She turned to leave, and Chloe made a decision. If she didn’t want to lose Neve, she had to give her what she wanted—the truth. No matter how uncomfortable the topic made Chloe.
“You’re right. There is more.” Neve faced her slowly. “I was in an accident almost a year ago. I already had a social anxiety problem, but afterward…” The nightmares came. “I started having these panic attacks and spacing out. They’re not so bad here, at home, but I can’t leave the store.”
Both times she’d tried ended with her curled in a ball on the sidewalk until help came. Humiliating wasn’t anywhere close to how ashamed those episodes made her feel.
“So you’re agoraphobic?” Neve asked as if cataloging some strange, new breed of animal.
Hearing the word made blood drain from Chloe’s face in a cold rush. “Yeah, I am.”
“You know,” she said softly, “if I had this setup, I don’t think I’d ever leave home, either.” As Neve rolled her shoulders, Chloe felt her burden lift too. “So anyway, about celebrating, I was thinking—what if we call in our order, and I pick it up once we close shop for the day?”
Chloe blinked up at her. “You don’t mind?” Her voice held an edge of hope she couldn’t mask. “My apartment’s upstairs. We could eat there if you want to.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Neve’s grin held not a single ounce of pity. “I’ll start winding things down out here.” She pointed at Chloe. “Be thinking about what you want.”
Maybe for the first time ever, she would.
Chapter Nine
After leaving Chloe with what Nathaniel hoped would amount to a job offer, he headed home to prepare for his night’s work. The alley behind her store gave him cover enough as he sliced a rift and made record time, hopefully, with no one the wiser. He stepped from a lone tree’s shade into a pool of ambient light.
“Where have you been?” a voice called from his living room.
Nathaniel’s shoulders tensed and a hand went to his shears before he recognized the speaker. He forced himself to relax. “Tying up loose ends.” From his tone, Bran had been waiting for a while. “What are you doing here?”
“Delphi sent me to escort you to Dis.” His jaw popped as he yawned.
Raising an eyebrow, Nathaniel said, “I doubt after all this time I’ve forgotten my way.”
Bran gave him a lopsided grin. “Your request was approved.” He chuckled. “So it’s more likely he wanted to make sure you showed up tonight and didn’t take off early.”
Relief made it easier to return his smile. “How much time did I get?”
“One month, in mortal time, scheduled to start after your weaving has been completed.” Clearing his throat, he added, “I’m glad you realized you needed a break.”
“Oh?” After his talk with Saul, Nathaniel imagined what came next. “If I hadn’t?”
“Delphi had already authorized me to use any means at my disposal to convince you to take one.” His expression turned sheepish. “I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to that.”
Nathaniel laughed. As if Bran would ever have to resort to force. All he had to do was ask and it would be given. Still, it might have been amusing to see him try coercion.
“I did want to ask you something, though.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, expression serious. “There’s nothing wrong, is there? With you, I mean?” His forehead creased. “If there was, you’d tell me, right?”
For once in their lives, he couldn’t. Even the thought of lying to Bran tasted of ash on his tongue.
“I need some time to myself.” Nathaniel gave a terse shrug. “That’s all.”
Bran’s relief was tangible. “Well, I think it’s a great idea.” He exhaled sharply. “You’ve spoiled the others by taking part of their workload onto yourself when you were never meant to do more than weave. It will be good for them to step in and pick up the slack.” He smiled, but there was steel behind it. “I’ll make certain no one bothers you while you’re resting.”
He meant Saul, and he ought to know by now nothing attracted his father quite like the forbidden.
Nathaniel rolled his shoulders, wishing his mind relaxed as easily as other muscles.
Bran needed no encouragement to discuss his father’s shortcomings, so bringing up Saul’s grief-stricken ramblings would start an argument on the spot. Considering they were expected elsewhere, and it was old ground they’d covered numerous times, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to wait until he’d handled the situation with Chloe. Then he and Bran could decide if things with Saul had progressed to the intervention stage. He hoped not. They’d held Saul together this long.
