A Gift of Wings (53 page)

“Come on, you guys,” she called to the remainder of the group. “You heard the man. Let’s dance.”

Josh readily complied, but Lucky was not surprised when Malachi and Zeke just shook their heads and remained seated. She was surprised that Kev had offered no resistance, but maybe, like her, he realized that Mo wouldn’t take no for an answer. Before the night was over, Lucky was sure, her ebullient friend would get even Zeke and Malachi to dance.

The four danced together as a group, moving to the beat of the music as they saw fit, mingling standard dance moves with whatever happened to catch their fancy. Lucky had been to many dances with Josh and Mo, and she knew they were comfortable with this light-hearted, impromptu style. She didn’t know Kev well enough to guess how he would feel about it.

She hardly had time to wonder, let alone worry. He joined in easily, following another’s lead or making up moves of his own, and laughing along with the rest of them. He was a good dancer, and he didn’t take himself too seriously. He also seemed to be enjoying himself. She wondered how often he got a chance to just have fun. She guessed the opportunities were probably few and far between, which made her doubly glad he could do so tonight.

By the time the first set ended, Lucky was laughing and breathless and hot and thirsty. After a stop at the refreshment table for a glass of punch, she headed out the front door for some fresh air. Once outside, she stopped for a couple deep breaths before descending the stairs to the sidewalk. The cool night air felt good against her heated skin.

She had just stepped onto the sidewalk and was contemplating crossing the street to stroll along the Midway, when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs behind her.

“Mind if I join you?” Aidan asked.

“Not at all,” she said.

He fell into step beside her as she started across the street. Neither of them spoke until they reached the grass of the Midway, and then Aidan broke the silence.

“I wanted to apologize for the other day,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down toward the toes of his boots. “I pressured you, and I shouldn’t have. You’ve been through so much lately. It’s all been pretty intense and sudden. I can see why you’d want to have some time, to get used to—everything. I couldn’t see it then, but I can now. So, anyway, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” Lucky said. Then, before she could stop herself, she added, “I missed you. I kept hoping you’d call.”

Aidan looked up, his blue eyes shining in the glow of the street lights. “Really? I wanted to, but I didn’t want you to feel like I hadn’t heard you. I’d pressured you enough.” One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “You could have called me, you know.”

“I know. I just felt like I didn’t have a right to, when I was the one who asked for time. Besides, I told you you could call. Do you know how upset I was when I heard about tonight from everyone but you?”

“I didn’t even think about that. I just knew you’d find out from Mo or Josh or someone and was hoping you’d show up.”

Lucky chuckled. “I guess we’ve both been kind of stupid, huh?”

“I guess we have.” Aidan held out his hand. “Walk?” he asked.

“Sure,” Lucky whispered, taking his hand. He threaded his fingers through hers as they began to stroll down the Midway.

“I’ve been wondering about something you mentioned the night the Powers attacked us,” Lucky said, after they’d taken several steps in silence. “You said something about renouncing your wings…?”

Aidan didn’t speak or look at her, but she felt his fingers tighten around hers.

“It had to do with your mother, didn’t it?” she asked.

He drew them to a halt, and then waited so long to speak that Lucky began to wonder if he was going to answer her question.

“Yes,” he finally said, releasing her hand. “You know she was human, right?”

Lucky nodded. “You said she was a concert pianist.”

“Yeah,” Aidan sighed. “You also know my world—our world—is dangerous for humans. Well, that danger is compounded when you are intimately involved with someone like Lucifer. My father tried to keep my mother safe by keeping his relationship with her—and with me—a secret. Only a chosen few—Zeke among them—knew Lucifer was my father—even after I’d completed enough of my training to join the Forces.”

He paused, and Lucky could see from his tightened lips and distant eyes that he was reliving something that was almost unbearable to him.

“It was my fault the secret got out. Not that I
told
anyone. I just…. Everyone acted like I was the Fallen’s Golden Child. I was great in battle. And there was my Gift.” His voice trailed off, and he paused another moment before continuing, “The Gift of Song carries with it some of the power of Creation. I haven’t tried to use it much, but I can create things, fix things, heal things, with my voice.”

