by C. R. Jane
Chapter 9
Before
I take a deep breath and sigh. I feel listless, bored, my skin is crawling with the need to jump into action, to do anything. There’s been a few more organized attacks in the few weeks that have passed since my return. None on the scale of the one launched against myself, but still enough that teams have sustained injuries. Per my own rules, the council teams have been alternating patrols. I’ve been keeping any teams not on patrol on lockdown to try and prevent injuries. I’ve been training everyone harder than ever before and I know that everyone is feeling the strain.
Torin looks over at me inquiringly when he hears my sigh. I shrug and skip a rock across the clear water of the lake in front of the palace where we just finished practicing drills. I watch as it disappears from view.
Against my better judgment, I’ve said nothing about Torin’s extra-curricular trips to see his claimed love. A part of me is reluctant to try and interfere. If she really is his fated mate as he claims, then I would be damning Torin if anything I did caused her demise. As much as I am disappointed and a bit distrustful of Torin as of late, to lose your fated mate is a fate worse than death that I wouldn’t wish on my greatest enemy. Still, he continues to disappear at odd intervals that make me wonder just where this secret hideout is that he procured for her. I’m also still weirded out about the fact that he hasn’t discussed me meeting her yet.
He hasn’t asked about visiting Camilla again though. I would probably bring him with me if he asked just to get her in a better mood. Torin usually can get anyone in a better mood with his antics. I haven’t gone back. I’m not sure how long humans take to recover from being mad, and I haven’t been in the mood to check and see. I miss her though. My friendship with Torin has changed since the attack, that kernel of doubt continuing to spread through me like a slow-moving poison as I have more and more begun to see him without the rose-colored glasses I viewed him with in the past.
When I witness him start to casually lie to other members of the Council about inconsequential things like if he ate the last piece of cake, or if he borrowed a weapon, I decide that I will just follow him on one of his trips just to stop myself from going crazy with suspicion. If he does in fact go to his human lover’s house then I can continue to make excuses for him, maybe the stress of having to hide her and the fear of what the Fallen would do to her is driving him to be irrational. If he doesn’t…well I’m not sure what I will do. Even with his shady actions, I still can’t imagine what he could be doing on these trips that would be so bad that he felt like he couldn’t tell me about them. We’ve seen each other at our best and at our worst, and I’m hard pressed to think of anything he could do that I couldn’t forgive him for.
At dusk he sets out, looking around him carefully before he sails into the fading sky. I follow him at a distance. Torin never did pay close enough attention to his surroundings. It makes me think of the million and one times that I’ve had to swoop in and save his ass before he was killed by one of the Fallen. He continues to glide through the sky at a swift pace, displaying a sense of purpose that I have seldom seen in him. Although Torin has never seemed to resent our mission like I do, his heart has never been in it and he often would try to do his best to sideline us from whatever our mission was for the day. I feel a shiver slide down my spine. Surely thousands of years was enough to really know someone, wasn’t it?
After another ten minutes of flying his rapid pace begins to slow down, and he begins a slow descent down where there’s a fair amount of tree cover. I slow down as well and land silently behind a tree some ways away from him. At first Torin is just pacing, and I become hopeful that he has just come here to think about something that is bothering him. A set of unfamiliar angels walk into the secluded grove Torin has landed in. They’re both dressed in matching brown military wear, and I know that they are Fallen. They’re loaded down with various weapons, and I immediately move to come to his aid, thinking that he will be overwhelmed. I pull out a small knife that I prefer for close combat, and prepare to step in. My steps are halted however when I see both Fallen give a small bow and beat their hand against their chest, an action that bespokes respect and allegiance. I would know, that’s how most creatures usually approach me unless they are told otherwise. Torin has always made fun of me when it happens. He’s never been one for pomp and circumstance. He seems to be soaking it up right now though.
I creep silently closer so that I can hear their conversation, dread squeezing my heart so thoroughly that I’m afraid I will start to choke.
“Master Torin, we attacked him as you requested. However…” The Fallen takes a deep breath as if steadying himself to deliver unwanted news. “However, there have been sightings of him. We believe he has survived.”
“Of course he survived, you idiots!” states Torin angrily in a cold, authoritative voice that sounds nothing like my fun-loving best friend. “My question is, how did you let this happen? I made sure he was alone and that he would be caught off guard.”
That seed of doubt that has been slowly developing ever since the attack bursts into bloom, suffocating in its enormity as my mind, and my heart, try to comprehend this bitter, blood curdling betrayal. I know who the “he” is they are talking about. My best friend, my comrade in arms, the one that has been a brother to me from my earliest memory, tried to have me killed.
“We’ve been escalating the attacks as you’ve requested, but we’ve been suffering high casualties as a result. We weren’t able to send more than a few hundred of the soldiers you requested. I didn’t think there was any way that even Commander Pierce would be able to survive such an onslaught of our best fighters. We were told that all of his injuries were so severe in scope that he couldn’t possibly have survived,” the Fallen explained hurriedly. “The few soldiers that returned from the attack all assured us that the blood he left behind was unfathomable. We aren’t sure what happened after that, but I assure you our best efforts were given.”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Torin says in a silkily calm voice that at the same time is somehow laced with so much violence that it manages to send a shiver down even my back. “A human miscreant was able to save him somehow and nurse him back to health,” he explodes. “We’ve gone backwards if anything since now he is intent on finding out who did this to him!”
