by G. Bailey
“I bet he did,” Nix laughs and then swings his sword at me again. I block and kick at his hip, but he catches my foot and pulls me to the floor with him. I roll and pull my sword out, sliding the tip under his chin as he looks up at me.
“I win,” I state proudly, though Nix is getting much better at knowing my moves now.
“That you do, love,” Nix replies as I pull my sword away, and he stands up. Nix offers me a hand to help me up and pulls me against his body on purpose. Not that I mind. “I’m glad my foolish brother finally saw sense.”
“Me too,” I say, leaning up and kissing Nix gently, but Nix slides his hands into my hair, deepening the kiss into one that makes my toes curl.
“Princess Evelina. I do not wish to interrupt,” a familiar voice says, and I break away from Nix at the same time he stops kissing me to see Lance leaning against the door, a smirk on his way too pretty face.
“Lance. Nice to see you again, and you are interrupting, so bye bye,” I say, making Nix smile at me for a moment before he looks back at Lance with a less than impressed frown.
“What do you want, playboy?” Nix growls, sliding a possessive arm around my waist.
“Keeper Grey told me to find you in here. He said to pass on the message that your father is in your apartment, and that you are to come back immediately,” he tells me. Why the hell would my father be in the city, and what could he want? A deep part of me instantly hopes he is here to actually be a father to me, but the logical side knows I’m dreaming. I guess I need to accept that my biological family are not good for me to be around. One deadbeat father and one psychopath sister. Not exactly the family I was looking for.
“Why would he send you?” I ask. I highly doubt Keeper Grey would trust the charming guy to come and tell me something important.
“I was with him and Trex in a meeting when Keeper Grey got the message. It’s not well known news, but I am training to be a keeper. Keeper Grey has allowed me to be his assistant,” he informs us. I glance up at Nix, who looks shocked and disbelieving.
“Shit, really? Like, you know keepers don’t fuck everything that moves,” Nix comments.
“Yes, I’m well aware of the rules of being a keeper. You can say I’ve had a higher calling, and my old days are behind me,” Lance replies. “I know it is hard to believe, but everyone deserves to find what they are meant to be. For me, that is a keeper.” Nix doesn’t say anything, but he nods, whereas I feel awkward as I have no idea what they are going on about.
“Thanks for the message. I know my way back,” I reply.
“Of course. A word to the wise, I saw your sister in the entrance hall not long ago, and you might want to avoid going that way,” Lance says, bowing his head at me before walking out.
“Come on. I want to catch my sis before she leaves,” I say, knowing I want to have a word with Erica about talking to Trex and trying to ruin everything. It’s seriously creepy that she has been clearly spying on me as well. Either way, it might be a good idea to teach my sister a lesson.
“Evie? Should I stop you?” Nix says, and I sweep my leg under him before jumping out of the platform and running for the door as I hear Nix swearing behind me.
“Just so you know, if you have to ask that question, the answer is always yes!” I shout, grabbing a dagger off the side and calling a portal. I jump through the portal to the entrance hall, willing it to close quickly behind me as I spot Erica walking back from a corridor. I walk calmly over to her, seeing her just notice me before I swiftly slide the dagger across her cheek.
"You cut my face!" Erica exclaims, holding her cheek in shock.
"Snitches get stitches. I know what you did. I don't like being told on, sister," I warn her, and she takes a step back in fear. I watch as she runs away from me down the hall.
What she told Trex could have destroyed everything.
Erica is lucky I am meant to be playing nice until I'm allowed to kill her in the last test.
Why can't it be that day already? I cross my arms and lean against the wall as a portal burns to life in front of me, and Nix steps out, looking seriously unimpressed.
“Love, I swear to god, you should come with a warning label,” Nix states, walking right up to me and seeming very frustrated. Frustrated kinda looks hot on him though, so I will have to make a mental note to frustrate him more often.
“What would it warn?” I ask with a little smile, and Nix looks at the dagger in my hand, the little blood on the end of it, and sighs loudly.
“That falling in love with you is dangerous as hell but completely worth it, if you don’t lose your mind, that is,” Nix says and leans down, kissing me gently. “Come on, Miss Dangerous. We should go and find that idiot father of yours.”
“Alright,” I say, looking down at the dagger. “Though we should hide this because it’s technically evidence I cut my dear sister.”
“Oh, Evie,” Nix laughs loudly, taking the dagger off me and using holy fire to burn the blade to clean the blood off it. “You never fail to surprise me.”
“I’m keeping you young, or that’s something I heard Azi comment about my nature once,” I reply as Nix slides an arm around me after dropping the dagger into a plant pot in the corridor where no one would look. It’s better than taking it back to the apartment.
“Azi is a wise demon,” Nix muses, still chuckling as we go to find out what my father wants this time. Hopefully there are no more surprises.
Evie
I walk into my apartment after Nix, who moves out of the way to stand at the side of me as I shut the door and turn to face my father. He is standing by the windows, looking out over the city in silence. My father doesn’t look my way as I come in, but from the way he tenses, I suspect he knows I’m here without glancing my way.
