Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series (8 page)

     Cold wind burned my face and made
my eyes water.  I clamped my lips shut against the scream I felt climbing
into my throat.  I had to be dreaming; no way in hell was any of this
possible.  We were not just chased by a crazed demon/angel.  My
stalker didn’t just break out an enormous pair of black wings.  We
definitely weren’t flying several miles above the small town I’d lived in all
my life.  And yet…my stomach dropped into my shoes when he took off with
me.  I was terrified of heights and his arms were all that kept me from
falling to certain death.  I promised myself a nice mental breakdown if I
lived through it.  In the very least, a nap.  And chocolate.  Definitely, some
chocolate.

     It was frigid up there in the night
sky, but the man holding me was putting out heat like a bonfire. It was almost
enough to keep me from freezing to death.  This had to be a dream. 
Yet I smelled that incredible scent of spiced leather everywhere now.  I
could feel the muscles of his broad back moving in time to those enormous dark
wings. I could even taste the blood from the inside of my cheek; I’d bitten it
to stop myself from screaming.  If it was a dream it was incredibly
realistic, and I really doubted my tired mind would put so much energy into an
anxiety dream.

     Was the other guy following
us?  If he was, would he be able to catch us?  Was Alex going to be
ok?  My mind raced along, a thousand miles a minute.  I felt it when
he started to descend and white terror seized me.  We fell out of the sky
at an incredible rate of speed.  Peeing on myself seemed likely, but not
very dignified.  I took one tiny peek at the ground coming up to meet us
and nearly threw up all over what was left of his shredded, black
t-shirt.  I realized that it really didn’t matter if the psycho chasing us
found us or not. We were about to be flattened like pancakes anyway. 
Strong arms tightened around me just as I started to panic.  A sense of
calm overtook me.  Was he doing that?  Calming me down?  Hell,
we were flying; I was willing to believe anything, at that point.

     Death was imminent, and then
suddenly, it wasn’t.  We stopped just short of impact with the ground; the
giant wings held strong and steady against the cold wind buffeting us.  I
had no idea how long we’d been airborne, but the landing was flawless, and as
gentle as it could be.

     I felt grass beneath my feet, and
still I held onto him.  I’m pretty sure it was just because I was still
terrified and all my muscles had locked in place.  Of course it was. “You
are safe, girl.  Open your eyes.” His accented voice was deep and dark and
smooth like chocolate.  I mentally cringed at that thought.  I’d been
reading way too many gothic romances lately.

    “Izzy.  My name’s Izzy.” I
sounded breathless.  It took some effort to stop my teeth chattering from cold
and fear. I peeled myself off of him and took a step back, looked around. 
We were in my own backyard.  “Am I imagining this?  Are you
real?”  The wings were gone, hidden away to wherever they went when he
didn’t need them, I guessed.  Neat trick; it must come in handy.  You
know, for when he wanted to pass for
human
.

     He grinned at me and my heart did a
little leap into my throat.  Stupid, I know, but I was having a bad night,
so sue me.  “You are not imagining this.  I am Ashrael.  You may
call me Asher.” Then he made this strange, formal sort of bow in my
direction.  Somehow he pulled that off without making it look at all
awkward.  Asher.  Got it.

     “Will the crazy guy follow us
here?”  I didn’t know if my dad was home yet, but I really didn’t want to
explain a half-naked guy hanging around our property at odd hours of the
night.  Much less have some psycho try to kill us all if he followed us
home.

     “Come inside, you are
freezing.”  He started to reach for my hand, but seemed to think better of
it and pulled away.  Instead, he made an elegant gesture with his hand,
urging me to move along.  “You have questions.  I have
answers.”  I followed him up my back steps.  I found the fake rock in
the planter by the door that hid the spare house key, and let us in. 

     “My dad…”

     “He is not at home.  He will
never know I was ever here.”  I followed him into the kitchen. I walked
ahead of him and sat numbly in the hard kitchen chair he pulled out for
me.  I watched as he went into the laundry room and came out with a
blanket I’d just washed earlier that afternoon.  Fuzzy, and lavender
colored, it was my favorite.  He draped it carefully over my
shoulders.  I could feel my eyebrows creeping towards my hairline. 
If I survived the night without a mental breakdown, some type of medication
might be in order.  Strong medication.

