Chapter Six
Gabriel
I sniffed the yellow gooey mess on my fork and harrumphed.
I avoided most human food. Back home we ate several meals a day and feasted on special days.
We often ate animals from the rivers and streams, sometimes birds, and always vegetables and fruits—either grown in the high, rocky spurs of our land or the flooded banks of our rivers.
My sedge and I accidentally discovered we didn’t need to eat much here in this world.
I didn’t know why—maybe the atmosphere was different, maybe we used less energy to fly in this air.
Maybe the sun renewed us. Regardless, most of the seraphim were not interested in developing a palate for human food.
Not when the loss of our homeland was so great.
But…if it would make this chattering human leave me alone…
I took a bite. Flavor burst across my tongue: salt, cheese, butter, and whatever egg tasted like, I suppose. It was good, actually. Very good. She must be a good cook, because eggs had never tempted me before. Seraphim rarely ate bird eggs.
She shifted in her chair opposite me, resting her elbows on the table.
A wave of attraction swept over me. For her.
This human. This Eve. It made little sense, but nothing had made sense in fifty years.
I eyed her as I took another bite of the eggs scrambled with cheese, ignoring the magnetic pull that made me want to pick her up and shelter her in my wings. Eve seemed to be waiting for something.
I grunted. “The seraphim military? I was a part of it for all of my adulthood. My parents sent me to the youth academy, designed for second children of nobility, when I was seventy-five.”
Eve jerked backward. “Seventy-five? Seventy-five years old?”
I nodded, taking another bite. We’d done a better job of hiding our nature from the humans than I thought, if she had no idea of our lifespan.
“Seraphim are not considered adults until they are near one hundred. A normal seraph lifespan is a thousand years, though there have been some to see higher.” There had also been rare instances of seraphim with defective ayim, and they lived far shorter.
Her jaw dropped.
I had the sudden urge to kiss her mouth.
The jolt of desire was so unexpected I sucked in a breath.
Desire for a human? I shifted in my seat, clearing my throat and continuing.
“After I turned one hundred, I graduated from the academy and joined our military. It was good timing, for another war was underway.”
What would her mouth taste like? What color were her nipples? Would she sigh or scream when I licked her?
“War?”
I blinked, trying to remember our conversation.
“There’s another race in our world, the Gar.
We have been enemies for hundreds upon hundreds of years.
Perhaps thousands. At the beginning of the war I was second in command of an auxiliary sedge.
” My erection pressed against the seam of my trousers, which bit into my hard flesh.
I gritted my teeth against the pain. “But later, as I grew into my military command, I led a sedge of twelve seraphim, including myself, into battle. We would typically hide behind the mountains, within caves and shadows, and ambush any Gar that came our way. We were in the middle of a skirmish that—that day.”
The food in my mouth soured, and I had to fight to swallow.
Images of that last day were burned into my mind.
They appeared frequently in my nightmares.
The screams of the falling. Daniel’s wide eyes.
Castiel’s bellow. Azrael’s torn primary feathers.
The rage and confusion in the eyes of the Gar as they fell with us.
“The stories say a black hole just…appeared in the sky,” my housekeeper breathed.
I nodded jerkily. “Somehow we Fell. More than a score of us, total. Our enemy was so confused they didn’t attack as we Fell to your world.
We hit the ground.” Among other injuries, Haniel had broken his back and had to be carried away by the two seraphim closest to him.
Evangeline had landed on a fence post, chest impaled.
It was only the ayim flowing through her body that had kept her alive.
“We separated, retreating deep into the country as quickly as we could.” I shot her a wry smile. “Your land doesn’t have mountains. It baffled us. We didn’t know how to hide from the native population.”
“Native population? You mean humans?”
I nodded again. Several of us had injured wings so badly they had to travel on foot.
I’d bound more than one pair of wings to their backs, supporting the heavy but limp muscles so they could walk.
Our feet, unused to long distances, bled all the way to Alba.
We’d hidden in the highlands as we recovered, nursing our wounds and raging at the sky.
I had no idea where the Gar combatants had gone.
Perhaps they’d fared worse in this human world and were all dead now.
