Grace and Glory

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

  Gasping for air, I backed up as I wiped under my nose. I glanced down, and in the faintest traces of the encroaching dawn, I could see the darker gleam of blood was absent on my fingers.

  My heart stuttered again. Had he...had he known or remembered what my blood would do? Was that why he tossed us both in the pool?

  I looked up, watching him...watch me. Neither of us spoke as I backed into the wall of the pool. He was close, his features clearer than they should’ve been to me. There was a tautness to the set of his lips, one I had only barely begun to understand but recognized nonetheless. My heart hammered now for a wholly different reason. He came closer, his wings slicing through the water behind him. I stiffened, but I didn’t move.

  He stopped in front of me, and I had to tilt my head back to meet his stare. “Why did you kiss me earlier?”

  His question caught me off guard, and it took me a moment to answer. “Because I...I wanted to reach you.”

  Thick lashes I shouldn’t be able to see lowered, shielding his gaze. “Did you?” he asked, his voice softer. More...more like Zayne than I’d ever heard.

  A shivery wave of awareness skated through me. “You’re here,” I said thickly, lifting my hands from the water. I didn’t even know what I was doing until I did it, placing my hands against his chest.

  He seemed to suck in a deep breath at the contact, as I flattened my palms against his too-cold skin. I didn’t push him away. I just...just touched him.

  “You tell me if I reached you,” I whispered as the edges of the shirt floated out from me, threatening to rise to the surface.

  His gaze lifted to mine, and that glow...the radiance in his skin and his eyes burned brighter. He was almost painful to look at, but I didn’t look away.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” he said.

  I refused to believe that. “Yes, you do. On some level, you do.”

  His features tightened and then blurred as he lowered his head to mine. “Then tell me why.”

  11

  How could I tell him in a way that he’d listen or understand, when I told him before? That it was because I loved him and he loved me, but words...words seemed to hold no meaning.

  And I didn’t know if that was why I did what I did next. If it was to reach him like I had before or if it was propelled by the ache that had settled low in me, or if it was just my reckless impulsivity that operated on the mantra of act first and think later.

  The why didn’t matter as I lifted my mouth to his. All that did was that it felt right even though he was either threatening to kill me or to put me in a cage, and I had really wanted to stab him in the heart earlier. For real. In no normal world would any of this be remotely okay. Certainly not what I was about to do. A whole lot of pearls would be clutched, but this...none of this was normal. We weren’t normal, and the norms and rules and expectations were not black and white here. They were gray, and we were drowning in that, but I knew when he kissed me before, that there was still a part of Zayne in there that recognized me—recognized us, and everything we meant to one another. Reaching that part of Zayne was worth it all.

  The moment my lips touched his, I shuddered—he shuddered. The kiss...it was nothing like in the park. There was no tentative prodding or hoping for a reaction in him. It was there, and his reaction was immediate.

  “I... I need you,” he said, voice thick.

  “You always have me, Zayne.”

  His mouth pressed to mine, and the kiss tasted of water and wintermint, familiar yet unknown.

  And that kiss, the touch of his lips, his tongue...it all quickly became something more, something deeper and harder. And it all quickly spun spectacularly out of control.

  His arm swept around me and mine hooked around his neck. I pushed off the wall, pressing against him, and then he was pinning me back against the wall, the weight and feel of his body scattering any thoughts before they could form. My fingers sunk into the wet strands of his hair and his hand was under the water, gliding over my thigh and my hip, under the floating edges of the shirt and farther up, to exactly what had caught his attention earlier. My back arched as a strangled sort of sound left my lips.

