Wings of the Wicked

  “I have to get back to class,” I said. “I’m not getting detention because of you, and I don’t want to get caught with a boy in here. If I get expelled, then I’ll never get into college.”

  He laughed softly. “College? Really? If only things were still that simple for you.”

  “Don’t talk to me like you know me, vir.” I started to turn away from him.

  He grabbed my hand and my throat tightened. The touch reminded me of the night of the Halloween party, when we’d first met and he’d taken my hand to dance with me. His grip was gentle in a way that frightened me. I stared at him, frozen like a deer caught in the glare of headlights, until my senses finally returned to me. I yanked free with ease. “And don’t touch me, either.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cadan said, and swallowed hard.

  His apology startled me. I’d expected a wiseass remark or for him to grab me again, but he just stood there looking conflicted. My gaze wandered unbidden over his shoulder.

  “Your wings,” I said. “They didn’t have feathers before. On the ship when we threw over the sarcophagus, your wings were leathery, like bat wings.”

  He looked at me inquisitively and shrugged. “Some of us can change more than others. Feathers aren’t as waterproof, and flying over the sea was dangerous. I took precautions. Why? Do you like the other wings better? I can change for you.” His wings burst free, the feathers replaced by a strong hide. They were so massive, it felt as if the room had closed in around us suddenly. For a moment I could only stare and keep myself from reaching out to feel them.

  “You should put them away,” I said shakily. “What if someone comes in?”

  “Then they’ll probably run screaming.”

  “I have to go and so do you.”

  “You’re no fun, angel girl.” His wings vanished.

  I could sense the energy from his transformation. When his wings grew, the air crackled with electricity, and now that they were gone, the relief was instant. “I can’t leave you here. How will I know you won’t decide to snack on some of the students?”

  “I have never eaten a human.” He said it with such disgust that I almost believed him.

  I had a brief flashback to the night on the ship: Geir clutching Jose’s body in the darkness, the poor ship captain’s blood dribbling past the mad demonic reaper’s shark teeth and down his chin and chest. I shuddered, desperate to keep the image of Cadan doing something similar out of my mind. “Sure you haven’t.”

  “What is your problem? I’m trying to help you.”

  “You’re a demonic reaper,” I said, almost laughing. “I have no reason to trust you.”

  A stab of anger darkened his brow. “And I’ve given you no reason to treat me like an animal. As I recall, you didn’t have a problem with me until you found out what I was.”

  “Good-bye, Cadan,” I said, backing out the door.

  “If I hear anything new, I’ll come to you.”

  “Be careful,” I warned. “My guard dog bites.”

  He grinned, and that impish gleam returned to his eyes. “And you don’t?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  “Don’t get me excited.”

  I couldn’t tell if Cadan was just being an idiot or if he was seriously trying to flirt with me. Disgusted, I said nothing more and left the reaper in the restroom. Some part of me believed him when he said he’d never eaten a human. It was hard to imagine a boy that hot eating people, and eating people was just all kinds of wrong.

  But, then again, Cadan wasn’t just a boy, and he was all kinds of wrong, too.

  4

  AFTER SCHOOL, I DID SOME HOMEWORK AND THEN headed over to Nathaniel’s. Instead of buying a swanky mansion with the untold millions he’d earned from the sale of rare original works of art, Nathaniel lived in a pretty normal house. I parked in the driveway and let myself in the front door. The house was older, but big and beautiful, and backed right up to one of the billions of small lakes in this part of the state, and its nearest neighbor was probably a quarter mile down the road. The inside was full of really cool old things, especially books. Nathaniel was a big nerd, but I loved that about him. He told lame jokes and always wore a friendly smile. He was also a flawless shot with large-caliber firearms, but he’d had a few centuries of practice. Nathaniel and Will both had a careful patience that astounded me.

  I set my purse and backpack on the sofa in the living room and started toward the kitchen. The boys were most often found in there, since they had monstrous appetites, amazing metabolisms, and too much free time.