Lucky didn’t speak into the silence that stretched between them. She waited for Aidan to face his memories and continue his story.

“You’ve heard Sambethe’s prophecy about you. Well, there was one about me too. I was supposed to be the one to lead the Forces of the Fallen and bridge the gap between Light and Dark.” He turned to look at her, one side of his mouth lifted in an ironic twist. “I didn’t exactly greet the news with the calm maturity you’ve shown.”

Lucky raised her eyebrows. “I was too shocked and scared to do anything else.”

His eyes were still haunted, but Aidan’s features relaxed into a warm smile, and he reached out to brush her cheek with his fingers before letting his hand fall back to his side. When he resumed his tale, he had turned away from her again to look down the Midway.

“It was all such a rush, and I encouraged it. I drew too much attention. Somebody put two and two together and figured out who my father was. Then some rogue angels of Light kidnapped my mother. They threatened to kill her unless my father ceded control of the Dark to the Metatron.”

A small sound of sympathy escaped Lucky before she could stop it, but Aidan continued as if he hadn’t heard.

“Kev was the newly minted Captain of the Forces of the Fallen then, and he and Zeke and my father were still plotting strategy, when I decided to take matters into my own hands. I should have known better, but I was cocky, arrogant. I convinced a few of my closest friends in the Forces to join me in an unauthorized rescue mission. We discovered that they were holding my mother in an abandoned warehouse. When we got there, there were no guards outside. It all seemed so easy. I should have realized something was up, but I didn’t stop to think. The ambush took us by surprise.

“We fought hard. And I was actually thinking we might make it out alive, when Zeke got into my head, compelling me to return to the training center. He didn’t know we were already in the thick of it; he just wanted to protect us. But with him in my head, it was almost impossible to concentrate on fighting. It was worse for the others. By the time Kev and a band of the Forces had arrived, along with Zeke and Lucifer, I was the only one still standing—well, I was on my knees by then, but I was still fighting.

“Once Zeke realized I was fighting him as well as the kidnappers, he got out of my head, and together we were able to defeat the rogues. But it was too late for my mother.”

Aidan paused, and Lucky laid a hand on his arm.

“No,” he said, stepping away from her, refusing the offered comfort.

He took a deep breath and let it out before speaking again. “They had strung her up with cords, had her hanging from the ceiling. She was beaten and cut and bloody. The others cut the cords and lowered her to the floor, and I ran to her. She was still alive, but just barely, and I knew she wouldn’t last long. Sambethe had been training me, and I thought I could heal her, save her. But I ended up… killing her. It looked like she was healing, like her flesh was reknitting itself, but then it kept growing and growing, like cancer….”

Aidan’s voice broke, and he took a few shuddering breaths. Lucky could see his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

“After that, I didn’t want to be part of the world of the Fallen anymore, didn’t think I had a right to be. I certainly didn’t want to be responsible for doing to anyone else what I’d done to my friends—or my mother. So I renounced my wings—formally stated my intention in front of the necessary witnesses. Zeke wouldn’t accept total Renunciation; he argued that my wings should be returned to me after a time. I know now that he just wanted to give me the opportunity to reconsider, but at the time his interference pissed me off.”

He paused again, his lips curving in an ironic smile as the haunted look left his eyes. “Anyway, my wings were returned to me about the time we met. I’ve gotta say, it freaked me out more than a little when you saw them that night.”

“No more than it did me,” Lucky said. She wanted to comfort him, to ease his sense of loss, but she knew his feelings were still too raw. “How long were you without your wings?”

“Two years. You dragged me back into this, you know. After I met you, realized what you were, I had to tell Zeke about you.”

“Are you sorry?” Lucky asked.

Aidan shook his head. “I convinced myself that I wanted to live a normal, human life, but I was just punishing myself. I’m not normal and human. I’m Naphil, one of the Fallen. Even though I ran away from the life, I missed it. So, no, I’m not sorry. I—”

Lucky cried out as her back suddenly began to burn. Doubled over in pain, she sank to her knees, feeling as if someone were using a blowtorch to trace an upside down V on her skin. Then, in place of the burn, she felt a heavy weight. At the same time, she felt Aidan rest his hand on her head. A slight ripple washed over her at his touch.