  It was captured in the maddening and dizzying kiss, and lost to all the soft sounds that followed. Heat burned me from the inside, warming his skin and setting fire to my blood. I lifted my legs and wrapped them around his waist, rocking against him as we kissed and kissed until I felt short of breath, and I didn’t stop there. It was a primal sort of need that drove us, one that went beyond the physical, and it was like dancing precariously close to an edge—the way his tongue moved with mine, the way his hands explored and lingered on the swells and the dips of my body, moving over bare skin and then lower, slipping under the flimsy barriers of clothing. His hand opening and closing there, urging me to move, but I needed no urging. And it was a lot like tipping on that edge now—the way I grabbed at his skin, his shoulders, his arms, trying to bring him closer, and the way I moved and twisted, pressing against him until the throbbing ache became something so acute it was almost painful. It was in the way I pulled at the slippery, soaked waistband of his pants and in the way my hips jerked as he shredded the clothing.

  Then we were toppling, tumbling and spinning over that edge.

  And there was no coming back from this—from him—and no matter what the outcome was, I wouldn’t want to. I wouldn’t regret this, because this was him. It was Zayne who held and touched me, and it was he who created the tension deep inside me. That coil was already tightening and twisting when he lifted me away from the pool wall, when the immense pressure of him pushed in and in, until his hips met mine. There was a glance of discomfort, a shock of fullness that caused me to stiffen and gasp into his mouth, but it was Zayne who held himself still, and it was a ragged sound that came from his mouth. And then he moved. We moved, and there was nothing slow as we took each other.

  And his mouth never left mine. I never stopped kissing him, not even when our bodies came together, not now when they rocked together, and when the coil unraveled, releasing a flood of rippling, intense pleasure, my cries fell on his lips as he shuddered all around me, in me.

  It was only when the madness ebbed, long after the last of the tremors racking both of our bodies, that our lips finally parted. I didn’t speak. Neither did he, but he still held me to him, his arms crossed over my back, and I still clutched his shoulders. He shifted, dragging his forehead across mine before he dropped it to my shoulder. His lips brushed the skin there and there was a soft nip.

  Pulse slowing, I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was his wing. It was so close to my face that I could see that each panel of feathers was actually several smaller ones. I could see the fine network of veins glowing with grace.

  I lifted a hand. The tips of my fingers brushed the downy softness—

  His head snapped up and his hand was even faster. He caught my wrist, pulling my fingers back. “Don’t,” he warned, his other arm tensing around me. “They’re...”

  My heart was thumping again. “They’re what?”

  His eyes searched mine, but he didn’t say anything for a long moment. He just held me there for what felt like a small eternity. “I know now,” he said. “Why I come to you. It’s this.”

  There was a spark of hope, but then my eyes narrowed. “It is not what we just did.”

  “It’s not?” His arm tightened again, pulling me firmly against him and eliciting a gasp from me. “It’s this.” A look of arrogance settled into his features, but quickly vanished as his forehead returned to mine. “It’s more.”

  The hope didn’t just spark then. It roared like a bonfire. “It is more.”

  “I know.” He let go of my hand and waist, clasping my hips. He lifted me away from him in a way that was surprisingly gentle, at least for this...version of Zayne. His hands remained there for a couple of moments and then s
lid away. He stepped back from me, the glow easing in his skin until it was faint. “That’s why you need to stay away from me, because I will hurt you. Even if I don’t want to or mean to, the thing that’s taking up a part of me will hurt you. Stay away from me.”

  Then he was gone in a fine spray of water.

  I sunk back against the wall of the pool as I stared at the spot Zayne had stood.

  The thing that’s taking up a part of me will hurt you.

  Those words were important. There was a recognition there. There was more proof that on some functioning level, Zayne was in there. Not that I needed all that much more proof.

  His words left a chill behind, but my heart... I pressed my fist against my chest. It wasn’t hurting as bad as it had been.

  I don’t know how long I stayed in the pool, but the pearly gray of dawn had begun to track across the sky before I finally moved. There was no sign of my undies...or my critical-decision-making skills as I climbed out of the pool.

