Gabriel (30 page)

“Why?” he asked bitterly.

“I think I missed the question?” I replied, placing the wine glass on the table behind me.

“Why do you do it? You go out of your way to cover the scar on your back, but not those. You insist on continually brandishing them. Are you
trying
to provoke me?” He ground his teeth.

“No,” I answered. “Just so happens that this dress shows them.”

Tilting his head and running his gaze up and down once more for good measure, he arched an eyebrow and said, “Speaking of which, that dress hardly leaves anything to the imagination.” He winked at me, and my heart fluttered. I'd missed the way he did that. Pushing his hood down, he cricked his neck from side to side.

Then his palm was suddenly spread out across my tummy, and he stroked his thumb over the thin material carefully. I could smell him now, but only barely; he was wearing his old aftershave. I breathed in his familiar scent of woods as he stood within an inch of me. I peeked up and found his marblelike hazel eyes, which strangely made me think of the butterfly girl's.

He lowered himself and placed the tip of his nose just above my earlobe. “I inflicted these on you, and they are ugly. Why don't you cover them?”

I felt my chest tighten. “The real mark you left on me doesn't sit on my skin, Jonah.” I placed my palm over the top of his hand still resting on my midriff. “These scars don't mean what you think they do. They don't show hate, or horror, only … heart.”

He lingered, his hot breath against the skin of my neck, and I felt that same hungry feeling I had felt for him before.

Finally, he extracted himself and blinked heavily, staring down at my worn eyes. “What you did that night…” He wavered. “You made me a better person once. Hell, you made me think of myself as a
person
. And then you tricked me, and you made me a monster all over again. And I thought you did it out of pity, or perhaps some vain attempt to cling on to who you think you were, who you think you should be still.” He paused, and his hazel irises flashed crimson, but then they cooled. “But I was wrong, wasn't I? You didn't do it for either of those reasons, did you?”

I couldn't meet his eyes. I hadn't even wanted to admit the reason to myself. I was afraid that if I spoke my secret aloud, it would become real. And what good could come from confessing that I had loved him? What good would it do to tell him that despite his cruel words, I still loved him now? None. Because I loved Gabriel first.

He found my chin and tilted my face up, forcing me to look at him. “When did you remember me?”

My breath ricocheted off my throat as I inhaled.

“Tell me,
when
—”

I gave in and answered honestly. “In the study, when I felt your lips press onto mine; that was the moment you came back to me. And twenty minutes later, you left.”

Jonah wrapped his arms around my back, but he held me too tightly. A weak moan escaped my lips as my body contracted; I found no pleasure within his touch.

He responded immediately, and I wondered again if he somehow felt my pain, if it passed through him. It was the only explanation I could match to the urgent alarm ringing in his voice as he said, “Please, feed.”

I had to consider it this time. The throbbing under my skin was becoming too painful, and I allowed myself to break down for just a moment. I nuzzled myself into Jonah's chest and started to sob, but my body wouldn't even grace me with tears; instead my chest heaved in dry, shallow movements. He didn't push me away; instead he lightly stroked the back of my hair.

I gathered myself, angry that the thought of giving up had even dared to enter my head. I loved Gabriel, and I wasn't ready to let go. He was meant to save me; even if I didn't know how yet.

I reached for yet another glass of wine, but as I urgently raised it to my lips, from over Jonah's shoulder I could see a glow in the window of the drawing room.

I hurried back inside, working my way along the elegantly dressed crowd that had clustered in the drawing room, but I found myself unable to see past the raised glasses. One face in the crowd, though, I did recognize: Ruadhan. So, he didn't trust me to be here after all.

Stooping to avoid being seen by him, I managed to catch sight of the golden glow through the many bodies. In front of a bay window, overlooking the landscaped gardens, the light illuminated what I never expected to witness: Gabriel kissing Iona.

I felt myself tear in two. Sir Montmorency had Darwin to his left and the happy couple to his right. The room became distorted; all I could see was Gabriel's lips pressing gently down onto Iona's. His hand caressing the silk of her neck, he further gifted her with his touch. If this was a kiss for some sort of show, it certainly didn't explain why Gabriel's skin was pulsing with luminosity.

