Angel's Power (2 page)

“I don’t know what to say that
won’t make you angry,” he replied after a moment.

“That’s because you know I’m
right,” she retorted. “You may be the first angelic sorcerer born to the people
in a thousand years, but that doesn’t mean you have to be alone.”

He rubbed his face. “It’s
exceedingly unlikely that I will find a mate to balance my energy. I’m not even
going to think about it.”

His mother frowned at him. “I want
you to be happy.”

He smiled at her. “If I can help
our People survive the coming war, I will be.” He tugged on his jacket as she
scowled at him. “I need to go.”

She sighed, loudly. “Fine. But
remember, keep your mind and heart open.” She slipped the jacket off and handed
it to him, then shifted her wings into the air. The soft brown of her feathers was
as soothing to look at now as it had been when he was a child.

Suriel stroked a hand down her
shoulder. “I’ll try, Mother.”

She nodded. “Good. Fly safely. At
least your brother is there. You can depend on each other.”

“I will,” he replied. “Raphael and
I have always been close.”

“I know,” she said, smiling sadly.
“I’ll miss you.”

“You can come visit anytime,”
Suriel reminded her.

She shook her head. “These old
bones are too tired for gallivanting.”

He laughed. “Oh please. You didn’t
think that six months ago when I gave you a boost so you could go see Raphael.”
He chuckled, remembering her surprise when he’d called the winds to ferry her
south. She’d been simultaneously proud and shocked. His power was not a small
thing.

“Yes, well, one ride on that roller
coaster is enough for me, at least for now.” She smiled at him and hugged him
tightly one last time. “Don’t forget to call!”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

She nodded at him and took a small
running leap off the ledge, dropping gracefully into the air. Suriel watched
her soar until her form became a speck, then disappeared into nothing. He
turned back to the cave, surveying the contents. The table and sleeping spaces
would be fine, set back as they were in the depths of the cave. A rock
formation jutted out of the wall, protecting the area from the elements. He
knelt down and stuffed his jacket into his pack, then checked that he had his
cell phone and charger. When he stood back up, he traced a finger down the
legacy marks on his arms: deep blue lines and feathers etched into his skin
like a tattoo. He’d once had brown marks, brown wings, like his father, but
when the winds had begun calling to him, his wings had gradually changed to
deepest blue with silver tips. Midnight wings were the mark of a sorcerer.

He didn’t like to shift in front of
anyone. He didn’t like to fly where anyone could see. His wings looked…
strange. Since he’d finally transformed fully, he hadn’t let anyone else see
them. He took a deep breath and relaxed his center, letting go of the control
that kept him in human form. When he felt the shift begin, he exhaled as his
wings unfurled from nothing into the air. He grabbed his pack, slipping it over
his arms to wear it against his chest, then ran for the mouth of the cave. The
moment he leaped, his wings caught the currents of the winds and he soared into
the darkening sky.

Chapter Two

“Look, Gabriel, we can’t let all of
the old ones onto the Council. It would be a disaster. Some of them are too
frail to travel and some are too wrapped up in how things used to be to truly
appreciate our position in the world. Imagine if Jophiel was given a free
reign? He’d be badmouthing Raphael left and right because he still thinks
homosexuality is the mark of Satan.” Ariel ran her hands through her hair,
completely exasperated. She was sitting with her brother Gabriel, the Alpha,
and his mate, Raphael at the huge council table in the ceremonial chamber of
Castle Archangel. The three of them were working through the requests of the older
members of the People, the ones who hadn’t faded into death, despite the tragic
decline of their race as a whole.

“Beggars can’t be choosers. Have
you ever heard of that saying, Ariel?” Gabriel flicked a finger at the stack of
papers. Each one was a letter from one of the oldsters. “We need their wisdom.”

“Why? Because they saw it coming?
What part? The demon who’d taken over Samael or the sudden revelation to the
humans that angels were real beings?” She made a disgusted sound. “I’m telling
you, not one of them saw it coming. Not one of them prevented the decline of
our People. We need young voices who understand the world as it is, not as they
wish it to be.”

“Who?” Raphael asked mildly. “We aren’t
exactly overrunning with young angels who have the experience and moral
certitude we need. Our birth rate has always been slow, as a species. Frankly,
the three of us are the youngest adult angels at the castle right now. We have
a few teens and that’s it.”

Ariel slumped in her chair. “I wish
Mom hadn’t turned us down. She would’ve been a great councilor.”

“She’s only one person. Even if
she’d accepted, we’d still need at least two others.” Gabriel leaned on the
table. “There are three of us. If we find someone else our age, the young
angels will still be a majority on the Council. That way we get the wisdom we
need and the practicality only youth can bring.”

“And hot-headedness,” Ariel
muttered.

Gabriel sighed. “You can’t have it
both ways, sis.”

She thunked her head on the table.
“I
want
it both ways. I want angels
who are willing to put our People first, not their own selfish desires. We
can’t afford that kind of leadership anymore.” She sat up and looked around the
chamber. The lofty ceiling creeped her out. “Not with the possibility of demons
we now face. I’m afraid we won’t be able to see the evil through the mask of
friendship. And what if one manifested in its true form? What then?” A spark of
energy running down her skin warned her to calm down. She took a deep breath,
trying to chill out. God forbid she wreck the council table the way she’d
damaged her doorknob. She frowned. What was wrong with her? She kept trying not
to think about it, but now this weird energy thing was happening—

“We can only do our best,” Gabriel said,
interrupting her thoughts. “You know that. Just as you know there are always
going to be those who want power for power’s sake. We can only minimize the
risk, not eliminate it.”

Ariel made a face. He was right.
She didn’t like it, but he was right and she knew it.

