6. Chapter 6
Daxton’s presence filled Izzy’s apartment and her mind.
His bronze eyes seemed to have darkened, matching the shade of The Thinker when Auguste Rodin first cast it in France, and Izzy was lost in the similarities—the heroic form and muscular realism.
She fidgeted in her seat from the vulnerability of having him in her personal space, especially when exhaustion weighed on her from her need to heal.
Closer to her body, the gray haze over her sight lessened, allowing colors through.
The kitchen table left a sturdier impression under her spirit flesh than the cave had earlier, and a giddiness threatened to take over her.
She tried to take calming breaths, but as if Daxton amplified them, each thought or emotion she tried to wrangle just sprang free to run a mockery in her brain.
She needed to keep a clear, logical mind when dealing with this situation, so she didn’t demand Simon take her to her far too emotional body.
It had taken her until the plane trip to figure out how to build a spirit energy wall to block her side of the link.
It wasn’t easy since the theoretical link remained intangible, but she used the same will and focus as when she created a light shield physically.
The barrier worked, but the dragon fumed with rage against it.
Different from how it had tugged on it restlessly before.
Without understanding what had happened with their entangled spirit energy, she couldn’t fix it.
Daxton’s cluelessness made correcting it even harder.
A whistle blew into the air, startling Simon. A tea kettle shrieked from the stove in the kitchenette attached to the dining room.
“Perfect timing.” Simon tugged at his hair. “All right. How about everyone take a seat, and I’ll prepare some tea.” Simon paced around, as if forgetting what he was doing.
Izzy preferred for them to leave so she could gather her wits before confronting the two, but from the stern set of Daxton’s jaw and the curiosity she’d felt from being in Sarah’s Spirit Cavity, convincing them to leave would be improbable.
“Thank you,” Sarah said, taking the seat across from Izzy, placing a journal bound with aged leather between them. “Who are you?”
“What is in that journal?” Izzy asked. Deduction told Izzy that for them to have brought it meant they wanted to share it in some capacity.
Sarah placed her hand over it, protecting it. “A historical piece written by one of our leaders.”
Izzy crossed her hands beneath the table to keep herself from grabbing it.
Daxton sat beside Sarah, and his imposing frame filled the chair. Izzy pushed her thudding spirit heart aside. She needed answers and to receive them, she’d have to be forthcoming as well.
“I’m Izzy.” She waved toward the kitchen. “That’s my butler, Simon.”
Simon set down a tray with teacups filled with bags and the steaming pot in the center.
“Simon, this is Daxton and Sarah.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said. “But Izzy…don’t you think you should—”
Return to my body? Yes, but— “It can wait.”
“What are you?” Sarah gazed between Simon and Izzy.
“I could inquire the same of you,” Izzy said.
“Very well. You are Marked so…truth for truth?” Sarah asked.
“What do you mean Marked?” Izzy asked as Simon began pouring three teas beside her. For a moment, Izzy didn’t understand Simon’s count until the muted texture of the table brushed her spirit flesh. He knew as well as she that she couldn’t drink in her spirit form.
“It’s a spirit tag our kind can sense that lets us know you are trusted with the knowledge of our kind,” Sarah said.
Izzy pinned Daxton with her eyes. “Is that what you did to me?”
“Not exactly.”
She didn’t like that answer but wasn’t in the mood to pry. The link tightened between them, and even through her barrier his confusion swirled across their link. “All right. Truth for truth, then.”
Daxton cleared his throat, nodding to Simon. “You may be Marked, but he is not.”
Izzy sighed but understood their desire for secrecy. “Simon, please busy yourself in your room with the music up. Also, let Thea know I’m all right.”
He hesitated. “Do you want me to tell her what happened?”
“No.” We both know she’s too self-sacrificing. The last thing Izzy needed was her friend getting herself killed and the Archfiend getting her power. He nodded, grabbed his cup, and crossed the living room to his room. The door snicked shut.
A twinge scored through Izzy’s stomach, and she breathed through the pain, pushing it from her mind.
“Are you alright?” Sarah asked.
“I’m fine.” Classical music blasted from Simon’s door. “Will that suffice?”
Daxton nodded, but his body remained forward and tense.
“We’re dragon shifters,” Sarah said, grabbing a mug of tea.
