Chapter 12 Allegra
ALLEGRA
I’m curled up in my favorite place in the church. Candles are lit on the altar and wax that’s been dripping forever has created pillars to the floor. The fires are raging in both man-size fireplaces, but I’m still freezing. Still huddled under the thick throw on my lap.
We’ll bury my brother as soon as I’m well enough, physically and mentally. Cassian is waiting for my word. I don’t miss Michael, exactly, but he was my brother and it’s just me now. That feeling is lonely. I try to remind myself he was a shitty brother, but it doesn’t make it easier.
I’m holding a cup of tea that grew cold half an hour ago and staring straight ahead at Azazel.
Fire licks up the walls around him and it’s like he’s trying to climb out of that hell hole, but his strength is nothing to the divine chains that bind him.
Even with those immense raven-black wings at his back, he is too weak to break free.
If he can’t do it, how can I?
I shake my head. I can’t think like that.
I study his face and if I concentrate, I can see the pain on his face. In his eyes.
If I really look, I think he’s looking back at me with those coal eyes.
When I was younger, I used to make up stories about the Watchers, angels sent as guardians of the human race. How they took human women to their beds.
Azazel did the unthinkable, the forbidden. He fell in love with a human woman and vowed to protect her no matter what.
When he was found out, when the great flood wiped out the Nephilim, their abomination offspring, and the angels were cast out of Heaven, Azazel made a bargain, accepting his fate in order to protect his beloved.
He kept his vow to her. He’d sworn to keep her safe until the end of time. He burns for eternity for love of her. He burns long after her bones have turned to dust in the earth.
My thoughts shift to Cassian like they always do. To his promise broken. To the vow now spoken.
The way he looked at me when we made love makes my heartbeats skip even now.
There’s a violence at the heart of him, and it should scare me, but it’s the most beautiful thing because when he’s inside me, it’s for me.
All that violence for me. How I want him to look at me like that again because when he does, there’s something deep inside me that comes alive, that awakens after too long in the dark and I can almost let it out into the light. Almost.
No.
I shake my head.
Made love. I need to be careful. I need to be very, very careful here.
It’s been one week since Cassian got me out of that place.
A full week and I’ve not heard from Amal, which doesn’t seem right, but Malek has cut her off.
Cassian has men at my house in case Malek shows up, but he’s not going to.
I know what Malek is doing. He’s building up his army.
He has created the perfect excuse to bring those loyal to my father to war.
And he may just be able to do it because there’s something I haven’t told Cassian.
Something Malek made me do. A thing I hate myself for.
Someone clears their throat, and I startle. I do that a lot now, startle at all kinds of sounds, the littlest noises.
I turn to find Jet standing just a few feet away.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says.
“You didn’t,” I lie, and bring the cold cup of tea to my lips only to have something to do.
There’s a moment of awkward silence. It’s been like this between us since Cassian brought me back. Cassian hasn’t left my side for more than an hour at a time and although I’ve heard him and Jet talking, although I’ve caught glimpses of him coming and going, we haven’t spoken.
“Found this,” he says when I finally muster a smile.
I look at what he’s holding, and I’m surprised. “My notebook.”
He nods, seems pleased by my reaction when I set the tea down and perk up. He hands it to me.
“I looked at it. I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t know whose it was or what it was.”
I take the book. I do mind, but I don’t say it. I don’t like anyone looking at this.
“That what you’re copying?” He gestures to the mural of Azazel.
“Just something I used to do.”
“Well, it’s good.” He stands too tall in the space, too awkward. “Why aren’t you in bed?” he asks. I’m supposed to be resting. It’s an agreement I made with Cassian. No sedatives, no stranger watching over me if I stay in bed.
Truth is, when I startled awake and found Cassian gone, I couldn’t sleep. Truth is, I was scared.
Because on some level and as much as I don’t want to admit it, I feel safer with him beside me. And maybe I believe his vow. Maybe it’s because I want to, or I have to. I have nothing else to hold on to.
“I wanted a cup of tea.” It’s true too, as true as why I woke up. “Where’s Cassian?” I ask.
“Not sure. He’s been handling business while you’ve been sleeping.”
“Ah.” It explains why he looks like he hasn’t slept in days because he hasn’t.
“May I sit?” Jet asks.
“Um…” I untuck my legs from underneath me and scoot over a little because the seat here is an oversized chair that could fit two if you sit thigh-to-thigh.
