A Shimmer of Angels (25 page)

“You all right?” His voice was like a hum in the background of the music.

It was the second time he’d asked that since we got up here. I could have worried about what I looked like, what he was thinking about, how I could change whatever I was doing to make myself more normal. Instead, I mumbled, “Mmm-hmm,” and let my eyes drift closed, giving them exactly what they wanted.

I felt his head turn against my cheek, the soft brush of his breath on my hair. He was watching me, but for once, I was too tired to care.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Cam and I lay on the grass, looking over the sandbox in my favorite park, the one Laylah and I grew up ten blocks from. His wings caught the sunlight and exploded it all around him, almost as if they were the sun itself.

“I’m so sorry for watching while those men took you to that awful place, Rayna. I would have given anything to take you away with me.” He sat up, laying his hand behind me. Blades of the damp grass squeaked as he twined his fingers around them. “Anything.”

I suppressed a sigh. No way he was getting off that easy. Words, no matter how pretty, would not melt me.

“And I’m sorry for getting you involved in this mess with the angels and the Fallen, for all the pain this has caused you.” Behind him, a small field of orange flowers bloomed. Poppies. They were so much like Cam, thriving in full sunlight, just like his wings. “But in a small way, I’m not sorry. Getting to know you has been the best part of my existence.”

Between the haze around me and the perfection of his words, I knew I was in a dream. And a good one at that.

“In that case, of course I forgive you.” I settled closer to him, determined to make this dream as worthwhile as possible.

Our arms brushed, and he rolled over on his side to smile that flawless smile. He slid closer, pulling me to him. I nestled my head onto his chest. He was so close. So warm. But he smelled nothing like grass and earth; instead, I smelled soap and leather. His fingers tentatively brushed up my back. When they went back down, my entire body shivered. Desire hooked its clutches into me in a way I’d never experienced.

In an effort to be closer to him, I hooked my leg over his. When had dream-me become so bold? His other hand rested on my knee, and his breath breezed softly against my cheek. Spearmint. His breath smelled like my favorite gum. He rested his forehead against my temple. Home. It was like being home.

His lips barely brushed the line of my jaw while his hand began a slow ascent up the outside of my thigh. He whispered my name. It almost broke me.

I clutched for the front of his shirt, but suddenly, he wasn’t wearing one. All the better. I hooked my fingers around the back of his neck. The muscles there were thick and corded. “Cam,” I whispered back and angled him toward my lips.

He froze, then pulled back.

The action knocked me out of the dream. I opened my eyes to find Kade staring back at me, our bodies intertwined exactly the way they had been in my dream. The dream. With Cam. Not Kade. Cam. I jerked back so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash. “What the hell are you doing?”

Kade tensed, every one of the muscles in his bare chest contracting. He stood, and the glare he leveled in my direction cut me in two. “What was
I
doing?
You
were all over
me
, princess.”

Ugh
. No way was I practically molesting Kade in real life while dreaming about Cam. But it was entirely possible. I was sleeping the sleep of the dead—and doped up still. Anything could have been possible. Not that I would admit that to him. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Don’t
ever
do that again. This is
not
cuddly-McCuddle time.”

I sat up and inched back, putting more distance between us, and looked around. We weren’t on the roof anymore. The blinds were pulled, keeping the shadows close, but I could see enough to tell we were in a bedroom. From the pink paint and half-naked pictures of guys pinned up all over the walls, I’d guess we were still in the same house, in one of the previously occupied bedrooms.
Ew
. I lurched off the bed.

Kade looked away, like he couldn’t stand the sight of me anymore, and cracked his knuckles.

Where was his shirt? I swallowed, beads of nerves gathering along the back of my neck. I’d just slept with him. I mean we didn’t
sleep together
sleep together, but we’d shared a bed. And almost did more.

The definition in his abs had me thankful the bed separated us. I’d never seen such a perfect body up close before. A tingly feeling rose in my stomach. Which was one part exciting. And ninety-nine parts terrifying.