Stretching as he stood, Bran asked, “Are you ready to go?”
Nathaniel patted his hip. “I have everything I need.”
Bran headed for the balcony. “I’ll meet you there.”
He closed the sliding glass door, then lowered his eyes in concentration. A second later, the hungry whoosh of fire igniting filled the compact space as wings crafted from holy fire blazed from behind him and fanned a sweltering breeze. His expression smoothed and became one of utter bliss as the white flares surrounded and consumed his body.
Nathaniel waited until the light faded, taking Bran with it.
He remembered a time when he’d kept a sword of the same material tethered at his hip where his shears now resided. His gaze dropped to the sooty footprints burned into the concrete.
Unsheathing his shears, Nathaniel made his slice and stepped through the rift into Dis.
He coughed as heat sucked the air from his lungs, burning his nose and throat. Bran walked several yards ahead, striding toward the towering white monstrosity where Delphi resided.
Bran reached the arched entrance to the mansion well before Nathaniel. The guards to either side of him narrowed their eyes at his approach. All six sets of their wings twitched in agitation.
The seraphs hadn’t fallen or been cast down. They had chosen to travel with Delphi as his private guard, and their loyalty to him was absolute. Instead of the golden hair and pale iridescent wings of their birth, both were as coal black and dull as their eyes now.
Nathaniel’s heart stopped as two silver blades crossed not an inch from the tip of Bran’s nose. The guards holding those blades seethed.
Even across the distance, he heard their taunts and winced as each barb struck home.
“What are you doing here, Nephilim?” the seraph to Bran’s right asked.
The seraph to his left sneered. “You should know by now to use the pet door in back. All the other mongrels do.”
Bran kept his gaze forward. “I’ve brought the Weaver as Delphi requested.”
Trates lowered his blade until the tip dug into Bran’s chest. He stood on the left side, closest to Bran’s heart. “Well good for you. It still doesn’t explain why you think you have the right to waltz through the front door.” His lip curled. “You’re tainted.”
“Nephilim have as much right to be here as you do.” Bran’s chin lifted. “We’re all blood of the same creator.”
Arestes lowered his blade to a point on Bran’s body Nathaniel couldn’t see. Bran’s shoulders tensed, though he didn’t step away or make a comment. On a man whose birth was considered an abomination, their target was an easy guess.
As he continued forward and his angle shifted, Nathaniel saw the point of Arestes’s sword aligned with the zipper of Bran’s jeans.
Nathaniel fought the urge to charge the steps and crack the twins’ skulls together. Anger shook his hands until he shoved them into his pockets, protecting the pair from his fury and, in turn, from Bran’s wrath.
He stepped from baked clay to marble, but Bran and the seraphs still blocked the entrance. Bran’s eyes narrowed a fraction when he glanced Nathaniel’s way. He gave a slight shake of his head to indicate he’d rather be left with the twins than have his uncle step in on his behalf.
Heaven forbid he be allowed to publically support his nephew. Bran would see it as Nathaniel b
eing overprotective instead of endorsing his one-man campaign for Nephilim rights.
Furious with the situation, and Bran’s stubborn pride, Nathaniel snarled, “Do you mind?” He gestured toward the door with a jerk of his chin. “The others are waiting on me.”
The twins spoke as one. “Our apologies, Weaver. Of course, you may enter.”
Nathaniel glanced to his right where Trates dug his blade into Bran’s chest until a red stain bloomed. “Watch yourself or you’ll put your eye out with that.” To his left, the second seraph snickered. “The same goes for you. Does Delphi know you’re hassling his guests?”
Arestes hissed, “This one isn’t a guest.”
Nathaniel had interfered as much as he dared, and still he knew Bran would hold a grudge. “Suit yourselves. Delphi requested my immediate arrival and commanded this one to act as my escort.” He struggled against the desire to slice them from ear to ear and scrawl Bran’s name in bright red across the pristine white walls. He was a person, damn them, and he had a name. “I suppose when he asks where this one is, I’ll tell him to check his own front porch.”
