by May Dawson
"We'll find Beliel," Levi said. "We'll make sure he's done causing trouble. And we’ll check on Dani."
Jacob passed his hand over Nimshi's face. Nim’s bright green eyes stared up unseeingly at the ceiling, and then Jacob closed them. "But first, we'll bury our brother."
51
We would bury Nimshi out by the treehouse, one of the places he had never been. I couldn’t stop thinking about how these four boys could have grown up together, in a different world.
As we walked down the path out to the graves, I wished I had taken Nimshi’s hand in mine and dragged him around to show him the house that I had fallen in love with. I wished I could spend more time with him. I should have at least shown him this whole house, the sprawling home at the edge of the forest, the lake. We should have walked through the place where he should have grown up. I should have kissed him on the bank of the lake where he had smashed his lute for me. I should have flirted with him in the library, surrounded by ancient books and his spicy scent. I remembered the way his eyes had flashed at me, and the way he had smiled, and it seemed impossible that he was wrapped up in one of his mother’s quilts, nothing but an empty shell now.
Jacob and Levi were carrying his body, wrapped in the quilt and suspended between them. Ryker brought up the rear. For a second, I could imagine the four of them as boys instead. They might have been arguing as they walked down the path. Tall Jacob would argue Nim’s side just to annoy a snub-nosed and fiery version of Ryker. Levi would shake his head and ignore them all. My eyes blurred with tears, and the vision of the boys that I imagined blurred with reality for a second.
Then they stopped ahead of me. Jacob and Levi knelt, laying their burden on the ground. What I imagined had never happened. Would Ryker and Levi and Jacob be haunted by what they had lost? Levi’s eyes were already haunted when he talked about losing those years with Jacob. They had lost even more with Nimshi.
I rubbed my hand over the names written in Sharpie on the treehouse. Jacob & Levi. And then later, when Levi had been forgotten as anything but an imaginary friend and Ryker had been old enough to toddle behind Levi to the woods, they had added & Ryker. There had never been a chance for Nim to write his name here too.
Ryker and Levi dug out a place for Nimshi. They stripped off their t-shirts as they sweated under the sun that trickled through the leaves above.
I held out my hand for the shovel when Ryker stopped to wipe the sweat off his face.
He shook his head. “I’ve got this, Firestarter.”
“Don’t be gallant.” I still held my hand out. “I need my chance to say goodbye to him too.”
Ryker hesitated, but put the shovel into my hand. Behind me, I could hear Jacob and Levi’s voices as murmurs, but couldn’t make out their words. My ears seemed to hum with the quiet of the woods, an overwhelming silence, as if the world was too quiet without Nimshi.
Jacob stepped into the grave behind me. I heard the soft clang of his shovel hitting the earth.
I dug out the grave until my shoulders ached and my hands began to blister around the rough wooden handle of the shovel.
Levi stepped in beside me, while I was massaging my bleeding palms. His deep blue eyes were full of sadness, but he said nothing as he took the shovel from me. He dug out the last of the grave.
Levi, for once, had nothing to say, and neither did I. I didn’t know what to say about losing Nimshi. We had barely known him, and yet he had belonged here with us. I couldn’t ask Levi if he was okay, because I knew he wasn’t. I wasn’t either.
Nimshi was the youngest of the boys, and we were burying him down the trail from his mother, across from the pile of rocks that, in an alternate universe, was built over Jacob’s body. It was just a twist of luck that Jacob had survived the demon’s case.
A twist of luck, and the same strong-willed determination that had made Nimshi an impossible force to reckon with. Even though he had been equally impossible to pin down. Good? Evil? Something far more complicated than that.
Ryker and Jacob lowered Nimshi into the hole, and the four of us stood around him for a rough funeral.
“Wait,” Ryker said gruffly. He leaned into the pit to pull aside the blanket covering Nimshi’s face, as if he thought it might be one last trick. My breath caught in my throat, hoping it was.
Nimshi’s face was still and handsome, his eyelashes resting on his pale face, as if he had just fallen asleep.
Ryker passed his hand over Nimshi’s face. He lowered his head, his lips parting as if he were going to say something, but there was nothing to say. He stood and took a step back, his hands folded.
“Goodbye, brother,” Levi said. He took the shovel and began to fill in the hole.
I listened to the thunk of the shovel and watched the dirt spill over the blanket until Nim’s form was covered completely. Then we began to place the rocks over the dirt, piling them up to make a permanent altar. Like the boys had for their dog in this world, or for Jacob in another.
“What about his soul?” My voice came out small, but in the quiet of the forest, everyone could hear me.
“I don’t know.” Jacob rested a hand on my shoulder. “I hope that maybe since his soul was freed, he found himself in the Far.”
“Where he can choose for himself,” Ryker said.
“He didn’t want to go back to Hell,” I said. “They’ll torture him there. They were waiting for him.”
“It’s like they won,” Levi said.
“Unless we go get him,” Ryker said.
The rest of us looked at him quickly.
“We’re supposed to be able to walk into Hell,” Levi said.
“And I’ve always wanted to steal something back from the Devil himself,” Jacob said.
Ryker’s deep green eyes met mine. “What do you think, Ellis?”
“I think I’m in.” I felt a flash of hope that bloomed energy through my exhausted body. “You know I’ll always try to drag you boys back out of trouble.”
Ryker’s fingers loosened on the rock he held, and then he let it drop to the ground. He turned and walked toward the house.
Without looking back, he said, “Come on. Let’s go find our brother.”
To read the next book, Chosen Angels…
A Note From May
Hello, and thank you for reading Wild Angels. Ellis’ story continues in Fierce Angels (January 2018), Dirty Angels (currently available for pre-order, and coming out March 13th, 2018) and Loved Angels, the conclusion of this series (coming in June 2018). You’ll find a sneak peek of Fierce Angels if you turn the page.
To stay in the know about new releases and sales,
please consider signing up for my reader’s group at http://eepurl.com/c_yMPf
As a thank-you for being a reverse harem reader and sharing my love of this fantastic genre, I’ll send you a copy of Dream Stalker, which reveals Ryker’s perspective on some of the events in Wild Angels.
You help indie author like me so much when you leave a review, so please consider reviewing Wild Angels. If you do, thank you so much!
~May
About the Author
May Dawson’s first crush was Indiana Jones, and it wasn’t just for Harrison Ford’s rugged good looks. She’s always been drawn to adventure, and she found it in Bali and the Antarctic, traveling widely before she settled down to raise two red-haired munchkins/hooligans. These days you can find her embracing a very different kind of adventure: love. Living it. Writing it.
The Lilith stories are her first reverse harem series, and she looks forward writing many more stories of love in its infinite and wonderful variety.
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Also by May Dawson
Wild Angels
Fierce Angels
Dirty Angels
Chosen Angels (May 2018)
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