  “Will?” I called. “Nathaniel?”

  I paused to listen, and instead of voices, I heard music coming from a guitar. I moved through the kitchen to the doors out to the deck. I had pushed the oak-trimmed glass door open when I saw Will, pick in hand, on a wooden bench. The snow-covered lawn behind him stretched out to the edge of the frozen lake. The deck was swept free of snow and my hoodie barely kept the chill at bay, but Will was sitting out there comfortably in a long-sleeved shirt. Cold and heat never seemed to bother him much, but I figured it was a reaper thing. He may have been comfortable in twenty-degree weather, but I was shaking like a Chihuahua.

  One of my favorite things in the world was watching Will play the guitar. It never failed to wash away any bad feelings weighing down my heart. He looked up and smiled at me when I stepped out onto the deck.

  “Hey,” he said, and stopped playing. “How was your day?”

  “A little too exciting.” My teeth chattered.

  He frowned. “What’s up?”

  I hugged my hoodie tighter as an icy breeze rolled down my collar and stung my bare flesh. “Can we go inside? It’s freezing.”

  Without a word, he swept up to me and guided me indoors in that way of his. He set his guitar onto a stand inside and shut the door to keep out the cold. He’d do anything I asked without hesitation, but that also meant I had to be careful with him.

  “Better?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Where is Nathaniel?”

  “Out with Lauren.”

  I smiled secretly. Lauren was a psychic who helped Nathaniel often, and I had a suspicion that they were more than friends. Lauren and Nathaniel sometimes went on non-dates that Will described as “business.” Yeah, right. They adored each other and it was obvious.

  “So what happened that was exciting?” Will asked.

  I realized that I’d been holding off on telling him about Cadan. I was afraid Will would kill Cadan if he found out that the demonic reaper had come to my school, my only remotely safe place. I didn’t want Will to hurt Cadan for nothing, and I didn’t want Will to invade my school time, the only time I had where I could forget that I was the Preliator and concentrate on being a normal girl.

  “I saw Cadan today.” I braced myself for whatever would come next.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” His jaw clenched and his hands tightened into angry fists. “I’ll turn his skin inside out—”

  “Okay!” I said, and threw up a hand. “Hulk smash. I get it.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “No.” The second no was more firm, more confident. “Actually, I tossed him around a bit. He came to warn me that Bastian has the Enshi and he’s looking for a key that will break the Enochian spell. That’s what the Enochian on the sarcophagus is, an angelic spell keeping whatever’s inside imprisoned. The nycterids from last night were sent to capture me alive, and if they fail, Bastian has more reapers to send after me. Cadan says that I have something to do with the spell, but he doesn’t know what it is.”

  “He’s one of them,” Will snarled. “He works directly under Bastian. You can’t trust anything he says.”

  “If we don’t at least consider what he says, then we’ll be making a mistake. You told me once that you didn’t like to gamble when it came to my life.”

  His eyes met mine with a fierceness that made my heart skip a beat. The only thing that gave his emotio
ns away was the color of his eyes. The more emotion he felt, the more beautiful and vibrant the green became, and then there was no denying he wasn’t human.

  “It’s not like we can really do anything about it anyway,” I said. “Bastian’s sending his worst after me, but at least they want me alive. I think we can use that to our advantage, since they don’t want to kill me. That nycterid had every opportunity to kill me, but he didn’t. He could have just flown up there to drop me to my death, but he was determined not to let me go. Don’t forget that.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. But we can’t trust Cadan. You don’t know him like I do.”

  “Stop being so cryptic,” I grumbled. “You keep saying how bad he is, yet you’ve never told me why.”

  “For one, he’s demonic. He’s manipulative, deceitful, violent, and cruel. He’s just like the rest of them.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him how prejudiced that was, but I clamped it back shut. My amnesia hadn’t totally worn off, but everything I could remember told me that the demonic reapers were evil. Will had fought them for centuries without ever forgetting anything. Demonic reapers constantly tried to kill us. That should have been reason enough to mistrust all of them.

