Defiant Destiny

by Madison Cumbee

  “Yes, I have,” I said each word distinctly. The direct approach had always been what worked best with my uncle so I decided to announce my urge frankly. “Second, I want to know if you can change my lovely mortal- into an immortal. If she ever wanted to be changed.”

  The archangel said nothing for several moments. He held my gaze as I waited to hear what he would tell me. Finally, he spoke. “Uriel, she is an extraordinary person and I can sense that she is virtuous. And I want you to be happy. But… I am truly sorry to say that I do not possess the power to change her into one of us.”

  I did not react. I could not react. My voice was even and steady as I vowed, “I’ll find another way then.”

  My uncle’s calm demeanor took on an air of consolation. “I hope you do.”

  With nothing else to say, we walked back to the others. I forced a casual expression of nonchalance as if the only option for a happy future I had conceived thus far had not just been destroyed. Keira stood as I came closer to her, still with curiosity in her bright eyes. I sat down in our chair and welcomed Keira to reclaim the space that would forever be hers- within my arms. She sat in my lap and instant hope commanded a part of my heart. I would find a way.

  “I really should be off,” UREIL told us, keeping up my façade that we had discussed nothing of importance. “I’ll be in calling range, so if any of you need anything, you know what to do and I’ll come. Good luck with the mission.”

  “Wait, Uncle,” I stopped him from leaving once more. “I actually do need a favor I just remembered.”

  “Anything I can do?” The archangel’s gray eyes locked onto mine and from years of experience, I could see he was regretful for the power he lacked to change my girl.

  “I need you to watch over Keira when the guild leaves for battle.”

  He nodded once. “Of course.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” Keira reassured me quietly.

  “I’d feel infinitely more at ease if I knew you were safe while I was away on the mission,” I told her. “And I know you,” I added. “You are not going to take this tacitly, and I cannot allow you to be in the middle of a Nephilim battle.”

  “But Elly’s my friend-” she began her argument again.

  “It’s a moot point, Keira. You are not going.” I looked back at UREIL.

  He naturally bellowed, “Tell me what day to be here and I’ll watch over her for you.”

  Keira gave him a look of betrayal, but URIEL only grinned caringly back. “Goodbye, Beloved.”

  “See you soon,” she muttered, disgruntled.

  “Thank you, Uncle,” I credited him.

  “It’s my pleasure.”

  After a final farewell and another loud crack of thunder, the fire pit only had beings with humanity in their blood around it. “Do you yield?” I whispered in Keira’s ear.

  “Never. Besides, Zev can’t go on any lengthy trips this week; I heard the guys’ coach lecturing them on getting enough sleep, drinking plenty of fluids, eating tons of protein. There’s a tournament over winter break. He can’t miss a practice.”

  “I’ve got a pretty good excuse handy,” Zev smirked.

  “What?”

  Zev faked a perfectly afflicted and doleful expression. “One of my cousins is dangerously close to dying and I have to be there to help him.” Then he effortlessly shifted back into his carefree self. “And it’s not even a lie.”

  “That’s sick,” Keira exclaimed.

  “Oh, you know you respect the ingenuity of it.”

  “Maybe,” she grudgingly admitted.

  Zev laughed and the corners of Keira’s lips lifted against her will.

  “It’s getting late,” Azra indicated.

  “Right,” I agreed and focused on Keira. “It’s time to get you home.”

  She sighed, but stood up. “Fine.”

  After hugs all around, Keira climbed into my Escalade. “Do you want to monopolize the radio?” I offered.

  “Not really,” she replied sourly.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Like you don’t know.” She threw me a weak look of defiance and anger. “I should be there to talk to Elly.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “These are members of Chaos, Keira. Do you really think you can take on Amir and survive to tell about it? I’m not about to let something happen to you.”

  She winced. “It’s not fair.”

  But I knew I’d made my point clear. Keira didn’t say anything for the rest of the ride. She didn’t even look at me, instead preferring to glare out the window.

