by Alisa Woods
“I foiled the attack in my guise as a human,” he said, his voice dropping to human levels again. “But I couldn’t continue that protection—and there was no question he would try again—without revealing myself, eventually. And the man’s work needed to continue. The only recourse was to remove her from suitability as a mate, so he would be forced to turn his attentions elsewhere.”
“Remove her?” Erelah frowned.
“And that was where Pride went before my Fall.” His smile was bittersweet. “I felt sure that my love for her was so pure that we could defy all law of angelkind and history and actually produce an angeling while I remained in the light. I confessed my love for her and revealed all that I am. If she had been any lesser of a woman, it might have frightened her off. The fact that she had secretly loved me as well, and now loved me all the more as my true nature was revealed, convinced me that our love could transcend all things. My plan was to allow our love to form a child and then reveal our love to her intended husband. Our affair and the child would tarnish her in the man’s eyes, and we would both be banished from his sight. He would turn to another woman, one who might be willing to marry a man of his stature, and he would continue his work along the way. I would be relieved of my Guardian duty. Then I could whisk Elizabeth away, back to my Dominion…”
“But it didn’t work.” Erelah found herself held hostage by this story—how would her life have been different if she had been raised by an angel father and a human mother in a Dominion of light? It was foreign to everything she had ever known, but she instantly wished for it. A mother who loved her. An angel who wasn’t a commander but a father. It was another hollowness she discovered inside, one she hadn’t even known existed. This was the love that human children knew. The kind they chased after and longed for in forming their own families. The True Love that Leksander felt for her. He said she could never understand it… but he was wrong. She knew it by the shape of the hole that was inside her.
Her father’s voice turned rough. “I was certain my love was pure enough to keep from turning shadow. But I was wrong. My passion for her was too strong. Before I even laid a hand on her, I was bursting with love. For her. For the gift of her True Love. For this child we would make together.” He stopped, and the soft look he gave Erelah made her heart feel as if it would burst. For how could it contain all this feeling? Then the hum around him grew stronger, and he flexed his wings. The span of them grew until a feather tip brushed each opposing wall. “I was overcome by the passions that stirred in me. I lay with her, and we formed our child—you, my beloved Aurora—but I was lost the moment the act was complete.”
Beloved. He had called her—
He kept going. “Elizabeth had become the world to me. I wished only to lay with her, again and again, living in the passionate love that we had made. The intensity of that was too strong… and you know, my angeling daughter, the power of an angel. Of light. Or shadow.”
She nodded, wide-eyed. If he couldn’t control himself, he wasn’t safe. Even an angeling would be a threat to a human if not properly leashed in their power. But an angel? The simplest flicker, the smallest loss of control, and he could destroy her without meaning to.
“I had turned shadow.” The hollowness of his voice echoed the emptiness inside Erelah. “It was done. Even if I had somehow not been blackened by the turn, I could not have kept her. Or you. I was a danger to you both.”
“So you came here.”
“After a long Penance… yes.” He gave her a pained smile. “If there had been any way for me to stay, I would have. To abandon you… the necessity of that drove me further into the dark. But now you’ve come to me, Erelah, my angeling daughter, and I feel as if you’re a blessing I do not deserve, but which I shall selfishly keep nonetheless.”
She nodded, a churning of emotions roiling her stomach. Her mother had loved her before she was made. Her father as well… and he still lived. She was beloved. Somehow, it lifted the shame of her birth, the one she’d carried and tried to atone for all of her life. And yet… she and her father both were yet banished to the shadows. “Did you ever try to return to the light?”
He scowled. “You cannot return, Erelah. You should know that.”
She dropped her gaze. “Then I shall pledge my obedience to your Regiment in exchange for protection.” Beloved. The word was filling some of the emptiness inside.
“I hope…” He paused, so she looked up. “I hope you will allow me the honor of protecting a daughter I created out of True Love. No matter my Fall, no matter my inability to control my Sin, keeping you safe, Erelah, is one of the few things of the light I might still be able to do.”
