Chapter 20
TWENTY
Listen carefully.
LUCA
With my hands melded to Celine’s curves, my mind races faster than her bike. My basilisk rattles in my chest, a low-grade buzz—not of rage, but excitement.
It wants her touch. I need her friendship. Can I risk one to get the other? Celine is everything to me, but my basilisk wants more and isn’t willing to compromise any longer.
We pull up outside her apartment. Peeling my hands off her hips takes major effort.
“You’re quiet,” she says.
I take my helmet off and raise my eyebrows. “We’ve been on the road.”
Celine shrugs. “Your energy is loud, though.”
I sigh. She’s right; I don’t know why I’m arguing about it. “I’m processing,” I say.
“Okay.”
“You’ll have to be patient,” I add.
“I can do that.”
“Can you?” I raise my eyebrows. Celine shoves my chest playfully, and I pull her into a headlock, then bring her hand up to my mouth. “Don’t give up on me,” I whisper against her knuckles.
She pulls free of my hold, her expression fierce. “Never.”
“How touching.” Alistair’s ghostly drawl glides through the air, and Celine rounds on him.
“Stop doing that,” she insists. “It’s creepy.”
“You wound me.” He dips his head, but doesn’t bother hiding his grin.
Celine opens her mouth, then shuts it, shaking her head and marching toward her apartment. We follow her up the internal staircase and down the hall, stopping outside the familiar corner unit. She unlocks the door, three different locks clinking as she works.
When we step inside, she locks them all back while I try to see Celine’s place through Alistair’s eyes.
As always, it’s meticulously clean and organized.
Every framed piece of art, while inexpensive, hangs evenly on her light green walls.
It’s warm, welcoming, and the exact opposite of my dull, boring bachelor pad.
Her attached kitchen is spotless, with one lonely plate rinsed and stacked in a dish organizer beside the sink. Even the tassels on the floor mat are stretched in the same direction, and I can picture her nudging them into place with her toes whenever they get out of line.
“Can I get either of you something to drink?” Celine asks, twisting her hands together before she realizes what she’s doing and drops them to her sides. Her nervousness disorients me.
“I’m good,” I say.
Alistair, meanwhile, is busy examining the art on the walls like he expects to discover a secret Monet. “Nothing for me, angel.”
Celine mutters something, but my hearing isn’t strong enough to catch it. Alistair’s lips twitch, and I feel a sting of jealousy that he got a piece of her I didn’t. Cut that shit out. She isn’t a bone to fight over.
Determined not to be weird, I stride to the couch, drop to my usual spot, and clear my throat. “If we’re doing the whole transparency thing, you should know I killed the demon, Alistair. Celine had nothing to do with it.”
“Luca,” she hisses. Air blows by my ear a second before the throw pillow smacks me in the face with the force of a brick. My head rocks to the side, and I see stars.
“You don’t get to make dangerous decisions to protect me,” I tell her, refusing to budge even if it means she beats me to death with her pillows.
“Because that isn’t exactly what you did when you did the—you know what.” She opens her eyes comically wide, then blinks slowly.
It’s ridiculous. I can only hope that’s not how I actually look when I turn someone to stone. That’s embarrassing. “Gods, that was awful,” I blurt. “If you’re going to act it out, don’t forget to sweep the asshole up.”
Celine swats me with the pillow again, this time on the other side of my head.
Alistair sinks gracefully onto the couch at my side. “Fascinating.”
“Don’t call us fascinating,” I snap. “You sound like a sunburned tourist visiting an aquarium for the first time. We aren’t fish.”
Alistair, typically the patron saint of calm and collected, chokes on his laughter. “It’s hardly a criticism, Luca. I’ve just never seen two people more determined to be hostile and selfless at the same time.”
“I’m not selfless,” Celine insists, her voice strained.
I chuckle. Of course she takes offense at that part, but doesn’t care if she seems hostile.
“Look, Alistair,” I say, trying to bring us back to the point. “Celine didn’t do anything wrong. She happened to be hot as fuck while in the path of a dick.”
“Way to make me come across like some quivering damsel in distress.” She glares at me, malicious intent in her eyes. This time, when she swings the pillow my way, I snatch it from her hand and sit on it.
