Feather (Angels of Elysium Book 1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  Keeping my eyes on Tristan’s, I took a sip of wine, the sweet alcohol burning a path down my throat. I expected to feel the pinch that preceded a falling feather, thinking that yesterday had been a fluke, but no feather fell.

  Relief made me take another sturdier swallow. This time, there was no burn, just a lush aftertaste that reminded me of the cherries growing in the guild’s orchard, which we would harvest before our wing bones appeared and our preoccupations changed. I took another sip of the unctuous nectar and licked my lips.

  “Has anyone ever told you that your mouth is a work of art, Feather?” Tristan took a slow swallow of his own drink.

  I startled at his use of Jarod’s nickname. Somehow, it sounded wrong coming from him. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had that thought.

  “Don’t fucking call her that,” Jarod snapped.

  Tristan’s smug countenance teetered at Jarod’s admonishment. “Won’t happen again, boss.” He tipped his glass and drained it, then scraped his hands over the silvering hair at his temples, and got up. “I’ll go sit at the bar. Don’t want any blind spots.”

  As he trudged away, I said, “Possessive of your nicknames, huh?”

  Jarod side-eyed me, fingers stroking the stubby stem of his wineglass. His nails were all neatly trimmed and buffed, almost shinier than my own, which I’d painted a shimmery nude.

  Between the radiator warming the right side of my body and the alcohol roiling through my veins, the heat became unbearable, and I shrugged out of the jacket. “Do you know what the men look—”

  “Put the jacket back on.” Jarod’s words were low and clipped.

  Since his gaze was cemented to the group of five guys at the neighboring table, how had he even noticed me taking it off?

  “Je me la ferais bien, celle-là.” I’d do her.

  I blinked at the man who’d spoken, more boy than man with his face full of pimples and sparse facial hair.

  Jarod popped his cufflinks out of his cuffs and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Feather, put the damn jacket back on,” he ground out again.

  As I flung it around my shoulders, the man-boy leaned back in his chair and smirked at Jarod. Creep. Jarod’s chair legs scuffed the wooden floors. Before he could get up, I clamped my fingers around his forearm.

  “Remember why we’re here,” I murmured, trying to soothe his temper. To improve your soul, not to soil it. “Don’t throw it away over some stupid remark. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter.”

  Jarod’s nostrils flared. “It matters to me.”

  For a Triple, he was awfully righteous. “Please,” I said again, and that last whispered plea dismantled his thirst to teach the creep a lesson.

  Chapter 23

  Sensing trouble, or perhaps, privy to what the pimply-faced boy had said, Sasha rushed toward us, sweat glistening on his brow. “I’m so sorry, Monsieur Adler.”

  He pivoted toward the table of five guys and requested they leave. Even though his voice was quiet, the tension inside was unmistakable. When one of the guys grumbled and told him he’d never come back and like hell if they’d pay for their meal, the knobs of Sasha’s spine strained against his gray cotton shirt.

  Chair legs scraped, and then the pimply man-boy swiped the half-full wine bottle from the table before spitting at Sasha’s feet. The viscous glob landed right by the owner’s worn sneakers. I pressed my lips together. I’d miss certain humans; others, not so much.

  I felt something shift underneath my fingertips—the tendons in Jarod’s forearm. I’d forgotten I was still holding on to him. I snatched my fingers away just as the door swung shut behind the ill-mannered group.

  “Keep the jacket on this time,” he said.

  I yanked the jacket so tight it all but choked me.

  The room grew uncomfortably quiet, and the silence grew until it became an almost solid mass. Tristan was poised on the edge of a stool at the bar as though ready to leap off. It was only when Jarod relaxed that Tristan did too.

  Sasha’s hands trembled as he piled the plates of the five men who’d left, and the tremors seemed to grow worse under his customers’ scrutiny.

  I started to get up to help him when Jarod said, “Don’t.”

  I frowned, uncomprehending as to why I couldn’t help lighten Sasha’s load. I was about to protest and remind him that my calling was to help people, when he shot me a look so stern it pinned my thighs to the wooden seat.