With that, Nathaniel shoved them aside. A pained grunt and several cruel chuckles followed him down the hall. The urge to look over his shoulder made his neck twitch.
Bran shouldn’t be left alone. He should be forced to accept help and made to stop being stubborn and prideful. Nathaniel had tried reasoning with him before, several times, but he wouldn’t listen.
After he had caused so many deaths, a small part of him whispered these could be two more added to his tally. He wondered if the seraphs’ coloration reflected the state of their souls. He hoped it did. He knew well how to handle moral decay.
He bit the inside of his cheek until it bled, but nothing blunted the agony of knowing he’d left Bran on his own, yet again. He walked through an open doorway into a cavernous room filled with his kin. His gaze zeroed in on Delphi, hoping the master seraph prized his emissary enough to intervene on Bran’s behalf.
“Weaver, glad you could join us,” Delphi said as Nathaniel entered the weaving room. He sat on a simple chair behind a plain desk where he sometimes observed the proceedings. The quill pen in his hand wavered. “Where is the Nephilim?”
“Ask your guards,” Nathaniel said with as much calm as he could manage.
Delphi’s eyes hardened as his gaze swept over Nathaniel and rested down the empty hall at his back. His hand struck out and toppled the bottle of red ink by his journal. “Erseeh tesahiel.”
His dark wings quivered, then tucked against his spine as if they were afraid of his anger. He stalked from the room with the thin journal tucked under his arm, leaving his quill and ink abandoned. The deafening sound of ancient oak doors meeting their frames rang through the room as the doors slammed shut on Delphi’s heels.
Nathaniel’s heart raced. Delphi had made him a promise. They will pay blood for blood. It was an oath, the closest he ever came to swearing, and Nathaniel would help measure had he been asked.
His attention lingered on the sculpted silver doorknob until someone cleared their throat, a warning.
Cold metal had filled his palm. Nathaniel glanced down, surprised as his knuckles popped from their tight grip on the shears. He jolted when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.
“He knew not to use the front door,” Saul said. His calm demeanor grated on Nathaniel’s already frayed nerves. But then, their earlier argument could hardly be continued around so many perked ears. “He’s got a stubborn streak a mile wide and he has to learn to play by the rules.”
“Like we did?” Nathaniel shrugged free of his grip.
“It’s not the same thing.”
“I know.” Nathaniel walked toward the line of waiting harvesters. “We had a choice in what we became. Bran didn’t.”
“You say that like it’s my fault. It was an accident.”
Nathaniel spun on Saul, and his fury lashed at his brother. Grabbing Saul by the throat, Nathaniel smashed his brother’s head into the wall as his fingers bit into Saul’s skin with crushing force.
“He wasn’t an accident. He was a child.” Fury threatened to choke him as surely as the hand he wrapped around Saul’s neck. “He is your son.”
Saul covered Nathaniel’s hand with his, but he didn’t try to dislodge it. “You’re right. He’s my child, my responsibility.” He swallowed as best he could. “But if he’s going to survive, he has to learn to stop pushing his luck because one day it will run out.” His gaze traveled toward the door. “It might have already.”
“Don’t say that.” Nathaniel released Saul, then braced his palms against the wall. His knees threatened to buckle under his weight and his surgeon-steady hands shook with fine tremors. “He’s fine. He has to be.”
Saul stumbled out of range. “It’s his own fault.” His voice was hoarse. “He’s a grown man who knows better than to provoke the seraphs. He’s been told to ignore their taunts often enough. Yet he incites them.” He rubbed his throat. “He might get off on the pain for all we know.”
“Or he might think he has something to prove,” Nathaniel snarled. “You fight your way out of everything. That’s the legacy you left your son. Every punch he takes is one he’s seen you stand up from and ask for more.”
“Blame me all you want, brother.” He snorted. “You’re his idol. He might take punches like his father, but the martyr act he pulls is one hundred percent classic Uncle Nate.”
