by Sarah Gilman
She got up and went to the kitchen area, where she poured a glass of water. As she dug around in the duffel bag, which she must have retrieved while he was in the shower, he said, “When I ran from Sanctuary as a child, I went to the safe house.”
She handed him the glass and the pills and resumed her perch on the edge of the bed, one ginger eyebrow arched.
Wren continued after he swallowed and set the water on the bedside table. “My parents had a safe house near the Canadian border that even Lark didn’t know about. When my mother—who came from a wealthy human family—gave up her old life and moved into the colony with my father, she sold her home and used the money to buy the safe house under a false name. Father would fly her up there every year to maintain the place, and they brought me. I traveled on foot when I fled the colony, but I managed to find my way.
“My parents had stocked the place with enough non-perishable food for three people to live on for some time, as well as clothes, books, and videos. Most importantly, Mother’s cousin Karin—also a secret from the Guardians—paid the bills and taxes from an account Mother had set up.”
Ginger nodded. “So you weren’t all alone there?”
“Not entirely, no. Karin took care of the necessities, thankfully. She also visited frequently and brought fresh food, but she didn’t hold the same view toward archangels as Mother did, and kept her distance from me.”
“Then, how could you trust her?”
“I took my chances with her, a relative, over the Guardians. Despite her clear anxieties, she did care. She insisted that I study every day and made certain I was eating well. But Karin died when I was fifteen, a traffic accident. I read about it in the paper.”
“I’m sorry.” Ginger touched his wing.
Wren would have scoffed at the pity, but her voice sounded too genuine. He stared at her fingers where they rested on his feathers, again warmed by her touch. “By the time Karin died, I knew how to use the accounts on the computer and how to write checks and pay the bills. So, yes, I did live alone for years, but I interacted with people on the phone and internet. Another archangel stayed with me for a short period of time, as well. It was a lonely life, but I wasn’t completely isolated.”
“I know how that feels. So how’d you end up in barns and abandoned houses?”
“The money ran out; the safe house went up for tax sale a couple months ago. I’ve been roughing it since.”
Ginger shook her head. “The poachers would have killed you today.”
He adjusted his wing again, unable to find a comfortable position. “Maybe not.”
“What?”
“One of the poachers told me my father lives, that Lark is holding him prisoner. They meant to capture me alive.”
Ginger’s eyes widened. She covered her mouth and whispered a curse behind her fingers.
“It might be a lie,” Wren added.
“Wren.” Ginger touched his arm. “You have to tell the Guardians. If your father is alive, they will do everything they can to help.”
Wren narrowed his eyes. “Lark was a Guardian. He tortured and killed my mother and would have killed me as well if my father hadn’t fought him, giving me time to escape.”
All color drained from Ginger’s face.
“I can’t bring myself to trust the Guardians again.”
“But you are, now. You agreed to let them help us.”
“I trust family above all else. I won’t let my aversions keep you from your father’s protection.” He paused. “May I ask what happened to your human parents?”
“My biological parents were murdered.” She chewed her lip before she continued. “Devin found me half-frozen in the snow near their broken bodies, a murder perpetrated by other humans. I was an infant, so I don’t remember them or the event. But it still hurts. And I don’t know who to blame.”
“It doesn’t help. Trust me.” He touched her knee.
“You and I have a lot in common, don’t we?” Ginger murmured as she covered his hand with hers. Her touch sent a pleasant electric current up his arm.
“So we do.” They stayed in that position for a long moment, silent. When she stood, he squeezed her fingers before she pulled her hand away.
“I should shower before the Guardians arrive.” She pulled some clothes from the duffel and padded into the bath.
Chapter Four
Ginger stepped out of the bathroom dressed in jeans and a purple sweater, her damp hair down around her shoulders. The steam thickened as it mingled with the cool air of the living area. Her gaze fell on the empty bed. She pivoted toward the kitchen, but the entire apartment was empty.