  “All of your meals are on us tonight!” Jarod’s voice sliced through the small room, amplified by the roughcast walls and low timber ceiling. “So, order that second bottle of wine or sample the entire menu for all I care.”

  The clink of silverware meddled with low gasps. Two glasses rattled on the platter Layla was setting down on the bar, and the dregs of wine inside one of the glasses splashed Tristan’s jacket sleeve. He muttered under his breath, and Layla turned crimson. She rushed behind the bar and returned with a wet towel. Whispering apologies that carried over the growing hubbub, she started to pat his jacket when Tristan grabbed the towel from her, removed his jacket, and finished the job.

  “Monsieur Adler, that’s too generous,” Sasha croaked, clutching the stack of plates against him. “You don’t have to do that.” Shiny brown sauce dripped off the doddering stack and down his bony wrist.

  “Come to think of it, all your meals in this establishment will be comped for the next month if you bring Sasha and Layla business,” Jarod added.

  Sasha gaped at Jarod, clinging on to the plates so hard I worried they might shatter. “M-Merci.”

  Jarod shrugged. “Don’t thank me yet.”

  Sasha nodded before scampering off.

  “That was really kind of you, Jarod,” I said, attempting to decipher this puzzle of a man.

  “Startling, I’m sure.” He finally took a sip of wine.

  Although diners had gone back to cutting through browned lambchops or scooping up creamy, scalloped potatoes, all of them darted curious glances our way. I was about to ask him if most people in Paris knew him when Layla bustled over to ask if she could bring us anything else. Although the smell of food had my stomach rumbling, I sensed now wasn’t the time to indulge.

  “Just some bread, please,” Jarod said.

  “Right away.” She rushed back to the bar, then returned carrying a wire basket filled with slices of springy baguette. After depositing it on our table, she went back to taking food orders.

  I heard one woman ask for all their appetizers and main courses. Either she and her husband were famished or they were going to milk Jarod’s offer. Probably the latter.

  I smiled. “Planning on distributing antacids?”

  “Gluttony is a deadly sin, so their souls should suffer accordingly, don’t you think?”

  His comment, combined with its mocking delivery, temporarily impeded my brain’s ability to shape an answer.

  “Besides”—his fingers stroked up his glass—“it’ll give you a jolly band of new sinners to assist. Surely, not as entertaining as yours truly but easier considering how well-versed you are in gluttony.”

  How well-versed I am in gluttony? My palm dropped to my soft stomach. “Just because I enjoy eating doesn’t mean I have a disorder,” I said, wishing I was comfortable enough in my skin that jabs at my physique didn’t sting.

  Jarod’s fingers plummeted from his glass, the side of his hand hitting the scratched wooden tabletop. “What?”

  I scrutinized one of the many grooves in the wood. “Forget it.”

  “Don’t tell me to forget it. Why did you just take my remark so personally?”

  I filched a piece of bread from the basket and peeled the doughy center from the thin, hard crust. “Was the you supposed to be a universal you?” I stuffed the bread inside my mouth. Take that, Jarod Adler. I don’t care what you think of my body and my love for food.

  But I did care. Too much. The same way I cared when Eve urged me to cut carbs.

  “That wasn’t—Feather
, I didn’t—”

  “I said forget it.”

  The glass door of the restaurant jangled, and three men strolled in, grins as wide as their shoulders. All of them sported hair on their faces but none on their scalps. A chill swept up my spine, and I didn’t think it had anything to do with the cool air that had drifted in when they’d entered.

  One of them winked at Layla, who went as rigid as the slate menu she was holding. He snickered as he followed the other two mounds of muscle toward the bar where all three dropped heavily on barstools two seats down from Tristan.

  Tristan glanced up from the jacket he was still cleaning. The guy who’d winked at Layla spun on his stool, a diamond stud sparkling in his right earlobe. Once he faced out, he placed his elbows on the bar behind him as though he owned the place. The door behind the bar flapped open, and Sasha, arms laden with plates, froze before looking toward Jarod.

  Jarod, who’d grown as still as the wingless angel in his courtyard.