  This was fine because I had a lot of thinking of my own to do. I needed to come up with another way to ensure the future I was planning. Several ideas popped up in my mind, but they were all shot down quickly. I was beginning to get agitated when a promising what about… set me off on a new train of thought.

  I stopped musing on my idea when I pulled up to Keira’s house, saving it for a time when I could give it my full attention. It was very late and there wasn’t a light on inside my girl’s mansion. Keira opened her door and got out without waiting for me to come around the car for her.

  We walked up to the front door in silence and stopped to face each other as always.

  “We did it,” I reminded her in a decidedly happy tone. “We got URIEL’s approval.”

  She didn’t utter a syllable, not even a grunt of acknowledgement.

  I wasn’t going to cave and let her go to the battle. It was out of the question.

  “You were wonderful tonight,” I smiled at her.

  Her face clearly stated that she was still sulking. Stubborn mortal, I mentally teased her. In an attempt to lift her mood out of its black depths, I bent forward for a kiss and stopped to whisper against her lips, “Goodnight, Keira. I love you.”

  “Night, Uriel,” she whispered back but leaned away, refusing the kiss.

  I sighed deliberately. Keira pulled out her house key from her jeans pocket and unlocked the door. Defeated, I started walking back to my car, but when I felt her eyes on my back, I halted. When I turned around, the door was starting to close, shutting me out of the house with Keira inside, pouting.

  I can’t leave like this, I decided.

  A couple jogging strides and I was back to the front door with my hand inside before she could close it completely.

  Keira took a few steps backward in surprise. “What-” She left her question unasked.

  Once I was in, I shut the door behind me- quietly as not to wake anyone- and reached out for my mortal. She did not refuse my kiss this time and instead returned my embrace, momentarily forgetting she was angry with me. Also, apparently, forgetting the key she had just used, Keira let it fall out of her hand. I was too spectacularly distracted to catch it in time and flinched at the impacting noise it made when the key connected audibly with the wooden floor.

  We were silent, waiting for a few seconds, listening for anyone coming. I could hear Keira’s heart beat faster and then accelerate even more when she knew we weren’t discovered. She was smiling puckishly when I looked again at her. Keira pulled my face down to hers and our fervent kisses began again.

  She balled a fist in my sweater and tugged me toward the stairs, still smiling. In my elated mood from how unbelievably well the evening had gone, I did not hesitate in conceding to Keira’s wish. In all honesty, I was not opposed to the desire any more than she. But instead of stumbling up the flight while trying not to break our blessed embrace, I gathered Keira up in my arms and took the stairs three at a time, but once at the top, I had to set her down because I didn’t know the way she wanted to take us.

  Feelings

  Chapter 23

  Keira

  Uriel was in my house. He was in my house and on my floor and it was really dark outside. It’s dangerous when it gets dark out because thoughts tend to wander toward places at night where they don’t dare to go in the daytime. Uriel was wa
iting for me to make the next move now that I was back on my feet and we were standing on the second floor- my floor- of my house.

  I’d never been lucky enough to witness my angel’s face with no lights on before. He was smiling down at me, playing with a piece of my hair in between two of his fingers while I enjoyed the circumstances. Uriel was leaning up against the wall right beside the stairs- the stairs that allowed my parents to come up to my floor anytime they felt like it. I hated those stairs.

  But Mother and Father were, in all likelihood, deeply unconscious because of a combination of inculcated jet-lag and tonight’s dinner’s alcohol that they no doubt enjoyed while I was out. Uriel, on the other hand, was completely sober and wide awake, incredibly gorgeous and looking at me in a way that made me forget about parental units all together. I reached out to push him more firmly against the wall and then drew myself to full height, then on my toes, and kissed him again, deciding that the circumstances could be appreciated in action instead of thought.

