Eden had been razed.
Fire was on the trees and bodies were strewn everywhere. A howl of grief had punctured the air as a father held his child's lifeless body in his arms. Issa didn't know how much of the damage had been the demons' work and how much had been from the fight between the Edenians themselves.
It had taken two trips to carry everyone to the safety of an abandoned cottage. Each time, Issa was afraid they'd run into either explosives or demons. Although Edvardiel had healed everyone as best he could (which wasn't much considering how drained he was), nobody was conscious except Paul, who'd taken to staring listlessly into space.
They agreed to rest for a day before making their way to Koprivnica. Since neither of them could fly, Edvardiel had excused himself to look for their old truck, and Issa had sat herself beside Jacob, trying her damnedest to do something for his missing eyes.
After she'd achieved nothing but to fry her nerves, she paced up and down the hallway, waiting, all the while anticipating another attack and worrying about her angel. Paul didn't move from his corner, huddled underneath a thin blanket. Finally, Issa reached her breaking point and announced that she was going to look for Edvardiel.
She found him beside their hot spring.
The steaming blue waters seemed strangely untouched—an oasis of peace amidst the death and destruction.
Edvardiel sat beneath the sunset, his gaze fixed on his remaining wing. Patches of feathers had fallen off, revealing the muscled flesh beneath. He bent it this way and that, his expression turning grim when he saw the blue streaks of Lilith's poison.
"Edvardiel?"
His wing snapped shut. "Issa? I didn't hear you coming."
She made her way towards him and sat down, covering his hand with hers and giving it a squeeze.
She didn't ask him about his wing but she didn't remove her hand either, determinedly watching the sunset. Just for a while, she wanted to pretend nothing was wrong. She'd been wrung dry of emotion, and she felt the same weariness ebb from their stifled bond.
Edvardiel interlaced their fingers, his single wing curling around her.
She leaned her head against his shoulder and they settled into a silence as they watched the sun slowly make its way down the horizon. Her angel's thumb began to move, stroking her palm back and forth, back and forth, and she shifted closer to the sturdy warmth of his body.
"Edvardiel," she sighed.
He nuzzled her neck and she laid back on the grass, pulling him onto her. As she ran her fingers through his hair, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest against her body, she felt all at once vulnerable and safe.
Her hands moved down his scalp to the silver on his neck, tracing the rigid, armoured skin that she'd only ever felt on a demon, and then down his back. When she brushed the jagged bump on his shoulder blade where his wing used to be, he winced.
"Sorry." She withdrew her hand.
He pulled back to look at her. One of his eyes glowed bright with glory but the other had little veins of blue in them.
"I keep forgetting," he murmured. "I keep thinking it's still there."
She couldn't forget the brutal sight of him slicing off his own wing. Or his broken body crushed beneath the rock.
"I'll make you another," she said lightly. "On one condition."
He managed a smile. "And what's that?"
"You have to promise to take good care of it this time," she said.
His remaining wing unfurled, crackling with lightning and making her hair stand on end.
"Hmm." He pretended to think before smoothing her electrified hair. "I'll pass. I'd rather take good care of you, little lion."
Her heart fluttered even as she gave him a half-hearted push. "I can take care of myself," she said haughtily. "And I sure as hell can take care of you."
Once she figured out how to get rid of the fucking poison, that was.
As though reading her mind, he arched his brows and playfully pinned her wrists to the ground. "Really?"
He was a sight to behold–the harsh features and towering frame of a warrior angel tempered by his gentle human eyes.
She softened in his grip.
"I love you."
He peered down at her, his expression inscrutable.
"You know, I think I like it better when you curse me."
Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. "What?"
"For the last time, I did not pray for you." He mimicked her lie from the cathedral perfectly, down to her outraged expression and defensive tone. His eyes twinkled as he continued to quote her. "Fuck off, seraph. In case you didn't notice, I don't fucking care!"
The obscenities sounded atrocious coming from his mouth.
"The best one was when I told you I loved you," he said. "You're all right, I guess."
She stared at him, her jaw slightly agape.
His face split into a grin. "I miss it. I miss messing with you. What am I supposed to do with myself now?"
That made her scowl. "I'm sure you'll find another hobby."
Embarrassed, she tried to bat him away but he chuckled and caught her wrists again, watching her with the same inscrutable expression as he pinned her down slowly, so deliciously slowly. She stilled, her heart pounding. He tilted his head, his gaze flickering from her eyes to her cheeks and then to her lips.
"You like this," he said.
Before she could respond, he'd lowered his lips to hers, giving her a sweet, chaste kiss, all the while pinning her down with his weight. She gasped into his mouth, every nerve ending coming to life.
When he pulled back, his eyes were heated.