“Speaking of wings,” he said softly, “yours are quite beautiful.”

Lucky gasped and turned her head to look at the great wings that were weighing her down. They glowed in the light from the streetlights, feathers ranging in color from celadon to a green so dark it was almost black, all dusted with pale gold.

“They’re heavy!” she said.

Aidan laughed. “You’ll get used to them.”

She concentrated, opening her extra senses, letting them tell her how to flex the new muscles that would operate the appendages. Once she had drawn them closed, tucked them in against her back, so their weight was not stretched out to either side of her, they did not feel quite so heavy. When Aidan offered her his free hand, keeping the other on her head, she accepted his aid without hesitation.

“Can you hide them yourself?” he asked, once she was on her feet. “I’m going to have to let you go.”

“I don’t know. How do I—?” But even as she asked, Lucky could feel the glamour beginning to shape itself in her head. She just had to imagine the wings hidden, invisible, and in some part of her mind, she had to maintain that thought. She felt another ripple as the glamour took hold.

“Good,” Aidan said, removing his glamour from her as he lifted his hand from her head. “Now, you should be able to summon them and dismiss them at will. That might take a bit of practice.”

Closing her eyes, Lucky thought the wings gone. It took her a few moments to frame the thought precisely, but the instant she did so, the weight lifted from her shoulders. Then, shifting the thought 180 degrees, she thought the wings there. As the thought settled into her mind, the weight of the wings settled against her back.

She was still practicing when they heard Kev calling Aidan’s name from across the street. “Ben sent me to find you. It’s past time for the second set. They’re playing an instrumental until you get back.”

“Are you okay to go back in there?” Aidan asked her.

“I think so,” she said, thinking the wings away once again. “They’re gone now.”

“They might show up without you summoning them for a while—until you get the hang of it all,” Aidan said, taking her hand and running back across the street. “Just be aware of that, and be ready to dismiss them if necessary.”

Kev held the door for them. They could hear the chords of the instrumental number spilling out of the ballroom. Aidan headed for the stage, and Lucky and Kev went to rejoin their friends.

Lucky’s head was spinning, and her heart felt full to bursting. She wanted to cry for Aidan’s past; she wanted to celebrate the healing of their relationship, her future work with Zeke, and her new wings; and at the same time she couldn’t completely stop worrying about who—and what—she was and what that might mean. She was able to release some of those spinning thoughts when Aidan grabbed the microphone and started to sing, because he caught her eye and closed one of his own in a wink.

Then the dancing started up again. And just as Lucky had predicted, only a couple of numbers had passed before Mo managed to drag Zeke out onto the dance floor. Malachi took a little more persuading, but eventually he followed as well. Dancing and laughing, surrounded by her friends, Lucky finally let go of her worries and allowed herself to be caught up in the rush of the moment. The necessity of keeping a part of her mind focused on making sure her new wings stayed away only added to her excitement.

When the music stilled, everyone waited while Aidan conferred with the rest of the band before stepping back to the microphone.

“We’d like to end with a brand-new song called ‘Falling into Flight,’” he said. “This one is just a few days old, and we can count the number of times we’ve practiced it on one hand, but it’ll be on the next album. We hope you like it.”

He had been scanning the crowd, and his eyes came to rest on Lucky. As the notes of the guitar began filling the room, he smiled right at her. “I’d like to dedicate this one to Lucky, who helped me find my wings—and who recently found her own.”

Looking from Aidan’s warm blue eyes to the surprised faces of her friends, Lucky threw back her head and laughed with joy.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Two years ago, when I told my brother I was writing a novel, the first thing he said was, “Congratulations—for finally doing what you’ve wanted to do your whole life.” I’m so glad I finally did it. Writing and publishing this book—even with the worries that such a huge project can bring—has been a joyful experience. And while much of the work has involved me sitting at my computer, writing or researching or formatting, this has not been a solo journey.