11. The Pure Light of God #2
“Please, please.” Azariah raised his arms, his too-pretty face pinching with a wince as he did so.
“There’s no need to fight on my account.
Deyva has good reason to be suspicious of me.
” His look at me turned pitying. “Succubi have a long history of being jealous of angels, due to their kind falling out of God’s favor. ”
It took everything I had to stop from lunging at him. “You fucking—”
“Hey, will this work for a splint?”
My growl was cut off by Stavros returning with two slender wooden boards and a length of nylon rope. He apparently missed that I was about to tear into Azariah, and Kais sent me another scathing warning look from where he stood.
I turned to Stavros stiffly. “Yes, that’ll do fine,” I said through gritted teeth, ignoring the massive and intentional slight against my kind, and all but snatched the supplies away from him.
As much as I wanted to revel in the hint of nervousness in Azariah’s face, I kept quiet as I set everything down next to his injured wing.
Stepping closer to him made me pause, if only for a second.
He was attractive, as all angels were. Just androgynous enough to be both beautiful and handsome, with a long, lithe body created for little air resistance during flight.
Now standing next to him inside his wing, the feathered limb acted like a privacy curtain, shielding everything outside so my attention was only on him.
Once healed, the wing could draw someone in close, like an affectionate arm around the shoulders.
Not that it would ever happen between this fucker and I.
This angel was not my friend. The smug glee on his face told me as much.
He might have the priests wrapped around his little feathers, but not me.
I wrapped my hands just above and below the break, casting him a single warning glance. “This is going to hurt like Hell.” Then I snapped the bones into place.
“Ahhhh, fuck!”
His scream blasted out my ears, his pain and fear overwhelmingly pricking my tastebuds with their sharp, spicy flavor.
I knew from the angels I’d sampled before, their energy was the most potent, concentrated form I’d ever tasted.
It was like getting injected rather than eating or drinking.
Not that fucking him was remotely in the plans for me.
If it wasn’t for Kais asking me to heal him, I wouldn’t be within ten feet of this angel.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Zach burst in, running at top speed with panic paling his face. “What’s wrong? Why is he screaming?”
“Relax, Deyva’s just setting a broken bone,” Stavros placated him while holding one side of the splint for me.
“Well, don’t be cruel,” Zach murmured in a smaller voice.
“Isn’t that rich?” I snorted, winding the nylon rope around the two strips of wood holding the break in place.
“Dearest lamb, is that for me?” Pain laced through Azariah’s voice, but I could still hear that taunting smile.
“Um, yes,” Zach answered shyly. “We’re about the same height, so I hope the pants fit. I’m not sure how good this wine is—”
“Sweet man, come here.”
I finished tying the splint securely while Azariah beckoned Zach closer.
Ever the eager puppy, Zach nearly stumbled over his feet again as he approached with wide, starry eyes.
Azariah cupped his cheek tenderly, stroking his thumb over the young priest’s cheekbone, then placed a fast kiss on Zach’s lips.
It was over so quickly, any of us could have blinked and missed it.
But nobody did. Kais and Stavros wore matching bug-eyed expressions, while Zach looked ready to cry with joy.
His chest heaved with ragged breaths, a grin splitting his face as his hand reached up to touch the back of Azariah’s palm.
“Of all the angels and humans I’ve known, none hold a candle to your brightness, Zachariah.” Their foreheads touched, lips hovering mere inches away from each other. “You shine with the pure light of God within you. I can see it as clearly as your beautiful, curious eyes.”
Kais coughed, but nothing seemed to break the spell the angel had over his fellow priest.
“I used to get teased about my eyes being different colors,” Zach confessed, his head leaning heavily into Azariah’s palm.
“Oh sweet, dear little lamb...” I almost thought he was going kiss Zach again, but the angel’s lips landed on his forehead this time. “You are brave, you have suffered, you have remained true to your faith, and that is why you are one of God’s most favored warriors in these trying times.”
“I am?” A single tear tracked down Zach’s cheek, wiped swiftly by Azariah’s thumb, naturally.
“Are you guys hearing this?” I snapped my head between Kais and Stavros watching the train wreck unfold right in front of us. “He’s totally working him over!”
“Poor, jealous little succubus,” Azariah taunted, turning to me. “Have I foiled your plans of getting your seductive hooks deep in this pure, untainted soul?”
“I never would have—ugh!”
Defending myself was pointless, so why even bother trying? I turned and skulked off mid-sentence. The fucking wing was splinted, so I was clearly no longer needed.