Unexpectedly, Torin pulled his sword out of his belt, and slices through the Fallen’s neck who had been speaking. To his credit, the other Fallen doesn’t cower, but stands very still as if Torin is a predator in the wild and he could escape notice if he doesn’t move.
Acting as if nothing had happened, Torin speaks to the surviving angel. “You’re in charge now, I’ll set a similar situation up again, but there can’t be any mistakes this time. You know we need him out of the picture for our plan to succeed, and he’s going to stop being so oblivious to what I’m doing if he manages to escape another large-scale attack on a mission I’ve abandoned him on. It took all the groveling I could stir up to alleviate his suspicions from the first attack,” he says in a disgusted voice.
More words are spoken but I can’t hear them. There’s a faint buzzing in my ears and my heart seems to be beating so loudly that I can’t focus on what’s happening around me. Logically I know that I should keep listening in to hear more details about whatever “plan” Torin has going with the Fallen. However, the sting of Torin’s betrayal has sliced into me and even in my perfected, often emotionless form, I can’t recover.
Trying to still be mindful to keep my cover now that I know it’s not just the Fallen I have to keep my eye on, I stalk through the trees, moving far enough away that I can take flight without being seen.
I fly aimlessly, my mind replaying the scene and Torin’s callous words over and over again. I don’t know what to do. My mind is jumbled trying to think of some other explanation for what I saw with my own eyes. Why would Torin join the Fallen? We have fought against them since almost our creation. I can’t think of a sing
le reason for his treachery. Torin may not have been passionate about our mission, but he’s at least seemed to be in agreement that the Fallen aren’t the good guys and should be destroyed if the opportunity presents itself. My thoughts swirl furiously in my head.
I find myself outside of Camilla’s shack. She’s hanging clothes on a line, humming to herself. She turns, startled at first until she sees its me. She then gives me a huge smile, all signs of her previous anger disappeared. Her smile turns to one of concern when she sees my state.
“What’s wrong?” she asks worriedly as she jogs over to where I’ve landed.
“Everything,” I say devastatingly, grateful to have someone to talk to. This thought sends me down another rabbit hole of mourning when I think of how I used to talk to Torin about everything. She begins to softly rub my back as she brings me inside.
She begins to search through some baskets for something. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, her voice muffled from her search.
I’m silent. I don’t think I want to talk about it, at least not right now. I actually want to forget about the day’s events. I want to go back to a time when Torin was just my fun-loving friend and my only worry was when my mission was going to be over, so that I could get back to Paradise. Now I face having to tell the council about what Torin is doing.
Camilla turns around holding a bottle of some elvish wine I had brought her on one of my visits. “Why don’t we try this out?” she asks, a lilt in her voice that is a bit unrecognizable.
Thinking that drinking sounds like the perfect way to forget for a bit, I nod eagerly and quickly throw back the wine she has poured in the crude cup she offered me. Elvish wine is known for being the strongest drink around, even affecting supernaturals who have an extremely high tolerance to most forms of alcohol. I had brought it to her since she was so eager to learn about my world and she claimed she liked “a good stiff drink.”
The evening flies by. Camilla has offered me cup after cup. I lose count of what number I’m on. Everything seems brighter and I feel like a weight has been lifted. I spin Camilla around the room. Her hair blows in the breeze, leaving a stream of red behind her. Camilla looks beautiful in the faded light, the shadows softening her angular face into something almost majestic. She gazes up at me like I am everything to her, and her adoration is a salve on my wounded soul. We’re dancing now to a beat only we can hear. I collapse on the floor laughing, no longer able to stand up straight. She falls on top of me, her long hair cocooning us in a veil of flames. We stare at each other, and she lowers her lips to mine. I softly test out the feeling, the intimacy of the moment helping me to forget. Her clothes come off, and then mine, and then we’re exploring each other’s bodies as our breathing escalates. I forget everything but her soft moans as I touch her. They fill the air, combining with mine in a cacophony of sounds that is both lovely and terrible.
Chapter 10
I wake with a start. Camilla lays sleeping, her head nestled against my chest. I gently move out from under her, watching as she briefly stirs and then returns to a deep sleep. I walk over to the hole cut into the side of the house to provide light and stare out. What did I do?
I feel anxious, flustered…guilty. We are strictly forbidden from interacting with humans at all, and here I’ve just fucked one, and not just a random one, but the only human friend I’ve ever made. Worst of all, I know that what just happened meant far more to Camilla than it did to me. Her whispered “I love you,” as she came idles in my mind. It never should have happened. Camilla has become a prized friend, but I’m not even attracted to her. Now I have two terrible situations on my hands, both with my best friends. I hear the blankets rustling.