Just then a bell sounded midnight. I was fixated on Gabriel and Iona, and as it repeatedly struck, tiny speckles of white crystals seemed to form around Iona's figure. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. Was Gabriel's glow so strong that he was causing her to shimmer against him? I scanned the room, but no one else seemed to notice the light pulsing between the two of them.

A gentleman beside me began patting my shoulder, as though he were able to sense my despair. And then he leaned in and muttered quietly, “I wouldn't be so upset if I were you.”

“Excuse me?” I spat out. I twisted around to find Malachi's face. He was just as plain as he had been when I'd seen him in my dream while I slept in the barn in Neylis. Swiftly I recalled what happened in that vision, whose face had appeared next—Hanora's. I'd been jealous of her, and now I was finding myself dissolving into envy once more, but this time for her very opposite. I grew angry with myself; I had no right to feel upset. Knowing that I had told Gabriel my heart, my whole heart was his, when now and in truth there was a part that belonged to Jonah.

The fallen Angel beside me cleared his throat, bringing my attention back to him. “I'm an old friend of Gabriel's. It's a pleasure to finally meet the girl he's been searching out all this time. I wouldn't let that little show over there cause you trouble; he's only trying to protect you.” Everything about Malachi was unreadable. It must take a lot of practice to achieve such nonchalance.

“You have me mistaken for someone else” was all I could get out. Gabriel had brought Iona into his chest, clinging to her dearly, and I looked away.

As I willed my legs to stretch, Malachi was once again trying to capture my interest. “You will meet with me tomorrow, alone.”

Right now all I wanted was to get out of this room, but he had me by my arm, waiting for some sort of agreement. “Do I have ‘idiot' stamped across my forehead? Why would I do that?”

One swift tug and he had me only an inch from him. “If you do not wish to see this world burn, you will meet me. You need to know what I do. I will come to you.” Malachi slicked back his ash-blond hair, nodding at me astutely, before disappearing into the now-chattering cluster of guests.

I endured one final fleeting glance in Gabriel's direction. Iona was speaking in his ear, and those divine dimples dipped the way they had for me. I paced down the length of the drawing room, bumping into bodies as I went, until, through my blurring vision, I found an archway at the very end of the room. Leaning my weight against the brickwork, I took a breath.

I caught sight of a grand piano at the far end of some sort of entertaining room. My legs had become jelly, and they managed to hold me up only long enough to get to its stool. I placed my head between my knees and counted to ten. My heartbeat eventually slowed, and my mind stopped twirling and spinning.

Confident I was alone—there was no sign of Jonah or anyone else—I searched for the nearest exit so that I might find my way out of this labyrinth of a house. As I did, my eyes settled on an antique chromatic harp on the adjacent wall.

My mind flashed to the memory of the one I had played with Gabriel under the old oak tree. If I could have, I would've cried to try and rid myself of this troubled sensation in my muddled soul.

I slid my toes out of the stilettos and, placing my bare feet to the cold parquet flooring, I regained my balance and wandered over. It was inviting, as though it were an old friend; as though it were calling for me to free it from its silent sleep. I looked to its two columns, which crossed in the middle, its elegant shape reminding me of a swan.

I hovered tentatively behind it, almost afraid to touch my fingertips to its strings lest they cause them to snap. But there was another fear, a bigger one: I was afraid that if I awoke the harp with our song, when I stopped playing, the dream of Gabriel and me would fade into nothing more than an echo. Like a sunset, it would become lost to the darkness.

I skimmed the thick, varnished wood and gently glided my fingers across the strings. The emotions I had felt the last time I played came rushing back to me. I plucked a string, letting the note reverberate through the space.

I closed my eyes, this time running my fingers across the strings, and it was as though they were willing me along. The melody that came resounded with revered remembrance. I played the first few chords of Gabriel's and my song over and over, and then I let my fingers proceed to the first verse, and I began to sing.