  Earring-guy’s gaze skidded over to him. When Jarod stood, the thug elbowed his friend, whose jaw twitched. I felt useless sitting so far away but was afraid to get in the way if I went to them. Besides, my mission was to guide, not to perform the acts in the sinner’s stead.

  As I observed the men’s body language, I ran my thumb along the lapel of Jarod’s jacket, coaxing his scent out of the silken wool. Instead of calming me, it had my heart racing harder.

  The man beside Earring-guy shifted on his stool, and then his hand slipped under his T-shirt as though he were scratching his stomach.

  When I caught the gleam of silver, I gasped Jarod’s name and shot up, the jacket springing off my shoulders and hitting the back of the chair before pooling on the floor. Thankfully, Tristan had seen the weapon too. He leaped in front of Jarod, gun brandished. Over the din of chair feet, strident shouts rang out, rivaling the thunder in my veins.

  Tristan cocked the hammer, and the man jerked his hands in the air. The knife clattered to the floor. Tristan kicked it backward, and it bumped against Jarod’s shiny Oxfords.

  He stepped on top of the blade and said, “You, call Mehdi and put him on speakerphone.”

  While Earring-guy’s fingers tapped his phone screen, the guy beside him narrowed his eyes, first on Tristan, then on Jarod.

  I didn’t like the way he was watching Jarod and stepped closer to my sinner. I wasn’t supposed to interfere, but I also wasn’t going to sit back and watch men rip each other apart. Especially when I was immortal, and Jarod wasn’t.

  The man’s gaze sparked with amusement at the sight of me. “Cute bodyguard,” he said, which earned him Tristan’s elbow in the temple and which earned me a hard scowl from Jarod.

  A few years ago, I’d stepped in front of a yellow cab and gotten flung several feet in the air to protect a child whose mother had pushed out the stroller without checking for oncoming traffic.

  Even though Jarod might’ve believed me useless, I knew I wasn’t.

  A barked “What?” rose from the cell phone Earring-guy was holding up, stealing Jarod’s attention away from me.

  The Demon Court lord cracked his knuckles. “Been a while, Mehdi.”

  Silence answered him.

  “You never drop by to visit anymore,” Jarod continued.

  “Jarod?” Mehdi’s voice hitched.

  “I was afraid you’d forgotten about me.” The ghost of a smile floated over Jarod’s lips. “You’re overdue for a visit.”

  The guy Tristan had hit rubbed his temple, green eyes slitted like a snake’s.

  Mehdi cleared his throat. “I’ve been busy.”

  Jarod ran his gaze over the three men before him. “I can see that.”

  “I was planning on ringing you this week, actually.”

  “Were you now? How delightful. I’ll tell Tristan to look out for your call. Oh, and congratulations, I heard you landed a very profitable wedding for your eldest daughter. Should I send my gift to her honeymoon suite in the Seychelles or to her apartment on Avenue Matignon?”

  “How—” Mehdi sputtered but stopped himself from voicing the rest of his question. He was probably wondering how Jarod knew where his daughter was honeymooning.

  “Were you planning on informing me about your little side business?” Jarod asked.

  The guy next to Green-eyes shifted on his stool, casting glances around him. I became acutely aware of how quiet the restaurant had become. I looked over my shoulder to find Sasha and his wife huddled in a corner, the only remaining people besides us. I hoped that Jarod’s offer to comp meals would make the customers forget the heated altercation and return, if not tonight, then soon.

  “I was—it’s not—” Mehdi was unable to string full sentences together.

  “La Cour des Démons doesn’t condone racketeering, but you know that, don’t you?” Jarod continued, sounding as censorious as Ophan Mira when she would catch me reading one of my human novels. “I expect you’ll return the funds you’ve confiscated from all the establishments you’ve been hitting up for the past year.”

  There was a loud bang on the other side of the phone as though Mehdi had punched something. Green-eyes’s attention flicked to one of his buddies before skipping back to Jarod.

  “Earlier today, your son graciously provided Tristan with a detailed list of the restaurants and cafés you’ve sent your little emissaries to raid. Tristan will be contacting them one by one to confirm they’ve recovered their funds before our meeting.” A string of muffled swear words made Jarod smirk. “I can’t wait to see you too, old friend.”

