by Robin M Helm
He was thoroughly confused by her question. “Forgive you for what, Elizabeth?” he asked, stepping closer to cup her face with his hand. She caught her breath, lowering her eyes to avoid looking into his face.
“When I fell and you caught me, I was so angry with you. I never really thanked you for saving my life. I am so full of sin that I actually turned from God – and from you – to go with Gregory, and you rescued me again, knowing that I would still reject you. I remember how you begged me to let you drive me home, promising that you would not talk to me – ‘bother’ me, as you said. How can you stand me? I acted like a spoiled child. How can God forgive me for doubting Him?” Elizabeth tried to turn her face away, but he held her chin firmly, forcing her to face him. She slowly raised her eyes to his, and his heart broke to see them filled with unshed tears.
Xander’s voice was soft and low as he said, “Oh, my love. I was glad that I was there to help you, even if it parted us. I wanted to tell you the truth about me, but the timing was never right. I knew that you had every right to be angry with me because I was there when Richard hid the truth from you, and I knew how you would feel. Please believe me when I say that losing you for a short time only made me value you more when you accepted my love again. Elizabeth, I am not perfect, and neither are you, but we are both forgiven by God through Christ. We love because He first loved us. We forgive because He forgave us. You know that He has forgiven you for your short crisis of faith. Our Father understands our frailties.” He bent his head to kiss her tears away, and after he had feathered her eyelids with his lips, she lifted her face to his. The glory of his countenance was reflected in her eyes.
He kissed her gently, pouring his soul into his touch, and she put her arms around his waist, feeling his wings for the first time. Though she was greatly enjoying his kisses, she was momentarily distracted.
What is that? she asked, moving her hands gently up and down his back, barely touching him.
Those are my wings. Do you want to see them?
Do we have to stop kissing? Elizabeth queried.
Yes. His answer was short.
I can wait until later, then. She reached further around him to explore his wings with her hands, and his mind emptied of coherent thought.
Your wings are muscular, strong, and much thinner than I imagined – yet there is a softness and warmth, like a baby’s skin, Elizabeth thought.
He pulled away, turning his face so that she could not see his expression.
“Did I do something wrong?” Elizabeth was slightly alarmed.
His voice was ragged. “No, it is just that … no one has ever touched me there before. I was not expecting it. I did not know how it would feel.”
“Did I hurt you?” she asked, more urgently.
“No. Quite the opposite.” He lowered his lashes against his reddened cheeks in embarrassment.
Michael snorted.
Gabriel glared at Michael.
“Oh,” she said slowly, with understanding. “Then I won’t do that again – at least until after we are married.”
“That would probably be for the best. I did not expect them to be so – sensitive. All of my ideas about physical intimacy are based on my observations of human males, and none of them have wings.” Xander was silent while he struggled for control. After a moment he looked at her and asked, “Would you still like to see them?”
“Do you mind?” she asked.
Xander could feel the curiosity flowing from her in waves.
“Not at all.” He turned to stride into the living room, relieved to leave the small space.
“Where are you going?” Elizabeth asked as she followed him.
“There is insufficient room in the kitchen,” he answered.
Xander stood in the center of the living room and faced her, unfurling his shimmering, snowy white wings and holding them out so that she could see them. His wingspan was at least ten feet across; he was awe-inspiring. He watched her as she walked around him, ducking carefully under his spread wings. Xander knew from her thoughts that she wanted to touch him, but she held herself back, concentrating on how his wings looked rather than how they felt.
When she was in front of him again, she seemed puzzled. “They aren’t really made of feathers, though they have the appearance of feathers.”
Hiss laughter came out like a bark. “Feathers?”
“Birds have feathers,” she said reasonably.
“Bats, flying fish, and penguins do not. All wings are not feathered in the same way. Our wings are layered with feather-shaped membrane which is more responsive to touch than feathers are, I suppose. There are nerve endings and muscles throughout my wings so that I can adjust them as needed in order to fly in different ways,” He drew his wings back to mold against his body, and the movement of the air caused her hair to ruffle a bit.
“Your wings are beautiful – not at all like the wings of bats or penguins, but they are not how I thought they would be. Their structure seems to resemble the more rounded wings of birds rather than the sharp, bony wings of bats, and though they look feathered, they’re more flexible than any wings I have ever seen. Did I offend you?” she asked.
“No, I was unprepared for your question. That is all.” He smiled broadly.
“Angel wings have feathers in all the pictures,” she pointed out.
“You mean ‘paintings,’ not ‘pictures,’” he corrected.
“So the artists are wrong. Interesting. Why are there no pictures?” she asked. Her thoughts betrayed how badly she wanted to explore his wings with her fingers, and he concluded that she kept questioning him to keep herself distracted.
“My, you are inquisitive tonight. I suppose because angels cannot be photographed well in angelic form, and we have not often appeared in human form to artists or anyone else.” His handsome face showed his amusement.
“Yes, the glowing would not look right in a picture,” she mused.
“I sense that there is something else you want to know,” he stated.
“Well…” she said uncertainly.
