Recognition was slow to come. He blinked at the man by the door, scrambling to place him.
“Ren.” Yes, that was his name. It was Ren.
Yet it wasn’t. Not the Ren Adam knew. Gone was the quiet man Adam loved. This Renatus was a warrior, sword in hand and ready to do battle.
And he had wings, too.
* * * * *
Ren couldn’t spare Adam more than a quick glance before focusing his attention on Meela. It was enough to assure him that his lover was unharmed.
His lover. The words shook him more than he would have ever thought possible. He had a human lover. A male lover.
The tip of his sword wavered ever so slightly, but Meela noticed. Her eyes narrowed and a smile bared her fangs. The air around her rippled. The illusion of skin and clothing vanished as her human facade gave way to demonform. Her blackened scales seemed to absorb the light, making her little more than a shadow.
“Renatus, how kind of you to join us.” Meela pressed against Adam’s back and stroked her fingers over his arms. Adam jerked away, shuddering. The fabric of his shirt caught on her claws, shredding under their lethal tips. Those points could do much more damage to his vulnerable human flesh.
“Adam, stay still,” he warned.
“She has claws.” One of those claws trailed over his shoulder and up his throat. Adam’s face went stiff with terror and he drew a tremulous breath.
“Stay still. Her claws have venom.”
Adam sat as motionless as a stature, his fear palpable. A righteous anger rose in Renatus. How dare Meela touch him? She had no rights to him. This man was his.
“Get away from him, Meela.” Ren’s feathers prickled with fury. He lifted his wings, spreading them as much as the cramped confines of Adam’s office would allow.
“Protective of a human? How very unlike you, Ren. What happened, did you get demoted to guardian?”
He raised his sword, pointing its tip at her throat, and took a step toward her. “I said get away from him.”
Her crimson gaze narrowed. “Or maybe you are confusing yourself with a warrior. If you fight me, all the Heavens will know. They will find out you were with the human, that you have a male lover.”
Guilt and shame braided his gut, feelings which did not come from within him. Meela was projecting, using them to weaken him. He gathered his power into a shield, trying to block her influence over his mind. Still, his confidence wavered. The tip of his sword dipped and Meela took advantage of the opening. A burst of demonfire caught him, knocking him back against the bookcase-lined wall. Its sulfuric heat blasted across his face and singed his wings while the power behind it pushed at him.
For several panicked heartbeats he was pinned, wings splayed, the edge of a shelf pressing into his back. He tried to fight back, to use his power against hers. He shoved, but wasn’t strong enough. His shield faltered and fire hit the vulnerable underside of his wings, wrenching a shout of pain from him.
“No!” The shout drowned out his own cry. Then Meela’s fire was gone.
Ren stared in shock as Adam tussled with Meela on the floor of the office. The human had taken on the demoness. For him.
The thought barely had time to register before Meela swiped her venomous claws at Adam, raking him across the face. He dropped to the floor, screaming and writhing in pain.
Fury ripped through Ren. He sent his power through his sword, making it blaze with the golden light. Two steps and Meela was in reach. He swung.
Meela sent up a shield of her own blackened energy and Ren’s blade hit it with jarring force, sending pain knifing through his shoulder. He didn’t ease back. Shoving harder, he held her in place with his blade.
His fire began to burn at her shield. Fissures appeared in its dark surface, glowing with a molten flame as his essence seeped past the surface. All he had to do was hold her, just hold her, until it gave way.
She fought against him and his muscles screamed in protest. She was strong, filled with the corrupted power of the damned, able to counter his brute strength.
Still, Ren didn’t need to overwhelm her, just maintain. He sent another wave of pure power through the sword, forcing the flow into those tiny chinks in her defense. The cracks began to glow golden, to spread.
He could feel her gather another surge of dark power but he sent a wave of his own before she could reinforce her shields. He had her. All he needed to do was outlast her. One stab to her body would shatter her ability to keep physical form and send her back to the bowels of Hell, where she belonged.
