12. Swords of God
Kais
I woke with a start, my ears ringing and sweat stinging my eyes, the sounds of mortar explosions, bestial snarls, and the screams of dying men buried under the high pitched warning tone in my head. My chest heaved and my heart stuttered as I catalogued my surroundings.
The cross over my mirror. The black robe hanging from the hook on the back of my door. The rosary over the lamp by my bedside. The puckered scar running down the inside of my leg.
Bethel. I was in Bethel, in the priest house, after the Rising.
My men were long since dead.
Three years into this routine of night terrors and waking with the sense that I was in the wrong place, and I still had to sort through the panic and collect my bearings every time.
The house was quiet, which meant Stavros was on guard duty and Zach had probably carted Azariah off to see the town.
I frowned, and oddly enough it was Deyva in my head, her wary eyes on Azariah, the defensive hunch of her shoulders as she moved around the angel.
It had to be crazy to be so suspicious of an angel, to trust .
..whatever Deyva was, but I couldn’t shake the feeling.
I groaned as I stretched out of bed. I’d pushed a little too hard yesterday, working on reinforcing the old veterinary office so we could start building a proper (for the apocalypse) hospital, and my body wasn’t thanking me today.
But wearing myself out in the day was the easiest way of making sure I slept through the nightmares, too tired to fight my way out of the horrors.
I showered quickly, dressed in jeans and a black button down with my white collar, and went in search of the succubus.
She’d been petty and petulant and jealous the night before with our reaction to the angel and it had been fucking adorable.
Not that I would tell her so. I was determined to keep Deyva at arm’s length, but there was a kind of honesty in her reaction to the angel.
She was angry and a little frightened and I.
..believed her, or at least I believed that she genuinely doubted Azariah’s intentions as much as we doubted hers.
The church was empty and I found Deyva doing lazy cartwheels in the gymnasium, wearing black leggings and one of Stavros’ shirts that slid up her stomach as she was upside down, offering a tantalizing flash of skin before righting again.
Take away the horns and give her a pumpkin spice latte and she’d have looked just like an Instagram influencer from before the Rising.
“Are you waiting for me to flash you or did you need something?” she asked, rising up from a tumble and spinning to face me. She reached for the hem of her shirt, yanking it up, and I looked away in reflex.
I had to force my face to scowl at the sound of her bright laughter.
“It’s time for you to be useful,” I said.
“Oh, Kais. I thought you’d never ask,” she purred. I levelled her with a flat look until she huffed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, sure, fine. What do you need?”
“You’ve been feeding, so I take it you’re feeling healthy?”
I was a little surprised by the bitter look on her face.
Stavros was in some deep shit and he didn’t even know it.
To be fair, I probably hadn’t realized it would be so easy to hurt a hellion’s feelings either.
A woman was a woman, horns or not, and Deyva didn’t like hearing Stavros’ excuses for why he was having the time of his life fucking her.
And I was absolutely not going to get in the middle of that.
Because if I comforted Deyva, or reassured her that sex with her was probably the reason Stavros’ woke up in the morning with that dumb ass smile he’d been wearing…
Well, I was pretty sure I knew where I’d end up, and it was as tempting a destination as it was idiotic.
“I’m not at my peak, but I’m in the best shape I’ve been in for a long time,” Deyva said.
Where have you been? What have you been through? What can I do to make it better?
I shut my thoughts down.
“Good, then you can help me around town.”
Deyva’s lips pursed, head tipping, and the look was unintentionally sexual, if that were possible for a succubus. Still, I was pretty sure she hadn’t meant for me to be thinking about her mouth in this way.
“I know everyone’s feeling nice and shiny about your new feathered friend, but don’t you think I’ll put a damper on things?”
“Look, Daisy,” I said, endlessly delighted by the annoyed furrow of her brow as I called her that.
“Are you going to be Bethel’s new favorite neighbor this year?
Probably not. But if people see you working, helping out, I think eventually there will be acceptance.
I know Stav tried things his way, but watching him hand feed you at the diner when you haven’t even helped out around here, probably didn’t add to the warm feelings. ”
Deyva snorted and then sighed. Absently her hands brushed up the back of her neck, gathering her hair and exposing the elegant length of almost bone-white skin.