I found I could not care anymore, not when we were cut off from our home and I’d failed to lead my sedge back safely.
“I wonder how it happened,” Eve whispered half to herself.
An angry laugh tore out of my throat, rubbing my flesh raw. “We all wonder that.”
“We’ve always had stories about angels,” Eve told me. “Vague ideas that celestial beings exist. Maybe there used to be a path between our worlds. Maybe the ancients knew of you. You may not be a herald for Erlik, but the idea of angels had to come from somewhere.”
I shrugged. I’d had this conversation with my warriors many times.
“Seraphim have stories about some of us Falling from the sky, never to be seen. There’s old stories we’d frighten children with—about being sent to a small, dark crevice so deep in the earth you couldn’t see the sky.
That monsters roamed down there. Monsters from other worlds, trapped with us.
If this had happened on a scouting mission on land or even to someone banished into the earth, perhaps it would be easier for us to believe.
But a crack in the sky?” I shook my head.
“It defies belief. And yet here I am.” A bitter smile graced my face.
“After fifty years of seeking seams in the sky to pick apart, here I am.”
Eve stared at me, face inscrutable. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That sounds miserable. I’ve always lived in the same place with the same people. Being ripped away from all that—it would be shocking.”
“I’ve gotten used to it,” I grunted. I scraped the plate clean with the edge of my fork. When had that happened? Maybe she was a witch and had enchanted me to eat and enjoy her food.
A laugh burbled out of the alluring housekeeper, and I realized I said the words out loud.
“There’s no such thing as witches,” she said. “Magic doesn’t exist in this world.” Her brow furrowed. “There are stories of women long ago who worshipped the mother goddess, Emmas, and received her special powers, but they were dangerous and wicked. They’re all gone now.”
Hmm. I wondered what “they’re all gone” meant. A coven of Emmas worshippers had helped us recover. Latent magic still slept beneath the earth; I could feel it. I just couldn’t use it anymore. No longer did lightning crackle or thunder roll when I plucked the world’s tapestry of magic.
Fifty years of time to think about the war and my role in it made me skeptical of higher authority—something a younger me never would’ve believed.
I’d eaten, slept, drunk honor and duty. Now I was a dried up husk.
I couldn’t bear to look at my sword, a weapon of such quality it sang as it had cut the air.
It was an heirloom, a gift from the Royal House.
I had no business touching its hilt. Not anymore.
“Your family must miss you.” Her soft voice should’ve grated on my nerves, but instead it reverberated in my chest. “How awful to be ripped away from them like that. I know you were a warrior, so they must be prepared for something terrible. But disappearing like that? Your poor family.”
I flushed as she stared steadily at me across the tiny table.
My wings had started tight against my back, but now they’d relaxed to the point a few feathers trailed the floor.
Sloppy. I tightened my muscles again. I was only this haphazard with my wings when drunk or…
I couldn’t remember the last time. What was she doing to me?
“They’re used to my absence,” I told her.
“Like I said, I was raised to be in the military and spent many of my early years away. I scarcely know my younger sisters. My older brother spent most of his time at academies or locked in the study with our father. My mother flitted between our country estates.”
Eve’s mouth formed a small O. “You’re from the nobility?”
I nodded. We had a very strict social hierarchy, and the military was one of the few ways to scale it, which was why so many second children joined without protest. “But I consider my sedge my family,” I added, though I didn’t understand why I felt so compelled to tell her these things.
“Your sedge?” Eve glanced around, as if some of them were hiding within the room.
“They are not here now. They’ve journeyed around the world.”
“To look for a way home,” Eve breathed.
I turned in the chair as best my wings would allow it and reached for a brass amulet on the nightstand. Its chain rattled as I dragged it over to me. I set it on the table between myself and Eve.
She leaned forward, curiosity shining in her eyes. “What is that?”
“A sort of portrait. Of our sedge. We all take an official portrait before deploying to the warfront. But this time I paid for the group to have a second one taken. I had copies made for everyone.” I flipped the lid on the amulet. It was similar to what humans called lockets, but slightly larger.
When the fastener fell back and the lid clicked open to the table, a tiny beam of light shot out.
Eve gasped, jerking backward.