She hurried across the room, opened the slider, and stepped out onto the deck.
Sprawling lawn and simple landscaping stretched out before her. Beyond the tree line, the forest extended to the mountains on the horizon. Nothing moved. No archangel in sight.
Her muscles stiffened. Had the poachers found them? She glanced over her shoulder, half expecting to see the smiling face of the man from the café.
Oh, please, no…
“Wren?” she called. The mountains returned her voice as a faint, mocking echo.
“Down here.” Wren’s voice came from directly below her. She leaned over the railing. The back doors of the van stood open. He leaned against the vehicle, his head tilted back to meet her gaze.
She sagged against the pine railing. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t reply, but he lifted a hand and beckoned.
With a heavy sigh, she descended the stairs. The wind hit her wet hair and sent a chill down her spine. Wren stood staring into the van, the breeze ruffling his hair and his feathers.
She rubbed her arms. “What are you doing? You should be resting. The fever—”
He met her gaze. “Don’t worry. The fever isn’t bad yet. I couldn’t get comfortable, so I decided to walk. Then I remembered these.” He pointed into the van. Two black cases stood open in the cargo area.
She arched an eyebrow. “Where’d those come from?”
“They were under my wings when I was in the van. I had to see what the poachers had inside. I’ve seen similar cases in the past.” Wren’s voice chilled her more than the wind.
Ginger swallowed. “And?”
Wren flicked his uninjured wing. “See for yourself.”
Ginger leaned inside the van and peered into the cases. Ebony feathers filled the containers. The longest case, nearly five feet, held massive flight feathers, unmistakably archangel from their size. She gagged and stepped back. Wren caught her arm.
“God damn it,” she spat out. “Those vicious monsters…”
“Are we secluded enough to have a fire?” Wren glanced back at the cases, his eyes narrow.
Ginger considered. “Yeah, it’s safe. Plenty of forest separates us from the neighbors, who are mostly winter residents, anyway. The fire pit is over there.” She pointed across the manicured lawn to the left of the house. A pile of stones stood at the summit of a gentle slope. “But we should wait until after you’ve gotten some rest—”
“No, now.” Wren stared at her, his expression severe. “I won’t be able to rest until this is taken care of.”
Ginger folded her arms. Glancing at the cases again, she lost her will to argue with him. “Okay.”
Without another word, Wren shut and lifted the cases. Ginger went to the woodpile by the side of the garage and gathered an armload of firewood, then followed him across the lawn. The moist, cold ground chilled her bare feet. From behind, she noticed that Wren’s wing looked good, considering. No fresh blood showed on the bandage and he held the limb off the ground in the same position as its twin. But he had to be in pain. She needed to get him back inside before the fever heightened and the real agony kicked in.
The fire pit sat at the highest point of the sloping lawn, and the elevated position offered a view of the mountains in the distance. The noontime sun warmed her skin, but the two black cases gave her a persistent chi
ll. She arranged the wood in the fire pit and watched as Wren added the feathers, forming a make-shift funeral pyre.
“Do you have any idea who he was?” With so few archangels left, she thought it likely Wren knew or knew of the poacher’s unfortunate victim.
“She.”
“She?” Ginger opened a tin box stashed by the pit and extracted a pack of matches, which she handed to Wren. She tucked kindling around the feathers.
Wren struck the first match as he spoke. “The flight feathers of a female archangel are rounded at the tip.” He extended and fanned his uninjured wing. The feathers tempered to sharp points.
Ginger noted the blunt tips of the ebony feathers in the pit. “I see.”
He dropped lit matches on the kindling in a circle around the feathers and flames quickly flared up. An awful smell filled the air as the feathers burned. Ginger fought to keep a neutral face as the acrid, smoky stench filled her nose.
Wren folded his arms. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his eyebrows pressed together, low over his nose. His injured wing shook and drooped, but he kept his chin lifted and his gaze focused on the fire.