Wanted. She was wanted and beloved. Maybe she would never have her redemption as an angeling of the light. Maybe she would never return to Leksander, never tell him she loved him even if she couldn’t lay with him in a physical way. But she could serve as her father’s redemption, as meager as that might be here in the realm of shadow. She could fight by his side against the darker forces here, whatever they might be. She could gain back a small piece of a life she hadn’t even known she’d lost.
It might not be salvation… but it was filling the emptiness inside her, even so.
Leksander felt like an idiot.
He was talking to Erelah’s crystal. “Tajael, I don’t know if you can hear this, but I need to talk to you. So… show up? Okay? I’m waiting at the weigh station outside the keep.” He sighed. And waited. But he was still alone on the rocky outcropping. So he repeated the message again. He’d been doing this for ten minutes, and each one that passed, he was losing more hope.
What if the angeling never showed? How could Leksander go after Erelah without his help? His real concern was that Markos would be the one to hear his message. But Leksander would work with the angel if that’s what it took. All that mattered was bringing Erelah back from her shadow state.
He took a breath and tried again. “This message is for Tajael. I’m Leksander Smoke, dragon prince of the House of Smoke. If anyone receives this message, please contact Tajael, an angel in Markos’s Dominion—” An over-pressuring pulse of air cut him off.
In a flash of interdimensional light, Tajael appeared on the rocky ledge. “Why are you summoning me, prince of the House of Smoke?” He looked ravaged, like he’d had even less sleep than Leksander, which was approximately zero. The dark circles under Tajael’s eyes had to mirror his own, but Tajael’s eyes were also streaked with red, and his lashes were damp. Leksander hadn’t cried over Erelah… yet.
That was too much like giving up.
He was still numb and angry and determined. “We have to go after her, Tajael.”
His face twisted in disbelief. “Have you a death wish, dragon prince? You realize she is shadow now, right?”
Leksander gritted his teeth. “I realize she has turned into this… this state… because of me. Because I tempted her.”
“Yes,” Tajael drew the word out like Leksander was crazy in the head. And a simpleton besides. “You tempted her, and she lost control of her Lust. You understand you cannot kiss your way through this? There is no tempting her back with your love.”
“For fuck’s sake, Tajael, I don’t want to sleep with her!” Leksander’s face burned with the anger and shame of what he’d done. “It’s my fault she broke her vow. I have to fix this! Now quit lecturing me and tell me how.”
Tajael just blinked and leaned back. “You do not wish her for your own any longer?”
Leksander ran both hands through his hair, tempted to tear it out. “Of course, I do! I love her. She’s everything to me. But I get it, Tajael. It took me a long fucking time, but I finally get it. She can’t be with me. Fine. But I am not going to allow this to break her. So tell me how this works, so I can undo the damage I’ve done.”
But Tajael didn’t speak, just looked long and hard at Leksander, weighing something in his mind. Fucking angelings… they definitely get that inscrutability thing from their angel half.<
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Finally, Tajael said, “Markos said it might be possible. I didn’t believe it, even though I wanted to…”
“Believe what?” Leksander asked angrily. “What are you talking about?”
“That Erelah could be The One.” He said it with such reverence that it cut Leksander’s anger short.
“The One to what?”
“To mate without falling.” He curled up a fist and tapped it against his lips, his gaze scanning the ledge, obviously thinking of something.
But his words were lighting an unfair hope in Leksander’s chest. “Is that possible? She’s already fallen.”
“Yes… well…” Tajael looked up. “If you asked any of angelkind, they would tell you that the fallen are eternally doomed. It is an article of faith.”
Leksander’s eyebrows hiked up. “But you don’t believe it.”
“Not least because I fell once.” Tajael’s white wings flexed, underscoring that he definitely wasn’t fallen now. At least, if Erelah and her black wings were any indication of that state.