Movement from the floor caught his eye. Adam. He was moving toward the desk, toward Meela.
No! The other way, love. Get away from her!
He didn’t dare say it aloud, didn’t dare draw her attention to Adam. Instead he poured everything he had into his sword.
Meela’s eyes narrowed. Her power pulsed, pushing at his in waves. Heavens help him, she knew he was close to his limit, was testing him, waiting for one of those waves to ebb so she could break his hold on her.
Adam shifted, and the buttons of his jacket scraped noisily against the wooden floor. For a split second, all three of them froze. Then Meela’s mouth curled in a wicked smile and she flicked her forked tongue over her black lips. With a burst of motion she rolled, tossing Ren to the side. Claws extended, she dove for Adam, throwing her body on top of his.
Demon power exploded in a burst of molten red light, engulfing Adam and Meela.
“Adam!” Ren threw himself at the bubble of power only to bounce off it. The bubble swelled, grew brighter, pushing Ren across the floor. He couldn’t penetrate it, couldn’t get to Adam.
He was flooded with a helpless rage he hadn’t experienced in seven thousand years. He could still see it, feel it like it happened just yesterday. He knelt in the center of town, by the well, the dusty ground transformed to a thick mud by the innocent blood of children. Michani’s blood. He held her in his arms as she took her final pained breath, unable to save her despite his gift of healing.
In his mind, the image of his daughter faded and he instead held Adam’s lifeless body as he screamed to Heaven.
No. He could not do this. He could not lose another person he loved to death.
With a cry of rage, he gathered every last shred of strength he had and blasted the bubble with a bolt of power. It shattered, wrenching a screech of anger from Meela.
She turned on him. Raising her hand she conjured a ball of demonfire and pulled back.
He threw his hands up, tried to gather his power into a shield. Nothing happened. He’d used everything he had and now he was defenseless.
Meela smiled in triumph. “Ah, this will be sweet, angel.”
She pulled back her hand and Ren drew his wings forward, ready to block the fireball. He braced himself for the broiling heat, the stench of burning feathers.
The fire never came.
Meela gasped and he opened his wings. The demoness stood before him, a look of shock on her face as the fire vanished from her hand.
“The human,” she choked out and fell to the floor.
Her body melted away into a puddle of black ooze, leaving Adam standing before him, a letter opener in his hand. The puddle screamed as it rolled across the floor, looking for escape. It found a small knothole and seeped through it to find its way back to the depths of Hell.
“Did I kill that…thing?” The letter opener dropped from Adam’s hand to clatter across the floor.
“No, but close enough,” Ren answered, his eyes hot with unshed tears.
Adam dropped the letter opener and collapsed into his desk chair. “I don’t understand what just happened. What was that?”
“Your questions will be answered, but first we need to get you home.”
“I can’t drive. My face hurts. And I can’t see. Everything's blurry. I think she got my eye with a claw.”
“Do not worry. I’ll take care of you,” Ren assured him. He managed to make his way to Adam before falling to his knees. His lover’s fa
ce had been ravaged. Demon venom had raised welts and left his skin streaked with blood. He raised a hand, ready to use his healing power to take away Adam’s pain.
But he couldn’t. He wasn’t strong enough.
Swallowing his pride, he found a remnant of power and summoned Evangelos.
* * * * *
A man Adam didn’t know was kissing him.
He jerked away from the gentle lips and scrambled to sit up. A quick glance told him they were in his bedroom. How had he ended up in bed with a man that was definitely not Ren?
“Who are you?” he asked, pressing his spine against the headboard so hard he would probably have a line of bruises down his back.
“Evangelos. I am a friend of Renatus.” Like Ren, Evangelos had an unearthly beauty about him. His hair was a burnished mahogany that fell about his shoulders like the flow of rich chocolate. His skin held a deep golden sheen that seemed to glow a little in the faint light of his bedside table. Only one thing seemed to be missing.
