“I’m tired,” I said, my eyes drooping.
“Perhaps now is not the best time for magical lessons,” Gabriel said, putting his cup on the end table and standing up.
I stared up at him stupidly and shook my head to try to jolt some blood back into my brain. “If not now, when? If I go to sleep, I’m just going to get woken up because there’s another crisis, and there won’t be time to teach me anything before the next unknown power manifests itself.”
“You cannot learn anything if you are so tired you can hardly keep your head up.” He put his arms under my body and lifted me easily.
I swatted at him ineffectually. It was too easy to rest my head against his shoulder and close my eyes, especially when he radiated heat like a furnace. He carried me down the hall and into my bedroom and placed me on the bed. The bedcovers were still rumpled and thrown back from the night before.
Gabriel tried to pull away but I grasped his sleeve. “Stay,” I mumbled.
He moved toward the chair that he had used to watch over me the night before.
“No,” I said, my eyes barely slit open. I patted the space next to me. “Stay with me.”
He shook his head. “It is too dangerous for me to be near you.”
“Just stay,” I insisted. “And take off your coat, for crying out loud. I know you’ve got wings under there, so you don’t need to hide them when we’re in the house.”
He smiled at that, and I could see indecision warring in his eyes.
“I just want you to hold me,” I whispered, my eyes fully closed now. I felt myself drifting. “Before they take me away from you forever.”
My eyelids were too heavy to open again, but I heard the soft rustling of cloth, and the thunk of his shoes on the floor. A moment later the bed shifted as he settled his weight behind me.
“Closer,” I demanded sleepily.
“Yes, my lady,” he said, and his body pressed against my back. His right arm hugged me and his face was buried in my hair. There was more rustling and then I felt something fold over my body, soft as down and as warm as the sun.
I fell asleep like that, wrapped in his wings.
When I opened my eyes the digital clock on my night-stand read 11:36 P.M. I didn’t know what time it was when I conked out—I’d stopped looking at my watch after I’d delivered my souls to the Door—but I felt rested and refreshed. And hungry.
I tried to sit up and realized that I was cocooned in Gabriel’s wings, and that I was very, very warm.
“There is no crisis,” Gabriel murmured sleepily. “You can relax.”
I turned in his arms so that I faced him. His eyes were at half-mast, still drowsy with sleep. The last four days had been hard on him, too. He’d been chasing around after me and expending nearly as much magical energy as I had. I stroked my hand down his cheek and felt soft stubble beneath my fingers.
“You need to shave,” I said. “I didn’t think angels would have to worry about hair growth.”
“I am not perfectly immortal, as Lord Azazel is,” he said, his hand coming up to close around mine. “I do age, but very slowly—so slowly that you would not notice the passing of years on me. There is a small strain of human blood in me, from the line of the nephilim.”
His fingers rubbed against mine, and our faces were so close together that I could feel the puff of his warm breath on my skin.
It was easy and natural to move closer, to let our mouths brush together, to pull away and smile, to be happy for this quiet moment together.
Then my stomach rumbled, and Gabriel burst out laughing.
I watched him in delight. He almost never smiled, and when he did it never really seemed like a happy smile. I had heard him laugh only once or twice, but it was magical to hear, a bright and shimmering thing that danced in the air.
His laughter trickled out but he still had a huge grin pasted on his face.
“Pizza,” I said, giving him a quick kiss and climbing out of bed. He shifted his wings so that I could move. “Someone around here must do late-night delivery. And you’re buying. I haven’t actually gotten any rent money from you yet.”
“Ah. That,” Gabriel said, sitting up and letting his wings stretch out. His wingspan was about twelve feet and I had to scurry to the foot of the bed to allow him room.
“ ‘Ah, that’ what?” I said, pushing my feet into my fuzzy slippers.
It had been hours since I’d thought about my clothes, but I looked down and realized I still wore the black skirt, purple button-down shirt and black blazer that I’d put on that morning to appear in my father’s court. The sharp-heeled, knee-high boots that I had worn were crumpled on the floor next to the bed, and they were caked with gore. I didn’t even want to think about cleaning the leather, so I picked them up and tossed them in the kitchen trash. I found the Cubs sweatshirt that I had thrown aside in haste that morning, pulled off the blazer and replaced it with the sweatshirt.
“The rent money.”
“Don’t even tell me that there is no rent money,” I said, panicked. “Because that’s going to be a problem. My income has not been too stable for the last few months.”
He finished stretching and folded his wings behind him again. The chilliness of the room didn’t seem to affect him. He padded around the bed in bare feet, black trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and followed me into the kitchen as I began searching through the stack of takeout menus that I had clipped to the refrigerator.
“There is no rent money ...” he began.
“What?” I shouted, turning to him.
He held his hands up. “Peace. There is no rent money, because now that Azazel has acknowledged you as his daughter he is able to give you the legacy he has been saving for the last thirty-two years.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What legacy?”
“Lord Azazel is a very wealthy man. And also a prompt one. If you check your bank balance, I am sure that you will see he has given some of the legacy to you already.”
I couldn’t let that pass without investigation. I marched to my laptop, booted up and logged on to my Internet banking website. When I saw the figures for my checking and savings accounts, all the blood rushed out of my face.
“I’ve never seen that much money in one place in my whole life,” I said. “Well, maybe in news items about government spending.”
“And I am certain that it is only part of what you will receive. There are bound to be investments in various forms, scattered here and there. Lord Azazel will no doubt apprise you of these soon.” He smiled at my look of shock.
My heart did a little jig. No more worries, no more scraping to get by. Then I sobered, remembering what else had happened that day.
“I don’t think he’ll have to apprise me of anything,” I said, “seeing as I’m going to be given to Focalor.”
The smile faded from Gabriel’s face. “Yes. Of course. I had forgotten.”
“Me, too,” I said. My appetite was suddenly gone. At this rate I’d lose the extra fifteen pounds I was carrying in no time. It’s the My Daddy Was a Fallen Angel diet!
Antares. I couldn’t believe that I had ever thought I wanted a brother when I was kid. My only sibling had been a giant pain in the behind from the moment he kicked me down the front porch stairs until I snuffed his life out.
My stomach rumbled. Okay, maybe my appetite wasn’t completely gone.
“Let’s have pizza.” I thought that there was a strong possibility that this could be my last good meal on Earth. “And wings. And maybe cheesecake. I’m buying.”
