Chapter Five
Eve
I tiptoed through the house, peeking around every corner to make certain the seraph—Gabriel—was truly gone.
The rush of wings outside earlier had alerted me, and this might be my only chance. I needed to flee.
Today in the courtyard was too much. I hadn’t wanted to meet the Herald of Death to begin with.
Zorababel had told me I was chosen by the god Erlik—chosen by Zorababel, more like—and I’d realized this was my best chance to escape from the church, from Zorababel, from everything that made me feel like I was being smothered.
I had planned to complete Zorababel’s mission, then flee once the elders were distracted by his arrival.
I had a few pounds saved up and thought I could find work as I traveled, looking for a safe place to settle—a cottage by the sea sounded wonderful.
Maybe I could even serve at one of Saras’s shrines, for she seemed a far kinder god than her father, Erlik.
Never had I expected to be attracted to Gabriel. He was supposed to be the Herald of Death! He was an angel. Not one of those chubby, sexless cherubs painted in Saras’s churches. He was…breathtaking. Heart-stopping. He made me want to lick him. I’d never wanted to lick anyone before.
And that could not be. For so many reasons.
He might cause desire to well inside me, but he’d never look at timid, mousy Eve.
I was not the sort of woman to arouse any man’s passions.
Zorababel had told me so several times. It’s one reason I was twenty-seven and had been betrothed for nearly two years.
I could not bear a seraph stripping my being bare with those intense eyes and seeing my pathetic desire for him.
More importantly, I couldn’t let anything as base as desire make me stray from my path. I didn’t know how to get Zor what he wanted, and I surely wouldn’t stick around and let my one chance at freedom slip through my fingers because I’d been bespelled by a seraph.
The key I’d picked up so many years ago burned against my chest, an accusation I could not forget my dreams. I gripped the handles of my valise and opened the front door of the manor, my stomach twisting with nerves.
Cold wind whipped past me into the Great Hall, stirring the dust. A blank, gray sky greeted me, and brown grass waved down the dirt path toward the village.
I couldn't sacrifice my one chance. And I was tired of making decisions that always bettered the people around me at the expense of myself. I wanted to leave that mindset behind.
Still, Gabriel didn’t deserve this. Guilt pinched me at not telling him about Zorababel. I shook off the guilt and worry. Gabriel was a seraph. He could protect himself. I needed to take care of myself because no one else would.
I took a deep breath and stepped outside. I needed cover. If he found me he’d be furious and punish me—he’d been very clear that first day about not running away without a word.
If Zorababel caught me and realized I’d purposefully failed, he’d drag me before the congregation and cleanse my spirit of rebellion by whipping the evil out of me.
I’d managed my entire life to avoid flagellation.
The first time I’d seen it, I was thirteen and a man and a woman had been caught committing adultery.
For their punishment, the man had to get on his knees and publicly beseech the elders for forgiveness.
The woman was forced to kneel, gripping the edge of the pulpit, and submit to ten lashes with the leather tail.
At the time, I swore I’d never commit such a sin as to need public, painful punishment and prayed I’d never be as wicked as the woman.
Now I wanted to never be a part of a community that encouraged such humiliation again.
If Zorababel caught me, I knew I’d receive both the flogging and at least three days of fasting in the prayer closet for running away from Erlik’s reverend.
The endless wind whipped my skirts around my legs, making it difficult to walk. It was almost as if the house didn’t want me to leave.
I huffed in frustration and grabbed up my skirts with one free hand to better stride across the edge of the moors. I was so caught up in my clothing I didn’t hear the wind change.
The unceasing swooshing of the wind shifted its tenor to gusts and deeper, heavier swoops. The long grass around me bent rhythmically in time to the bursts. Surprised, I glanced around. A movement caught the edge of my eye, and I looked up.
My heart sank.
Gabriel hovered above me, his snow-white wings beating every few seconds.
All the breath left my lungs. If I had thought him beautiful before, it was nothing compared to now that he was above me with those glorious wings outstretched. The white of his feathers contrasted against the dark gray of the sky, so bright it nearly hurt to look at them.