  I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the feel of kissing my angel, and I didn’t want to. Every kiss was different; the one that had been commanded by Uncle URIEL had consisted of such pure love that I could feel my destiny intertwined with my angel in it, and this kiss, with no witnesses, in the darkness of my floor, was the freest I’d felt Uriel let himself be. There were no boundaries as he inhaled me and confined me in his arms against himself, letting no space between us survive.

  Quiet murmurs were the only sounds we made as I forced us off the wall and staggered down the hallway and through the entrance to my bedroom. Once inside, I reluctantly broke apart from Uriel in order to focus on closing the door. Focus- an extremely difficult thing to obtain while your head’s still spinning and your skin’s still tingling. But I managed to shut the door and lock it silently. My hand lingered on the knob for longer than I intended, and I didn’t know why.

  Uriel stepped closer behind me, gently swept my loose hair from my left shoulder to gather over my right, slid his arms around my stomach, and pressed his warm lips to the hollow just below my uncovered ear. “I love you,” I whispered the words I had stubbornly not told him downstairs.

  “And I love you,” he breathed against my ear and I could feel his lips stretched in a smile.

  I turned around in his arms and our kisses began again. My hands wondered down to the bottom of his sweater and proceeded to glide up between his skin and the material. I’d never had the pleasure of feeling the muscles of his chest without some sort of fabric obscuring the full effect. And even though it would mean not kissing him for a second, I still wanted his top all the way off. Uriel chivalrously assisted me when I couldn’t reach high enough to get it over the length of his arms. The perfect blue sweater was left, instantly forgotten, on the floor beside us. He didn’t need the added color, anyway; Uriel’s eyes were incandescent, lighting up the space between us with a markedly more beautiful glow than the moonlight that offered itself through my window.

  More kisses and I began to lose myself in sensations. My angel, too, seemed to forget any worries that had prevented these actions from happening earlier in our relationship. If truth be told, I was glad we had waited; it was better and purer now that I knew we would be together always. There was no reason for apprehension to stop us.

  Uriel’s fingers tormented my senses when he began lightly plucking at the button on my jeans. I surreptitiously stepped out of my ballet flats and when I kissed him more forcefully, he stopped toying and willfully unfastened the button, slid down the zipper, and allowed my denims to fall to the floor next to his… what was it again? His sweater?

  Feeling a little exposed without pants- and a tad chilly- I shivered. My angel felt the tremor and scooped me up in his warm glow and carried me slowly to the bed. I never made up my bed so there was no need to turn back the covers- lucky. He laid me down gently with my head on the pillow and then sat next to me, leaning across on one arm that rested on my inner side. He sat there for what felt like at least an entire sixty seconds and did nothing but gaze down on me with so much rapture and affection in his stormy eyes I felt like I would be crushed under their power.

  Just before I was sure I would burst from reciprocated love, Uriel drifted down as another tremor ran through my body- this one not from any drop of internal temperature. I tangled my fingers in his golden curls as my angel compressed upon me. I didn’t know where one kiss ended and the next began. We were a whirl of instinct and absolutely no cognitive thinking had any place in that room. I searched for Uriel’s jeans’ fasten blindly with one hand and when I couldn’t find it, I sent down the other hand as reinforcements. But just as I thought I’d finally gotten the button, Uriel clasped his fingers around my wrists and drew my hands up. I would have asked why he did this, but my mouth was preoccupied at the moment.

  He restrained both of my hands in one of his above my head on the pillow as his lips moved down my neck to the edge of my sweater. My sweater?

  I was suddenly extremely warm, and the heat of our panting breath did not help me cool down any. Uriel knew without me having to voice my rise in body temperature and he felt under my sweater hesitantly. I wondered at this, but it seemed that as soon as he found I had on a tank top as another layer under the outer one, he was prompt to lift the purple restriction over my head. In order to remove and toss the sweater, Uriel had to free my hands, so I took advantage of the opportunity to grip his biceps and trade positions while he was unaware. I vaguely discerned that bed was the only place I could catch him off guard like that.

