Wings of the Wicked

  I studied his face, the sorrow in his eyes. He was beautiful, even when he was sad. “That’s not true,” I said gently. “You’re free.”

  His gaze slowly fell to mine and his eyes flashed. He watched me as I had just watched him, and a quiet smile curved his lips. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked. “Now that you aren’t doing Bastian’s bidding?”

  He shrugged. “Live, I guess. Help you find that book maybe. Take up knitting. Who knows where the wind will take me?”

  I made a serious face and nodded. “Knitting sounds right up your alley.”

  He grinned and gave a soft laugh. “I hear it’s all the rage.”

  We laughed, and after a few moments, an ache grew in my heart. “Thank you for everything, Cadan.”

  “Of course.” His shoulders sank as if he knew where this was going.

  “I can’t tell you how much it means to me,” I said. “How much you mean to me.”

  “I feel a but coming.”

  I sighed and purposely avoided using that word. “Will is my Guardian. We’ve been through so much together, and I’m in love with him.”

  He didn’t reply right away, but his gaze fell to my lips for only a heartbeat before returning to my eyes. “I know, and it’s okay.”

  “Are you okay, though?”

  He gave me a beautiful smile. “I’ll never be okay. I’ll never stop wanting you, but… I can’t have you and I’ve accepted that.”

  Sadness pulled me down like a churning undertow. “I’m sorry. I mean it. But you know that …” I trailed off, afraid of hurting him anymore with what needed to be said.

  There was a curious little smile in the corner of his lips, and an icy hand squeezed my heart. “What?”

  I took a deep breath and tried again. “You have to know that the only reason you feel like this is because of what I am.”

  He shook his head, confusion filling his eyes like cold water washing away the opal flames. “What … you are?”

  “The Preliator,” I continued painfully. “Gabriel. Because I’m an archangel. Nathaniel told me that it’s instinctive, this attraction, or whatever you want to call it.”

  His smile vanished and his jaw set, muscles clenching. “Love.”

  “Yeah,” I said, and my lip trembled with the word. “It’s an effect that the divine have over all reapers. It’s not real. It’s an infatuation.” That sounded so harsh, but it was true. At least, unlike most demonic reapers’, Cadan’s attraction was romantic instead of violent.

  “And what about Will?” he asked almost defensively. “Is his love for you real?”

  I chewed on my lip. “Will and I … we have five hundred years of history. We’ve been through the best and worst things two people can endure together. We’ve fought for this, fought against what we feel, for a very long time. Cadan, you and I—we barely know each other.”

  He looked away from me for only seconds, but it felt like a lifetime. He swallowed hard. “It feels real to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my heart threatening to crack like glass.

  His face softened, and the anger that had just traced his brow melted from his gentle gaze. “I’m glad I still feel what I feel, whatever it means. It feels good. I can’t regret that.”

  I bit on my lip, swallowing back tears, and I quelled the urge to move to him, to curl myself into him and feel his presence all around me. “Cadan …”

  He touched my cheek. “No matter what you choose, I’ll defend you against anything. I can’t be your Guardian, but I’ll protect you like one.”

  “Thank you,” I said quietly. “I trust you.”

  “Even though I’m demonic?”

  I grinned back and sniffed, my smile trembling. “Even though you’re demonic.”

  His smile grew. “Even the demonic can be blessed. Who’d have thought?”

  I stood up on my toes and kissed his cheek gently, kissing him good-bye. His hands took my hips and pulled me closer to him. He kissed my neck and moved his lips toward my own, wanting more, but I drew back and put my hand to his chest, stopping him. I couldn’t give him what he wanted. I couldn’t give him more.

  “Get a room!” someone shouted behind us, the words followed by a chorus of laughter. Mortified, I covered my face in my hands and didn’t turn around.

  A sly smile darkened Cadan’s expression, and he nodded over to the rude kid. “I like the way he thinks.”

