by JA Huss
Tier leans over on his side as his right hand slips inside my hoodie. His fingertips trace up my ribcage, the lightest touch I've ever experienced in my life. He drags them up, crosses the lowest rib, stops for a moment to watch me, and then continues his path until he's tracing circles on the fleshy inner part of my upper arm. I gasp just before his kiss returns to my lips and he pulls back. "Still ticklish, I see."
I can only moan out the affirmative, because he's kissing my belly now. Little flutters of euphoria burst through as the sensation travels up my torso. His hands are all over, cupping and kneading my breast, sliding down my pants, and then, before I can even process that, he's wrapped them behind my neck once more, his fingertips clasping my hair.
"Where do you come from, Junco?" he breathes. I look into his eyes and hold his gaze as his hand slips under the waistband of my jeans.
"Council 3. I'm not hiding that—" I gasp as his fingers slide between my legs. "This is not fair, you're trying to seduce me into telling you things!"
His mouth teases my lips again as I momentarily forget what I was complaining about.
"Trying to? Darlin', this has gone beyond trying." He uses both hands to push my hoodie up, his thumbs dragging across my skin and sending shivers of delight up my spine as I whimper. He pulls me up off the bed for a fraction, slips the hoodie over my head, and then lowers me back down.
And stares at me.
"What?" I breathe.
His answer never materializes because his mouth is all over my body.
I close my eyes and grab his hair as best I can, it's much shorter than it used to be, and pull his face towards my chest. He accepts with a low rumble from his throat and oh shit is coming out of my mouth.
He stops.
"Do not swear in front of me, Junco."
I open my eyes to find his face hovering over mine, the green bright with annoyance. "I said shit, not fuck."
"That's not funny."
My grin creeps out. I thought it was.
He moves to the side and falls back on the bed next to me.
Now I've done it. "Sorry, OK? I was kidding."
He pulls me towards him, wraps his arm around me, and I rest my cheek on his chest. "I need to know what you know, Junco. Where did ya come from?"
"So that's it?" I ask. "Heat me all up with the promise of sex, then stop and make me talk? That's your plan?"
He eyes me cautiously. "It worked, didn't it?"
"Pffft. I've still got pants on, Mr. Death. So I'd have to go with no, not quite."
He turns away, trying to stifle his laugh, but his hands disengage from my body and he clasps them together behind his head, like he hasn't got a care in the world.
"So, we're done here? Or what?"
"I'm waiting for an answer to my question, Junco. Where do ya come from?"
I'm not quite sure what he's after. "Tier, I admit, I have lots of secrets, some are so fu—" I stop and reconsider the curse. "I mean, some are so horrible I've tucked them down in some very dark places. But this is not one of them. I come from Council 3. I grew up in a sentient HOUSE, I spent my summer and winter breaks at Stag camp for training. I went to Council 1 Cadets for upper school, and I completed advanced sniper training with the RR military. This is what I know to be true. So if you've got more information, I'd like to hear it."
"No, all of that is true. But you've left out one part. Where did ya come from? Who made you, Junco?"
I throw up my hands. "You guys said Gyr made me!"
"No, we said you came from Gyr's genetics. But that cannot be true, because Gyr was not High Order."
"What's that mean?" My brows scrunch up as I think about what he just said.
He watches me for a few moments. "Gideon knows who made you, Junco. He's been throwing it in my face for two years. So you mean ta tell me he never told ya where you come from?"
The sigh comes out as exhaustion. "If Gid knows something, he hasn't told me. We've got secrets from each other, too. We basically stopped hanging out together back when I was ten. I never even knew he had lovers until a few hours ago, and you think he's sharing this secret information with me? No! He's not!"
"Ya said the two of ya did a job in Prague, back in the Runout tunnels. When ya remembered about those fake nightdogs. So, yer telling me ya did that job when you were ten?"
"No, I mean, of course I saw him as a teen. We did jobs here and there, but he was gone most of the time. It's not like when we were kids, back before they changed him."