  Lying on top of my angel was strangely empowering. I had the upper hand; I could move unreservedly. I enthusiastically bestowed kisses upon the immortal, on every inch of skin I could find on him. Uriel’s soft and deep laughter at how happy I was only added to my jubilation. One of his powerful hands slid up my spine as the other stroked one of my legs. I bent both legs so we could be closer together and came back to kissing Uriel full on. A very satisfying groan escaped my angel’s lips and then he abruptly sat upright in the bed with a look of complete- and at any other time, humorous- confusion on his face like he didn’t know what we’d been doing. I was still wrapped around him so we were both vertical from the waist up. Then his expression turned to one of irritation. But it wasn’t directed at me. He wasn’t even looking at me.

  And he certainly wasn’t kissing me anymore either.

  “What happened?” I asked, dazed.

  Uriel’s eyes connected with mine. He sighed and intentionally relaxed his body- I hadn’t noticed how tense he’d been seconds before.

  “I thought we just got your uncle’s approval and everything’s great. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter, sweetheart.” Uriel cupped my face in his hand and smiled at me- but not in a come-hither sort of way. It wasn’t a patronizing way either, but I took it as such.

  He was so not turned on anymore. Why the heck not?

  “Why’d you stop?” I asked, a tad defensive.

  “Do you really want to have sex with your parents in the house?” He lifted his blond brows.

  “Oh, is that it?” My voice dropped instinctually to a whisper. “Can you hear them breathing or something?”

  Uriel chuckled. At me or just because of me? “No, I cannot hear them.”

  “Because it’s a big house. This floor is pretty much like my own apartment, so… it’d be more like having sex in my apartment. Can you think of it like that?”

  He shook his head slowly. An amused grin established itself on his face.

  “Don’t you want to?” I complained.

  “Of course I do,” Uriel answered earnestly and I saw a flash of desire in his eyes.

  “Good. Me too. So… if we’re going to be together forever like I’m planning, then why not start enjoying each other now?” I smiled at my thoughts and looked intentionally at Uriel’s lips before bringing my eyes back up to his.

  Sadness. Why was sadness suddenly on my angel’s face?


  “What is it?” I worked as much genuine concern into my voice as I could muster but I’m pretty sure there was still a hint of desperation detectable in it.

  “Jealousy,” was Uriel’s curt reply.

  I was thoroughly confused now. “Huh?”

  “I told you yesterday at the restaurant that someone had reason to be jealous…”

  “Okay. I still don’t understand what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m jealous,” he reiterated.

  “What could you possibly be jealous of? What and who could possibly compare to you?” I placed my hands on his defined shoulders, feeling the warmth of them.

  Uriel stroked my cheek again. “I am jealous of death.”

  Double take. Rewind. Replay. What? “You want to die?” My voice went up an octave.

  “No,” Uriel scoffed. “This is about you. Keira, you’re mortal and no matter what happens, I cannot be certain that I can keep Death from coming for you. There is a power in this world that I cannot match. Someday, Death’s cold hand could take you away from me, no matter how hard I try to fight it off.”

  Oh, that. “There has to be a way,” I assured him. Besides, death was many many years away from being something I felt compelled to worry about. “We’ll find a way for you and me to be together forever.”

  “You’d want to be immortal?” he asked skeptically.

  “Yes. I want to be like you and with you for all eternity.”

  Uriel smiled brilliantly before his expression shifted into an odd look.

  “What?” I inquired dubiously.

  “I might know a way.”

  He sounded hesitant to hope, but I knew that there was some avenue out there- somewhere- and we’d find it. “Great! So can we have sex now?”

  Uriel snickered at my eagerness and said softly, “We should wait.”

  My face fell dramatically- again. “For what?”

  “We should wait until… your eighteenth birthday.”

  My jaw dropped. “No way. That’s a year and a half away. Did you know that? A whole year and a half? Why would we wait for me to be eighteen?”