  But why did I want to find a reason to redeem them, especially Cadan? He’d never tried to hurt me, and before my current incarnation, I had never met him. In truth, we’d caused him more damage than he’d caused us. Was my humanity making me more forgiving than I should have been? Gabriel wouldn’t have given Cadan a second thought before destroying him.

  “If he’s telling the truth, then I’m kind of scared,” I confessed. “He said the things after me are really nasty.”

  “Then we’ll fight them. I won’t let them take you.”

  I forced a smile. I knew how strong he was—and how much stronger I was than him—but it was how hard he fought for me that made me feel the safest. He loved me and he did his best to protect me. If Will wouldn’t tell me what had happened with Cadan, then he wasn’t ready to tell me. It had taken me a while to figure that out about him.

  In any case, I had a long night ahead of me. Who knew what the reapers had in store for me—and I wasn’t just talking about the demonic. We were supposed to meet with Marcus and Ava.

  “I have something for you,” Will said suddenly, his face brightening. “Wait here.”

  He disappeared through the large kitchen for a moment and returned with my present: a chocolate-dipped waffle bowl with a scoop of my favorite ice cream in it. I squealed as I took the ice cream from him, dancing a little with glee. I set the bowl down and threw my arms around his neck. His scent filled my head, and it felt like home to be so close to him. He wrapped his arms around my waist, his hands touching my bare skin as my hoodie and tank top rode up, and warmth fluttered through me.

  “I can’t believe you went to Cold Stone for me!” One would have thought I’d get sick of their ice cream, but nope. It was impossible to get sick of Cookie Doughn’t You Want Some.

  “I like when you’re happy,” he said, smiling at me as I dug through the drawers for a spoon. “You had it kind of rough last night, so I hope this will cheer you up.”

  “Totally does!” I flashed him a grin and sat down on a stool at the breakfast bar.

  He leaned over the counter in front of me, resting his weight on his forearms. “Is it good?”

  “Hell yes,” I mumbled through a mouthful. “What a stupid question.”

  “Someone once told me that there was no such thing as a stupid question.”

  “That definitely qualifies as a stupid question.”

  “What if somebody doesn’t like cookie dough? Then they wouldn’t think that ice cream was very delicious.”

  “Nobody doesn’t like cookie dough,” I said with a soft laugh. “Especially not my angelic reaper Guardian and his sweet tooth.”

  His gaze fell for an instant, and the way he tried to hide his smile made it obvious that I’d embarrassed him a little. “I’m sure there’s someone.”

  “You’ll never find a human being alive who doesn’t like cookie dough.”

  “So now you’re adding restrictions to this bet?”

  “Who said it was a bet?”

  “I felt it was implied.”

  “Well, all right then.”

  “So it has to be a human?” he asked, visibly struggling not to smile. “And alive?”

  “We could always add in that dead humans can be included. Your call. Good luck getting them to answer you, though.”

  “Let’s stick to living humans.”

  “Fine,” I said, staring him down. “It’s a bet.”

  His smile grew wide and gorgeous. To say the very least, Will was beautiful. Handsome was too mortal a word. And he was completely unaware of it. And I really wanted him to kiss me right now.

  But he wouldn’t. I took a breath and tossed out the thought. I didn’t want to be sad right now. Instead I decided to flirt with him and make his self-imposed distance from me even harder for him to stand. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t human. He was still a guy.

  I took another bite, very careful of the way my lips moved around the spoon.

  “Want a taste?” I said, arching my mouth into a suggestive smile. I tried hard not to think about how much I sucked at flirting and being sexy. He probably saw right through me.

  But as he watched me with a careful gaze, I wondered if I’d succeeded. My nerves lit on fire. He studied every inch of my face, his eyes flickering all over, and my smile faded. “Yeah,” he said at last. “I do.”

  My stomach tied in knots and did a series of backflips. My hand turned to jelly as I scooped a spoonful for him and gave him the bite.