     Asher ran a hand through his blonde
hair and looked everywhere but at me.  He seemed to be at a loss for where
to start, once he had me settled in.  Nervous, much? Well, that ruled out
him killing and cooking me.  I couldn’t imagine a serial killer being
nervous around his intended victim, but he’d obviously been inside my house
before, without anyone the wiser.  Creepy thought.  Hell, the guy could
sprout wings at will, and I was worried about a little breaking and
entering?  Technically, it was just entering since he knew where the key
was.  Oh yeah, cracking up was a real possibility for me.

     I watched as he got the Swiss Miss
out of the cabinet along with some milk from the fridge and a mug from the
dishwasher.  He was making hot chocolate?  I cleared my throat. 
“Seriously?”

     He quirked an eyebrow in my
direction.  “I thought you might be in light shock.  The hot
chocolate will help to warm you up.”  Now that he mentioned it, I realized
that I was still about half-frozen.  I would have chalked it up to nerves,
but I think I was still frozen from being miles above anything, earlier. 
On the other hand, he may have been right; shock wasn’t completely out of the
question.

     I stood up with my blanket still
wrapped around me and went into the laundry room.  I rooted around in the
dryer till I found one of my dad’s old t-shirts.  It was soft and grey and
still smelled of fabric softener.  Much better than the shredded shirt
that barely clung to him.  He flashed too much skin for me to concentrate
on a normal conversation, and this conversation was bound to be anything but
normal. 

     The microwave dinged as I went back
into the kitchen. He pulled the mug out and set it on the table for me.  I
noticed as I handed him the shirt that I only came up to his chin.  Ok,
collar bones.  Either way, if he wanted to kill me it shouldn’t be much of a
problem for him.  “Here, this is gonna be small on you, but it’s better
than what you have, now.” 

     “Thank you.”  He very
carefully avoided touching my hand as he took it.  He turned around as he
pulled the tattered shirt over his head.  I started to turn around too,
but I couldn’t help it; I peeked.  Smooth muscles rippled along his back
as he moved, but I couldn’t see any sign of the wings anywhere, just two long
scars that followed the contours of his back.  My cheeks were flaming hot
by the time he pulled my dad’s t-shirt on.  It was way too tight on him.
It left nothing to the imagination.  Damn I needed to focus. Or a cold
shower.  Gwen would be laughing her ass off at me, if she were here. 
She would also probably proposition him.  Good thing Gwen wasn’t around.

     “Ok, so first things first.
What
, was the guy trying
to catch us?  Why was he trying to catch us? And is he going to bust down
the door at any minute?”  Well, that was tactful.  I gripped the mug
of cocoa in a still trembling hand and sat back down in the hard kitchen chair
as I watched him toss the remains of his shirt in our trash can.

     Asher started to pace.  Our
little kitchen was barely able to contain him.  He started to speak a few
times, but didn’t seem to know how to start.  I was almost afraid to hear
whatever he might say, but in the back of my mind I was still hoping this was
some kind of weird, lucid dream that I was having.

     He stopped suddenly, and leaned up
against the kitchen sink.  “I apologize to you.  The fault lies with
me.”  Hunh?  What was that supposed to mean?

     “How is any of this your
fault?  And back to my original question about the nut-job; will he come
here?”  My throat tightened, imagining what might have happened if he
hadn’t found me in time.  Found me; probably stalked me, if I were being
more accurate.  Ah, who cared?  He’d saved me from certain death.

     He shook his head, the highlights
in his hair glinted under the overhead lights.  Good lord, but he was just
so pretty, in a thoroughly manly sort of way. His hair was an awesome shade of
pale gold that you hardly ever see, and his eyes were deep and dark; they
seemed to change shades of grey, depending on his mood. I really needed to get
my head out of my own ass, and focus.  I could be murdered at any moment,
and all I could think about was the exact color of grey his eyes were? I
sighed, thoroughly disgusted with myself. 

     “Samael will not come here. 
You are safe.”  He watched the spot above my head instead of looking me in
the eyes.  Withholding information, maybe?  It was just as
well.  I felt myself blushing to the roots of my hair.  I would have
died on the spot if he’d caught me staring at his mouth.

     “Samael?  Who is he?”

