19. Feasts of Flesh and Touch #2
“I’d probably hear it or smell it. Angels have especially strong senses,” I said. So strong, I could hear the faint growl he tried to stifle as he turned away and started marching along the edge of the gate. “Zach—”
“Hey, Az? How about we don’t?” he tossed over his shoulder.
“I understand that you’re angry,” I started, jogging to catch up with his quick pace.
“Oh, cool, you understand.”
Ugh. Humans were so in love with their sarcasm, weren’t they? As if they’d invented it.
“I betrayed your trust.”
“Yeah. You did. And you fucked off during an attack, one where you told us we could depend on you. And you shit-talked Deyva when you were here to drag her back to Hell . And you said all this stuff about—about how great I was, and how I shone with God’s light, and that must’ve been bullshit , right?
Because He’s...He’s not watching us? He’s not waiting for us to win, is He? So that means—”
Fuck. I should’ve let Deyva bite my dick off after all.
“Zach, I—Okay, I had a falling out with the Almighty, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean you don’t shine with His light,” I said, grabbing Zach’s arm, only for him to rip it away from me again. Fair enough.
He glared at me, his eyes eerily reflecting the smog beyond me over the gate, distorted in the two different shades of his irises. “Don’t suck up to me, you’re not going to fool me like that again.”
I sighed and rolled my shoulders. Deyva’s attention to my wing earlier in the morning, or maybe her gift of the hug, had already done a world of good for me.
“You are special,” I continued. “To this town. To your friends, to—to Deyva. And to me.”
Zach scoffed, and shook his head. “Honestly, I think...I’m really pissed at you because of how easy it was for me to believe you. I was getting a savior complex and I...well, I was wrong about a lot of stuff.”
“Well, I was being a pompous dickhead. But I wasn’t just encouraging you because I wanted to deceive you. I do believe in you,” I said gently.
Zach seemed to ignore me, his gaze alert and carefully checking every gate post, scanning through the town and then back into the smog.
“I was wrong about the succubus too,” I said.
“Yeah, you were,” Zach said quickly, and at last I got a glimpse of his smile. It was due to her, not me, but it lit up his expression so beautifully that I really didn’t care. “Is it...it’s true? All that stuff about her being created before Adam and Eve?”
I opened my mouth, about to crack the Adam and Eve myth wide open, and then shut it again. Zach probably wasn’t ready for that blow.
“Yes.”
“And God really cast her out because…”
“Well, God’s children are notoriously willful. When Deyva’s kind and the angels began to form unions that revolved around each other rather than the Holy family, yes, those unions were forcibly fractured.”
“And Deyva was one of them? So there’s an angel out there missing her?”
I blinked at Zach and then realized he was being sincere. He genuinely thought Heaven was a small infrastructure and I would’ve known his succubus.
“That’s her story to tell, I guess,” I said, evasively, watching him frown. “For the record though, many angels fell with their lovers, or not long after. More likely she went with her brethren in support.”
He relaxed then and my lips twitched. Would he be jealous? Was he already so possessive of her?
You could’ve had that if you hadn’t been such a fucking tool , I reminded myself helpfully.
“Does that look weak to you?” Zach asked, pausing and frowning at a spot in the gate.
I went and jiggled the post, shrugging.
“That’s not good. A good storm could take that out, and I still think this smoke is probably meant to be hiding something from us,” he said, crouching down. “We might need to go get some cement to reinforce—”
“Here, let me,” I said, wrapping my hands around the top of the crucifix post, closing my eyes and conjuring up the best of my Holy light. I was lucky to still have it, even if I hadn’t been in Hell very long, and it made me wonder about the way I’d been cast out.
Zach’s arms were crossed as I finished giving the post deeper roots in the ground, strengthening it at its joints and adding a little extra boost to the prayers and holy water cast over its structure.
“Does it wear you out to do that?” he asked, staring at the post consideringly, rather than at me.
“I’m not sure. Not yet,” I said.
Zach brightened, and finally he met my eyes.
There was a hard glint in his gaze that left me a little hungry for that sweet mouth of his.
He’d been so tender and malleable beneath me during my one opportunity, but I wondered what fun it might be to have him glaring at me like that while we were wrestling, preferably naked.
“How do you feel about a hate fuck?” I asked, at the exact same moment he said, “Looks like you just found yourself a new job around town.”
There was a beat of silence, Zach’s eyes growing wide, cheeks suddenly turning pink.
“ What?! ”
I jumped and moved over to the next post. “Yes, definitely. Reinforce the gate, I can absolutely do that, of course.”
Zach choked behind me, but I thought I got something almost like a laugh out of him.