“If you are Ren’s friend, does that mean you have wings, too?” He certainly hoped so, or else this man would be convinced he was either high or insane.
Evangelos smiled and the air behind him wavered, shimmered like the air over hot summer roadways, then coalesced into a pair of deep brown wings.
“I really had hoped I dreamed that.” Adam shoved a shaky hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “You’re angels.”
“Yes, and as you may have gathered, Meela was a demon. I must commend you. I’ve never seen a human banish a demon by the sword before this.”
“Why are you here? Where is Ren?” Adam swung his legs over the side of the bed, but he was too weak and dizzy to stand.
“Please, lie down, Adam. You are suffering from the effects of demon venom. I’ve removed most of it but you will be weak for a little while yet.”
“Where is Ren?” A dull hollowness echoed inside Adam, a sense of loss and finality he refused to accept.
Evangelos stood and moved to the bedroom window to look up at the heavens, much the way Ren so often had.
“Renatus risked much to be with you, human. The Heavenly Realm is not so forgiving of male being with male as those on this plane.”
“Hate to break it to you, but people aren’t that forgiving toward gay men.”
“I know.”
Dizziness assaulted Adam and he lay down again, throwing an arm over his eyes.
“Is he being punished?” How did God punish his angels?
“Ren must leave here.”
“I know.” Adam wanted to scream. His heart was being ripped out of his chest. He put a balled fist on his breastbone, trying to hold off the hurt, trying to hold himself together.
“He needs the covenant box. It is his duty to take it to the Most High.”
“It’s his.”
“An easy concession for one who clung to it so doggedly.”
“Ren needs it. It’s his.” Adam squeezed his eyes tight and hugged his arm tighter against them, hoping for a deeper blackness to envelop him.
The silence between them was so complete that Adam could hear the clickity-clack of a train’s wheels from the tracks some half-mile away. He focused on that small bit of noise, the clatter of the wheels and the forlorn wail of its horn, until it passed and faded into the distance.
He tried to picture Ren as the soft, uncertain man he’d met but all he could think of was how he’d charged into the office, wings outstretched and sword in hand. A hero with wings of the purest white. Or almost pure.
“Ren had a spot on his wing.”
“Yes.”
Adam didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until Evangelos answered.
“Is that an angel thing? Do you have one too?”
Evangelos didn’t speak for a long time. Long enough that Adam began to wonder if he would answer.
“I do not have one. I’ve never felt a deep enough love to exchange feathers with another. Such a thing is rare and beautiful.”
“Ren…has somebody?” Adam’s sanity slipped another agonizing notch.
“I cannot speak for the emotions of another, nor will I share what I know of Ren’s private feelings.”
Part of Adam’s mind questioned what all of this meant. Ren loved another, deeply enough to put a lasting sign of it on his body, and yet he’d said he came to Adam free of commitment. The greater part of him was too tired, his heart too battered, to try to figure out what it all meant.
“Why were you kissing me?” Adam didn’t need to look to know the angel still stood by the window. His presence was a balm, soothing the raw hurt of Adam’s broken heart. Would be he able to breathe when he was left alone, or would the pain crush him?
“You were injured. An exchange of power burned off the demon venom in your skin. You are healed and there is not a single mark to tell anyone you were ever hurt.”
“I still hurt.”
The bed beside Adam dipped as Evangelos sat and a warm hand covered the center of his chest. He squeezed his eyes closed tighter. He couldn’t look, couldn’t bear to see pity in the angel’s eyes.
“Some hurts cannot be healed so simply and some injuries leave scars that cannot be seen. I’m sorry. I cannot fix this for you, human.”
Heat built up under Adam’s lids until it overflowed, spilling scalding trails over his temples and into his hair.
“Will I see him again?”
“I don’t know what will happen.”
“But he’s gone, isn’t he?” Adam moved his arm to study the face of the angel, searching for something to give him hope.