"Changed him? How?"
"What do ya mean, how? He's an Archer, right? He's got those scars on his back. Lucan knows this." But apparently Tier did not. "You didn't know?"
"I suspected, of course. So they turned him avian, when you were ten?"
"Avian? No, he was never an avian. At least that's the impression I got. Back when I first saw him, in Subjack's camp before we went up to Runout, he was touching my wings and—"
"Touching yer wings?"
"Yeah, he had to help me put that stupid dress on." Tier's growl tells me he's annoyed at this revelation so I move on quickly. "Anyway he was making me gasp with those little touches and then he asked me if it hurt. To touch them. And I told him no. It's sexual."
I look over to Tier. His eyes are glowing so bright he's casting shadows.
"And," I continue in a rush, "that totally took him by surprise. He was embarrassed, apologized even, and said he had no experience with wings." I shrug. "That's all I know. He was never an avian, but he was gone for years and when he did come back, he was…"
"What?" Tier prods.
"Not the same. He was not the same."
"How? In what way, Junco."
I think about this for a few moments. When he came to my house that first year of cadets he acted like we were never apart. Like him going away for almost three years was nothing. Just a blip of time among billions of blips. He offered me no explanation. At all.
"He barely talked, he didn't want to go shooting with me or spar. He didn't even want to tell me the stories anymore. And these were all things we did regularly, before, ya know? I mean I get it about the stories, those were just coping mechanisms when I was little. Parables to help me understand that my life was about training and death and killing. And when he came back I was already almost fourteen by then and I was mature—had grown to accept what my life was without the stories. So I can see that one. But all the other things I did more as I got older. We had schedules, right? And when he left that summer I turned ten, his camp schedule became my schedule. Every Monday I'd shoot. Every Tuesday I'd range. Every Wednesday I'd—"
"Range?" he asks, cutting me off. "What's range?"
What is range? I'm lost in time as the memory begins to play in my head. "I got in trouble that year. They sent me home from camp after Gid left. Actually, my dad came to get me because I ran away."
I look over at Tier to see his reaction. He smiles and brushes some hair from my eyes.
"And then I—I had a hard time holding myself together, so that's the second time they erased me."
His arms come down from his head and he wraps me up, pulling me to his chest. "I'm sorry, Juncs."
"No, it's OK. It was OK that time because I was crazy. Here's what you don't understand, Tier. Gideon is my sanity. He holds me together. And when they took him away I just… I just lost it. I went out ranging alone. I was so angry about everything. They could track me of course." I motion to the spot on my shoulder where Tier removed that tracker from me when we first met. "But it was underground, and I was…" I stop and smile up at him. "I was sneaky."
His squeeze says he agrees.
"Anyway, they found me eventually and my dad came and got me and took me home that summer. But I still had to train. And that was the year I started ranging alone for real." My heart-rate jacks up just thinking about it. "Just because I wanted to and just because I could." My shoulders shrug because how can I explain that?
I can't. It's disgusting.
"What is ranging, Junco?"
"Hunting." I look up at him and study his beautiful face. How can the Angel of Death look like this man? "But not regular hunting."
"What kind of hunting? Tell me."
I look up at him and shake my head. "No."
"Junco," he sighs. "For once, can you just do as I ask?"
I turn my back to him and stare out into space. The tiny pinpricks of light are teasing me in a dangerous way. "It's not that I don't want to tell you things, Tier. And it's not that I told Ashur or whoever personal things about me on purpose. They slip out sometimes by mistake." I turn back and watch his eyes as I talk. "I don't want you to know that stuff about me. It's all bad stuff. You don't want to know what I did as a kid, and even though you think you do…you don't."
"Was it hunting people, Junco?"
My body turns away but he stops me this time.
"Was it?"
My head nods. "Sort of. They were not human according to us, but who were we to judge?" We lie there silent for a few moments, I know he's picturing me doing these horrific things and that hurts more than anything else right now. "I remember everything, ya know. All of it."
