by Sarah Gilman
Raised voices had reached Wren’s ears as he’d climbed to his knees on the sill. He’d paused and listened.
The Guardian had sounded disturbed, agitated. “There’s no mistaking Lark’s scent, but you’re right, there’s something…else. Something different.”
“Different?” Jac had growled. “I scented a human male. The stench is all over Wren! I’m telling you, something isn’t right here.”
“Of course, something isn’t right.” The Guardian’s voice had grown more strained. “Raphael and Kora have been murdered—”
“Would you keep your voice down! Wren doesn’t need to hear this right now!”
“—and a Guardian is at fault.”
Wren hadn’t listened to any more of the conversation. He’d jumped out the window.
“Wren?” Jac’s concerned inquiry jolted Wren back into the present.
Wren flicked his wings and turned away from the stairs. “There was a human scent on me after Lark’s attack. Was it ever identified?”
Jac’s eyes widened. “You knew about that?”
“I overheard you and the Guardian that night. I was wide awake at that point, after all.”
Jac flushed. “Sorry, that was my fault. I noticed the scent and asked him to double check. I thought you were still out cold.” His eyes narrowed. “I still can’t believe you jumped out that fucking window.”
Wren shoved his fingers through his hair and paced. “About the scent. There was no human that night other than my mother.”
Jac shook his head. “The scent was distinctly human male and all over you and the clearing…and your mother’s body.” Jac paled and ran a hand over his face before he continued. “Lark did have a human accomplice. It was surprising as fuck at the time, but it wasn’t long before Lark became publicly associated with the poachers. A poacher must have been there, helping Lark. We assume you passed out at some point—”
“I didn’t.” Wren stretched to relieve the tense knot in his gut.
Jac scratched his chin. “Lark is the poacher leader now. Why is it so hard to accept he acted with their help that night?”
“It’s just bothered me, all these years. And now, if Lark isn’t found, my father…” Wren couldn’t finish the sentence. “If there’s any clue that was overlooked, now’s the time to find it.”
Jac reached a hand out and paused. When Wren didn’t move away, Jac rested his hand on Wren’s shoulder. Neither spoke for a long moment.
Finally, Wren sighed. “I need to go. Ginger is alone at the house, and she hasn’t eaten since…hell, I don’t even know when she ate last.”
Lexine unfolded herself from the chair. “I have plenty of food you can take.”
“Thanks.”
Five minutes later, Wren left Jac and Lexine’s house with a large cardboard box in his arms. He took off and flew low across the lake, letting his wings skim the water on the down stroke, appreciating the meditative rhythm.
The sun sank behind him in a golden display as he dropped to his feet on the deck of his family’s home. He paused and stared through the window. Ginger lay on the couch, covered in a quilt, her eyes shut.
He disarmed the security system and eased inside, careful to make no noise. He set the box on the kitchen island. Ginger didn’t stir.
Wren lifted his wings to kneel at her side and watched her sleep for a long moment. Tension and worry absent from her features in her slumber, she looked even more lovely than usual. She must be starving, but he couldn’t bring himself to wake her.
He stood and settled on one of the tall, backless chairs that allowed him to sit without having to lift his wings. Sitting cross-legged on the cushion, he couldn’t peel his eyes away from Ginger, and didn’t want to. He memorized the curves of her body under the quilt, the movement from her soft breathing, the way her light brown hair fell forward over her shoulder, and the reddish color and gentle curl of her eyelashes.
He recalled her face when she’d told him he couldn’t turn himself over to Lark. The determined set to her jaw, the apprehension in her eyes. The other day with the poachers, she had been a Guardian’s daughter helping an archangel when no one else could. Nothing personal about it.
Since then, it had become personal for her. Wren wasn’t arrogant, but there was no denying the way her gaze cut right to his core.
“The way you look at her…”
Wren cursed. He needed to reign himself in, needed a distraction.
He shook his wings and curled them forward. Preening—little to do with vanity and everything to do with maintaining feathers that inhibited flight if damaged—served to keep his hands busy and his mind focused on the repetitive motions.
Devin would arrive by evening, Vin had said. Thank God, for Ginger’s sake. If Wren spent any more time with her, he might not be man enough to let her go.
Chapter Ten
Ginger opened her eyes. Wren sat nearby, framed by the golden light of the sunset streaming in through the windows. A deep frown on his face, he ran his fingers through his feathers in a methodical procedure. He bent his wings at odd angles to reach their entire span, except the back of the wings closest to his body, which he couldn’t reach no matter how he contorted himself. Some ragged feathers fell to the floor as he worked.
He met her gaze and stilled.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Are you hungry?”
Ginger unfolded herself from the couch and crossed the space. She reached out and lightly touched his wings near his back as he looked over his shoulder at her, his eyebrows high.
“May I?” She ran a finger down his feathers.
Wren didn’t answer, but after a short hesitation he extended his wings again. Standing at his back she ran her fingers, tentatively at first, along his feathers to smooth the edges.
Wren dropped his head forward and his posture relaxed. “Gin,” he breathed.
Ginger took that as approval and continued her caress with a little more vigor, digging her fingers down to his skin. Wren arched his back and extended his wings to their full span, making the large room seem cramped.