“You came back from it.” That cruel hope in his chest surged, and he stalked forward on the narrow ledge until he was face-to-face with the angeling. “How? Tell me, Tajael!”
The angeling’s wings flexed again, making the muscles in his shoulders twitch. Like all angelings, he barely wore any clothes. His white toga fell half off his shoulder, revealing the tattoos that inked the right side of his body. Some tribal design. It was unique among angelings, at least the ones Leksander had met, and suddenly, he wondered if that was connected to Tajael’s Fall. Or that he came back from it.
The angeling frowned. “My circumstance was unique. And I was young, not yet pledged to a Dominion of the light. But my story is unimportant. What matters is that it would be different for Erelah. Yet there is at least some possibility for it.”
Leksander couldn’t help the curling up of his fists in frustration. “Tell me.”
Tajael eyed his fists but just calmly continued. “You should understand that Erelah is unusual in that her father was an angel of the light when he formed her.”
Leksander’s eyes narrowed. “Aren’t they all?”
Tajael snorted and rubbed his eyes wearily. “No. Far from it. Most angelings are conceived in Sin by shadow angels or angelings. Usually for the purpose of building the strength of their Regiment. Markos and other angels of the light try to rescue those angelings, snatching them away before the forces of darkness can get hold of them. I was one such child. It is why the walkabout is part of an angeling’s training. When they are above the age of reason, they must make a choice of their own volition—light or shadow.”
“But Erelah was different.” Leksander wished he would hurry this along.
“Yes.” Tajael’s green eyes held his gaze steadily. “Very different. In spite of the walkabout, angelings of the light are still tempted. They still occasionally Fall, just as Erelah has, and some new angelings are created that way. But Erelah’s father… he was a powerful angel of the light. He was still in the light when Erelah was formed. Rumor has it that he was attempting a new way for angelkind… one where mating was something that could be done in righteousness.”
Leksander rubbed his temples, trying to think this through. “So her father was an angel who tried to create an angeling without turning shadow.”
“Yes. Which was why Markos thought Erelah might be able to do the same with you.”
“Wait, what?” Leksander stepped back. “Markos wanted me to mate with Erelah?” He quickly scanned his memories, but all he could come up with was Markos’s insistence that he find a mate. Never was there any indication he knew of Leksander’s love for her, much less that a mating between them might be possible.
“I didn’t realize it at first,” Tajael said with a grimace. “The angels don’t often prepare you for their lessons before you’re supposed to learn them. But Leksander… when you healed Erelah from the shadow angel’s strike, and Markos sent her to me, instead of into Penance… well, I knew something was afoot. Then, when she was taken by the fae queen, he sent me to gain your help. The only possibility of Erelah successfully mating with you would be if your love for her was True. I knew it, but Markos wasn’t convinced. But we both knew, with all the time she had spent with you…” He trailed off, looking expectantly at Leksander.
“What are you saying?” His heart was already lurching around with a panic of hope and promise. He didn’t want the angeling mincing words or holding back.
“When I said Erelah had never truly returned from her walkabout, I meant it,” Tajael said steadily. “She is far more attached to you than any angeling has ever been to a human… without falling. If that were possible, then maybe a full mating would be, too. But she knows nothing of love, Leksander.”
“Yes, I know that,” he said bitterly. “As I foolishly found out when—”
“I’m not speaking of sexual love.”
Leksander pressed his lips together. He knew that, too. “I know,” he said softly. “But I know she can’t love me if…” If his kisses alone were enough to drive her into this shadow state.
Tajael nodded slowly. “When she fell, I thought the question was answered. But perhaps not. If you still want to go after her…”
“Of course, I do,” Leksander said quickly.
“It will be dangerous,” Tajael said carefully. “It’s not a risk I take lightly, given I know the shadowkind and what they’re capable of. But Erelah is worth the risk.”
A growl rose up unbidden in his chest. “You love her too, don’t you?” It pained him to say it, but he had to know.
Tajael gave him a look like he was crazy. “Of course. And not at all in the way you’re thinking, dragon prince.” He just shook his head like Leksander was pathetic.