He brushed a knuckle against her flushed cheek and kissed her again. This time, he parted his lips, his tongue finding hers. His hands traced her face and her body as though he were trying to memorise every inch of her. Issa's movements were more frantic. Her hands shook as they fumbled with his buttons. Then impatiently, she yanked at his shirt, feeling a burst of satisfaction as it tore and fluttered to the ground.
Edvardiel broke the kiss, glancing at his shirt. To her surprise, he gathered the torn strip into his hands and wound it around her wrists pulling it tight, tighter.
Her breathing quickened.
"Where am I going to find a shirt now?" His voice was rough with desire. He lifted her tied wrists above her head and kissed her again. "Best to keep you like this before you ruin the rest of my clothes."
God.
He liked this too.
Issa never imagined allowing anyone to do this to her. But with Edvardiel, she didn't question it, her mind sinking into a floaty, pleasurable haze.
When he kissed down her throat, she shivered and lifted her chin to give him better access, feeling as though he were laying her soul bare with his lips. And when he slid the dress off her shoulders, she spread herself so that she was cradling his hips with her thighs.
His gaze turned tender. "My Issa," he murmured. He took his time, his tongue and his lips moving leisurely to explore every dip and swell of her body.
Her angel was thorough and giving. By the time he'd worked his way down her body, she was a writhing puddle of need.
She gripped her makeshift restraint, still holding the position he'd put her in.
"Please," she panted. "Edvardiel, I need to feel you."
He lifted his glistening lips from between her thighs and crawled over her, lining himself at her entrance.
The flared head nudged her, circling, massaging, but not entering. Feeling ready to combust, she lifted her head to see his eyes shift between his parts and hers, as though doubting it would fit.
Heavens, if he made her wait another second—
She reached up and hooked her bound wrists behind his neck. "Take me now," she urged breathlessly. "Please."
He pushed in.
Their muffled bond shuddered with something like surrender.
She whimpered at the divine stretch and pulled his body close. "I love you," she said. "I love you, I love you."
The relief was a long time coming.
He thrust again, and she threw her head back, locking her ankles around him. Each time he bottomed out inside her, it felt like home. Each time he withdrew, her muscles tightened around him, desperate to keep him there.
He groaned. "Issa."
She kissed his neck, tasting and nipping the hard silver. He turned his head, his eyes glazed with both pleasure and affection.
Glory shimmered as he captured her lips, his tongue finding hers, taking her mouth the same way he was taking her body.
They were both teetering on the edge and when he quickened his pace, they fell over together. Lightning flashed around them, twisting in a beautiful, heavenly pattern. A gentle drizzle of rain warmed her skin.
Edvardiel kissed her again. And again. And again.
"I love you too," he murmured against her sweat-slicked skin. "More than anything."
Something shimmered behind his long hair and she reached out to touch it.
A golden butterfly. One of the ones that had emerged from her blood when she'd made Lucifer's body.
She blinked.
The shimmer amidst Edvardiel's lightning wasn't glory but butterflies.
The one on her finger fluttered down, leaving a trail of blooming flowers where it touched the grass. Another landed on a branch above them, wings opening and closing, and a fresh bud of young leaves burst forth, raining green down on them.
Something about the sight was so familiar.
Edvardiel followed her gaze.
"Our spring is full of them," he said as his body curled around her, warm and comforting. "They like this place as much as you do."
That was why the place was so pristine. Not because the demons hadn't found it, but because of her butterflies.
"How long have they been here?" she asked in disbelief.
"I've been seeing them near the spring since the night you found me here," he said. "But they've been near the waterfall for at least a hundred years. Edenians call them Immortal Butterflies. That's why it's so beautiful there. Why it was my mother's favourite place." His lips brushed against her ear. "That's why I proposed to you there."
He leaned back and gathered her to his chest, his expression thoughtful. "It's strange though, the butterflies look like they're filled with glory. I wonder if Eve got someone's help to make them. Do you think Michael helped her back then?"
Issa clenched her jaw.
Her angel was still holding out hope for her father—that there was something good in him somewhere in the distant past. Knowing Edvardiel, he was probably hoping for her sake more than his.
"I called him," Issa said. "When you were dying, I begged him."
Edvardiel sat up.
"He must've heard me," she said. "But he didn't answer. Not a whisper. Nothing." Her heart twisted, and then all the hurt turned into anger. "He must've known about the Apocalypse but he never looked for me. He left me to die."
She looked at the golden butterflies.
Michael is no longer able to summon his glory, Lucifer had said. Not since he discovered your existence.
"Edvardiel, I don't think Lilith locked Heaven's gates. I think my cowardly father locked them himself."