  At the same time as the phone screen went dark, the green-eyed guy bounded off his seat, snatched my wrist, and rammed me against his front. His beefy arm wrapped around my throat, squeezing the air out. I clawed at his skin, wheezing. He backed away, dragging me with him, then seized a bottle from a table and swung it against the back of a chair. Red wine splashed over the floor and sprayed my bare ankles, dribbling inside my shoes.

  The guy pushed the razor-sharp edges of the bottle against my collarbone. “You shoot us, I slice her neck.” Rancid-smelling spittle smacked my cheek.

  Jarod’s eyes became as black as the barrel of the gun Tristan was pointing at the two others. “I wasn’t planning on shooting any of you, but now . . .”

  The man choked me harder, and the room went grainy.

  “Don’t,” I murmured. To my attacker and to Jarod. I didn’t want to be the cause for bloodshed. Bloodshed would erase all the good Jarod had done tonight. Even if it wasn’t his finger on the trigger, if he ordered the hit—

  “Putain, lâches la meuf, Mo!” Earring-guy shouted. To beg his friend to release me meant he sensed this wouldn’t end well for the three of them.

  When stars danced at the edge of my vision, I summoned my wings. They wouldn’t help me fly out of the man’s grasp, but my wing bones would press him back like an invisible hand, hopefully lending me enough room to wriggle out. As they burst from my shoulder blades and my feathers snapped out, air trickled back down my throat, sharpening my vision.

  “What the—” The man sputtered as I twisted around and shoved my palms into his torso. I wasn’t supposed to use violence, unless under duress.

  I decided I was under duress.

  He stumbled, and then his backside hit the ground. A gun went off. I spun around to find one of the men trying to pry the gun from Tristan’s hands while Earring-guy was yelling at him to stop.

  Something sharp carved through my calf, tearing a scream from me. I toppled forward, falling right into Jarod’s rigid arms. For several breaths, he didn’t move, but then, he twirled me around and kicked Mo’s wrist right as he swung his makeshift weapon again. The bottle rocketed out of his grip and landed on the floor with an earsplitting crash.

  Another gunshot went off.

  This time the bullet sank into flesh. Earring-guy seized up as his friend’s brain matter exploded all over him. And then he paled and stumbled away, heaving. Tristan got to his feet, wiped the blo
od on his forehead with the sleeve of the jacket he’d cleaned so assiduously, then aimed the gun at the guy who’d attacked me. The bullet zipped through the air and ricocheted off a plate.

  “Jarod!” I screeched when I saw Mo grab a steak knife.

  I lunged to put myself between them. Jarod wrapped an arm around my middle and whisked me up and around. As my heels met the ground, a growl lurched out of Jarod’s throat and lashed my feathers.

  I tried to look over my shoulder, but my wings were in the way. I magicked them out of existence and twirled in Jarod’s arms.

  Another shot pealed through the restaurant. Mo dipped his chin and looked at the dribbling hole in his chest. His eyes rolled back, and he flopped against a table before crashing to the ground.

  My ears rang, and my throat constricted at the stench of hot blood and acrid vomit. Jarod’s complexion had paled considerably, and his eyes had this glassy sheen to them that made me skate my palms over his jaw, down his warm neck, and over his back. His shirt had been slashed. When my fingers came away sticky and red, I realized Mo had hacked my sinner’s back.

  “He cut you!” I yelped.

  “I know, Feather. I was there.”

  I blinked at his dry humor. It wasn’t funny. None of this was funny.

  “I’m fine,” Jarod added.

  He didn’t look fine. He looked white as the fish congealed on one of the plates next to us.

  “Let me see,” I said.

  “I said I was fine.”

  “Jarod—”

  He clasped my wrists. “I said I was fine. It’s just a superficial scratch.”

  “Scratches don’t bleed that much,” I said but then caught Tristan raising the gun on Earring-guy, who was on all fours, emptying the contents of his stomach. “Tristan, no!”

  His finger squeezed the trigger, and the man fell face-first into his own vomit.

  Tears ran down my cheeks at the massacre.

  My fault.

  This was all my fault.