But Jet doesn’t sit beside me. He sets my teacup on the altar and takes a seat on the edge of the table in front of me. It’s almost more intimate with him like this because his knees are touching mine. But being face-to-face with him like this is unsettling. I clear my throat.
“I have them too,” he says, elbows on his knees, leaning toward me. He must see my confusion because he continues. “The nightmares. I hear you sometimes.”
I feel my face burn and I don’t know how to answer.
He reaches out to take my injured hand gently in his.
The bandage is smaller now, only covering my lost finger, wrapped around my palm to keep it secure.
It doesn’t bleed anymore, but it still hurts.
I don’t tell Cassian that part. I want the hurt.
I want it not to remember, because how could I forget?
But to fuel my anger, my rage. I will need it to butcher Malek.
I will need it to be a monster. Because I will need to be that to avenge both my mother and myself.
“You hear me?” I ask.
He nods. “I’ve been staying here. My rooms are there.” He gestures in the general area.
I nod. “You lived here once?”
“In a way, I guess. Not officially, but Cassian and I used to be closer.”
“What happened to change that?”
He studies me and I get the feeling he’s trying to decide if he should tell me or not and how much to tell me.
“It’s a long story.”
I shrug a shoulder. “I have nowhere to go.”
“Another time, Allegra. I wanted to tell you something else tonight and he doesn’t usually let you out of his sight so...” There’s a moment, an unfunny laugh before he clears his throat and continues. “You saw my scars. The night I brought you up from the crypt.”
I nod, remembering the marks on his torso.
“I used to have nightmares all the time in the beginning. Less and less now, but they still come.”
“What are they? The scars?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Someone I trusted wanting to teach me people are not trustworthy,” he answers cryptically.
“But it was a good lesson to learn. Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to tell you.
I wanted to say that now, when they come, when they wake me up, I tell them to go fuck themselves. ” He grins, gives me a wink.
I smile, unable not to. “So you basically tell them to fuck off and that works? What happens?”
He shrugs again. “They fuck off. I mean, not always, but my point is it’s a choice every time, Allegra. You have to choose not to succumb to them. You don’t have to be their bitch. It’s up to you.”
My lip trembles.
He shifts his gaze to our hands. I follow it. I want to pull mine away. I remember how horrifying my mother’s hands looked after. For all the shame I feel for that, I want to pull my hands away now. To hide them.
“Stop,” he says, the words quietly spoken, but no less a command.
I look up at him.
He raises his eyebrows and when I don’t pull away, he turns my hand palm up and brushes his thumb over the center of it then up along my wrist.
I draw in a sharp breath at the sensation, the feather light touch.
“You don’t know what I did,” I say, meeting the forest green of his eyes which are watching me through thick black lashes.
“What do you mean?”
I lick my lips, open my mouth to tell him. My heart beats harder and I feel myself flush.
“I—”
“Allegra.”
I practically jump out of my seat when I turn to find Cassian standing a few feet away watching us. I jerk my hand out of Jet’s wondering how long he’s been standing there.
Jet stands. Cassian watches him get to his feet. “What are you doing, Jet?”
“Just giving Allegra her notebook back.” He gestures to the book on my lap.
Cassian turns to me. He looks skeptical. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I wanted some tea.”
“When I’m not here, someone will get you tea or whatever else you want. I told you that. We had an agreement.”
“She needed a change of scene, Cassian. You can’t keep her locked up in your room forever,” Jet says, climbing down the steps.
Cassian’s eyes narrow and he takes a step toward Jet. “She wasn’t locked up.”
“Figure of speech.”
“No figure of speech I’ve ever heard.”
“Relax. I gave her her notebook. That’s all.”
Cassian’s hands fist at his sides and his eyes narrow. He takes another step toward Jet, and I push the blanket off to stand.
“Cassian—”
“Why were you touching her?”
“Stop it,” I say, stepping between them, facing Cassian. “He wasn’t touching me.”
“I have eyes in my head, Allegra. I know what I saw,” he says, those eyes locked on Jet.
Jet, for his part, doesn’t back down. The silence is taut, tension in the room crackling.
“Stop fighting,” I say. “You aren’t the enemies here.”
“Stay out of this Allegra.” Cassian says, moving me to the side. “Why were you touching her?”
Jet shakes his head and steps closer to Cassian. “We were having a private conversation. Or do you not allow her those?”