  He seemed to contemplate the taste for a moment. “Well, I like cookie dough, but it’s still not as good as a melted root beer float.”

  I laughed a little louder than I should have. My next spoonful wasn’t as smooth as I watched his eyes flash brightly, but the distraction didn’t totally mess me up. That was, until he laughed and I knew the jig was up.

  “What?” I asked, eyeing him suspiciously. Something was apparently hilarious.

  He reached for my face and I froze solid, unsure of what he was going to do. He thumbed the tip of my nose and said, “You got ice cream on your face.”

  My cheeks flushed with heat, and I felt like a five-year-old who needed a sippy cup.

  “You eat like a reaper,” he said with a grin.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Thanks, jerk.”

  His smile softened, and he brought his thumb to his mouth and licked up what he’d cleaned off my nose. He watched me, and my heart revved like an engine as he reached across the counter again. He tucked my hair behind my ear and drew his fingers around the edge of the ear and traced the line of my jaw.

  He started to say something, but then the door to the garage opened and he jerked his hand back. Nathaniel and Lauren appeared, and she was laughing at something he’d just said. I was surprised to see that Nathaniel had attempted to tame his usually untidy, curly copper-brown hair. They looked so happy together, so obviously not just friends, and for a moment I was very jealous of them. I’d never seen them kiss, but I’d bet they did when no one was looking.

  “Hey, Lauren,” Will called, slipping away from the counter to stand up straight. “Do you like cookie dough?”

  I laughed out loud, and both Nathaniel and Lauren stared at me like I was the village idiot.

  “Not really,” Lauren said, hanging her coat and purse on the coat rack by the door. “Gives me a stomachache.”

  Will smirked at me with a flick of his brow and a teasing curve on his lips.

  I decided right then that the next time I caught him sleeping, I’d shave his eyebrows off.

  “So what?” I grumbled. “We didn’t wager anything.”

  “The satisfaction of proving you wrong is reward enough for me.”

  “You cheated. You knew that she didn’t like cookie dough.”

  “Maybe I did.
”

  “What are you talking about?” Nathaniel asked, staring at us both.

  “Nothing,” Will and I said in unison, and I broke off a piece of chocolaty waffle cone and dipped it into my ice cream before I gave anything away.

  5

  REAPERS GAVE ME A NEW REASON TO HATE THE dead of winter. The sun had completely set by six, so the scary things had longer to play outside. Will and I suited up for the hunt, though not exactly in Matrix style, since I wore jeans, sneakers, and a tweed peacoat over my hoodie.

  “There’s been a change of plans,” Will told me as I pulled a white wool beanie over my hair. “We’re not patrolling tonight with Marcus and Ava.”

  “We’re not?” I asked as we climbed into my car. That didn’t disappoint me; in fact, I felt quite the opposite. Last night had been rough, and Will was good about letting me take nights off. “So then why are we getting ready to go?”

  “We’re going to train instead of hunt tonight. They want to see what you’re made of before we take on the nycterids again.”

  My stomach turned. Sometimes facing demonic reapers was easier than sparring with Will. He didn’t go much easier on me than they did. And with Marcus and Ava involved—well, I didn’t know what to expect. I hated surprises, unless they involved ice cream. “But Marcus has seen me fight.”

  Will’s mouth twitched. “It’s mostly Ava. She doesn’t think we need you.”

  My heart sank. What she meant was she thought Will was better off without me. “When did you talk to her?”

  “Today. While you were at school.”

  Fantastic. So Ava was talking shit about me and talking to my non-boyfriend. “You hung out with her today?” I tried to keep my voice as even and casual as possible, but I was so transparent when it came to Will.

  “I didn’t hang out with her. She just stopped by.”

  “That’s not helping.”

  “Nathaniel was with us. It’s not what you think, Ellie. Trust me.”

  I took a deep breath. “What did you talk about?”

  “You,” he said. “Bastian and his thugs.”