“So, you didn’t know her?” Ginger hoped talking would keep him from focusing on the pain.
“No, I don’t think so. Black is a common plumage color. But of the archangels I know of with black wings, none are this young.” He caught a fluffy down feather that drifted up on a draft of smoke and fed it back to the flames. “Our layer of down feathers thins as we age. She has so many, she must have been a fledgling. Fifteen years old, at most.”
Ginger shuddered. “Just a child. How could they?”
Wren scoffed. “The poachers didn’t see a child. They saw a monster, a devil.” He laughed, a bitter sound. “They kill our infants without thinking twice. Why would they spare a teenager?”
“Infants?” Poaching was indiscriminant, she knew that, but no one had told her point blank that they murdered newborns.
Wren cocked his head and his gaze darkened. His voice grew fierce. “Do you know how much money human aristocrats pay for the extra-soft down feathers from archangel infants? Millions! The poachers once caught a female who was heavily pregnant and kept her prisoner until—”
“Okay, okay!” Ginger held up a hand. “I’m going to throw up.”
Wren exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. The topic upsets me, to put it mildly.”
“I’d think you a devil if it didn’t.”
Wren’s eyebrows quirked.
The fire dwindled quickly. Wren found a stick and stoked the remaining feathers until only ash remained.
“Maybe she’ll rest in peace now.” He turned his back on the smoldering remains and began walking back toward the garage.
Ginger walked next to Wren across the lawn. As soon as they entered the apartment, she shut the sliding glass door behind them. She went to the kitchen and put some water on the stove for tea.
Across the room, Wren stretched out on the bed. He shivered even though his folded wings covered his entire body below the neck like an ideal blanket. She nudged the thermostat up a couple degrees, and the electric heating system kicked in with a low hum.
“Hey.” She walked over. “How are you feeling?”
He didn’t answer. Eyes closed, sweat glistening on his forehead, he breathed in rapid and shallow gasps. She reached out to touch his temple with the inside of her wrist and flinched from the heat.
“Wren?” She reached under his wing and shook his shoulder.
No response. She shook him harder. Nothing.
She turned away in alarm. The high temperature was normal during the rapid healing of demons and archangels, but losing consciousness was not.
She hurried to the kitchen and opened the freezer, which she found empty, switched off to save electricity in the empty apartment. Cursing, she ran out the slider, down the stairs and across the lawn to the main house. A hasty search turned up the house key in the cluster of potted mums.
In Claire’s kitchen, Ginger found a box of plastic bags. She pulled the full ice drawer out of the freezer. With the load balanced on her hip, she rushed outside, only to find a tall hulk of a man waiting near the mums. She froze, her jaw slack and her heart pounding.
But as she scrutinized the dark-haired, heavily armed figure, she relaxed almost to the point of throwing her free arm around him in a hug. The man stared at her with the unmistakable copper eyes of a demon.
“Sorry to startle you,” the demon said, his upper and lower fangs visible as he spoke. “I’m Vin, one of Sanctuary’s Guardians. I don’t know if you remember me from Haven when you were young.”
She exhaled as she recalled the face and unusual hair of one of her father’s closest friends. Vin’s dark curls stood out in the mostly blond and redheaded demon population, making him hard to forget. He’d moved to Sanctuary when Ginger was a preteen.
“I do remember, Vin. Thank you for coming.” She turned toward the garage apartment, too worried for pleasantries. “There’s something wrong with Wren.”
“Devin said he’s injured,” Vin pressed. He fell into step at her side, his seven-foot frame towering over her.
“He’s been shot in the wing. The healing fever has set in, but he’s unconscious.” She reached the stairs and took them two at a time. Once inside, she went straight to Wren, with Vin on her heels.
Wren remained asleep on his stomach, but had shifted and tucked his face under his wing. Only his brown, spiky hair showed from under the expanse of feathers that covered the bed.