  I smacked his chest. “Shut up.” But I was grinning, happy to see him back to his old self.

  His smirk eased effortlessly into a warm smile, and he thumbed my cheek. “I’m going to miss this.”

  I let out a snort. “What? Me smacking you?”

  He laughed. “No,” he said softly. “Touching you. Kissing you. I envy my brother.”

  Sadness filled me heavily, and I felt like a bag of sand stitched together with string, unable to move without ripping open. “You won’t have to miss me, though. I want you to be my friend. I don’t want to lose you.”

  He sighed. “I know. And I want to be your friend, too, even though I want more. But I will love just being your friend, Ellie.”

  “I’m glad,” I said. “I need you in my life.”

  “Ask me for anything, any task, and I’ll do it for you,” he promised. “Call me anytime, for anything. I wish you well.”

  I smiled as Will’s brother disappeared into the Grim, fading away like smoke from a flame. “Good-bye, Cadan.”

  32

  FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK, I WAS FORCED TO LISTEN TO every single senior girl run her mouth off about prom. It was to be held on Saturday night at a fancy hotel, and by Wednesday, with only three days left, it was all anyone could manage to talk about. I was so sick of hearing about it.

  I must have heard the exact colors of Kate’s and Rachel’s dresses a thousand times. I knew what shoes they were going to wear. I knew what shades of makeup and nail polish they’d get done at the salon. Of course Kate was going with Marcus and Rachel was going with Evan. Of course they’d harassed the guys into matching the colors of their dresses. Prom was going to be perfect.

  For them.

  I wasn’t going. I’d been gone too long, and I was too exhausted from struggling with catching up in school so I could graduate with my friends, too absorbed with things that actually mattered to have gone out and looked for dresses. Not that prom didn’t matter to me at one time, but I supposed it didn’t matter anymore. The plan had always been for Kate and me to pick out dresses together, but she had to get one while I was AWOL, before the selection at the mall was picked clean.

  My grumpiness had not gone unnoticed by Will. I had snapped at him a few times that week, though I hadn’t meant to. My agitation had caused my temper to be short, and I hated that I kept taking it out on him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as we sat in his living room watching TV after I’d done a load of homework. I had been lying across his lap for a little while, but something he’d said had annoyed me for no reason and I’d grumbled slightly nasty things at him and shoved myself to the other end of the couch like a brat.

  “Nothing,” I replied sharply.

  He let out an aggravated sigh. “It’s not nothing. Frankly, you’ve been on edge for days. I don’t even know what I just said a minute ago to make you mad at me.”

  I laid my head back against the couch. “Sorry. I’m just in a bad mood.”

  “For days?”

  “It’s been a bad week, okay?” I tried to keep my voice even, but I doubted my success at doing so.

  “Well, tell me about it,” he offered. “Maybe I can help.”

  “You really can’t.” The snark was back. I wanted to smack myself. He didn’t deserve this.

  “Let me try.”

  I took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing the tension from my body and the snap from my voice. “I’m just tired of hearing about prom from my friends. It’s all they talk about, and I wish this
week would go by faster so it’d be over with. But of course next week, prom will still be the only thing anyone will talk about, and I can’t escape it.”

  He looked around thoughtfully, his boy brain visibly struggling to solve my predicament. “It’s this weekend?”

  “Saturday.”

  “Why don’t you just go then?” he offered foolishly. “That way you can talk about it with your friends instead of being left out.”

  I sighed. “It’s a lot more complicated than that.”

  “I think you’re the one making it complicated.”

  I glared at him from across the couch. “Thanks. You’re so helpful.”

  “I mean it,” he said gently. “I don’t see why there’s any reason you can’t go.”

  “It’s too late, Will. I don’t have a ticket or a dress or anything. Prom isn’t something you can just throw together at the last second. No one can pull that off.”

  “You have three days left, not one second.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass.”

  “Don’t be so stubborn.”

  My glare got darker. “You don’t get it.”

