by May Dawson
“You laughed,” he says, reaching out to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind my ear. His touch lingers, his fingertips resting just behind my ear. “I haven’t heard you laugh.”
“I laugh,” I protest.
“No, you smile,” he says, “and you scoff, and you mock people. You’re always beautiful, and you’re always keeping people at a distance.”
His hands are still warm on my body as he tells me that I’m beautiful.
“It’s too nice a night to analyze each other,” I remind him. “You keep everyone at a distance too.”
He hesitates. “Yes.”
That acknowledgment seems to hang between us in the clear night air. I can tell he doesn’t know what to do or say next.
I wonder if Lincoln is trapped in a cage he doesn’t know how to escape from.
I wonder if he’s hoping I can somehow find the key.
Mastering his cage is his business, though, as much as I wish I could help. I’ve got my own cage, although I couldn’t see the bars until I came here.
“I wish you would fly on your own,” he tells me. “We could fly side by side. I could see the look on your face instead of just hearing your laughter in the air.”
“That’s a nice dream,” I say.
He looks at me as if he wants to kiss me. Instead, he reaches for the window sash. “Shall we go in?”
“No,” I say. “First, Lincoln, I think that you should kiss me.”
He freezes. I’ve never seen Lincoln at a loss before, although he’s so often stoic and silent.
Then he wraps his arm around my waist again, drawing me to him as if he might take another wild leap off this building. His eyes fall heavy-lidded as he brushes his lips against mine in a soft, tentative kiss.
He kisses me timidly, his lips soft above that hard angled jaw. I’ve never seen Lincoln timid before.
I slip my hands up his chest to his broad shoulders, clinging to him. The campus seems dizzyingly far beneath us right now, and the moon feels eerily big, as if we’re halfway between the earth and the moon.
“Again,” I whisper.
His lips tug in a faint smile. “You are a brat.”
“I can’t be a brat. Rarely does anyone give me what I want.” Unless what I want is tragedy and pain. I’ve been gifted plenty of heartbreak.
“I think you take what you want.” His golden eyes have gone soft.
“Maybe I should.” I lean up on my tiptoes above that world yawning below and claim his lips with mine.
His arm tightens around my waist, holding me close to him. His lips part, deepening the kiss, and my hips sway against his. When his tongue thrusts inside my mouth, my hips jerk, wanting him inside me in every way.
The two of us trade hot, fevered kisses. His hands wrap my hips, his fingers curling against the muscle of my ass, gripping me so tightly that his touch hurts, but I don’t care. Lincoln comes alive with his body against mine.
He pushes me against the wall of the clock tower behind us. His hands stroke down from my hips, over my thighs in my jeans. Then one hand traces up my inner thigh until his thumb works over the seam between my legs, and my hips jerk. He covers my mouth with his. His big shoulders, his powerful body, his head bowed are all limned by the moon behind him.
He kisses me until I’m dizzy, until his hand working against me through my jeans is a throb that I can’t quite bear.
Then he pulls himself away from me suddenly, with a groan.
“What is it?” I ask, because there’s something written across his face that looks an awful lot like resignation.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he says, his voice heavy.
“We’re the children of the angels,” I remind him. He’s one more than most of us. “We can do what we want.”
He shakes his head slowly. “That’s the furthest thing from the truth, and you know it. We’re more constrained than the humans, no matter how much power we may have.”
“We could throw the rules away,” I remind him. I’m cold without his body against mine, and suddenly the distance to the ground makes my throat close up. “Just like you did when you flew. We’re not supposed to fly, but look at you—”
“You’re not my girl, Eden,” he interrupts. “You belong to Everett.”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I warn him.
His lips purse. “Poor choice of words,” he concedes. “But you two always had something, and now you’ve rekindled it.”
“I wouldn’t say rekindled,” I say, but I think of Ever’s hands hot against my body, and suddenly the word rekindled seems right. The way Ever and I loved each other was always full of fire and fury.
He seems to consider. “I personally think you surrendered the idea of killing him a little bit too hastily.”
“Watch it,” I warn him. “I’ll press you on why you hate him so much, and I know you’ll enjoy that.”
He pulls a face. “Like I already told you, I don’t hate him. That’s reductive.”
“Well, as I already told you, I have regrets about choosing just Ever,” I tease him, walking my fingers up his chest, feeling the hard planes of his pecs as they almost hitch under my touch. “I shouldn’t have let you pretend you didn’t feel anything for me.”
“You’re exasperating,” he tells me.
“I know.” I give him a smile, without a hint of apology.
He cages me against the clock tower wall again, and my heart lifts, expecting him to kiss me. But once he’s trapped me, he doesn’t know what to do. He never does, does he?
He hesitates, then suddenly pulls away, bracing his hand inside the window as he throws his thigh over the sill. He offers me the other to help me in. “Let’s get some rest.”
It’s not rest that I want, but I climb inside the clock tower again anyway.
His rejection can’t bring me down, anyway. Even as I walk down those many twisting staircases, I remember that I flew. I flew in Lincoln’s arms because I trusted him.
