He inched closer to her. For some reason, he wasn’t afraid. Her words rang true down to his very soul. This is what the water had wanted from him all along. This is what his dreams had meant.
Her beautiful face curled into the saddest smile. “I’m sorry for the heartbreak this will cause. I’m sorry for how you will suffer. But Lachey, my sister, told me, long before her disappearance, that you will be rewarded in the end with the most precious thing in this world: love.”
Mark stared, unsure what to say.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The waters rose up like a hand and grasped him, dragging him down. He was trapped beneath the water, struggling for his life. For the first time, he knew real terror as bubbles of air left his mouth.
But there, before him, a necklace lifted up from the waters. It glowed softly, with an ancient magic. And the stone in the center glistened. It moved to encircle his neck, dropping onto him with a weight that surprised him.
He expected to escape the waters then, but he remained. Struggling, drowning, in fear for his life, until everything went black.
When he awoke, his people stood around him, the boy soaking wet beside a pool destined for Immortals. The pool would have killed any other creature, yet he was alive.
He tried to tell them, to show them, but none of them could see the necklace. He spoke of the Fate and his role in the future. He tried to convince them of what he knew.
The people drew away from him in fear, but he couldn’t stop sharing the message from the Fate. Days passed. Weeks passed.
At last, he was brought before the elders, before his father, to learn his fate.
They’d determined that he’d lost his mind. That he’d never fallen into the sacred waters. That he had no necklace, and no destiny.
And that he also no longer had a place amongst them.
When his father took Mark’s staff, Mark didn’t know what to expect. A staff was like a druid’s soul, carved for them at their birth. It grew as they grew, and it became more powerful as they did.
So as he stared at his father with the innocent eyes of a child, he didn’t know what to expect. When his father cracked his staff over his leg, the sound echoed through his very soul. He screamed and collapsed onto his knees, clawing at his chest until blood ran down his flesh.
When he lay upon the ground, scared in a way that no one could ever understand, the elders lifted him, while his father explained his exile. They carried him out of the sacred sanctuary, beyond the barrier that safeguarded their protected lands, and they dumped him beside a road.
None of them looked back as he called their names and wept.
Instead, he was a child alone in a world he didn’t understand, with the weight of the world around his neck.
Right then, he didn’t think about how he would find the Immortals or how he would defeat Caine. He only cried and begged for his father. Because even with such responsibility, he was just a boy.
2
Surcy stretched out her arms and legs, feeling the sun on her face and the wind in her hair. Her hands reached out further and further. For one glorious moment, she felt like she was flying. She even imagined her wings stretching out behind her. And it was… beautiful. Perfect.
But those aren’t my wings. Just hard concrete.
Her eyes opened, and she felt the building beneath her back. Of course she wasn’t flying. She was an angel with no wings.
Tears tracked down her cheeks. Lying on the roof was the closest that she came to feeling like an angel again. And it was just pathetic.
Why can’t I stop? Why can’t I just accept that I’ll never be the same again?
A tingle ran down her spine. Her gaze moved and connected with Tristan’s. He sat on the edge of their home like he was truly a gargoyle, made of stone, even in his human form. His mismatched eyes held a wealth of emotion for one painful moment, before he closed them. When he opened them once more, he was devoid of all emotion.
Gargoyles are far too good at hiding the way they feel.
And too quiet.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, wiping away her tears.
He rose out of his crouch, still standing on the edge of the building. In the early morning sun, he was like a god. He was tall and muscular, huge in a way that only a gargoyle or a demon could be. His long dark hair hung loosely around his shoulders, and his stance was that of a protector.
A quiver ran through her body. She wanted this man, even though he was a demon. And yet, neither Tristan nor Mark would touch her yet. She wasn’t sure if they were waiting to see if her memories would return, or if they were still worried that she was too fragile, but it drove her mad.
He leapt down from the edge of the building and came close to her, until his shadow blocked out the sun. “If you would like, I can take you flying.”
His words hurt something deep inside her. She didn’t want him to take her into the sky. She wanted her own wings.
“No, thanks.”
He cocked his head. “You miss it. You lay up here each morning pretending to fly. Why not let me help?”
It took her a second to answer. “It’s not the same.”
He nodded, then knelt down beside her. “What can I do for you?”
Her throat went dry. When she and Daniel fucked, she felt… alive for a little while, but the feeling didn’t last. She didn’t understand why. He’d told her that it had changed her in some profound way before, and she wanted that now more than anything. If she