  He let out a small laugh and a shrug. “No, I really don’t. I know how much you want to go. You wouldn’t want to miss out on this. You’ve worked so hard to get yourself through your last couple months of high school, so I’m not buying it. You deserve to go.”

  “Why do you even care?” I asked. “You’re centuries old. Prom is a silly high school thing to you.”

  “I don’t think it’s silly,” he said with a frown. “Especially since it’s important to you. Nothing that’s important to you is silly to me.”

  I watched him, the sincerity in his eyes, and I crawled back across the couch toward him and rested my head on his shoulder. He kissed the top of my head. I was being ridiculous toward him, but I honestly couldn’t bring myself to go to prom. I didn’t want to go alone, even though I’d be with all of my friends, and there was only one person I’d want for my date and he would never agree to it. I wasn’t even going to ask him. Marcus might have been going with Kate, but he seemed to enjoy parading around pretending to be a perfect human boyfriend like it was a game to him to see how good he was at it. He was the weirdest person I’d ever met. Will was weird, too, but at least he made sense. Kind of.

  “Marcus asked me something strange awhile ago,” I said.

  “What was that?” he asked into my hair.

  “He asked me what Heaven is like,” I said. “I have no idea. I don’t remember what Heaven is like, but I remember missing being human. I missed feeling—feeling anything, feeling happiness, sadness … I missed touching, being close to others. I missed you, Will. I don’t really want to go back there. To Heaven. I want to stay here.”

  He paused for a few moments, as if digesting what I had just said. “I want you to stay here, too.”

  “But I’ll have to go,” I said gently. “Eventually.”

  He didn’t respond to that. The voices from the TV show we weren’t watching filled the silence between us.

  I buried myself deeper into him. “I wish I had more time.”

  “You have all the time in the world.”

  I exhaled and disentangled myself from him while climbing to my feet. “I’m going to head out. Thanks for letting me come over to do my homework.”

  “Of course,” he said, and politely stood with me. “I love when you come over. I miss having you here every day.”

  “Want to go for a run tomorrow?”

  “Definitely,” he said. “Have a good night. Try not to worry about so much at once. Everything will work out the way it’s meant to.”

  I smiled weakly at him. As I left with my backpack over my shoulder, I repeated what he had said to me in my head. Everything will work out the way it’s meant to.

  On Saturday evening, I was alone in Nana’s house. She was out again (it was pretty bad that her social life was more exciting than mine these days), and my friends were all getting ready for prom. I, on the other hand, was already in sweatpants and a way-too-big T-shirt that I suspected may have actually belonged to Will and finagled its way into my laundry, and I was ready to fall asleep to a movie in my room. I was determined to go to bed early so I wouldn’t sit up all night thinking about what everyone else was doing.

  Halfway through my movie, I heard a knock at the door. I ignored it for a moment, since I was not climbing out of my ridiculously comfortable bed-and-blanket burrito. There wasn’t an iceberg’s chance in hell that I’d move.

  Another knock.

  “Really?” I grumbled aloud to no one.

  I gave in and climbed out of my little nest to turn off the TV and force myself downstairs to the front door. When I opened the door, my heart kicked in my chest. Will stood there in the doorway, dressed in a sleek tuxedo, a corsage in a plastic container in one hand and a long garment bag in the other. His tuxedo was perfectly tailored around his broad shoulders and his waist. His hair was neatly combed back, and it looked like he might even have had a haircut. He looked excruciatingly handsome and adorable all dressed up with a terrified look on his face. Parked behind him in the driveway was Marcus’s shiny black Maserati.

  “Don’t be mad” was the first thing he said. He really was terrified, as if the most frightening reaper on the planet was no scarier than a mouse, and yet put him in a tux and it was the Apocalypse.

  The noise that came out of me was some kind of freakish, embarrassing cross between a laugh and a sob. I could barely breathe and, as a result, could barely speak. “I’m not mad, Will.”