“You have no idea how good that feels,” he said. “But to be honest, we normally only let our mates preen our wings. It’s a very intimate gesture for us.”
She hesitated and lifted her hands. She knew much about archangels, having been raised in the colonies by a Guardian, but nothing beyond the basics. She didn’t know the fine details of archangel mating—only that it was a sacred bond they entered into only once in their lives. Even if the relationship didn’t work out, archangels never took a second mate. Something physically prevented it, she’d been told.
Behaviors mates shared between each other were exclusive and sacred. Why had he let her cross such a line?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be inappropriate—”
“I don’t want you to stop,” he said, “but I want you to understand how meaningful this is to me.”
“I do understand,” she whispered. “But…”
“Please,” he breathed, meeting her gaze.
Ginger replaced her hands, one on each wing, and wove her fingers deep into his feathers. Wren sucked in air through his teeth. He dropped his head again, his exhale a low, satisfied sound. She worked her way across his wings for several minutes, making certain to cover the entire area out of his reach.
She paused when a discoloration caught her eye. She brushed aside the feathers nearest the bare skin of his back and stared at a long, ragged scar along the base of his wing. A cut like that could not have been an accident, she realized with a deep shudder. When had his enemies gotten close enough to try to butcher him?
§
“It’s nothing,” Wren said under his breath as he felt Ginger’s fingers trace the scar on his back.
“Liar,” she replied, only concern in her voice.
He folded his wings and turned to face her.
“What happened?” she asked.
Unpleasant tastes filled his
mouth. Wet, rotting leaves and pine needles. A metallic tang from blood that had spilled over his shoulder and onto his face.
“Lark?” Ginger ventured, as the silence pressed on.
Wren jerked his chin in confirmation and met her gaze. “Lark went after my mother first that night. She liked to tend the garden in the evenings to beat the summer heat. Father and I were inside, oblivious as Lark abducted her. Father had dozed off reading, so even the bond they shared as mates didn’t alert him. After a while, I went outside to find Mother. I wanted to ask if I could have ice cream… Jesus, what am I doing…you don’t want to hear this…”
He stood and stepped away but Ginger moved with him, her gaze unwavering.
“Tell me,” she urged quietly. “I want to understand what happened.”
Wren glanced out the south windows, where the rose gardens were visible in the yard below and the former vegetable patch—now grass covered—could be seen beyond it.
“I didn’t find her in the garden, but I heard sounds and followed them down the path into the woods. Lark wasn’t trying to hide; I stumbled onto them only a couple hundred feet from the house. Mother was alive and mostly unharmed, compared to…later. She was gagged and barely conscious. Her hands were over her head, secured by blades through her palms to a tree.”
He rubbed his own hands and began to pace. “Lark was there, whispering into her ear. I thought he was there to help her, of course, so I ran right to them. I didn’t see the strike, he moved so fast. One second I was reaching for Mother, the next I was face down on the forest floor, held down under Lark’s weight. I fought, but I was ten, and he was a seven-foot demon. The pain was excruciating as he dug the blade into my back, pulling my wing with one hand and cutting with the other.”
Wren twitched from the flood of bitter regret. At age ten, his psychic talents had recently manifested, but Lark had known and had prepared. He’d worn leather gloves and a jacket despite the summer heat; no skin contact, and Wren’s ability was mute. Otherwise, Wren could have ripped the life from Lark right then and there. If only. If fucking only.
“The leaves scattered around me, and I saw my father’s wings out of the corner of my eye, then Lark’s weight disappeared from my body. I twisted around and saw Father and Lark fighting. Lark is a legendary warrior, but Father was holding his own. Lark actually stumbled, something I’d never seen before. Father yelled at me to run. The distraction cost him; Lark buried a knife under his ribs.
“I ran, if you can call it that. With the injury, I could barely move, but I kept going until I found help. No cell phones in those days. By the time the Guardians got back here, my mother, my father, and Lark were gone. Feathers littered the clearing and blood splattered the trees, so much blood, no one doubted that both my parents were dead. They did doubt my assertion that Lark was the perpetrator, until they found my mother around dawn the next morning, with a message from Lark claiming responsibility.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it, either,” Ginger whispered. “Why did Lark do this? I had assumed it was the money he’d get for the feathers. But this is too much, too personal to be simple greed. He was a Guardian…”
Wren flicked his wings. “It’s definitely personal. But I honestly don’t know why. I was a kid. I don’t remember any change in Lark’s behavior, no sign that anything was wrong.”
Ginger shook her head. “I think children are more perceptive of such things than adults.”
“I trusted him. Lark saved my parents’ lives and mine only months prior, when Sanctuary was attacked by a large group of extremists. Growing up, he was like a big brother to me, another member of the family. Even seeing him with my mother pinned to that tree didn’t make me think twice. It took the knife in my back to make reality sink in.”
Wren stared hard at Ginger, wanting to see her rather than the images swirling in his head. No pity showed on her face, to his relief, nor the disgust of someone who couldn’t handle it. But she wouldn’t have a weak stomach, wouldn’t be fragile or naive. She’d grown up in the colonies. She knew the reality all nonhumans faced, even if she’d never before been in the middle of an archangel’s struggle.