He watches my face carefully, patiently.
"And I'm just a very bad person." I don't say it for sympathy and I don't say it so he can tell me I'm not. I say it because it's true.
His lips caress my cheeks for a few moments, but he stays far away from that topic. "Where does Gideon fit in? How was he different? What was he doing?"
The change of subject is such a relief I don't even mind talking about Gideon. "When he came back from being morphed, that was my first year of cadets. It was spring I remember, he came to my house for Easter break. I had him to myself for two weeks and I thought we'd just slip back into our routines, right? I mean, that schedule was my life outside cadets. It's just what I did. But Monday came and there was no shooting. Tuesday, no ranging. Wednesday, no grappling. He just sat in the guest room most of the time. Alone."
I swallow as I look up at Tier. "He came back broken. And it shocked me. Gideon is the only reason I'm alive right now. Even more so than my dad, because my dad wasn't there most of the time. They made him drop me off with Matthew. Matthew ran the Stag, my dad ran the rest of the country. But Gideon, he ran me."
"He was yer handler." It's a statement, not a question.
"Yes," I say, looking up at him. "He is my handler."
"You were his weapon."
I nod. "Yes, I am his weapon."
We wait, our eyes searching each other. He seems satisfied with this.
"And that's all you know about yer origins? His origins?"
"I know nothing about Gideon's origins beyond Clutch 139." I swallow down the dread. "Do you?"
He shrugs and offers up nothing.
"If something happens to Gideon, Tier—if something happens to him, I will die. I will not go on, do you understand me? I will not go on. I cannot lose him and just thinking about it right now makes me want to shrivel away into nothingness. He keeps me sane, he holds all my broken pieces together. I would rather die than live without Gideon. And it's not what you think either. I don't want him." I feel him tense under me. "Not like I want you."
"Or Lucan."
"Oh, please! I'm not in love with Lucan. I love him, yes. I love him like I love Rikan or Selia or Moju and Esta. But I'm certainly not in love with him. I'd do a lot for him, if he asked. But when I said I chose him, that's not what I meant. I simply meant I'm on his side, that's it. I choose you, Tier. Are you hearing me? I choose you. I only want you in that way."
I wait to see if he's got anything to add, but he stays silent, staring up at the ceiling. This is my chance to set things right and start over, so I take it. "And I'm sorry about sleeping with Kush, too. Because it hurt a lot of people, and especially you. But I thought I was gonna die the next day, so why not, right? Why not just feel good for once? Why not just let that guy love me for a few hours? Is that so wrong? And yeah, it killed me what happened to him because it was all my fault. All of this, everything we're doing, it's all my fault."
The silence hangs between us for a few moments and my heart is pounding, wondering if this admission of guilt just pissed him off more. I'm just about to start babbling again when he finally speaks up.
"I know Kush was just a convenience, Junco, but I was angry that you were with Gideon and Lucan, and neither of those assholes even thought to tell me you were back. I saw it on the goddamn newscreen back on Amelia. Kadian reported it, Junco. That's how I found out you were finally safe."
"Tier." I touch his face, turning it gently towards me as I speak. "I had no idea. They cocooned me in that apartment, I had no idea. I asked for you over and over and they just kept telling me soon."
He nods and then continues. "And I understand about Gideon too, and that's why I told ya back on Sargassum that I'd never let anything happen to him. I know he means a lot to ya. But you have something with him that we don't have. It's not jealousy, it's just—"
He stops talking and the seconds drag on. "Fear," I finish for him.
"Yeah," he admits. "Fear. This is not the life I want, Junco. I don't want to be remembered for what I'm doing, get it? I don't want to be remembered as the Angel of Death. That's not what I am. I'm not bringing death, I'm simply making arrangements that were planned thousands of years ago. I'm just doing my job and there's no good way out of this mess. And it doesn't even matter if Lucan's responsible—"
He searches my face to see if I understand what he's saying.
I do.
