my grin. “You did it for him? You trashed your wings for him?”
“I did it to stay,” I said, picking my words carefully.
“To stay with him.”
“And with you, Celeste. You know how much I like it here.”
My words mustn’t have reassured her, because she blanched. “You can’t fall for a sinner. That’s not right.”
My grin flattened. I hadn’t expected her to pat me on the back and hug Jarod, but I also hadn’t expected her disgust. “Tell me, Celeste. Why isn’t it right?”
“You’re supposed to fix people, not play house with them.”
Jarod slid me a look but didn’t intervene.
“I don’t expect you to understand.” I skated my hands off hers. “But I also won’t tolerate you criticizing my choices. You’re my friend—my only friend—and I value your opinion . . . I value you, but you’re not allowed to judge me.”
“But he’s a Triple, Leigh,” she said, as though his number automatically made him despicable.
“Was a Triple,” I fired back.
Jarod’s eyebrows jolted, and then his gaze traveled to my wings, to the downy edge of them, before locking back on my face, shock warring with another emotion. I wasn’t really sure what the other emotion was. Maybe it was only shock. A lot of it. Even though we’d spoken about the possibility of Asher amending his judgment, we hadn’t put much stock in it.
“Asher’s going to be furious,” Celeste said.
“Why would he be furious? He made a mistake and corrected it,” I said.
“Because he fixed it to get you up there!”
“Why am I not surprised?” Jarod’s eyes darkened, their shade matching his timbre. “Your kind’s incapable of performing a good deed without a vested interest.”
“Our kind is your kind too,” Celeste snapped.
Jarod leaned forward, placing one forearm on each side of the fine porcelain plate topped with a fan-shaped cloth napkin. “Unless I’m mistaken, I have no wings.”
“You have our blood,” she said.
“Blood ties us to people; sometimes to the wrong ones. My only affiliation is to the Adler name, to Tristan, and to the woman running my household.”
Celeste balked, but I didn’t. I couldn’t even fault Jarod his disregard for angels. What had they ever done for him besides spoiling his childhood and unjustly stealing his chance at joining our ranks?
“Leigh, I love you like a sister, but staying here is selfish. You might not love Asher, but you know that marrying him—”
“Marrying him?” I sputtered. “Celeste, he might’ve liked me at some point, but trust me, that point’s in the past.”
“He winged you!”
“In. The. Past,” I replied calmly but firmly.
Jarod’s fingers balled into fists, which made me regret explaining angelic courtship.
Celeste shook her head. “You’re deluding yourself.”
“Doesn’t it matter what I want?” My pitch rose. “And what I want is to stay here. I don’t want to marry Asher, because I don’t like Asher. Not in that way.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “So what? You’re giving up on this chance of a lifetime—of several lifetimes—for a couple of months with him?”
“Months?” Jarod’s voice was like a bullet zinging through the growing tension.
I couldn’t tell if he was stunned by the idea of having so little time with me or if he calculated our relationship’s lifespan in days.
It didn’t change that I had no desire to marry Asher.
Besides, I wasn’t delaying my trip to Elysium for Jarod. I was delaying it for myself. I wasn’t ready to leave. Once I was, I’d only have a handful of feathers to earn, which I could do relatively quickly.
“She has thirteen months left to ascend, after which her wings will fall off her back like chicken meat.”
“Celeste!” I admonished her.
“The same way your mother lost her wings . . . unless she’d already ascended. Then the Seraphim would have burned them off her back. The pain of that is apparently so excruciating it drives people to madness.”
“My mother went nuts because my father died, and he was the love of her fucking life.”
“Your mother went nuts because she lost an essential part of herself, and that part wasn’t your father.” Celeste crossed her spindly arms. “If you don’t believe me, ask Leigh. She knows this as well as I do.”
His Adam’s apple jostled, and I realized he’d never been told how his mother had lost her wings. Had he thought she’d just unhooked them and handed them back to the archangels like they were nothing more than Halloween props?
I pursed my lips. “What if it’s a lie, Celeste? To dissuade us from staying in the mortal realm.”
