Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
The coachman took a step back from the angel who moved closer to him. She was beautiful, a vision of deep sepia skin, flashing green eyes, and dark brown hair that fell to the middle of her back in heavy braids. I doubted I’d ever seen a more stunning woman, but she was an angel, so that was part of it.
“What is your issue, friend?” she asked the coachman.
He pointed at us, and when she turned, Raphael didn’t bow or greet her or do anything but smile.
I heard her sharp indrawn breath. “Ah, so Anahel’s pet has returned.”
“Greetings, Evangeline,” Raphael murmured.
Instant scowl from her. “You’ve been gone a long time. He’ll be surprised.”
“Doubtful. When have you known him to be so?”
“Yes,” she agreed after a moment. “What brings you?”
“I’m here to see him and drop off some friends. I have a favor to ask of him, and of you, actually.”
“Me?”
“I would ask you to scry for me upon your great mirror of the heavens and find me a witch.”
She squinted but moved forward, startling the gathered crowd by stepping into Raphael’s space and putting her hands on his face. “Why don’t you fly? Are they broken?”
He scoffed. “Broken. How?”
“Then show us.”
I caught my breath, and when he looked at me, her hands fell away. There was no way to contain my excitement. I’d begged him for months to show me after Marcus told me that Raphael had wings. But, he said, he couldn’t show them to me in our home in Potrero Hill. He couldn’t, in fact, show them to me anywhere on the earthly plane. But now, here, apparently he could, and I more than wanted to see.
“You better not be scared,” he warned me, his tone almost harsh, but I heard the hesitance too. He was worried.
“Nothing about you would ever frighten me,” I promised as he took off his hoodie, then the T-shirt underneath.
“While you parley with this dreg, my grievance goes unheard,” the man with the whip barked at the angel.
When she turned to him, he visibly flinched, simply from the fierceness of her gaze. I understood. If she’d been looking at me like that, I’d probably be concerned as well.
“You take issue with the only kyrie the angel Anahel, ruler of the third heaven, calls friend,” she told him. “Best you drive on and not invite his wrath.”
He glanced at Raphael and then quickly returned to his coach. He was gone in moments, the crowd parting to allow his escape.
“Jackson,” Raphael whispered, and I watched, holding my breath, as enormous wings erupted from his shoulder blades and unfurled, even more beautiful than the others’ because they were his. Their coloring was mesmerizing, same as that of a male blackbird—glossy jet black, deep midnight blue, and shimmery forest green.
“Oh, Raph,” I barely got out, wanting to reach out and touch them, and him, but not daring to. I wouldn’t be able to stop once I started. “They’re so beautiful.”
He squinted at me.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmured, overwhelmed with the sight of him.
All of it, the whole day, from the time we stepped through the portal to now, was beyond imagining, and already my equilibrium, my feelings, my perceptions of things were all out of balance, leaving me hesitant and unsure. Nothing about the situation was normal, and now, looking at the one person who usually provided a tether for me, he was unbelievably changed as well. Everything was different, and it was overwhelming.
I wasn’t the only one. When I looked at Simon, Leith, Ryan, and Julian, they were all sitting down under the sidewalk railing, and seemed as shaken as I felt.
Grabbing my wrist, Raphael yanked me close so that his mouth was next to my ear. “You have a wing kink, I can tell.”
He was teasing, and typically I took that bait, but I didn’t find it funny now, and my reaction unnerved me. It was hard to breathe through my desire to put my hands all over him. And it was strange because I always wanted him, of that there was no doubt, but this was different. It felt weirdly like it was crucial to brand him or bite him or do something that would show everyone he belonged to me. And it wasn’t a want or hunger or craving, but instead a mixture of panicky fear and absolute, devouring need. I couldn’t lose him.
“Love?”
Everyone from the angels to the gathered crowd was looking at him in awe, and I could feel how hot my skin was, like I was running a fever. My chest tightened, my stomach clenched, and it was hard to speak around the lump in my throat.
“Look,” he said softly, and lifted his left wrist so I could see his bracelet, my bracelet, the one representing our exchanged vows. And it helped, but still, I had this ridiculous, nearly overwhelming urge to attack him.