And though my wings are broken and twisted and so am I, maybe I could truly fly.
My heart rises in my chest, even as I descend back into the Nephilim house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lincoln
I’M A FUCKING IDIOT.
Eden and I were so close. She looked up at me with kisses on her lips and those shimmering eyes that make my brain stutter like an engine that’s just run out of fuel.
And I blurted out that she belonged to Everett.
Suddenly I can imagine her telling Everett how she teased me to kiss her, to do more than kiss her, and how I stumbled like a fool.
I’m so deep in my bitter musings as I follow Eden down the twisting stairs that I miss a step.
Minutes ago, I flew through the air, full of grace and power, and now my foot comes down on nothing. I clutch the stair railing as my body tilts forward, trying to keep from crashing down the stairs and bowling Eden over.
She looks over her shoulder, her eyes widening. I collapse backward instead of landing on top of her. I sit down hard on the stairs, my legs straight in front of me, like a rag doll that suddenly lost power.
“Are you all right?” she asks as I jump to my feet.
“Perfect,” I say, even though I’m never further from perfect than when Eden is anywhere near me.
She doesn’t laugh at me for once, though.
She offers me her hand up, and an excuse. “These steps are so narrow.”
“Mm.” I don’t need her hand, but I take it anyway.
Once again, the two of us are standing so close together than I swear I can feel her heart beating, and my own begins to race. Her fingers are small and lithe in mine.
But I’m not sure what to do in this moment.
When I squeeze her hand and drop it, her lips tug in the faintest smile. I wish I could read that smile before she turns and bounces down the stairs, her hair swaying across her back. Despite what she said about the stairs being narrow, she seems sure-footed and graceful.
> I follow her into my room, then hesitate. I could use a long, cold shower. Instead, once Eden has her toothbrush, I glower at everyone in the men’s room until they clear out. Then, side-by-side, the two of us brush our teeth at the sinks. I try not to look at her face reflected in the long mirror.
She leans over and spits. There’s something comforting about the fact that the most beautiful girl in the universe sounds like a cat coughing up a hairball when she spits out her Crest.
She splashes water over her face, then straightens, beginning to braid her hair with quick, dexterous fingers. I’m curious why she styles her hair for bed, and leaves it loose for class, but I’m not going to ask. I shouldn’t be so curious about every little thing about her.
Her eyes meet mine in the mirror, her lips parting as if she’s about to ask me a question. I turn and walk into a stall, banging the door closed behind me, so I can piss. I lean my head back, looking up at the ceiling and wondering what the fuck is wrong with me.
She’s right. Ever was the only one who ever tried to pursue her. I don’t know how. I’ve never had flowery words or hell, any words. When she smiles at me, I can barely think straight.
She lingers at the door while I wash my hands. Then we go back to my room. All the magic of flying has burned off as she settles into my bed, up against the wall.
Now I wish I hadn’t run my mouth about how we’d share the bed. I lay down beside her, carefully not touching her even though in a twin-sized bed with my broad shoulders, that means one arm has to hang off the bed. I’d be more comfortable sleeping on the floor. I turn off the light, then stare up at the darkness. I’ve never been wider awake in my life.
“Do you still have a hard time sleeping?” she asks curiously.
“No.” Yes.
She turns over, her arm tucked under her pillow, as if she’s watching my face in the dark. But my eyes are closed, there’s nothing to see.
“I remember how I used to hear you get up at night, and I’d come downstairs and we’d watch those cheesy horror movies. Remember?”
I grunt. Eden used to lay with her head on my lap, or curl up against my shoulder until I gave up and put my arm around her. It would be the two of us in the darkness, the only light the flickering blue of the screen. We’d put the sound on low so we wouldn’t disturb anyone in the house, but she’d laugh so loud at her own jokes about the movie that it didn’t matter anyway.
Once I realized Everett didn’t give a damn and Eden didn’t mean anything by it, I’d started to cuddle her as soon as she came to the couch. We were just friends, after all. We could touch each other.
The memory of her anguished face in sleep rises again, replacing the memories that make me want to smile.
“Do you have a hard time sleeping?” I ask.
“No,” she says, and I have a feeling it’s a lie, too.
The two of us lay there in the dark, not touching.
Sometime during the night, I feel her stir against me. I’ve dozed off, but slept lightly. It’s stupid, because no one can protect anyone else from their nightmares, but I’ve felt like I should keep watch somehow.
She stirs against me, draping her arm across my waist as she nestles her head into the curve of my shoulder. I’m already halfway off the bed, and now she’s pushing me further off. I grit my teeth as she draws her leg over mine, her thigh in my lap.
But even though I can’t get comfortable like this, after a while, I realize her breathing is deep and even. She’s not having a nightmare.
Maybe the other day was an anomaly. Maybe she usually sleeps well.
Or maybe, just maybe, she feels safe with me.