Ginger put some ice into a plastic bag and pressed it to the back of Wren’s neck. Vin folded his arms and leaned forward, his jaw set in a grim line.
“He’s half human,” Vin said. “These fevers are much harder on him than on a pure blood.”
“But he’s going to be okay?”
Vin frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t know for sure. When Wren was a child living in Sanctuary, his father never let him go through these fevers, just in case.”
Ginger gaped, about to ask how Raphael could not let Wren go through a physiological response to injury, then remembered the elder archangel’s astounding ability to promote instant healing.
Anguish molded the demon’s features. “Wren did go through a healing fever after his parents were killed; he was injured that night. But I heard it was a close call. I’m afraid this is going to be a wait and see.”
Knots formed in Ginger’s stomach. “Is there anything that can be done for Wren in Sanctuary?”
Vin shook his head. “Nothing more than what can be done here, and moving him is not possible.”
“Why? I thought the plan was to go straight to the colony.” She sat on the edge of bed.
“It was. But Lark’s men have turned out in large numbers. The human police are involved as well, because the poachers claim Wren is keeping you as a hostage. Road blocks are everywhere. All vehicles are being stopped. It’s safest to lay low for now, for both of you.”
Ginger rubbed her temples, her gaze drifting over Wren. The edge of the bandage had come loose and she reached out to tuck it back in place.
Vin frowned and caught her wrist. “Don’t touch his wings without his permission. Ever. No matter why, or who you are, or what you’ve done for him.”
“I have his permission,” she said, surprised by the reprimand. “He let me apply the bandage.”
Vin’s eyebrows lifted as he released her wrist. “Archangels allow very few to touch their wings.”
“I’m sure he let me only because he would have bled to death otherwise, but I did ask and he did agree.”
Vin’s lips twitched into a grin. “He could have bandaged himself if he really had to. That he let you says he trusts you, and that’s no small gift from an archangel.”
Wren stirred and moved the wing away from his face, but his eyes remained closed. Ginger shifted the ice to his forehead. He leaned into her touch, but didn’t wake. Still, an improvemen
t.
“I’ll be outside, keeping watch,” Vin said. “There are four others with me, just so you know.”
“Thanks, Vin.”
Wren untangled his arms from around the pillow, wrapped them around her waist, and rested his head on her thigh. She froze.
“Wren?” She shook him.
He sighed in his sleep and extended his wing over her legs.
Vin backed away, a hint of amusement on his face before he turned.
“I think you two will be just fine in here.” He disappeared out the slider.
Minutes ticked by and Wren gripped her like a vise with no signs of waking. Ginger adjusted a pillow behind her back and settled, self-conscious but not uncomfortable having him use her lap as a pillow. She took in the defined muscles of his arms and shoulders, and the chiseled features of his face. Even after his shower, the crisp scent of a frosty morning clung to his skin.
She lifted her hand and touched his hair, spiky yet soft under her fingers. His wings, though quite a spectacle, weren’t enough to distract from how handsome he was as a man. She found herself wishing they had met under normal circumstances. Not that archangels were easy to pick up, even in the colonies.
Exhaustion caught up with her and she snuggled further down into the pillows. Wren responded to the shift in position and molded himself against her back, one arm still around her waist. His uninjured wing covered her like a blanket.
His warmth too comforting to resist, she shut her eyes and drifted to sleep.
§
Wren woke engulfed in the scent of jasmine, and opened his eyes. Bathed in moonlight, Ginger lay in his arms, spooned against his body under one of his wings. He lifted his head from her hair and gazed at her face. She slept, her expression peaceful.
Night. Had he been out that long? He remembered nothing after returning to bed after the fire. A plastic bag full of water lay next to the pillow. On the table sat an ice drawer from the freezer, also full of water.
She had nursed him during the fever, then fallen asleep? When had he curled up against her?
Her head rested on his arm. He did his best to extract himself without waking her, but her eyelids fluttered.