“Where is everyone?” Nix asks, drawing the attention to the fact the apartment is empty.
“I would like to speak to Evelina alone, if possible. The others are in the bedroom, as they want to stay close,” he replies. “I suspect it is a trust issue, but if I wanted to kill Evie, I could have done so easily by now.”
“Evie, what would you like to happen?” Nix asks me, ignoring my father’s request and statement. I look back at my father, seeing he is wearing a blue jumper with holes cut out for his massive wings on his back and black trousers. His waist length white hair is tied with a band at the back of his head, and his white eyes meet mine with a pure look of coldness and contempt like usual. Though the more I stare at him, the more I start to realise that his general attitude might be more a usual response to everyone. I know I have developed a carefree attitude to cope with life, and I wonder if it is the same for him. Either way, he is here for a reason, and it is best I find out what.
“It’s okay. I can deal with my father alone,” I say, nodding at Nix. He has already rejected me, I don’t see what else he can do to upset me now.
“I will be with the others and not far away,” Nix says more for my father’s information, leaning over and kissing the side of my head before walking to the bedroom door and closing it shut behind him. The echo of the door shutting sends the room into an uncomfortable silence as I walk further into the room and lean against the back of the sofa with my eyes on my father. When it becomes clear he isn’t going to talk first, I decide it’s likely best I get the thing I wanted to say out of the way.
“Thank you for saving me in the test. I would be dead if it weren’t for you,” I say into the silence of the room, not knowing what to say to him other than that. I will always be thankful for him catching me and being there, even if it confuses me about why he was there in the first place. My father nods, looking back at the city. The view is amazing, but considering he is an angel, I am sure he can view the city from better places.
“Did you know your mother’s favourite thing was the sunsets in this city? She loved them. The beauty of them. I remember her telling me that the sun setting was a comfort to her, a way to know the day was over and it was time for he
r to rest,” he tells me unexpectedly. “Being queen was a lot of pressure, especially as loved as she was. Your mother held the weight of the Protector world on her shoulders and never once admitted to how hard it was.”
“I wouldn’t know that. I knew nothing of her until very recently,” I explain to him.
“Yet you look exactly like your mother other than the blue hair. There is little of me in you, and so much of her, which breaks my heart that she will never see you like this. I must apologise for my reaction to you before…I was in shock. Seeing you, knowing who you are, was too much for me to bare, and I acted out. I am very old, very stubborn, and I do not process change well in the slightest. I will not pretend to have any clue of how to be a father to you, but you have my protection. Always. One day, I hope you will sit with me, and I can tell you of many things, like your mother and our love for each other. Like the price of having a half angel child, and why I wished Eella made a different choice. I will tell you everything you wish to know,” he tells me. I cross my arms, feeling a little disbelieving and totally shocked.
“Did you love my mother?” I ask him, needing to hear him say it. There is so much haunting pain in his voice that I have trouble doubting what he tells me next.
“Yes, though not when we first met. I met Eella when she was hunting one of my brothers. I was trying to find my brother to get him to stop being the fool he was before the Protectors were sent for him. Eella and I, well, we clashed at first, but there was something about her that I couldn’t get out of my head. I didn’t see Eella for many years, and when I met with her again, she was a very unhappily married queen with three children,” he says to me. “I have heard people talking about how you just know when you meet that person that they will never leave your life. I knew with her. I also knew when I met you, but I was a fool.”
“And you fell in love with Eella even though she was married with children?” I ask.
“Slowly but surely, yes. Eella was miserable in her marriage and confessed she had never stopped thinking of me, like I never stopped thinking of her. Everything was fine until the day she told me she was pregnant,” he admits, rubbing his hands together. “I remember every stolen and perfect moment with Eella like it was yesterday.”
“What was the cost of having a half angel child?” I whisper, knowing I won’t like the answer, but I know it is central to all of this.
“The original angels were not born, we were created in Heaven. Though we can have children naturally if we wish,” he starts off by explaining to me, but it just makes another million questions buzz around in my mind, sending me off topic.
“Heaven exists?” I ask. I’ve heard rumours of there being a Heaven, but no one has ever had any proof of it. Angels were just stories at the start though, so it wouldn’t be surprising if there was a Heaven.
“Yes. Though it is more a gateway you enter from Hell than a place. In the gateway, you can drift as a soul for as long as you want, or you can be reborn into a new life. Angels guard the gateway, and reapers can help souls travel there. Only those two creatures are allowed through the gates, and no one ever comes back from there,” he explains to me, making angels and reapers sound more frightening than they ever have before.
“So that is where the souls go from the second layer of hell?” I ask, remembering the line heading for the door, the way the souls are almost called to it like they are hearing a song.