“Thank you,” she said. “It means a lot to me that you were able to share that.”
“I shouldn’t mean anything to you, Gin.”
“But you do.” She stepped forward. “How I feel about you is not something Lark has the power to change.”
“Then you are a very brave, foolish woman.”
“I can live with that.”
He pulled her close and kissed her, lingering, giving her all he had, driven by a desperation brought on by the last rays of the sun that glinted over the mountain. Goodbye would come any minute now, with the arrival of Devin.
And Wren would absolutely not give in to his desire to keep her near. The more he felt for her, the more he had to keep her safe. That meant letting her go, even though the sense of impending loss threatened to crush him.
When he released her, he took each of her hands in his and ran his thumbs over her fingers. He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers.
“I brought food. You should eat something. Devin is going to be here soon.”
Her eyes flashed. She looked ready to argue as she opened her mouth. He lifted a hand and covered her lips with a finger. “Please. Let’s not talk about what we cannot change. Before you go, have dinner with me?”
She stared at him for a moment, then shut her eyes and nodded.
Wren led her to the kitchen and had her sit while he served the lasagna, salad, and wine Lexine had packed for them. Food still held no appeal in the grand scheme of things, but starving himself wouldn’t do him or anyone else any good. The only worthwhile part of the effort was sharing the normal activity with Ginger. He spent more time watching her than eating.
Ginger picked at her food without enthusiasm. After a few minutes, she pushed her half-eaten lasagna aside and folded her arms on the edge of the granite countertop.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before.”
Wren didn’t feel the fork fall from his fingers but he heard it hit the tile floor.
She knotted her fingers. “I realize you may find this odd. I’ve had a couple boyfriends and I am not a virgin. But I’ve never kissed anyone until you.”
Wren had to swallow before he could speak. “Kissing usually comes before intimacy.”
She nodded, her cheeks so red, her blue eyes seemed violet, but her gaze was steady and unflinching. “I didn’t have any feelings beyond friendship for the man I slept with, years ago, in Haven. We had a long relationship with no depth, and the casual, no strings attached kind of sex. I wanted the first man I kissed to mean more to me than that. I wanted to mean more to him.”
“Gin—”
“You let me touch and even preen your wings. So, I know I used that first kiss wisely.”
Wren moved around the kitchen island, pulled her to her feet and eased her back against the wall. He pressed his body against hers and nuzzled her neck, pressing his lips to the sensitive skin below her ear and breathing her in.
The essence of jasmine still clung to her skin. Could it be her natural scent was so lovely?
Ginger shivered and ran her hands along his shoulders to his hair, coaxing his face up to hers. She stared into his eyes as she kissed him, the intense warmth in her gaze making his chest ache.
“You didn’t deserve that,” Wren said, when he came up for air.
“Huh?”
“Casual sex.” He stroked her hair back from her face and moved his body against hers so that a breathless mew escaped her throat. “He didn’t deserve to touch you, if that’s all he had to offer. Damn it, if I could make love to you, I’d—”
The cell phone rang. He ignored it, refusing to release Ginger from the tight embrace. But as soon as the infuriating chimes silenced, they started over again.
He released her and snatched the phone from the counter.
“Yes?” he snapped.
“We’ll meet him out front.” Wren disconnected the call and shut his eyes.
Chapter Eleven
Ginger’s heart beat too fast as Wren hung up the phone. She stayed against the wall, her hands clenched into fists, taking deep breaths.
Wren set the phone down on the counter, resignation written on his features.
“Devin is here.” He tapped the phone. “I hope you don’t mind if I keep this? Lark will be calling again.”
Ginger waved off the phone.
“This way.” Wren led her out the doors to the flight deck. The clouds had cleared and the wind had died down, leaving only cold stillness under the star-speckled sky. He picked her up and glided down to the lawn below. He set her on the frozen grass, his hands lingering on her arms.
Ginger glanced over and saw Devin moving swiftly toward them. In the moonlight, Devin’s light skin and platinum-blond hair appeared spectral, a disconcerting contrast to his black clothing and leather jacket. His copper eyes reflected the light like a nocturnal animal.
Wren brushed a light kiss across her cheek and stepped back. Without him near, the temperature plummeted.
Devin closed the remaining distance and pulled her into a bear hug.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” He released her.
Ginger pulled at the neck of her sweater, just enough to reveal the top of the ragged scar above her heart. “I’m fine.”
Devin stared, his eyes haunted, and lifted his gaze to where Wren stood, a few yards away.
“Thank you.” Devin’s voice broke. He straightened and rolled his shoulders back, the steely composure of a highly trained Guardian covering the raw wound of a shaken father. “I can’t thank you enough, Wren.”
Wren shook his head. “You don’t need to thank me.”
Devin dropped his gaze back to Ginger. “Are you ready to go? The more miles we cover before dawn, the better.”
Her stomach lurched, and she glanced back at Wren. The logic for leaving was flawless. She had no doubt Lark would make good on his threat if given the chance; Wren’s fear was not a baseless one.