“Damon?” she asks me questioningly. I’m sweating. I have no idea what to say, what to do about this situation. Like a coward I walk back towards the makeshift bed. I try to smile at her reassuringly and pull her close to my body after flipping her around to face the other way so that she isn’t looking at me. I listen as her breaths grow deeper, signaling that she has fallen back to sleep. The rest of the night I lay awake, my mind burdened with both the situation with Torin, and the trouble I have found myself in.
Dawn comes sooner than I would like. I’ve been going over what I’m going to say to Camilla. Maybe I can just blame it on the rules of being a Guardian. I mean we’ve never talked about what I actually am beyond that of an ordinary angel. She’ll understand right if I explain that to sleep with a human is one of the foulest things that an angel can do? The guilt sits like a lead weight in my stomach. Although I know the seriousness of what has just happened, I’m sure explaining it to her will sound like a hollow excuse.
She’s still in my arms when I feel her start to stir. She twists in my arms until she faces me, a content and happy look on her unusual face. I study her features, trying to see if there is anything inside of me that feels more than I would for a treasured friend. There’s nothing there. Although I would readily admit to anyone that I’m very shallow when it comes to looks, there is more that I’m hoping for in my eventual mate. I have never been in love before. I have never found that certain, indescribable spark in someone else that makes me want to vow everlasting love and settle down. Despite the fact that I find Camilla interesting and unusual, I can’t find it in me to feel something deeper.
I’m about to tell her that this was a terrible mistake when she gives me a soft kiss on my lips.
“Last night was the most amazing night of my life. I didn’t know…I didn’t know if you would come back, or that there was even the chance something like that could happen between us. It felt like everything I’ve ever dreamed about, being with someone you love and who loves you back. I’ve wanted this for so long. I can’t believe it really happened.”
A look of vulnerability crosses over her features.
“You wanted this right?” she asks softly.
In my mind a steady slew of curses is rattling through my brain at my life, Torin, alcohol…basically everything at the moment. Not knowing or wanting to answer I smile and kiss her quickly, hoping that it will be good enough for right now until I figure out what the hell I’m going to do. We stay on the hard, worn mattress that she sleeps on, her head nestled against me as she traces things on my chest. I idly play with her hair as I wait for a good time to leave. What’s the most horrible thing about this situation is now I’m going to have lost two best friends.
Finally, when I feel like I have done the polite thing long enough, I gently lift her off of me so that I can get up. We are both still completely unclothed, and I avert my eyes from her form as I quickly get dressed. My clothes smell like strong alcohol and a wave of nausea passes over me. I hope that my healing abilities will give me a break and get rid of this hangover sooner rather than later. At this point, the only plus of the morning has been that she hasn’t tried to get me to sleep with her again. It’s one thing to get an erection when your drunk and attraction can be imagined, it’s a whole other beast to fake attraction in the bright light of the day.
“Well, I’ve got a long day ahead of me,” I tell her awkwardly. She’s braiding her long, bright, auburn hair and watching me with a studious expression. I’m worried she can read my mind about just how much I want to get out of here. I see something wild in her eyes and wonder what she’s thinking. She stands on her tip toes and lays a soft kiss on my lips. The uneasiness rises higher within me. I normally would have no problem telling someone I wasn’t interested, that this was just about the sex. But Camilla saved my life. She’s one of the only friends I have, especially now…especially now that Torin has betrayed me. I’m just going to have to tell her later I decide, swiping my thumb gently across her cheek in response to her kiss.
“Will you be back soon?” she asks quietly.
I frown at the question. We’ve never had a relationship where there has been scheduled visits. I’ve flown to visit her when I feel like it or when I have a chance. Is this a human thing? I try to think if any of the
girls I’ve been with before have needed to see me at certain times. Nothing comes to mind and I’m not sure what the right move is. “I have patrol for the next few days. I don’t usually take afternoons off to drink (or fuck),” I respond, obviously leaving the “fuck” part out. That same wild look rises to the surface on her face. Her panic is tangible in the air. She takes a breath and then a blank look covers her features.
“Well, I’ll see you soon,” she tells me, giving me a casual wave before she walks back inside her house.
I’m more confused than ever. What the ever-loving fuck just happened? Deciding to take the opportunity to leave nevertheless, I push off the ground and take flight. The gravity of what I’ve just done lays like a heavy mantle over my head. If anyone finds out… They just won’t find out I decide. It’s not going to happen again. With my mind made up, I speed through the air. One problem down, one to go.
Chapter 11
I’m weary as I touch down in front of Camilla’s poor excuse for a house. It’s been two long months of constant conflict with the Fallen. As soon as I left Camilla after that last disastrous visit, I was pulled into a council meeting. I’m sure that the others could smell the stench of sex and alcohol all over me, but luckily no one made a comment despite the strict rules I had placed on the group. We’ve all been there. Maybe not with a human, but the other members of the counsel aren’t exactly virgins and I’m sure how rough I looked was preventing any pushback. We’ve all been stressed. I’m sure they have been finding ways behind my back to “blow off steam” as well.