     That brought serious, steel grey
eyes to bear on mine.  He looked almost pained.  “Samael is the Grim
Reaper.”  Either he was crazy or convinced, but he wasn’t joking. 
Just my luck; he was absolutely gorgeous and bat-shit crazy.

    Oh, shit, I burned my tongue on the cocoa
and came up coughing.  He was at my side in an instant, rubbing my back, trying
to soothe me.  The cough turned to giggles, then to a full-blown fit of
laughter.  My guest looked horrified.  “Why are you laughing?” 
Clearly he thought I’d gone mental.

     “Cause that’s just funny as
hell.  If you’ve got to have someone wanting to kill you, it should be a
professional.”  I think I even snorted a little bit.  My nose was
running, but I wasn’t sure if it was from laughing so hard, or because I’d
burned the roof of my mouth along with my tongue, and everything else. 
“Sorry, I’m ok, just having a hard time getting my head around this. 
Continue, please.  Any idea why the Grim Reaper wants to kill me?  Of
course, it’s his job to kill everybody I guess, so that actually makes perfect
sense.”  I caught myself rambling.  Ahem.  I drew a steadying
breath, and put the dangerous mug of cocoa down before I hurt myself
again.  “You might want to start from the very beginning.  I’m not up
for mental gymnastics right now, so speak slowly and use small words.” 

     Asher looked like he wanted to back
slowly out the door and run like hell.  So I worried the big, scary dude
with the ginormous dark wings? I promised myself I’d keep my mouth shut,
and let him explain; for as long as I could stand it.

     He pulled a chair out across from
me, and sat.  It groaned under his weight, so chances were pretty good he
wasn’t a hallucination.  “I was there at your wreck.”  I nodded for
him to go on.  I remembered him there, although I’d been thinking this
whole time that he was a figment of my overactive imagination.  “You were
dying, but it was not your time.”  That sent a cold chill down my
spine.  I’d known it was close, but I didn’t know it was that close. 
Hearing him say it out loud like that gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my
stomach.

     Again I nodded, tried to smile for
encouragement. He ran his hand through his hair; a nervous tell, if ever I’d
seen one.  Whatever he was about to say, he didn’t want to tell me. 
“I did something to you, to stop your passing.”  Earnest grey eyes met
mine, and I felt myself forgiving him instantly for whatever it was.  How
bad could it be?  He’d saved my life.

     He drew a deep breath, looked down
at his hands.  “What I did, it changed you.”  He looked up, straight
into my eyes, and pinned me to the spot.  “It is
still
changing
you.”  Well, that didn’t sound too promising.

     Cold fear washed through me.
“Asher, what did you do?”  It came out as a whisper, barely above a
breath.

     “I gave you blood, Isabel.  My
blood.”  I sat back in my chair a little, because I found that I’d been
leaning toward him that whole time. Blood.  That didn’t sound too bad.
 Maybe I was overreacting. People get blood at hospitals all of the
time.  Seemed reasonable enough…

     Then the voice of reason in the back
of my mind started shouting at the top of her lungs.  Did I really believe
any of this?  The Grim Reaper?  Seriously?  I’d never claimed to
be religious. I always thought of myself as unaffiliated. I had a nodding
acquaintance with the Bible, but my dad and I never went to church.  I
sure never thought of Death as being embodied by an actual person, or angel, or
whatever.  I wasn’t even sure I believed in Heaven or Hell.  Now,
here I was, with a really big problem; and he wasn’t going away anytime soon,
from the looks of it.

     Yet, the healing I couldn’t
explain?  The increased speed I’d experienced?  The extra
strength?  “So you’re what?  My guardian angel?”  Oh shit, oh
shit, oh shit.  I was crazier than a bedbug, if I believed this. 
Maybe even crazier than he was.

     He looked relieved, like I’d given
him something to hang onto.  “Something like that.  I am a type of
angel, yes.” A living, breathing angel in my kitchen.  A hot one, no less.
Color me surprised.  My grandma, rest her soul, would have been having a
fit of the vapors right about now.  Grandma loved to be right.  About
everything.  And here I had proof that she’d been right about at least
some part of the Bible.  I had an angel in my kitchen.  Ok, focus, Izzy. 
Worry about that nervous breakdown later.