Page 100 of Touch

The silent question consumes his features.Why the fuck did you ever keep them hidden?

She gives him a raw, unfiltered look.Because they made me different from everyone.

From humans. From deities.

Winged fauna have siblings, flocks, mates with the same trait. But not Love. No one in either realm looks like her. For too long, she has renounced this part of herself.

Yet not anymore. In his eyes, in her heart, she understands. The wings are a part of Love, mighty to behold, and weapons in their own right.

Andrew’s mouth tips into a mutinous grin.Fly and conquer, Little Myth,he mouths.

Indeed. Love swerves toward the rulers, just as Andrew aligns himself with her.

He draws back his arrow, prompting the rulers to hiss and arm themselves. As he looses his weapon, Love catapults into the sky. Her wings slice through the storm, rocketing through the firing squad of arrows. Her plumes thwart the projectiles, while Andrew’s archery fends off the rest.

It takes a precious moment to recall the mechanics of flight. Then the memory returns to Love, as if it never abandoned her.

Shooting around the boughs, she loops downward. Snatching one of the whizzing arrows in her fist, Love slashes its point across the spine of the goddess with amethyst hair. The female screams, crimson spurting from her wound.

“Love!” Wonder hollers, kicking one of Love’s discarded arrows across the snow.

Amid the flurries, the iron shaft cleaves a path to her, and Love nosedives for the weapon. Meanwhile, Wonder catchesEnvy and Sorrow’s eyes, issuing an unspoken plea, to which the pair trades glances.

With a shrug, Sorrow says, “I will if you will.”

Envy smirks and replies, “Why the fuck not?”

The next moments swirl into a dream, taking forever and an instant. From behind, the archers brace their bows and let loose on The Court, intercepting another squadron of arrows headed for Andrew. More flashes of light slice through the tempest, these ones harsher and brighter upon collision.

Treachery contorts the ruler’s expressions. They swing their weapons toward Envy and Sorrow. All but the god with slanted brows, who charges at Andrew.

Combatants explode into motion. Wonder screeches and targets the monarchs, her quartz arrow glinting, lancing three arrows and splintering them into fragments. Lastly, the weapon’s head lodges into the god with braids, and the male howls, a stream of crimson bursting from his side.

Envy and Sorrow eject their weapons against the remaining goddesses. Arrows fly, blood splatters the snow, and voices tear through the landscape.

Envy pivots while letting loose a sequence of arrows. Sorrow reels her spine backward, bending her upper body horizontally to dodge a projectile, then twisting and releasing her arrow. Wonder spins from an onslaught of weapons and nocks her bow.

Anger growls and clenches his longbow, his arrows cleaving the air. Like Andrew, he guards Love from the opposite side, both of them shooting anyone who targets her in the sky.

The battle rages on. The cloaked god with the slanted brows ignores the commotion and homes in on Andrew.

Human momentum does not compare with immortal speed. Yet the god has forgotten that letting emotions get the better of a deity doesn’t serve them during war. Nor does hubris.

None of these monarchs anticipate a worthy challenge from a human. In their arrogance, they underestimate him once again.

The god fights with a temper. Therefore, he fights clumsily.

Andrew seizes that advantage. Faintly, Love wonders if he’s written scenes like this one, for he moves like a storyteller. Someone in control, who knows what’s coming.

While shielding Love’s airborne silhouette, he foresees the attack, his arrow impaling the god’s right pectoral. Bellowing in pain, the deity catapults forward, his mighty fist meeting air as Andrew loops out of the way, then slices the tip of another arrow across the warrior’s cheek. Clasping his wound, the affronted deity gnashes his teeth and leaps at the mortal. The males sidestep and shoot at one another, Andrew refusing to move out of Love’s path.

Her flesh is growing numb, the iron is unwieldy, and the gales obscure visibility. And while she remembers how to fly, Love’s wings are out of practice, and she’d depleted herself when the wings broke free. Therefore, the plumage falter upon descent.

Refusing to let that dissuade her, Love summons the last vestiges of willpower. Her strength may be weakening, but she hasn’t lost her aim. Thus, another kind of blizzard surges through her veins, granting her one final streak of energy.

She locates her bow amid the tempest, plunges, and steals her beloved archery off the ground. Soaring back upward and windmilling the lone arrow between her stiff fingers, she nocks it to the bow. The pale goddess catches the movement, recovering long enough from her throat injury to target Love.

Hissing, Andrew fires at the female. Fuming, Anger does the same.

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