“Surcy?” Concern caused little wrinkles to gather at the corners of his eyes. “Are you feeling better?
Stop staring and answer him.
“Much better,” she answered.
“I’ve built a fire in the living room, if you’d like to join us." Even though she was wearing sweatpants, a shirt, and a sweater, she was still cold. The hot bath chased away the worst of it, but curling up before the fire sounded perfect.
“That would be great.” But before she went, she tucked the black feather beneath her pillow. Just in case.
He led her through the hall, but she stopped dead when she spotted the photos on the wall for the first time. The wall held framed pictures of her and the three men who had rescued her. Sometimes she was kissing them—each of them—and sometimes they were holding her. No matter the context, in all of the pictures they were laughing. The pictures made it seem that the four of them were together... romantically.
“Surcy—“ he turned and stopped silent.
“What, what is this? We’re together?” she asked, her head spinning.
After a long, painful second, he nodded.
Yet, there’s nothing in my mind. No memories. No instinct that this is who I am. The realization turned her gut. “I want to know everything you can tell me about myself.”
He looked uncertain. “You’ve only just come back, are you sure—”
“Of course… I have to know.”
Perhaps they can even tell me why I lost my wings? The thought made the scars, where her wings once sprouted, give a painful twist. The corners of her eyes stung with unshed tears, but she pushed her sadness away. Focus on learning how you lost them, so you can get them back.
And so, he led her into the living room where the other two men waited. They sat on a couch before a fire, holding mugs of coffee, and looking remarkably uncomfortable.
It’s strange. I don’t even remember their names.
She settled on the rug before the blazing fire and took a blanket from the couch, pulling it around herself. She stared at the two men, who watched her silently, trying to act normal in a situation that was completely abnormal.
Mark returned with two mugs of steaming coffee in his hands and gave her one, before sitting on the floor next to her.
He looked at the other two men. “She wants us to help fill in her memories.”
The man with blonde hair and dark eyes spoke first. “Not a chance.”
His angry tone drew her gaze to him. This man hummed with an unspoken power, as if he were accustom to commanding every room he entered. He had the build of a well-disciplined swimmer and eyes the color of chocolate. Something about his gaze told her that he judged everyone and everything in his world and found it lacking.
I’m not sure I like him.
“That’s Daniel,” Mark told her. “You love him, despite the fact that he’s a pain in the ass.”
Do I?
Daniel looked away, but she caught the flash of hurt in his eyes. “We can’t just fill her in on everything. It’ll be too much for her right now.”
She stiffened. “I can handle it.”
His angry gaze swung to her. “You were just dropped from Zudessa. Your wings were torn off. You need time to get to know us, or the truth will be too much for you.”
Zudessa. The word blossomed within her mind. A distinct memory came back to her. Of the day she died. There was nothing of her human life, but she remembered awakening in Zudessa and meeting Caine, The Judge. He had looked at her with his black, soulless eyes, and his judgment began. She’d felt it inside her, a cold, violating feeling, like fingers prying apart every moment of her life.
When he’d finished, she was weeping, frightened to her core. He had announced that she would be an angel, a defender of the realms. She would keep the peace by ensuring that those who deserved punishment would remain in The Eternal Darkness, the demon realm, forever.
“Do you hurt?” a deep voice whispered.
Her back gave a horrible throb of pain. Becoming an angel was painful. But so was becoming… actually, she didn’t know what she was now. She couldn’t fly, but did she have her other powers? Was she human? Or something else?
“It,” she struggled for the right response, “doesn’t hurt too badly.”
The deep voice spoke again. “Yes it does.”
Am I that transparent? Or do these men just know me that well?
“And that’s Tristan.”
She had tried to avoid looking at the other man, but at last she was forced to. He stared back at her, his expression unreadable. Tristan was a mountain of man, with long dark hair and mismatched eyes, one blue and one green. There was something breathtaking about him. Unlike Daniel, who oozed disdain, this man radiated nothing, as if his emotions and thoughts were locked up tight somewhere no one could see.
He made her uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t identify. It wasn’t just that his massive size and chiseled good looks gave him a dangerous, inhuman quality; it was that his gaze always seemed to focus on her. He said little, but she could feel his stare.
Who are you? She thought, tearing her gaze away from him.
She took a sip of the coffee, wondering how best to approach these men. Cautiously. “Were we together before my death? Before I became an angel?”
Daniel tilted his head and leaned back in his chair, crossing his ankles in front of him in a strangely arrogant way. “Sorry, babe. As nice a story as that would be, it didn’t happen that way. In fact, when you fell in love with us, we were demons and you were an angel.”
Her coffee dropped from her fingertips and onto the carpeted floor. “You guys