“I never said you were quivering. The prick pulled a knife on you, and I stepped in. I would do it again—stop glaring at me. We’ve been over this,” I remind her. “And I won’t apologize for doing what needed to be done.”
“And now Ciprian is sniffing around,” she huffs, tossing her hands up in the air. “I’m going to change into something I can let my wings out in. Don’t talk about anything important until I get back.”
She walks down the hall, hips swaying, and we both watch her go.
“The issue isn’t Ciprian’s nosiness,” Alistair says once her bedroom door closes. “But the fact that he’s using it as an excuse to breathe down her neck. And yours.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know about the second part. He flirts, but he’s trying to get the upper hand. Unbalance me.”
“Hmm, you could be right, but the way he watches you—”
“Is nosy,” I cut in.
“I was going to say hungry.”
“I’m not on the menu,” I insist, my cheeks heating. “At least not his menu.”
“There’s no reason to be flustered,” Alistair says calmly. “You need to be honest about his intentions. They’re far more primal than a murder investigation.”
I groan, dropping my head against the back of the couch. “What the fuck am I supposed to do about that?”
Alistair laughs. “Have you tried being less appealing? Together, the two of you present the most tempting challenge I’ve ever seen. If he’s having trouble ignoring his instincts . . .” He shrugs. “I’m not surprised he’s using flirtation as a way to get close.”
“Before either of you suggests I make myself uglier to get him to lose interest, I won’t do it,” Celine says, padding into the room in cozy sweats and fuzzy pink socks.
“I need the tips right now to help Harry.” Her wings poke out of the slits she cut in the back.
She’s so cute, I want to pull her into my lap and keep her there forever.
Gods, that’s pathetic.
“You’re beautiful no matter what,” Alistair says, tilting his head to the side for maximum charm. Celine and I roll our eyes.
“You two are eerily in sync,” he observes.
“Luca copies me.” Celine squeezes onto the couch between us and pokes me in the ribs before turning her attention to Alistair. “What have you learned about the orphans?”
“Do you want it hard or gentle?”
Celine blinks, then sits up straight. “Hard.”
Alistair nods, replacing his playful expression with a more serious one.
“Luca was partially right; it’s not only here.
Orphaned angels with bizarre stories have been popping up around Nevada, but they’ve all been isolated instances, so no one put it together.
” He pulls his phone out, leaning over to show us a map he’s pinned dots on.
Celine stiffens at my side. The map shows eighteen markers, with a cluster centered in Vegas.
“There’s something weird about these locations .
. .” I bend over Celine to get a closer look, then jerk away as her wings slice right through the skin of my arm.
Fuck. They’re in knife mode, and I didn’t even realize.
“Celine,” I whisper, ignoring the cuts. “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out. I swear, no one will hurt those angels or you.”
“N-no, you don’t see. You don’t get it!” She shoots up from the couch, and I barely dodge another swipe from her wings.
Alistair reaches for her. I hold him back by pressing my bleeding arm against his waist. “Don’t touch her right now. Those wings will slice you to pieces.”
“Neither of you sees it. This is fucked,” Celine mutters, fisting her hair with frustration. Her wings spread wide, then curl, providing a metallic, razor-sharp shield around her torso as she paces. I’m not even sure she realizes it’s happening.
“What don’t we see, Celine?” Alistair’s voice is gentle, like he’s calming a wild animal.
For a second, she ignores him and continues to pace, talking rapidly in a language I’ve never heard before.
It’s similar to the one she uses to communicate with Anika and the other children, but the cadence is different.
I hold my breath, a strange sense of anticipation building at the base of my spine. When Celine whirls to face us and gradually unfurls her wings, I brace for impact.
She closes her eyes, pushes her sleeves up to reveal her bare arms, then stretches them out.
“The dots on the map—they’re not a pattern or a coincidence,” she says.
“They’re a message. For me.” As she speaks, her skin begins to glow.
I take in the small golden marks repeated all over her skin, then compare them to the dots on the map.
“Holy shit,” I gasp. “I didn’t notice before . . . It’s the same symbol.”
Celine looks at us, her eyes filled with too many emotions to name. “It’s my symbol—the symbol for truth.”