I raised my hands to keep the wind of his wings out of my face and stared up at him. Shame flooded my body, making my cheeks hot. I’d been caught. I squirmed under his gaze.
He slowly descended, wingbeat by wingbeat. In his arms he held my trunk, and he wore a leather vest that did nothing to hide the bulge of his arm muscles. His expression was fierce, his eyes penetrating. Those beautiful lips twisted into a scowl.
This was why Zorababel’s family called him the Herald of Death. I knew, if he had the inclination, he could smite me there.
My breath came in short, measured bursts. I froze, prey mesmerized by its predator, until he landed in the grass a few feet from me. The long, primary feathers brushed the tips of the grass and he folded them inward, tucking them along the line of his back.
“What are you doing?” The baritone echoed through my bones.
I swallowed, trying to come up with an answer. “My…my trunk. I paused cleaning to retrieve my trunk.” Fear trickled through the guilt.
He glanced at the horizon, where the sky was turning dark as licorice. “It would be dark while you walked along the road.”
I laughed nervously. “I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted my trunk.” I’ll try next time he leaves.
He shifted my trunk in his arms, a large, beat-up old thing with leather peeling from the edges and rusty rivets. “I retrieved it for you.”
“Oh.” I blinked. Warmth pooled in my abdomen. He’d gotten it for me? His lowly housekeeper? “Thank you. I didn’t expect that.” My guilt grew.
He nodded curtly, gaze cutting to the side. “I was able to fit some foodstuffs inside, too.”
The warmth grew despite myself. I smiled. “You did? For me?”
“I can’t have my housekeeper starve, can I?” His voice was gruff, but the way his wings hitched against his shoulders and his boot scuffed the soil made me think he wasn’t angry.
Remorse squeezed my heart. I couldn’t run away now. I dropped my valise in the high grass, hoping my skirts and grass would hide it from his sharp eyes. “Thank you.” I flashed a nervous smile. “I’ll meet you inside?”
He didn’t respond, just shot up into the sky roughly ten feet above my head.
My heart skipped a beat at the sudden movement. I’d never get used to a sight like that.
But the sight of a cottage by the sea is a sight I’ll never grow tired of either. I couldn’t forget my goal, because I would suffocate if I had to return to the Church of the Love of His Divine Saints.
“Housekeeper,” he called down to me.
I shaded my eyes and looked up at him. “Seraph?”
“What is your name?”
I licked my lips, suddenly hating myself for trying to sneak out without even leaving a note. He deserved better. “Eve Lovejoy.”
He gave a short nod. “Eve.” He lifted his face to the manor behind me and flew away.
My heart throbbed in my chest and my toes scrunched inside my shoes as I watched the angel alight on a balcony on the side of the house. Oh, I was in trouble indeed.
* * *
The next morning I woke, lukewarm under my covers in my boxbed. I braced myself for the cold as I swung the door open and crawled out of bed.
Last evening, after the seraph delivered my trunk right into the kitchen, startling me with the informality, I made myself a hot vegetable stew. Gabriel had tarried at the door, watching me, arms crossed, then left. I hadn’t seen him the rest of the night.
Now I smiled at the memory of his kindness as I busied around the kitchen.
I made fresh bread and organized the vegetables, jams, and other preserves he’d brought.
I was pleasantly surprised at the variety.
Based on how he’d spoken about human food yesterday, I didn’t expect him to be familiar with it.
But I had a good store now of butter, eggs, flour, milk, sugar, and more.
Last night I lay in bed, thinking over and over about our interaction yesterday as I traced the grooves of the key’s teeth over and over.
He lived in a crumbling manor on the moors without even his fellow seraphim for company.
No one knew much about them. A few sightings had been made around the world over the years, and some had even claimed to see winged demons—no one knew what they were.
Other types of seraphim? But for all I knew, his companions had died.
He was alone in a world that wasn’t his own for fifty years.
He must be so lonely. Just like me.
He deserved a little kindness. When it was time to find my new home, I’d leave a letter.
I wore my best dress and brushed my hair until it shone, as pretty as dishwater hair could get.