  Did I regret what just happened? No. Should I? Some might think I should, and even I could recognize it wasn’t the greatest life choice as I padded across the rooftop, finding my daggers by the stupid “green space” that was the size of a box. Had I missed an opportunity to use the Sword of Michael when he’d been...distracted? Probably not. Besides the fact that I had been equally distracted, I knew he still would have sensed me summoning my grace.

  I entered in the code for the apartment as my mind turned over everything. Considering we hadn’t...we hadn’t used protection and we’d had no idea if making a baby was a thing that could occur between us before, let alone now, that hadn’t exactly been the most intelligent of things. Hell, I didn’t even know if it was possible for Trueborns to reproduce. What little I did know didn’t include the birds and bees.

  But it happened.

  Nothing was going to change that.

  And I would just have to add that to the ever-growing list of things to worry about, along with the fact that both Zayne the Fallen and Gabriel’s minions knew exactly where to find me.

  Man, I was actually grateful that Jada wasn’t here, because I would blurt it out to her within five seconds, and she would...well, she would have a lot to say.

  I didn’t have the brain space for it right now, though. I couldn’t even really think about what just happened. I changed into a dry shirt of Zayne’s and climbed back into bed, falling asleep with the daggers on the pillow beside my head.

  * * *

  I slept through a good part of Sunday, waking only to answer texts and to use the bathroom. I didn’t realize until then that I truly hadn’t given my body all the time to heal that it needed. My body probably needed more time, but one of those texts I’d answered had been from Dez.

  Something had happened at the world’s worst high school. He’d planned on telling me more about it when he picked me up, but considering what was going on there, I doubted whatever happened was going to leave me feeling the warm and fuzzies afterward.

  Luckily there were no additional demon or fallen angel visits while I was all but passed out, but I didn’t know how long that reprieve would last. The apartment may be compromised, and even if I brought Zayne back to his senses, we may not be able to stay here.

  But that was a problem for later. Just like what I’d done with Zayne in the early hours of the morning, and whether Peanut really was sucked momentarily into purgatory.

  I saw Peanut after I pulled on a pair of jeans and a loose shirt long enough to hide my daggers. He’d asked about the scratches in the window, and when I told him it had been a demon trying to get in, he shrieked and disappeared.

  I hadn’t seen or heard him since.

  After eating an entire box of microwave bacon—RIP, my arteries—I headed down to meet up with Dez.

  Squinting in the overcast skies, I cautiously approached the black SUV idling at the curb. I hoped it was Dez, and I wasn’t about to get kidnapped.

  The passenger window rolled down, and Dez’s blurry face came into view. “Hey,” he called out. “Hop in.”

  Opening the door, I hoisted myself into the passenger seat. I glanced at him, and immediately thought of Zayne and that pool. Feeling my cheeks burn, I was grateful he was focused on pulling into the traffic. I really needed to not think about any of that at the moment.

  “So, what’s up with the school?” I asked as I leaned back and pulled a hair tie out of my pocket. I held the tie in my mouth and then gathered up my hair.

  My hair smelled like chlorine.

  Ugh.

  “Other than something not good? Not exactly sure,” he replied. “The police captain got in touch with us an hour or so ago on something she thinks is more up our alley of expertise.”

  The relationship between the Wardens and law enforcement was an odd one since ninety-nine percent of the world was oblivious to the truth because of stupid rules. As far as I knew, only those in the highest echelons of departments knew what Wardens really hunted. Most of them found out through some level of demon exposure. Exceptions to the rules had been made, and some were brought into the know after proving they could be trusted with the truth. How anyone could prove that they were that trustworthy was beyond me, but Thierry once told me that officials in every state and within every federal law enforcement agency, from the FBI to the Department of Defense, and every intelligence agency in between, were aware that demons were definitely among us. Matthew had hinted at a super-extra-secret department within one of the agencies that dealt with demon activity. I had no idea if that was true, but if it was, were they tapping out on the whole Gabriel issue?

  Couldn’t really blame them if they were.

  “Apparently they received several missing-persons calls from families of construction workers who were working at the school on Saturday,” Dez continued. “None of the workers returned home or are answering the phones.”