“Yes,” he replies. “Though back to my story, when we are created, we are children for eighteen years as we grow to adulthood. In those years, we are taught the rules of being an angel…and the dire costs of breaking the rules before we are assigned occupations,” he says, breaking eye contact with me to look out over the city once more. “Angels are not to love humans or supernaturals. We are to keep our blood line pure by mating with other angels because only two angels can create a child together without paying a price. Therefore, all angel children are created perfectly, and there is no room for imperfection in the grand game of life and death. The only other rule we were told is to protect the Earth, Heaven and even Hell from falling. In all my years, I never thought anyone could make me break the rules. But Eella did.”
“So loving Eella was not allowed?” I muse more to myself, but my father answers.
“No, it was not. Though I could be punished for loving her by my elders—and I was. Unfortunately, they took me for punishment at the worst time they could have chosen. Eella was only a few months off giving birth to you when they took me. That vision you saw of her and me together was the last time I saw my Eella. My punishment was dire, and I did deserve it. I broke the rules. When they heard Eella was pregnant, they decided the child would be killed upon birth, and I would be killed in Hell and sent to the stars,” he says. “The day they told me the verdict of what the elders decided, it broke me.”
“They didn’t kill me or Eella though,” I reply.
“I do not know why the elders spared you. They will not speak to any of us since we came back from Hell. I was truly shocked to learn you are alive. If I knew there was even a chance you would have lived, I would have never let them kill me in Hell, because I’d have known you would be alone. I don’t know who brought you up as a child, but I owe them a debt for protecting you,” he says, and I nod once.
“How would you have known I’d be alone?” I ask, avoiding his last statement as the only person who brought me up is dead. Though he could offer that debt to Hali, as I know that is all her mother would have wanted. Hali will need all the protection she can get when she grows up.
“The curse of having a half angel child is to be marked with death. Eella knew that keeping you would mean her death not long after your birth. I will admit that I begged her not to make that choice, begged her not to have you. I didn’t want to lose her, but she was certain that our child must live. That our baby didn’t make this choice to exist and shouldn’t pay the price of a curse. Eella knew life would not be easy for you, but you would be a royal and respected as one growing up. Eella wanted you to grow up with your sisters as their cousin. She had planned that you would be hidden as Eella’s sister’s daughter until you were grown up, but I know that didn’t happen in the end,” he explains, and I gasp, holding my hand over my mouth in shock. A painful lump is in my throat as I try to process the fact that my mother loved me so much. Enough to die to make sure I would live. I always thought no one really loved me, but I was wrong. From the very start, my mother loved me more than anything. Even her own life.
“I wish I had met Eella,” I admit, feeling a sense of longing.
“I know. I am not your mother, I am not good with people either or sure how to be a father, but I can tell you stories of your mother. I can explain about angels and everything you are half of,” he says, turning to face me. My father slowly bows his head. “I am sorry for my behaviour. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I hope for a chance to earn it.”
“You’re my father, you don’t need to bow to me or ask for forgiveness,” I say, and he lifts his head then nods once. “If it helps, I’m not good with people or feelings either, so I understand you more than you think.”
“Well, at least you inherited something other than your wings from me,” he says, smiling a little at me.
“Was there another reason you came to see me today?” I ask, doubting that an apology was the only reason he risked coming out in the open in a city of Protectors who aren’t angel fans.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he sighs, crossing his arms. “The angels are fearful, and we have gone into hiding for the time being. I worry about why the elders are silent towards us, and the longer there is silence, the more we are guessing they are dead. Elders are made of pure magic, much stronger than regular angels, and if even one of them died, the power someone could absorb from that would be incredible. I have heard this demon overlord, Cex, has killed three angels that went missing from us and many powerful demons. I wanted to let you know there is a chance he has killed the elders and
taken their power.”
“I believe Cex wants black magic,” I explain to my father. If Cex did kill an elder angel and take the power, it would make a lot of sense of how he became so powerful. Powerful enough to help Erica kill three angels.
“A demon must never be allowed to have that power. Nothing on earth could stop him if he used it,” my father protests. “The keepers and royal Protectors are meant to protect the power of angels at all costs.”
“I won’t make him a knight, but I have lost the first test. If Erica wins another test, I won’t be able to stop her making him her knight,” I explain to my father what we are all worried about.
“Your mother talked of the tests once. She said the last two tests are easy to win if you do the right thing. Your mother was one of the fiercest fighters I know, and she lost the fighting test to her sister who played tricks,” he says. Well, that’s cryptic and makes no sense. “I can’t help anymore with the tests, I’m afraid, but just know the fight is not over.”
“I will win them. Or at least give Erica a run for her money,” I tell him.
“I do not understand that statement. The humans talk much more strangely than they ever have done,” my father admits. “I have been using the box called a computer and the internet on it to understand the recent history. So far, I am not understanding a lot. I hope to make sense of it all soon.”
“Yeah, they do speak strange even to me. The net can help,” I say, smiling at him as he smiles back at me. It’s strange for a moment to feel this comfortable around my father, and I clear my throat, standing straight.
“I must leave, but I will not be far. You only have to call for me, and I will be there. Hopefully when you’re queen, we can sit for a dinner and have a long talk about the past,” he says and, surprisingly to me, I would really like that.