I found a tray tucked behind a cabinet and dusted it, then took a plate of eggs, toast, jam, and tea upstairs.
I hadn’t explored this upstairs wing, where I assumed he lived.
I followed a trail of footprints in the dust on the ground to a wide, carved wooden door.
Holding my breath, I knocked.
“What?” growled a male voice.
My heart skipped a beat. Maybe this is a bad idea. “Breakfast!” I called in a false, cheerful voice.
After a moment the door flew open, revealing a grouchy seraph. Black hair fell over those jade green eyes, and he was shirtless again. Damn it, he was beautiful even when sulky. This could prove distracting.
His eyes widened and his wings hitched higher behind his back. “Eve.”
Well, there was no way forward but through. If I acted like this was normal, maybe it would become normal. “Good morning.” I ducked under his arm, careful to keep the tray level. “Where do you want this?”
Gabriel turned and blinked at me.
I glanced around the room. It was a dark, dusty place.
Candles that had never been lit tilted in candlesticks on a shelf, nightstand, and table on the other side of the room.
Stone walls with faded, threadbare tapestries surrounded the sparse room.
Cobwebs decorated the corners of the room.
The largest, most prominent piece of furniture in the room was the bed—a giant wooden monstrosity that had once had curtains to trap the heat inside.
With his wings he needs a large bed, I realized.
The exterior wall had a door leading to a balcony. A breeze trickled inside, and I shivered. A large fireplace with an exquisitely carved mantle made up one wall—full of ash so old it was white— and the final wall was free of tapestries, because a massive painting covered the stones instead.
My eyes widened. It was a map of the Anglian Isles and parts of Europa.
The details faded away the farther from Anglia the map sprawled.
Blue swirls denoted the ocean, and spotted green spread across what should be Rus and Slav countries.
Further afield were the lands of the Great Zhou. “Oh my,” I breathed.
The door slammed shut behind me.
I jumped, and the cutlery rattled on the tray. “I’ll set this here, hmm?” I faked confidence and strode to the small table in one corner of the room. “I hope you like eggs!”
“What are you doing?” the seraph growled.
I would be frightened, but I remembered the way he treated me last night by bringing me goods and my trunk. “Doing my duties.” I blinked at him innocently. “I'm your housekeeper.”
“Eve,” he warned, stalking toward the table beside me.
I should be alarmed, but I wasn’t. Not when I could see the bafflement in his furrowed brow and the way he said my name.
“I don’t eat eggs.”
I began to wilt under his dismissive attitude. No. You’re stronger than this. You want to survive on your own, a single woman out in the wide world? Get used to pushing back. It was like using an atrophied muscle. I ignored the teaching of the church and rallied. “Have you ever tried them?”
His head swung toward me, nostrils flaring. Was he always like this, or just with humans?
“Are you always this cheerful?” he demanded.
“No. But today’s a good day because I’m full and warm.
And I didn’t have to clean up dirty footprints tracked into church by the men and I didn’t have to attend the daily chapel at dawn.
Nor did I have to worry about public confession this week.
” I took a deep breath, grimacing as I realized I’d said all of that out loud.
“Public confession?” Gabriel frowned as crossed his arms against that massive, muscular chest. “That sounds worse than the seraphim military.” He edged closer to the table and eyed the plate suspiciously.
I poured him tea. “No milk yet. One scoop of sugar or two?”
He grumbled something under his breath and rubbed his chest.
“Two it is.” I prepared the teacup and handed it to him.
I took a breath and decided to be brave. If everything went wrong a supernatural being who had the power of the god of death would be furious with me. That, and a very angry reverend tracking me down to punish me for failing to charm the seraph—if Gabriel didn’t kill me himself.
“So.” I casually eased into the chair at the dusty table and gestured for him to do the same.
He perched on the edge, letting his wings fall to either side. I hadn’t considered how awkward human furniture could be for beings with wings. Gabriel ignored me, picking up his fork and stabbing at the eggs with a scowl.
“You were in the military?” I held my breath, waiting to see if he would answer or kick me out of his bedchamber.