“You have officially kissed an angel and seen my wings. How else can I satisfy your curiosity, my love?” he asked as he stepped even closer to her.
She put her hands on his chest and looked up at him shyly. “I dream about you – quite often – and in those dreams, you are holding me against you, and we are – could you take me flying?”
“I have flown with you twice, you know,” he replied with a grin.
“I know you flew with me at the lodge. What other time have we flown together?” Elizabeth drew her brows together, frowning slightly.
“I flew you to the hospital after your four-wheeler accident. You were unconscious,” Xander answered, watching her face.
Her surprise was evident. “Really? I wish I had been awake. Why didn’t anyone see you?”
“I kept to the treetops, and then changed into human form after I landed in the woods behind the hospital. I carried you into the emergency room myself,” he said. “To be solid enough to carry you, I had to stay at the edge of visibility. Invisible flight is faster, however.”
“You have degrees of solidity?” she asked in fascination.
“Yes. I can be so invisible that everything passes through me, just solid enough to stop cars and other things while remaining unseen, or completely solid like I am now. You would not be able to touch me in any form other than this one, though you could feel the peace and comfort of God being relayed to you if I touched you or spoke to you.” Xander tried to keep his explanations simple. He had a lifetime to tell her things, and he did not want to overload her with too much information at once.
“Hmmm…You were with me when evil was in my room, when I had the chicken pox and was in the hospital, when I left church and hid in the bushes at my house, and when I looked at the pictures of Richard and Caroline, weren’t you? I remember God’s comfort at those times,” she said, smiling.
“Yes, I was there, holding you and wh
ispering to you. I already had begun to love you, and it was agonizing to watch you suffer. I loved you long before you met me,” he said softly, taking her into his arms and kissing her again. After a few moments, he lifted his head and kissed her forehead. “I have to take you home now, but in ten weeks, you will stay with me.”
His voice held such joy that she looked up at him and was amazed at his radiance. He seemed to glow even more brightly, and he vibrated slightly with his emotion.
She held her breath. You literally take my breath away. You are glorious, my love, she thought.
You do not know how you affect me, Elizabeth. You have been stunning me, innocently torturing me, since you were fourteen.
“I take it that you shine more brilliantly when you are happy?” she asked, smiling.
“Yes. I will have to take care on our wedding day to keep my angelic nature firmly under regulation. It would not do for me to blur all of the pictures,” he stated solemnly.
“Could that really happen?” she asked, a little worried.
He laughed. “No. I can easily control my forms. I do not change without wishing to do so, unless I have a head injury apparently.”
She remembered how he had appeared to glimmer following his bicycle accident. “So my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me the day you had a concussion?”
“You really did see me in this form. I had my brothers quite worried for a while,” he said as he smiled at Michael and Gabriel. They shifted uneasily, unused to being exposed.
“So they are over there?” she asked, following his eyes.
“Yes. They are always with us, but do not think of it unless you need them. They are not comfortable with your knowledge yet,” he explained.
“That makes three of us,” she said in a wry tone.
“You are not comfortable with your awareness of my nature?” he asked.
“I am perfectly comfortable with you. It’s knowing that Michael and Gabriel are there watching us all the time that requires some attitude adjustment on my part. If I have to get used to knowing about them, I suppose that they’ll have to adjust to my knowledge of them as well.” She looked in the general direction of Michael and Gabriel and spoke again, “I’m sorry, guys. That’s just how it is.”
Xander smiled at his brothers. “I think she summarized it well, gentlemen.” Looking back at Elizabeth, he said, “And with that, I must take you home before your father changes his mind about me.”
He changed back into human form and took her hand, pulling her toward the door.
“But I have more questions, and I want to fly,” she protested, tugging gently against his hand.
He chuckled. “You will always have more questions, love, and I will answer them. And I will certainly take you flying soon. I have wanted to do that for a long time now. We do not have to do everything today. We have the rest of our lives.”
She nodded her head in agreement, smiling as she allowed him to lead her from his home.
After they had driven to her house, while they sat in his car with the moonlight playing on her curls, Xander looked at her beloved face with his heart in his eyes and asked, “Well, what was it like to kiss an angel, my love?”
Her eyes were dreamy again as she answered with a sigh, “Heavenly. Just heavenly.”
Chapter 5
“‘. . . God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’”
I Samuel 16:7
On the first Monday in October after classes were over for the day, Xander and Elizabeth drove to Thomas & Sons Formal Wear in Spartanburg to select tuxedos for the groomsmen and ushers. David and Lynne Bennet, Charlotte and her brother Joshua, and Chance and Janna were meeting them there. Anne Bingley, Chance’s mother, was going to Chance and Janna’s house to babysit her grandson, Matthew, while her son and daughter-in-law were out for the evening.
The Bennets felt that it would be a good opportunity to become better acquainted with their future son-in-law’s family and had invited everyone to dinner at a nearby restaurant after the fitting. Xander also thought it was a good idea, for it gave his “brothers” an opportunity to acclimate themselves to conversing and eating with humans before the rehearsal dinner and the wedding.