“Fine. Let’s say it is—which I don’t believe—you’ll still lose your immortality. Have you thought about that?”
“I didn’t say I would never ascend. I said I wasn’t ready to leave right now.” I kept my eyes on Celeste, but then, curiosity got the better of me, and I darted a glance at Jarod.
Tension raced along his shoulders and neck, sharpened every line on his face, tightened his eyes, which he lowered to the porcelain cup filled with a foamy expresso. He lifted it off its matching saucer and shot the contents back, then yanked the napkin from his plate, and shook it out before slapping it onto his lap. All of his gestures led me to think he was angry, but was it because he no longer considered me an ally in his battle against angels or because he didn’t want me to desert him?
“No one’s holding her back,” he said, eyes locked on the croissant he’d plucked out of the bread basket. He ate it in three bites, guzzled his glass of orange juice, then pushed away from the table. “I have business to attend to.”
“Jarod?”
Although it looked painful, he turned toward me. “Yes?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I waited for the harsh veneer to crack and peel off the man who’d spent the night holding me against him as though afraid I’d use my wings to fly away.
“Don’t stay on my account,” he said curtly, before stalking out of the dining room.
It wasn’t his veneer that cracked but my heart.
Chapter 41
I left shortly after Jarod.
I’d drunk my coffee but hadn’t managed to eat anything. In a daze, I’d walked out of La Cour des Démons with Celeste. We ended up at the Louvre where we took in every exhibit. Besides its triangular-shaped glass dome, nothing about the museum stuck with me, not a single canvas or sculpture. All of it had just smeared into one endless strip of marble and paint.
Even though I sensed Celeste wanted to bring up Jarod’s dismissal, she didn’t. At least, not until we’d left the famed museum and started meandering through the adjacent gardens.
“Leigh, are you going to sign off from him today? Now that you’ve accomplished your mission . . .”
I bit the inside of my cheek, my heart feeling as scrambled as the eggs Celeste had eaten for breakfast.
“You can’t earn more feathers if you stay signed on,” she continued. “Not even if you manage to knock another point off his score.”
Two ducks pecked each other on the octagonal pond but not out of love. Out of dominance. As one of them took f
light, trailing glittery drops of water, I thought of my wings, how if I hadn’t ruined them, I would’ve also taken flight. A chill enveloped me even though it was in no way cold.
“It’s not too late,” Celeste said.
I clutched my elbows, slowly rubbing the goose bumps away. “Too late?”
“To earn your wings before Asher’s engagement period is over.”
The Tuileries Gardens turned gray and flat. “Just because Jarod doesn’t care if I stay or leave doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to marry Asher. If I’m going to spend an eternity with someone, I want it to be with a person who makes my heart soar.”
“S-O-A-R or S-O-R-E? If it’s the latter, you have two contenders all lined up.”
I side-eyed her.
“Crack a smile. Even a tiny one. I don’t like grumpy Leigh.”
I offered her a diminutive smile that stuck for all of a second. Then Jarod’s parting words came barreling right through my brain again like a subway train. I sensed he’d spoken them out of anger, but even if that was the case, they’d hurt. He was a grown man, and grown men shouldn’t conceal their wounded pride behind barbs. It was petty. He was better than that.
Celeste sighed. “What happened with Jarod yesterday? How come you ended up staying the night?”
I closed my eyes. She was only fifteen, and even though she was mature, I wouldn’t corrupt her young ears with all I’d done. Besides, it was private. Last night belonged to Jarod and me. “I hadn’t planned on staying, but when I got there, Muriel insisted on teaching me how to make shortbread, and, well”—I shrugged—“I couldn’t say no. And it was fun. And then Jarod arrived, and I gave him back his money, but then, he suggested a game of chess, and one game turned into two, and before I knew it, it was night.” I raked my hand through my hair, realizing I hadn’t even brushed it when I’d gone upstairs to get my bag. “He invited me out to dinner, and it was really nice.” My voice faltered. It took me a couple of breaths to steady it again. “Since it was late, he offered me his guest bedroom.” The sun pricked my eyes.
Feather (Angels of Elysium Book 1) Page 25