Before Nathaniel grabbed for Saul a second time, the chamber door swung open on Delphi’s return. He brushed a strand of his ebony hair from his face, marring the pale skin of his temple with a crimson smear.
Nathaniel prayed the blood was seraphim.
The weight of Delphi’s stare swung between Nathaniel and Saul. Their chests heaved and foreheads sweated. Saul had struck a defensive pose while Nathaniel let the wall support him. Their connections to Bran were well known, as were their heated arguments on his behalf.
Delphi dismissed Saul with a soft rebuke. “Unfortunately, the child often pays for the sins of his father.” His dark eyes focused on Nathaniel. “The Nephilim is in good hands.”
Nathaniel bowed his head in silent thanks while Delphi stared at him with the intensity of someone eyeing a bug. As if undecided whether crushing it was worth the effort. “I expect your disposition much improved when you return next month.”
Without waiting for a reply, he returned to his desk, righted the bottle of spilled ink, and blotted the excess with a handkerchief from his pocket. Pen and ink in hand, he said, “You may begin.” His gaze touched on every harvester present. “I trust the rest of your night will be uneventful.”
The benign words were a threat, and the best course of action was to offer silent agreement, which every man in the room did.
Tension from Delphi’s departure thickened the air. Nathaniel ignored the quiet and walked toward the center of the room. Smoothing a hand across the frame of his loom, he allowed himself a smile. The white ash wood shone. Its finish preserved all this time by his gentle care.
The loom resembled those used by humans for making fabric. His performed an identical task, but there the similarities ended. Rather than spun wool, his yarn came from a rarer source.
“Who’s first?” Any other time, the harvesters would have flocked to him. Now they divided their attention between his face and the shears in his hand. “Is no one here in need of mending?”
For a full minute, no one moved.
“I’ll go first.” With a derisive snort, Reuel shoved his way forward. “I remember having to draw straws last month and tonight we’re taking volunteers?”
A few of the others chuckled with unease.
“I am oldest, you know.” Reuel puffed out his chest. “I deserve a few perks.”
“You know what they say, ‘age before beauty,’ ” Saul said dryly.
Reuel flipped him off, which earned a round of heartier laughter.
Dropping to his knees before Nathaniel,
Reuel spread his wings wide. “I don’t envy the judge of that contest. This lot has some of the damn ugliest mugs I’ve ever seen.”
Nathaniel pressed a hand between Reuel’s shoulder blades. “Hold still.” He used his shears to snip away the tattered remnants of soul cloth stretched over Reuel’s wings. By the time he had finished, the heavy bones stretched out like skeletal fingers into the room.
Satisfied the frame was cleaned, Nathaniel passed over the detritus to a waiting harvester, one of the newer arrivals, for disposal. The man blanched as the strips wriggled in his arms.
It was easy to spot the newest faces added to their rank. Their white wings turned black within a few hours. Then, even those began to molt. Before long, the skin melted away, leaving dense muscle tissue twined around bone.
It was as much a statement as a punishment. It said these men were no longer of the light, and any who dared break the rules risked the same set of consequences.
If anyone had asked if Nathaniel mourned the loss of his wings, he would have said no. Although the agony of his exchange with Delphi still radiated through his back, he’d rather have the shears than the grisly reminder of what he no longer had fused to his spine.
His fingers worked the familiar ties at his hip and freed his soul bag. He plunged his hand into the blistering pit to scour for a candidate and landed on an oily patch, which he ripped free of the portal. The black expanse slithered up his wrist, flaying his skin with its scalding temperature as it sought freedom. His lungs filled with the stench of burned flesh and sulfur.
Soul in hand, he sat at an ancient spinning wheel, the mate to his loom, and pulled fibers from the dark mass with practiced ease. Once he tied a fresh leader and threaded the orifice, he spun the wheel clockwise then treadled until the twist came up the leader and grabbed the fibers in his hand. He pinched and guided the wound length until he filled a bobbin with glistening black yarn.
Seating himself at his loom, he started his task anew. Soul cloth took several hours to weave, and his line of customers circled the room.
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