“What about Suriel?” Raphael said
after the silence had stretched out just a little too long.

“Your brother?” Gabriel said,
surprise coloring his tone. “I thought he refused to come down from his cave?”

“If I ask him, hmm. Maybe if I
explain the situation he’ll come. I know he wants what’s best for the People.
He’s the one who sent me to Castle Archangel in the first place,” Raphael said.

Ariel pursed her lips. “I thought
he remained isolated because his power was too unstable. Isn’t it dangerous?”

“My brother would never harm you,”
Raphael said.

“I hadn’t imagined he would,” she
replied mildly. “I’m concerned more for him. I would not want him to lose
himself because of the pressures of living among the rest of us. I would hate
to see your brother suffer because of us. Surely we can manage without asking
him to sacrifice his solitude?”

“You’ve never even met him, why
would you be so concerned?” Gabriel asked.

She shrugged, not able to explain
why she felt this way. She couldn’t understand it herself; she just knew what she
felt. “He’s Raphael’s brother. He sent your mate to you, for which I am so very
thankful, by the way. So I’m concerned, because I have grown to love Raphael as
a brother, too. I don’t want his family to be coerced into this by our
desperation.”

Raphael reached out to grasp her
hand. “Eloquently put, my dear sister.” He squeezed her fingers and Ariel sensed
the strength of his emotion. She squeezed back, grateful that she at least had
him and her brother, even as her own body betrayed her.

“Do we have a choice?” Gabriel
asked finally. “He has the skills and intelligence to serve with us. He would
balance out the old ones. We need him. We do him a disservice if we decide for
him that he cannot be a member, rather than letting him decide for himself.
Asking is not coercion.”

Ariel sat back. Her brother was
right. “Well then, we must make certain he understands that we are asking, not
forcing.”

At this, Raphael laughed. “No one
could force my brother to do a damn thing if he didn’t wish it.”

“Even so,” Ariel said, unsmiling.
This was important.

“She’s right,” Gabriel added, raising
an eyebrow at his mate.

Raphael kept grinning, as if to a
private joke. “I will be sure to tell Suriel of your concerns.” Before he could
speak further, the door at the end of the chamber opened.

Ariel twisted in her seat, about to
reprimand the person who’d entered without knocking, but she ended up staring
instead of speaking. The man who walked in had dark, wind-touseled hair and
striking grey eyes. He moved with grace and authority despite the battered old
pack he carried. He smiled when he caught her eye. Inexplicably, she felt a
fluttering in her chest. He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. For the
first time in her life, Ariel was tongue-tied.

“I asked that we not be disturbed,”
Gabriel said, clearly not having the same difficulty with words as her. He
surged to his feet to face the intruder.

Raphael quickly stood, smiling
broadly. “Suriel.”

Gabriel blinked at his mate. “This
is your brother?”

Raphael nodded and shoved his high-backed
chair out of the way. He hurried to meet his brother. “I can’t believe you’re
here.”

Ariel rose more slowly, her heart
suddenly pounding. This was Suriel? The sorcerer? She willed her heart to stop
pounding, but it didn’t listen.

Suriel grinned at Raphael and the
expression transformed his face from handsome into gorgeous. “Did someone say
my name?” he asked, moving closer.

Across the table, her brother
relaxed. “Welcome to Castle Archangel, Suriel,” he said, smiling.

“I had to come,” Suriel said,
pulling Raphael into a hug. “It was time.”

Raphael hugged him back. “I had a
feeling.”

Ariel stared at the two angels,
skin prickling. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Raphael’s brother. What was
wrong with her? She suddenly felt as though everything in her life was about to
change, but she didn’t know why. On a whim, she surreptitiously pulled up her
sleeve to check her legacy marks. As she’d suspected, they were even more
mottled now. If she shifted, her wings would look even worse than the last
time. She pulled down her sleeve and resolved to ignore it yet again. Now was
not the time.

“This is Gabriel, my mate,” Raphael
was saying when she looked back up.

Gabriel shook hands with Suriel.
“We were just talking about you.”

“You were?” Suriel asked. He
dropped his heavy pack to the floor and leaned against one of the chairs.

Gabriel nodded and swept his hand
out over the table. “We want you to join the Council.”

Ariel was watching Suriel so
closely she saw him flinch, almost imperceptibly. She wondered if it was
because of his power, or something worse.

Suriel ran his hands through his
hair. “That’s why you were talking about me?” He glanced at the piles of paper
on the shiny wooden table. “You know that my power can be very unstable.”

Raphael shook his head. “I know
that you are far more disciplined than you look.”

“Discipline had nothing to do with
it. I came here because I know there is danger coming, not to become a
politician.” Suriel glanced at the table, then at Ariel. “It looks like you
already have a competent advisor to help you, anyway.”

Ariel flushed at Suriel’s
penetrating gaze. What did he see when he looked at her? She was small, only
coming up to her brother’s shoulder. Raphael’s brother looked even taller than
Gabriel. She smoothed a hand down her hair nervously, but he just smiled and
looked back at his brother.

“This is Ariel. Gabriel’s sister,”
Raphael said, introducing them. “If it weren’t for her, we’d be in a much
bigger mess. She’s the one who has organized everything.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you,
Ariel,” Suriel said.

“Likewise,” she said, heart in her
throat. What was it about this angel? She felt like she was thirteen years old
again and meeting a cute boy in school. The energy she’d felt earlier at her
door zinged through her body. She didn’t like it and curled her fingers into
fists, hoping to control it.

“Are you truly offering me a place
on the Council?” Suriel asked, pulling out a chair and sitting in it.

Watching the exhausted droop of his
shoulders, Ariel realized he was very tired.
He must have flown all the way
down here, straight through,
she thought, amazed by his stamina.