“He’s gone. At your word he retrieved the box and returned it to the Most High.”
Evangelos’ hand dropped away but he didn’t move as Adam pushed himself up again. The two sat so close their shoulders brushed, so close Adam could see his own pain reflected in the depths of the angel’s compassionate eyes.
“Renatus wanted me to give you something.” Evangelos held out his hand. A single snowy feather lay in Evan’s palm, its end curving gently toward the ceiling. Adam’s heart ached. It was a pledge. A goodbye.
“Will you see him?”
“If he is willing.”
“Will you tell him I…” Adam couldn’t say the words. Not to this one. Not when he’d never told Ren.
He took a shaky breath and let his head drop forward to rest on Evangelos’ shoulder.
“I will tell him.” Warm lips brushed Adam’s hair and a hand cupped the back of his head. “Sleep, human. Let time heal the pain.”
Lethargy seeped from that hand at his nape, washing him in waves of exhaustion. He didn’t have the willpower or the desire to resist the compulsion. He embraced the blackness and let himself sink into oblivion.
Chapter Eight
Ren sat atop a cliff overlooking the glory of unspoiled Creation. The sunrise gleamed off granite mountainsides and the fall leaves painted the valley below with vibrant color. But his mind was not on the beauty before him. Even all of this could not soothe the turmoil within him.
He’d been wrong.
He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. While his understanding of the defined Law and what the scrolls contained was correct, the box held its own set of surprises—surprises which affected not only him but Dominicus as well. There was no Law within. What it held was far more binding.
A covenant.
If only it had been a Law. He could have appealed to the Most High for mercy. But the Most High had no authority in this covenant, not without violating the free will of both man and angelkind.
This covenant was a contract between all of Heaven and mankind, negotiated by the archangels and a human council of twelve just days before the massacre at Nephil. The children, his daughter, had been part of the covenant’s blood sacrifice. So had the humans he and the other fathers killed. Once sealed by their blood, it could not be altered or overridden except by the consent of both parties.
Not only was the pact unbreakable, but all humans an
d angels were subject to it.
Adam was not exempt. He would be as culpable in breaking the covenant as Renatus and pleading ignorance would not save him.
Meela had been right after all. He’d led Adam straight into damnation.
The merest hint of sound behind him alerted that he was no longer alone.
“Have you word?” Renatus held his breath, afraid to hear the answer.
Gabriel did not speak as he took a seat beside Renatus. For long moments the archangel stared over the valley with Ren, as if reluctant to spoil such divinity with his news.
“I’ve taken your plea for mercy before the Host but they are reluctant. To take on his share of retribution would mean they would heap their curses on another angel instead of on a human. This is repugnant to them.”
“Is it repugnant to you as well?”
Gabriel didn’t answer and Ren turned to study his superior. His face told Ren all he needed to know.
“It is. Did you convey this to the others?”
“As your counsel, I thought it best they understand what is in your best interest.”
“No, as my counsel, it is your duty to make my wishes clear. I want to take Adam’s punishment. He should not be held responsible for breaking an agreement he did not even know existed.” Ren rose and marched a half-dozen steps from the cliff before turning back to the angel. “I trusted you. How could you do this, Gabriel?”
“How could I not? Do you have any idea what you are asking, Renatus? By taking on Adam’s punishment, you would be sent to Hell, not as a demon, but as a sacrifice. They will torture you, consume you piece by piece until you have no power left within you, then they will wait for you to be restored so they may return and feed on your spirit once more. Over and over, Ren. There will be no end to what you suffer. Are you truly willing to do that to save one human?”
Betrayal burning his soul, Ren looked past Gabriel to the valley beyond once more. His eyes began to burn and the colors blurred, blending together like so much spilled paint.
“I’d endure anything for him. Anything.”
Gabriel’s reluctant sigh spoke volumes.
“If you are unable to do this I will plead my own case. I will not allow Adam to be harmed.”
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