"It doesn't matter anymore what he did. This is now and we're all in this together, right? I'm just trying to make sure some of us will make it to our end. We won't all make it, Juncs." He shakes his head and sighs. "Even if I refuse to complete the job I was raised for, it won't save the humans I must destroy to get what I need, they will all still die. Do you understand?"
"I do, Tier. The time for a fate shift is over, this is destiny."
"Yeah." It comes out so sad I feel the tingle in my nose as the tears well up in my eyes. "I could do nothing, and just hope—"
He stops again and I wait it out.
"Hope for the best. That you choose us and the High Order accepts that decision." A small laugh escapes, but it's not a happy laugh. "And the sick thing is, I'd be so OK with that. They could smash Earth out into the nether and I'd be OK with that if I just had you and some little back-water habitat where we could live out our end together. But they won't accept that, Junco. It's far too late for that now."
I swallow. No, that's too easy. Like me giving my Deliverance wish to Tier and hoping that he could save himself.
It just doesn't work that way. To get something there must always be sacrifice.
Like my Isten.
"They are evil." He reaches over the top of my bare chest to the nightstand drawer and pulls out the avian Bible, opening it to the image of the Devil. "They will want so much more than just violence and that's why I must be so much more than just Tier."
I force myself to look at the monster, the blood dripping from his mouth, the dead bodies below his talons. This is a struggle I can relate to. Being forced to be something you're not just because the job has got to be done. And they, those looking at us from outside, they don't understand how rising to your full potential can really fucking screw with your head sometimes.
"I've been watching ya, Junco—the crazy Inanna forced on ya and the weight of what you must do—and this is not what I wanted for us. This feels like losing. I can feel ya slipping away, our possibilities, our worthwhile end—it's just slipping away. I want it to be over so bad, ya have no idea. And believe me, darlin', your part in all this, the things you'll be responsible for in the end? They're nothing. Nothing compared to the death and destruction I will unleash."
I just fall against his chest and hold him tight, that's how much I love him in this moment.
"Yer not the cause of this, Junco. Yer the answer. I'm the ca
use, I'm the one raising Djed Pillars, causing tsunamis that wipe out millions of people. And there's so much more to come."
"Then don't do it, Tier. Just don't do it."
"We need those Pillars to complete the Halo, Junco." I follow his pointing finger to the rotating Earth on the holotable. The Halo is the circle that connects all the Pillars together.
"We must have them or else we have no chance against the High Order. None. One of us, either humans or avians, will absolutely be annihilated. And that's the best-case scenario because in my mind, I see nothing but destruction in the end. Total destruction." I feel his soul rattling around in his chest with his words. "So you'll have a choice, darlin'. And your choice may or may not placate them, depending on which way ya lean."
"Which one might placate them?" I already know, but it's better to hear it and be certain than let that go unsaid.
"Earth. You must choose Earth."
"Or what? What if I choose Lucan and you guys?"
He shrugs. "We fight."
I think about this for a minute, trying it on for size, getting used to it a little. Fighting is something I can do, fighting is something I can do well, in fact. Killing has always been my one true superpower. Besides, Gideon wants to fight them too. "That's what we do, right? We fight. So, what's the big deal?"
He lets out a small breath that makes its way into a laugh, then pushes me aside and leans down over me. "God, I fucking love you. You say all the right things, Junco."
My face scrunches up. "Has anyone ever mentioned that your language is filthy, Tier?"
He turns away to hide his grin. "But yer learning, aren't ya?"
"Yeah, I get it. I guess. You hate the swearing."
"When this is all over so are your soldiering days, Junco. I only want ya to be ready, darlin'. That's all. I only want ya to be ready to let this life go."
I'm so ready.
He disentangles my arms that have been wrapped around his neck and stands up, his eyes passing over my naked upper body.
He's staring, actually.
"What? I look strange, huh?"
He unseals the seams on his shirt and whips it over his head, then crawls up on either side of my body and he kisses his way up my chest until his mouth is barely touching my lips. His flight feathers slide across my ribs and just about tickle me into ecstasy.