“Deyva!” Stavros called after me, but I slammed the door on him, just as he did to me.
Okay it wasn’t the same thing, and maybe it wasn’t fair to get all bent out of shape. They were human. Why did I expect them to listen to me? It was in their DNA to ooh and ahh over an angel. I just had the tiny sliver of hope that maybe they actually trusted me a little more at this point.
It was foolish of me to even hope for that much, so naively human of me. After centuries of being a simple tool in a much bigger system, I wasn’t used to feeling anything at all. No, the feelings didn’t start happening until I started sipping from these men’s dreams.
“Deyva!”
I ignored the call of my name floating after me down the hallway, choosing to wallow in my thoughts instead. At this point, I didn’t even want a pity fuck from Stavros. I’d rather starve than choke on the vile flavor of pity, no matter how good his body felt.
“Deyva, wait.” A hand closed around my upper arm and I whipped around, stunned for a moment to see that it was Kais that ran after me.
“I’m just going to the office to lay down for the night,” I told him stiffly. “Still not running away or sneaking into people’s houses for midnight meal orgies, or whatever you’re worried about me doing.”
He at least had enough tact to look surprised. “I’m not worried about anything. I just wanted to say, don’t worry about Zach. That out there was…yeah.” He scratched a hand through his thick curls, and I mentally cursed my twitching fingers for wanting to sink into that hair too.
“It looked like he was trying to seduce Zach,” I said flatly. “Because he’s the most naive of you three. And Zach’s falling right into it. That angel is fucking up to something, Kais.”
“Yeah, Daisy, I hear you.” Kais nodded, his words solemn. “I told Stav to separate ‘em before running after you. We’ll figure it out, okay?”
I was rendered speechless. He believed me. The sexy, grumpy, warrior priest had a bit of sense after all. Maybe the most out of all of them, with the exception of giving me that fucking nickname.
“And for the record,” I found my words once again. “Despite what I am, and what I need to live, I have not once attempted to manipulate or seduce a single person since I got here. Azariah doesn’t need to feed like I do, and right off the bat he’s preying on someone. Stavros came to me, I didn’t—”
“Again, I hear you.” Kais pulled in a deep breath, looking far too calm and contemplative for the situation at hand. “Your good behavior has been noted,” he added with the smallest glimpse of a smile.
“Oh.” Speechless again, I clasped my hands behind my back. “Well, thank you.”
With nothing in his body language to read, I reached out with my senses. His emotions were clamped down, only the flavors of mild curiosity and amusement coming through. It seemed his giddiness over the angel had sobered into caution.
“Really, I should be thanking you.” He blurted it out with a faint blush rising in his cheeks. “So, thanks, Daisy.”
That fucking nickname again. “For what?” I sputtered.
“Let’s see, repairing a wing despite your reservations about our new guest.” He counted off on his fingers. “Gracefully dealing with the townspeople’s suspicions, our own included. And,” he paused, looking at me pointedly, “giving Stavros something good in his life. Lord knows he needed it.”
“Um, what?” I stared at him, certain that I hadn’t heard him correctly. “You’re not upset with him? Or me?”
“How I feel doesn’t matter,” he shrugged.
“It happened. I gather it’s going to continue happening.
Yeah, you have horns and you don’t need to eat or sleep but,” he drew in another long breath, “you’re one of our people now.
It’s on us to look after you. Stav’s the happiest I’ve seen him in years, and you?
” He sucked his lower lip between his teeth and I felt hunger spark through me, despite feeding less than an hour earlier.
“You’re a completely different woman from the bleeding, skittish little thing we found. It’s…good to see you thriving too.”
Kais grinned sheepishly, the shy flirtatiousness and heady desire bleeding through the emotions he tried so hard to clamp down.
“Kais?” I angled my body toward him, reaching a hand out tentatively. Did he want to…?
The moment I did, he stepped away. Out of reach. The sting of how Stavros saw me was one thing, but this outright rejection hurt.
“I’m just glad you two have something that’s working out,” he said in a single breath. “For the time being, anyway.”
I laughed, dropping my hand. My turn to feel sheepish. He thought Stavros and I were a thing and he was just staying out of his friend’s way.
“We don’t have something,” I said. “He’s purely doing it to feed me, to prevent me from becoming a danger to the community.”
Kais got an odd look on his face, like he was trying to hide a smile. “I don’t think that’s entirely true.” With that he turned, heading back toward the chapel as he called out, “Goodnight, Daisy.”