A smooth, pink scar on the left side of his chest marred the perfection of his body. The sight of it caused an ache in my own chest. A scar that large had to have been very painful to acquire. I traced fingertips over my own heart. He’d never looked more human to me than he did now, hurt or angry at me for what I’d accidentally done, for damaging us somehow.

No, no, no. Whatever I was thinking, or feeling, wasn’t allowed. Kade was fine. I was fine.

“Next time you want to play make-believe, leave me the hell out of it.” He turned to peek out the window, nearly breaking the blinds when he poked a finger through them and yanked down.

His wings connected at his shoulder blades. I inched closer to get a better look. A black pattern, almost like a star, spanned the skin around them. Instinctively, I circled the bed and brought my hand up. The wings drew me in. I had to be closer. If I could just touch them, maybe his reasons for breaking me out would make more sense. Maybe, somehow, everything would make more sense: my sight, his existence, Heaven and Earth, the world. My hand hovered inches from where the wings attached to his skin.

He spun around, his hand catching my wrist with a snap. I gasped, my heart lurching in my chest. The movement was faster than anything I’d seen before.

“Don’t touch unless you intend to finish what you started.” His voice was as cold as Antarctica.

He released my hand, and I took a step back, slamming my leg against the corner of the nightstand. “Sorry. I was curious.”

“Yeah, well, curiosity killed the cat,” he said, voice full of intensity.

I swallowed and sidestepped him, trying not to let the first ripples of fear show. “Yeah, well, you would know more about killing than I would.”

He looked away, peering back out the window.

I glared at him, thankful, for once, for his attitude, a reminder of how I normally felt about him. I clung to that distaste for everything I was worth.

He cleared his throat, his shoulders still tense. “It’s late. We should hurry. It’ll be rush hour soon. We’ll be lucky if we make it to the city before sundown.”

He slipped into his shirt. It slid down over his wings before they shimmered through it.

I followed Kade out of the room at a distance. We maneuvered through a maze of garbage and bodies. There were several people still in the house. The lucky ones had crashed on chairs and couches; the others lay passed out on the floor or in the bathrooms. The pungent reek of alcohol wafted up from dozens of empty red plastic cups and seeped from the unconscious guests’ pores.

“We’re not flying again, are we?” I whispered.

“No. Too dangerous during the day.” He tugged a hand through the back of his hair.

If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was a lie. But no. I was fresh from a mental institution, being paranoid. Of course we couldn’t fly around during the day where everyone could see us.

I followed him through the living room and the front door. The crisp mountain air was so much cleaner and sharper than the city. Clouds partially obscured the sun that still burned too bright for eyes that hadn’t been outside in weeks. I blinked against the daylight and shielded my eyes. Trees lined the sidewalk, coating the cold ground beneath my feet with leaves.

“First, we need to get you out of those clothes.”

I dropped my hand and narrowed my eyes at him.

He cut a glare at me. “You are still dressed like an escapee, remember?”

I looked down at the drawstring pants. And I still had no damn shoes.

He started walking, and I had to hurry to catch up with him. When we reached the main road, he turned me toward him, looked me up and down, then bolted across the street. “Be right back,” he called from the other side. The forced smirk on his face turned my stomach with worry. He slipped into the vintage clothing store across the street.

I crossed my arms nervously in front of me as car after car passed, some taking a second look at the crazy girl on the street. “Could she have been the one from the mental hospital I heard about on the news?” I could almost hear them say. I darted a look around, ready for the white coats to tackle me.
Get a hold of yourself.
I covered the side of my face and leaned against a tree so the numbers printed down the right side of my scrubs couldn’t be seen as clearly by the passing cars.

Hyperventilation hovered in my lungs until Kade came out of the store and dashed across the street with a black plastic bag in hand. “We’re going back to the party.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but decided against it. I mean, I wasn’t about to change in the alley.

Once we got there, he pulled me back into a different bedroom, one on the first floor with black walls and a Van Halen poster on the door. He tossed the bag onto the bed, the plastic rustling as he opened it. “Put it on; I’ll wait outside.” He headed for the door.