And then she took two handfuls and twisted them up around her horns, tucking in the ends and making the most absurd looking hair buns I’d ever seen.
“Fine. It’s better than hanging around here all day. But now that I’m on a healthy diet, animosity gives me a stomach ache—”
I nodded and turned on my heel, letting her follow me. “I can think of some things where you’ll be out of the way, but people will be aware you’re contributing. It’s a goodwill building exercise, yeah?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
She didn’t sound sure.
I didn’t think I was one of those guys who felt challenged by a woman’s strength or authority. I focused on bettering myself, living up to my own expectations and then raising them again.
But there was something a little bit galling about watching Devya lift an entire fucking tree branch off the top of a house. She didn’t make it look easy, but she definitely looked like a moderately-strong superhero.
It was hot. And intimidating. And I wasn’t sure if it was exactly what the town should be seeing, if they’d feel comfortable knowing she was that strong.
“Fucking cool ,” Kyle Phillips muttered behind me. Kyle was fifteen, and had exclusively grabbed comic books when his parents had cried out for him to pack at the first sign of disaster.
Kyle was right though, it was fucking cool.
“Where do you want this?” Deyva asked through gritted teeth.
“Just swing it down to the ground. Far enough so it doesn’t break the windows as it comes down,” I called up to her. She was balanced precariously on the broken wall of the house, the branch cradled in her arms and lifted out of the debris it had created when it crashed.
“But the marigolds,” she said.
I laughed and the audience of townspeople tittered behind me. “Seriously? Don’t worry about the marigolds, Daisy, no one’s taking care of the house until it’s repaired.”
She grumbled something, and it was probably for the best that we couldn’t hear it.
“If only I could fly up and assist her, but alas, my wing is not yet healed,” a soft voice murmured from behind me. The angel, Azariah.
“I mean, she owes us,” Zach answered. “It’s just a tree branch.”
I frowned and glared over my shoulder at Zach. Just a tree branch? It was a tree branch the size of a fucking tree. Deyva was right. Azariah the angel was an asshat and Zach needed to rein it in a little.
“Okay, just everybody back up a little more,” Deyva cried, the strain starting to show around her eyes.
The crowd hustled back and I swallowed hard, watching her.
Deyva grunted, tossing the branch up and away from the marigold beds. It landed on the ground with a bone-trembling crash that made everyone gasp, but I was too busy watching Devya. She wobbled, arms spreading out to try and balance herself.
“Whoops,” she said, and then fell forward out of the house.
“Daisy!”
I was way too far away to catch her, and there was a massive branch on the ground between us, but I still ran forward, trying to clear the branch in a leap.
It didn’t matter.
Succubus’ landed like cats, as it turned out.
Deyva made a soft ‘oof’ against the ground, tipping forward to catch herself on one hand before righting quickly. She giggled sheepishly at me, one hair bun falling loose against her cheek, a little flush on her skin.
“I like marigolds,” she said.
I released the breath that’d been trapped in my chest ever since she wobbled, and didn’t bother fighting the grin bursting through.
“Father! Can we have a bonfire with some of the wood?” someone called from the crowd.
“Good work,” I said to Deyva, since no one else would, and I turned to the others, glancing down at the branch. “If the weather holds, I think a small one would be alright. But let’s not forget this is going to come in handy this winter.”
“I’ll go inside and start clearing up the room that was damaged,” Deyva murmured, heading for the back door of the old house.
I was going to stop her, make her join me with the others, but then someone called my name with another question and she had already stepped inside.
In the crowd, the angel Azariah’s eyes tracked our succubus.
“So today is really...you not at your peak?” I asked Deyva, watching her eat on her own for the first time. She sat next to Stavros, who watched her hungrily, and even though she wasn’t giving him a full cold shoulder, it was pretty clear he was still in the dog house.
I passed her one of my fries, just to watch her dip it in maple syrup and chew on it thoughtfully. She was testing flavors, and she did so with a kind of adventurous freedom that was borderline childlike, but mostly pretty gross.
“Nah. This is like...me with a head cold or after a human bender,” Deyva said.
“Do you need to feed?” Stavros asked hopefully.