  “Oh, man,” I muttered around the hair tie as I gathered my hair and quickly braided the mess. That school was packed with lost souls. Most of them had been ghosts who hadn’t moved on and had become vengeful, angry wraiths. They posed a threat to anyone in that school, but they weren’t the only ones there. The school was bursting at the seams with Shadow People—the essence left behind by a demon who died—and they were far more dangerous and terrifying than a wraith having a bad day on the Mondayest of Mondays. All of the ghosts, wraiths and Shadow People were basically trapped there, waiting for the portal to open so they could enter Heaven, infecting it like a really bad outbreak of chickenpox. How in the world anyone could actually work in that building was beyond me, but the facade of restoration was in full swing. Even humans who didn’t believe in ghosts had to sense something off about the school.

  “Yeah.” Dez nodded as he slowed the SUV down at a crosswalk. “A unit went out to check on it and they lost contact with them after they entered the building.”

  Tying the end of the braid, I looked over at Dez. “That’s not good.”

  “It’s not.”

  “And let me guess, there’s more not good news to be shared.”

  “Yep. Another unit went out to check on them. They went into the building and only one came out.”

  My brows lifted. “Did the school eat the partner?”

  “According to the cop, his partner was sucked into the ceiling by a giant black mass.”

  My lips parted. “So, the school did eat their partner. Jesus.” I shook my head. “That school needs to be shut down.”

  “Agreed, which is what I told the captain. Since it’s probably going to be a crime scene of sorts, it’ll stop people from going in for a short bit. She’s looking into what she can do to get the construction stopped more long term.” He turned right and we moved about a foot before stopping again.

  I frowned as I stared out the window. Why in the world was there so much traffic on a Sunday evening?
/>   Dez had a better question. “Did you happen to see a giant black mass the last time there?”

  I snorted. “No, but I saw a crap ton of ghosts and Shadow People. I’m no expert on Shadow People, but that may be something they did—sucking someone through a ceiling.”

  “This should be fun,” he commented. “I figured since you could see them and we can’t, it was a good idea to bring you in.”

  I nodded. Made sense. “And something has to be happening there. As crazy as it seems, workers have been in there for how long without major problems. Before that, summer school? And the only thing I know that has happened has been a kid being pushed down the steps. So what could’ve possibly changed now?” I thought that over. “Then again, the spirit of Sam? He came back to warn Stacey to stay away from the school, because he sensed something bad was about to go down. I figured it was the portal he was sensing.”

  “Maybe they wanted to clear the school out in preparation for the Transfiguration?” Dez suggested. “But that doesn’t make much sense.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “That’s at least two weeks from now.”

  Looking out the window, I wondered if something had triggered the ghosts and Shadow People to become more violent? Or if it was just nature taking its course? Any ghost or wraith would become more dangerous the longer it was trapped.

  “You’re awful quiet over there.”

  “Sorry. Just thinking.”

  “About Zayne?”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t told him about my plans to go to the Crone, but decided against it. That was something better left not being shared until tomorrow. I had a feeling he would either try to talk me out of it or invite himself along.

  Dez was silent for a moment. “Nicolai didn’t want me to call you in on this.”

  “What?” I looked over at him.

  “With everything going on with Zayne, he’s concerned you’ll be distracted.”

  Me? Distracted? I almost laughed. “First off, I’m always distracted. I’m in a constant state of distraction.” I held up two fingers. “Secondly, I’ll admit it. Zayne is a priority. Right or wrong, I don’t care. But dealing with the Harbinger is still my duty. This is what I’ve been...bred for.” My lip curled. Bred? That sounded terrible. “This is what I’ve been training for. If something is going down with anything that has to do with the Harbinger, I need to be in on it. I can separate what’s going on with Zayne and with the Harbinger, and finally...” I stared at my three raised fingers and then lowered my hand. “I don’t have a finally. I just have one and two.”