“Because you can’t…” He knew they could kiss if nothing else.
Anger flashed across Tajael’s face. “Are you paying attention at all? A simple kiss from you, made in passion, drove Erelah into shadow. Did you see her turn shadow after I forced that unfortunate kiss upon her?”
Leksander frowned. “You forced that?”
Tajael rolled his eyes. “She is in my cohort. And my faction. And we are angels of the light. In human terms, I love her like a sister. And for the love of all that’s holy, when this is done, Erelah needs to educate you in our ways.” Then he turned serious again. “But I would lay down my life for her, even if saving her wasn’t possibly key to saving humanity. What about you, dragon prince? Would you sacrifice yourself for her?”
“Yes.” The answer was immediate.
“Even though it risked the treaty? Your House? Possibly all of humanity?”
“Yes.” All of that was at risk anyway. “As I told my brother, if I cannot fix this, I will be useless for anything else. I have to right this wrong I’ve done to her.”
Tajael nodded slowly, approving. “A righteous cause, then. Very well, dragon prince. Let us see if your righteousness can survive the shadow realm.” He glanced at the crystal still in Leksander’s hand. “You cannot take that. It will be seen as a weapon.”
Leksander nodded and set the crystal on a hidden ledge of the weigh station, then returned to Tajael’s side.
He set his face into a grim expression and placed his hand on Leksander’s shoulder. “Whatever happens, let me speak first.”
Then, in a flash of light, Tajael yanked them from the rocky ledge of the weigh station and through an interdimensional portal. Where they landed was dark and damp and filled with shouts of anger and pain. It took a moment for Leksander’s eyes to adjust—the darkness came from the cavern of black glass that enveloped them. It reached endlessly up from the platform they were standing on, which jutted from the jagged glass wall. A darkened doorway stared at them, but the sounds—a roar that rose and fell, a growl of pain, a chorus of dark laughter and the rustle of wings—came from below. Leksander could just peer over the edge and see the crowd gathered. A hundred dark-winged angelings, jostl
ing on the ground and taking flight to hover above, all focused on a pair in the middle with black-glinting blades, circling in a fight.
He could see the slashes of blood glistening red even from four stories above.
He turned to Tajael to ask him what was going on, but before he could get the words out, the air popped with a sound Leksander recognized too well—someone had traveled to meet them. A dark blur punched into Tajael, knocking him from the platform and into the well of air above the crowd, but then they both stopped short mid-air.
A dark angel had Tajael by the throat.
Tajael clawed at the oversized hand at his neck, and his wings thrashed. A sound of surprise rose from below, so Leksander didn’t wait. He flung himself off the platform, shifting mid-leap to dragon form and swooping up so he could dive down again. If he could just break the hold the angel had on Tajael... he started the dive, but then a force slammed into him like a giant fist of air. It threw him across the cavern and bashed him into the dark glass wall, nearly knocking him out. But he was conscious enough to feel the slices of pain as he slid down the wall. The thing was made of dragon teeth—or at least, it felt that way, shredding his wings and scales as he tumbled and fell. He shoved away from it, catching air with his wings but mostly rising on magic. The floor below seethed with black wings. Cries of anger and fury rang out, pitched loud and powerful, and it tore at his ears. Angelsong.
Leksander gritted his teeth and pulled up, squinting to see Tajael still dangling above him. The angel who held him pulsed power through the air. His hair was dark and long, and he had tattoos along his side similar to Tajael’s but different. His wings beat in a slow and powerful stroke, and his blue eyes blazed, but otherwise, he was unnaturally still, suspended mid-air.
And clearly pissed.
Leksander hesitated. With Tajael and the angel above him and the swarming masses of angelings below, it was insanity to attack. Angels—whether light or shadow—weren’t bound by the deep magic of the treaty, the one that prevented any fae from killing a prince of the House of Smoke. But if this dark angel had meant to kill him, he would already be dead.