An onslaught of crystals and red satin exploded from the bag. “Wait. What
is
this?” I asked, afraid to touch the fluffy, bedazzled mess.

“It’s the day before Halloween. I got you something … fun.” I could see the distain ringing his dark eyes before he left, closing the door behind him.

Ass
.

I paced for a few moments, making sure a red satin poodle with a crystal collar wasn’t going to jump out and attack me, before I removed the outfit from the bag. Crystals dripped from the bust of the corseted top, which, to its credit, had more fabric than the separate skirt. The ultra-mini bottom, basically just a huge puff of tulle with an elastic waistband, wouldn’t leave much to the imagination. I left the clip-on devil tail and a red sequined horned headband in the bottom of the bag. This costume was
so
not anything I’d ever wear.

I shook my head and searched the room for something—anything—else, but it looked like a clothes bomb had gone off in here, and everything smelled like pot and B.O. Unless I was comfortable running around in late October in dirty, too-large boxer shorts, then I didn’t have much choice.

I undressed and pulled up the skirt, then wrapped the corset top around me, but couldn’t reach the laces. I groaned, covering up my chest as best I could before quietly calling out for Kade.

The doorknob turned, but the door didn’t even open enough to creak. “Does it fit, little devil?”

Little devil?
Keeping my back to him, I peered over my shoulder. “You’re an ass. And I need help.”

He grunted and swooped in, tugging the laces of the corset so hard my boobs almost jerked out of the dress. I readjusted the top before another unnecessarily hard tug stole my breath, and took back my previous assessment: “ass” was too kind a word.

My back must have been bare between the laces because I could feel every brush of his fingers causing chaos over my skin. The satin ribbon skimmed the back of my thigh, reminding me how much leg was showing. And of course there was a wide gap between the top and the skirt, revealing a good deal of midsection. I’d be more covered up in a bikini. Another swift tug.

His fingers worked fast, like he’d done it a thousand times before. The final tug knocked the breath right out of me. “That, right there, that sound. That’s how you know it’s tight enough.” For the first time since we woke up, he no longer sounded like he hated me.

“Good to know.” I sucked in air and found it a little too hard to breathe. I pulled my skirt up a bit to cover more of my midsection, but quickly changed my mind when I looked in the full-length mirror in the far corner of the room. “But could we make it a little looser?” I looked over my shoulder at him.

He shrugged. “We could if you want your tits to pop out.” Oh, so he was still angry then. Good to know.

“Tight it is, then.” I tested my movements. The corset cinched in my waist, accenting my curves.

I glanced at Kade, who was staring at me, expression unreadable. “You’re mighty good with a corset,” I said, testing the waters.

“This isn’t my first time at the ball.” He avoided looking at me. “You look good in tiny clothes, by the way.”

I shot him a glower and decided I was much too dignified to respond to that. He was right, though. I looked hot. The crystals clustered heavily on top and thinned at the bottom all the way around the blood-red fabric. The color seemed to brighten the shade of my hair and my too-pale skin, and I’d never seen my eyes so green. But there should still be twice this much fabric.

I moved away from the mirror. “What now?”

“Now, we borrow a car.”

“You mean
steal
.”

“You want to get home, right?”

I sighed. “Fine.”

“It’ll take me a few minutes to hotwire something. Meet me out front.” He opened the bedroom door and walked outside.

I rolled my eyes and went back to the living room, where I fished in the nearest person’s pocket. No keys, but he had a cell phone. I palmed that and spotted the bulge of what I hoped were keys in the pocket of a guy passed out on the couch. I inched my hand in and pulled out a set of keys.

Score.

By the front door, three sets of shoes sat unattended. I looked down at my bare feet and decided to try the Chucks first. Too big. I tried the flat ballet slippers next, but could only wriggle about three quarters of my foot in. I sighed at what was left. Super-high black heels studded along the back with silver spikes. They were a little loose, but they had to be better than bare feet. I tested my balance, having never worn heels over two inches before.