“Born to destroy the creatures preying on mortals. It’s said that we came from all predatory animals.
We shift to our dragon form when needed.
The dragon side is instinct while our human side is rational thought.
But it’s a constant battle to keep our dragon hidden. ”
“So…two personalities waging war for control?”
Sarah chuckled. “Not any more than your heart battles your mind. They may want different things, but they’re both a part of you.”
“Makes sense.” Izzy described her spirit form in the same way. But she didn’t shift into a spirit as much detach from her mortal body.
“And you are a…?” Sarah blew across the tea and took a sip.
“A Fallen.”
Daxton and Sarah stilled.
Her chest tightened, and her hands trembled beneath the table, fearing she’d said something wrong.
The inflection in Daxton’s tone hit like an accusation. “You’re an angel?”
Longing yanked at Izzy’s heart. She winced. That cursed word stirred a memory—a light orb, emotionless, free in a chasm of everything: past, future, and present. No emotion, just being. “I was, in a sense. It is one of the closest words to what I was in human terms.”
“The official ancient term for the dragons is cherubim, protectors of humankind,” Sarah said. “Some even believe we’re a type of angel.”
Focusing within herself, she browsed the library of knowledge in her brain for that term.
She’d compartmentalized the memories she’d collected during each of her reincarnated lives into a never-ending maze.
“The cherubim are referenced in the book of Ezekiel. Middle Eastern artwork depicts it as a lion or bull with eagle wings and a human face. How did that arise from a dragon?”
“People’s imaginations create whatever they want.”
Izzy’s own origin seemed to center on the God of Abrahamic religions. The religion’s origins occurred during the time she was Dormant—a condition in which to stop herself from reincarnating, she kept her spirit attached to her human body after she died.
Before the Fallen’s transgressions caused the Supreme to cast them to Earth, she’d existed as light. Afterward, she’d been born human with the need and means to kill demons.
“May I ask you, Sarah?” Izzy asked. “Why haven’t I come upon anything like you?”
“We’ve never come across anything like you, either.”
“And you protect mankind from what?”
“Those seeking to destroy it. Tattered Ones, or I believe you call them Archfiends, are the main offenders.”
Creating dragons to kill Archfiends was a logical move for the Supreme when considering human safety. But surely a chance encounter like hers and Daxton’s would have happened sooner. Though, the Supreme could have kept them from each other until this moment for some unexplainable reason.
Would the dragons see the Fallen as foes?
Izzy wasn’t an Archfiend, nor did she have any plans to follow that path.
If she acted like a good representative of her kind, perhaps the dragons and Fallen would team up to defeat their common enemy.
Or perhaps the dragons would think preemptively and take out the Fallen before they fell victim to greed and became an Archfiend.
Izzy had to find out how they’d react even if a gnawing at the back of her mind whispered, “What would Daxton think of you?”
“We do refer to them as Archfiends,” Izzy said.
“How do you know about them?” Sarah asked.
“Why did that one attack you?” Daxton asked.
Izzy hesitated, fear grabbing her by the neck, and her voice shook when she said, “The Fallen are the genesis of the Archfiends.”
Sarah gasped. “What?”
The link clogged with a thick stillness and froze the breath in Izzy’s lungs. She coughed and bolstered the barrier in her mind to dampen Daxton’s emotions. She resented the link that forced her to feel even in her spirit form. The sooner she could get away from him, the better.
“Explain,” Daxton said.
“Archfiends were once Fallen who killed their own kind and siphoned off their power to become stronger.”
“Is that why you had to come back here?” Sarah asked.
“The Archfiend will search for my human body to destroy it and take my energy since he believes my spirit is in Limbo. I can’t afford to lose my body. Simon took it to a random hospital as it’s in a coma and told no one where I am.”
“Why didn’t you go straight to the hospital then?” Daxton asked, frustration lining his being.
She stared Daxton down as he was the reason she hadn’t. “We need to talk. Privately.”
As comfortable as Izzy was around Sarah, the idea of discussing the link between her and Daxton around Sarah caused her cheeks to heat.
“I’ll excuse myself for a bit then,” Sarah said, standing and sliding the dragon journal closer to Daxton. “I saw a sub shop just a short walk away. Does anyone want anything?”
“No, thank you,” Daxton said.