Edvardiel didn't speak but she felt his disquiet sear through their bond, muffled as it was by the Edenium in her blood.
Your father unleashed Hell on Earth just to be rid of you.
Lucifer's words sounded less and less like a lie.
"How did Hell's gates open?" Issa said. "How did my mother die? Also…" Her hands curled into fists against Edvardiel's chest. "You said angels can't hurt humans. So they can't ever… Never? Not under any circumstance?"
"Never," Edvardiel said.
But when Lucifer possessed her body, he'd burned the Acolytes.
Acolytes were humans.
Or were they?
She wasn't. Jacob wasn't. Rosalie's child wasn't.
Your angelic side is the part of you that can be controlled by Hell.
Suddenly, Issa wanted to stop. This truth wasn't one she wanted to understand. But once she started to see, she couldn't unsee.
Everything hit her all at once.
Acolytes weren't just made beautiful, they were made strong. They were made stronger than the hell-dwellers, stronger than even the angels.
She remembered struggling against the impossibly heavy concrete, fighting to breathe, fighting to live, clawing her way out of the rubble inch by agonising inch only to breathe in ash and hear nothingness.
She remembered the way they'd comb each flattened city for the rare few who would rise from the debris.
What made them rise? What were Acolytes? Why did they survive when so many died?
She remembered the feel of Alice's warm body and inhaling her familiar scent. Their little guardian angel. Yassper's descendant. Issa saw him standing underneath the gothic cathedral as though it were yesterday. He was the only one staring up at the high arches as they collapsed.
She heard the deafening crash, and tinkling as the enormous glass of painted saints came crashing down.
"We were angels all along," she said numbly. "We were angels."
"Who?" But Edvardiel had gone still too, as though he felt the magnitude of her words.
"The Acolytes are all Nephilim," she said.
That was why Hell could control them.
That was why Lucifer could burn them.
That was why they were so strong.
"That's how Lilith started the Apocalypse," she said. "Angels and demons can't hurt humans but the Nephilim can—Acolytes can. Demons can't stay on Earth but Acolytes can."
I do not know what kind of deal your father made with Lilith.
She looked at her angel. "Edvardiel, my father didn't abandon me. He sent Hell to me. He sent Hell to Earth to cleanse it of the Nephilim."
That had to be the deal Michael had made with Lilith.
He'd helped her open the gates to Earth in exchange for her help with the Nephilim.
But of course, that wasn't how Lilith worked. Lilith wasn't one of Michael's angels. She was the Empress of Hell, a realm that was possibly more powerful than both Heaven and Earth combined. Hell's Empress wouldn't make a deal like that without a catch.
She did cleanse the Nephilim from Earth.
By binding them to Hell.
Which meant…
Issa grabbed her dress and stood.
"Edvardiel," she said. "We need to leave Eden."
He didn't move, looking as though he were still reeling from her words. "Hold on," he said. "You don't know that for sure. You don't know that Michael sent Hell to Earth."
Issa pressed her lips together. "Maybe not," she admitted. "But I know he did something." If only her darned memories would come back. "And I know that we need to leave now."
A muscle jumped in her angel's jaw as he gathered his clothes, and she knew that he felt the truth in her words about Michael. "We were leaving anyway."
"That's not what I mean," she said. "Lilith broke into Eden. It's full of Nephilim. We need to leave before the new Acolytes rise."
There wouldn't just be one or two awakenings in Eden. There would be enough Acolytes here to start another Apocalypse.
Edvardiel stilled.
He was quiet for so long that she thought this revelation was too much for him.
"Edvardiel?" she said uncertainly.
He turned and caught her hand. "Issa. Do they wake up and turn into Acolytes right away?"
"What?" She tried to remember what had happened that first day—she'd been heavily injured and she'd drifted in and out of consciousness in Yassper's arms. But there had been no blue in her veins. Not before she'd reached Lilith's lair. "I think…" she hesitated. "I think Lilith would have to claim them first."
His hand tightened around hers. "Then we should find a way to seal Eden's gates, shouldn't we?"
Issa looked at her angel.
She couldn't forget the Edenium nails in his wings—by the looks of it, they'd nailed his wings to something and he'd ripped them apart to get free. She couldn't imagine how much it must've hurt. She looked at the demon blue on his skin which had spread to his elbow and was now creeping down his wrist.
Her wonderful, kind angel.
He was too good for this world and he made her want to be good too.
Slowly, she nodded.
"One night, Edvardiel," she said. "We'll try tonight and then we're leaving."
So happy to get this early update out :D I had my last day of work last week before switching hospitals and have some weeks off to look for a new place to live (and also to write). I am so excited to finish this (and also to find a place, goodness the prices are insane). Take care and till next time :)