  “It was my idea,” he rambled quickly and nervously. “So don’t yell at Kate, but she helped me a lot. She got two tickets for you weeks ago, because she knew you still wanted to go even though you told her you didn’t. She helped me to pick out a dress for you the day before yesterday, and she made sure I wore something that fit me. Honestly, she scares me a little. I tried so hard to do this right for you, so please forgive me if I did anything wrong.”

  My lips and hands were trembling. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  His eyes were so bright and wide as he fumbled over himself. “Will you go, then? Will you come with me? Please say yes.”

  Then the tears came. They were hot against my cheeks, making my eyes burn, and I had to cover my mouth as I cried. He gave me a worried look as I fell apart in front of him. I put down my hands and nodded, smiling at him from ear to ear. “Yes. I’ll go.”

  His entire body seemed to relax at once, and he gave me a little smile. “Please don’t cry,” he said.

  I wiped at more tears. “I can’t help it.”

  He lifted the garment bag and held it out to me. “Go put it on,” he said. “I think you’ll like it.”

  I took it from him, feeling the weight of the heavy dress in my arms, and I went up to my room. I hung up the bag on my closet door and unzipped it to pull out the dress inside. I climbed out of my baggy pajamas, pulled the gown over my head, and tugged it over my hips. The zipper was on the side beneath my arm, and I had no trouble with it. The dress fit like a glove. I stepped back and gazed at myself in the floor-length mirror. Kate was a genius. The rich, deep plum fabric gleamed, crisscrossing over the strapless bodice, and beneath an elegant, ruched empire waist, the folds of chiffon fell to the floor. I stood up on my bare tiptoes to see what it would look like in heels and decided that I looked rather silly being barefoot in this extravagant gown. I needed the right heels. I rummaged through the closet and tossed out unwanted shoes until I found a pair of strappy gold sandals, and I slipped them on. With the added inches of height, I nodded in approval.

  Will knocked at the door. “Are you ready?”

  “Yeah,” I answered nervously. “Come in.”

  The door opened and he stopped dead in his tracks. I fought the urge to fold my arms over myself in embarrassment as he stared at me. He swallowed hard as he came into the room, each of his steps slow and careful. His lips moved soundlessly for a second before
he finally made words come out. “You’re beautiful.”

  My cheeks flushed as red and dark as my hair. “Thanks. I don’t have any makeup on and my hair isn’t done.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  The flush was only getting worse. I touched my cheeks and they were red-hot. “I don’t have a boutonniere or anything for you.”

  He looked at the ceiling for a brief second as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Oh, right. Yeah, that’s in here.” He held out the corsage box. “Sorry, I don’t know how any of this goes. Kate said to give this to you and you would know.”

  I grinned stupidly at him fumbling over himself. He removed the corsage from the container, and instantly I smelled jasmine. The delicate, satiny white flowers dotted a mixture of green leaves and smaller flowers whose colors matched my dress.

  “I know how much you love jasmine,” he said, his eyes on my wrist as he slipped the corsage over my hand. “I told Kate that’s the flower you would want.”

  I nodded, fighting the tears again. If I was really going through with this, I’d have to clean up my face and put on makeup. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to do it all if we weren’t going to be late. I took out the boutonniere and started to pin it to Will’s tuxedo as he took a deep breath and set his jaw tight. I looked up to meet his eyes.

  “Nervous?” I asked with a quick smile before going back to pinning the boutonniere so I wouldn’t stab him accidentally. He seemed to get impaled a lot during fights, so I didn’t want to be guilty of that too.

  “Yeah.” He softened and forced himself to relax a little more. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “It’s not so bad,” I promised, finishing and straightening the boutonniere. There were jasmine flowers in it that matched my corsage. “Humans do it every year. I think you’re tough enough to survive prom.”

  “I want to do this, though,” he assured me. “For you, because it would make you happy.”

  I looked back up at him, feeling the sting of more stupid tears. I was such a crybaby. “Thank you.”