It doesn’t mean anything. But I’m smiling as I drop back into sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Eden
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Lincoln and I return from the woods where we went to work out in privacy. I’m sweaty and bruised; last night was romantic and beautiful and strange, but there’s no trace of anything tender between the two of us today. The two of us beat each other mercilessly in the clearing in the woods, but at least I don’t have to pretend to be weak with him. I’d rather bleed and bruise than fake being less than I am.
We find the hand-to-hand class ending, students trickling away. Gabriel Bright and Esther stand close together, speaking softly—but energetically. There’s tension in their postures, in the way they gesture. Maybe they’re having a lover’s spat. A strange jealousy creeps through my body like acrid smoke, raising a sour taste at the back of my mouth.
I wish I knew what they were saying, especially when they look up toward us, and their gazes lock on us. As if they’ve been talking about us. Not a lover’s spat, then.
That’s not a relief.
“What did you do now?” Lincoln mutters.
Esther’s face is irritated as she looks at me, crossing her arms over her narrow chest. She’s ripped, strong and powerful and gorgeous, and the contempt written across her face sends a flare of heat rising through my chest.
“Lincoln, I need to speak to you,” she says quietly.
His face is that usual blank mask, but he glances at me, and I don’t think either of our instructors miss it. I don’t think either of them miss much.
Gabriel says, “And I need to speak to Eden as her academic advisor.”
My brows rise. I don’t feel like academics really matter here; they’re just one more thing to use to stress us out, to test our resolve to be decent.
“This way,” Gabriel tells me politely. But then, I heard that same polite tone from his mouth when he offered to let the guards shoot me again if I couldn’t use my manners. I don’t mistake Gabriel’s politeness for meaning much.
He leads me silently back to the main campus and up the steps of the academic building where we have our classes. The silence stretches between us as he unlocks the door to his office and steps in.
It’s a small room and I take one of the two plain high back chairs across from his desk. He absently smooths his jacket with one hand as he sits gracefully in his big leather chair. I study the room; there are framed posters for famous movies about angels hanging on his walls, an elaborate carved wooden wardrobe in one corner, and a bookcase full of non-fiction texts. There’s a box of tissues on his desk, on the student side, as if he makes students cry in this room. There’s a potted aloe plant and two photo frames, facing him so I can’t see what the photos are.
I pick them both up and turn them toward me. One is of a younger version of Gabriel, with his family. The other is him with a young woman with glossy black hair and a wide, genuine smile. With a genuine smile like that, could she be human?
“What are you doing?” he asks, a flare of irritation in his voice.
“Getting to know you. Aren’t we getting to know each other?” I set the family photo down, but hoist the photo of the woman in the air. “Is this your girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Wife?” There’s a note of surprise in my voice.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” I still want to know who she is. “You look young. Are you even any older than twenty-five?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because if you’re under twenty-five, you could be a student here yourself if you misbehaved.” I cock my head as I study him. “But you don’t seem like the type to misbehave.”
He drums his fingers absently on the desk. “I’m beginning to see why Esther sent you to the detention center. I’ve hoped you are the type of student who can be reached with reason.”
I flash him a cool smile at the subtle threat in his words. “I was sent to the detention center for ‘fighting’…but I would term it self-defense. It’s hard to have much respect for someone who doesn’t understand the difference.”
His eyes blaze, but he doesn’t move from his current languid posture, leaning back in his desk chair. His face is relaxed too; only his eyes give him away.
“You might want to find some respect,” he says, “if y
ou want to survive here.”
I shrug.
“And I question how well you know the line between fighting and self-defense,” he chides. “I heard that the detention center did not go well for you.”
“Is that what this conversation is about? Not my academics?”
He scoffs. “Your academics won’t take long to discuss. How is your math course?”
“Very reminiscent of seventh grade. Perhaps you should put me in a class that isn’t quite so full of berserkers and shifters.”
“Don’t be condescending regarding your fellow students.” His voice is soft, dangerous.
Strangely enough, this bit of scolding actually makes me feel suddenly embarrassed, though everything else between us has felt like a bit of banter—at least, on my side. I enjoy banter, even if whoever is engaged with me does not. But I do not enjoy the sudden turn this conversation has taken.
I cross my legs, raising my chin, because I don’t want him to see that he’s had any effect on me at all. “My English class would be better if we were reading any real books.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“We’re reading stuff from middle school,” I say, and decide not to continue into a discussion of how my fellow students probably don’t have the attention span for a grown-up novel.
“Do you like to read?”
“Yes. I thought my classes were going to be a brief conversation—what is it that you actually want to talk to me about?”
“Right now, I want to talk about your literature class,” he says, his voice controlled, as if no matter how cheeky I am, he knows he has the upper hand. There’s no reason for him to be distressed.
Gabriel seems perfectly controlled. I wonder if it’s real, though, or if it’s merely the front he presents to the world. I know a thing or two about those fronts.
I lick my lips, watching his face to see if he responds to the tip of my tongue tracing the shape of my lips—he does not—and debate how to proceed. “Our class is reading Ender’s Game. It’s a sci-fi novel for teenagers. There are so many books to choose from—maybe we could have one that doesn’t feature naked kids being bullied as the Special One prepares to win their war?”