While Niall thought of the outing as an adventure, Michael and Gabriel were not so sanguine. The idea of appearing in human form while being fitted for clothing, and then eating a meal in front of five guardians and ten warriors did not appeal to them, though Gabriel was his usual diplomatic, unruffled self.
After everyone had arrived, Michael, Gabriel, and Niall flew to the back of the store where the tuxedos were stored and exited through the rear wall of the building. In the secluded area, they took human forms dressed in business casual clothing and walked back around the store, through the parking lot, to the front door. As they entered the building, a sales clerk behind the counter caught sight of them and stood frozen to the spot, her amazement written plainly across her face.
Her thoughts were loud. I wondered how we would find one tuxedo large enough for the six foot nine inch groom. I suppose the three giants will need to buy tuxes and have them altered. I’m estimating seven feet for the green-eyed blonde and nearly that for blue-eyed one. The dark-haired man looks small in comparison, but he must be at least six feet two inches. We can fit him, I think. They are all built like Olympic athletes, too – and gorgeous! I have never seen anyone like them around here. Where are they all coming from? I wonder if they have girlfriends or wives. She glanced quickly at their hands. No wedding bands!
Hurrying from the fitting area, the store manager looked at the clerk in mild irritation and walked quickly toward the men, reaching out her hand to shake theirs. “Hello. You must be here with the Bennet party.”
Xander, standing to the right by the fitting rooms, watched Michael scowl as he shook the woman’s hand. Michael, smile. She thinks that you are angry with the sales clerk. She has no way of knowing that you simply hate the idea of trying on clothes.
Michael immediately smiled, and the sales clerk nearly fainted. Great idea, brother. If her heart rate goes up any more, she may have a heart attack, thought Michael as his green eyes flashed. I will try to be pleasant, though this gives me little pleasure.
Gabriel and Niall shook the lady’s hand while smiling at her and introducing themselves.
While the manager looked the men up and down, professionally estimating their measurements, Elizabeth stood up and, with Xander, walked over to greet them, accompanied by her parents and Roark. Janna and Charlotte remained seated in the area to the right of the front door, and Josh and Chance waited by them. Alexis, Hector, Edward, and Skylar stood by their charges while ten stalwart, unsmiling warriors stationed themselves along the perimeters of the room.
As the introductions were being made, the manager and the clerk went to find the correct style of tuxedos in sizes which they thought would fit the men.
Elizabeth greeted Xander’s “brothers” warmly, surprising Michael by reaching up to hug him. “Michael, it’s so good to see you again.” He recovered and returned her light embrace. She stepped back and gestured toward her father and mother. “These are my parents, Lynne and David Bennet. Mom, Dad, this is Michael, Xander’s big brother, and this paragon of good manners is Gabriel.”
Gabriel did not wait for Elizabeth to hug him; instead, he surprised her by leaning over to initiate the gesture of affection himself. “It is always good to see you, Elizabeth. My brother has done well to secure you. ‘He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord.’”
Elizabeth laughed lightly, “Proverbs 18:22. You just keep telling Xander that, Gabriel.”
As Lynne and David shook hands with Michael and Gabriel, Elizabeth turned her attention to Niall, putting out her hand to him. “You must be Niall. Xander has told me about you. He said that you’re his best friend as well as his brother.”
Niall’s dark eyes sparkled with good humor. “Elizabe
th, you cannot hug Michael and Gabriel, yet give me only a hand shake. Where is the fairness in that?” Xander smiled broadly as Niall ignored Elizabeth’s hand and wrapped her in a quick, friendly hug instead.
“Hey, careful there, brother. Elizabeth is my fiancée, and do not forget it,” said Xander, smiling.
Niall smirked at Xander over Elizabeth’s shoulder.
David and Lynne watched, delighted with the way Elizabeth was being received by Xander’s brothers.
After Niall stepped back from Elizabeth, he turned to Lynne and David, saying with a smile, “I feel that I have always known you.”
As Lynne shook his hand, she tilted her head and looked at him quizzically. “And I feel the same about you. Strange, isn’t it?” Her mind went back nearly ten years before to Janna’s car accident her senior year of high school. She could vaguely remember the young man who helped her, and the man before her seemed startlingly like him. This man is too young to be the same guy. “Your name is Niall? You look very much like someone I remember. Have we met before?”
He smiled, and his dark eyes twinkled. “Anything is possible, but I am not originally from this area. Yes, I am Niall. It means ‘champion.’ And you are Lynne? May I call you Lynne? Mrs. Bennet sounds too formal for a lovely lady like you.”
“Oh, you are a charmer! Of course, all of you must call me Lynne, and my husband is David. We don’t stand on ceremony,” she said, looking up at each of the brothers in turn.
David looked closely at the imposing, handsome men. He put his hand out to clasp each of theirs in turn, sensing a connection as he did so. David knew that he had never met them before, but he felt that he should know them. There was something very familiar about them; it was almost as if his spiritual self reached out to them, very much like meeting another believer. That must be it. The Spirit in me witnesses to the Spirit in them, but it is somehow more than that. They are like Xander to me. There is a family connection of some sort.