Though initially my voice warbled, the hurt in my throat seemed to fade, finding its way perhaps to my heart instead.
“My gentle harp, once more I waken. The sweetness of thy slumb'ring strain.”
I sang Gabriel's part, and then on to my own verse, “
In tears our last farewell was taken. And now in tears we meet again
.” The feel of the smooth strings against my skin comforted me, and I began to feel content.
“Yet even then, while peace was singing. Her halcyon song o'er land and sea. Though joy and hope to others bringing. She only brought new tears to thee.”
I found my eyelashes fluttering as I repeated that line—the words that had left Gabriel's lips in my haunting vision of him. And as my sight refocused, I saw that some of the guests had gathered in the room, listening to my impromptu performance.

Pushing through the crowd, Gabriel appeared holding Iona's hand. Surprise surfaced in his face, and he seemed unable to liberate a smile. I realized then that either this song caused him pain, or perhaps I did. Maybe it was both.

“
Then who can ask for notes of pleasure. My drooping harp, from chords like thine?
” I sang.

Darwin emerged then. Taking up a stance beside a bookcase, he observed me curiously. Then came Brooke, Fergal, and Ruadhan, along with someone I didn't expect to see: Phelan.

He eyed me quizzically, but there was no disgruntled demeanor to him, not while I sang.

“Alas, the lark's gay morning measure, as ill would suit the swan's decline.”

A stranger hovering next to Phelan began to speak. I didn't try to overhear, but I watched the man's lips shape, forming the words “voice of an Angel.”

Though the bell's chimes had faded some time ago, a new alarm seemed to strike Phelan. As if his copper eyes were two pennies, they seemed to drop.

He knew who I was.

“
Or how shall I, who love, who bless thee
,” I sang, and Gabriel's fingers, intertwined with Iona's, released. He strode toward me. “
Invoke thy breath for freedom's strains
,” I continued, the trill in my voice beginning to resurface.

Standing in my shadow, Gabriel hid me from the crowd. His downturned lips were worried and woeful. He extended his shaking hand to me, and though he stood but a few feet away, his eyes were so absent, so distant, that he couldn't have felt farther away.

I plucked the strings rhythmically, but as I played the notes to the song, the last verse wasn't forthcoming. The lines had utterly escaped me, buried perhaps too deep under this new skin. I tried to find them, squeezing my eyelids closed once more.

As if the swan had pecked me, I withdrew from the harp, startled. “Why can't I remember the last lines? They were yours; you sang them for me,” I said, a quiver in my voice.

The audience remained still and silent, as if I had cast a spell on the room, rendering the guests of the palace frozen. But before Gabriel could answer, a tremendous vibration shook the entire house. Violent, fierce hissing came rushing down the staircase, through the hallway, and spilled over into the room.

And as the heavy chandelier in the hall became unhinged from the cracking plaster of the ceiling, it smashed to the granite flooring, shattering into a million pieces, and the room erupted into hysteria.

“Leave, now!” Gabriel shouted at me.

I stared at him blankly.

“By thought,” he instructed. “Think of the house, and will the light to take you there,” he said speedily, but still I clutched the wooden back of the harp, unmoving.

Iona clumsily fell toward Gabriel's side. “Gabriel, I don't feel right.” Even in my weakened state, I could see she'd become a silhouette of silver. I could only imagine what she would have looked like to me if I weren't nearly drained away.

Gabriel looked back and forth, from Iona to me. Rushing toward us, Fergal and Brooke weaved between the crazed bodies crushing one another to get out of the house.

The clatter of serving trays and glasses breaking against the floors added to the commotion. I could see Phelan through the crowd, removing a gun from his back pocket; I watched him click the catch off the safety. “Get her out of here!” he shouted across the room.

Darwin disappeared from the corner of my eye as he bolted up the staircase.

“I'll go with her,” Brooke said to Gabriel. She was saving me from having to confess that I couldn't travel by thought.

“Wait,” I said, seeing Ruadhan in the back of the crowd and knowing there was then only one member of our group missing. “Jonah's not here. I left him outside a while ago.”