Page 99 of Touch

“Anger!” the goddess with amethyst hair shouts. “Forget the bitch’s fucking wounds and grab her!”

It’s been too long. It’s too cold.

Has Andrew’s heart faded? Has it stopped beating?

A resilient voice breaks through the storm. “Love.”

She jolts, her attention dropping to Andrew’s ashen face. She knows those features like she knows The Stars. His eyes devour her, then narrow at the deities and the five deadly arrows poised in his direction. His irises blaze, misinterpret, and conclude. Love opens her mouth to assure him they won’t fire, not with her in the way. She won’t let them.

But Andrew is faster. With a growl, he surges to his knees, seizes Love by the waist, and hauls her out of the way.

Love staggers and tumbles into Anger’s arms. The second he catches her, she shrieks and vaults forward, her arms and legs flailing against the god’s grip.

“Stop!” she bellows. “Please, stop!”

Desperate, she buries her incisors into Anger’s hand, but the motherfucker only grunts. Then he stumbles under the impact of Wonder’s elbow ramming into his skull, The Court too focused on Andrew to notice.

With a snarl, Anger stumbles and loses his grasp on Love. She crashes to the ground and lands beside her longbow.

“Draw!” the god with braids shouts.

The Court pulls their bowstrings taut. Andrew roars, snatches his own bow off the ground, and nocks it while launching in front of Love, blocking her with his body.

One arrow surges forth. At the same time, Andrew looses his weapon, the projectile cracking against the other, splitting the immortal arrow in half and slicing a path across the goddess’s pale throat.

Sparks of light flare through the squall. Blood spritzes the air. On a shriek, the deity buckles, crashing to her knees and clasping the gash in the side of her neck.

Andrew hadn’t impaled her, but only because the shot had been swift. He hadn’t had enough time to aim. Based on the protective noise erupting from his lungs, this mercy hadn’t been intentional. For Love’s sake, he’d shown no benevolence.

Momentary shock dominates the sovereign’s features, as well as Love’s crew. To see one of their own toppled by a human is no small phenomenon. Rarer still is the concept of an inferior weapon besting one belonging to a deity.

The Court recuperates. Fury and umbrage contort their faces, and they draw once more.

No. Not him!

Something mercenary rises from the pit of Love’s womb. The volcanic sensation crackles like flames, searing a wrathful path across her flesh, from her curled fingers to her shoulder blades. Under layers of skin and bone, a set of plumes tighten like springs.

Arrows eject toward Andrew, too many for human archery to deflect at once. Yet with swift motions, he nocks his weapon and glares down the shaft. His fingers flex, about to release.

A thunderous sound rips from Love’s mouth. Her flesh tears open like stitches, muscles stretching in a way that has been compacted for eons.

Two shapes cut into Andrew’s line of sight. They flap in front of him like shields, fringed shingles of black intercepting the spray of celestial weapons. Each arrow strikes the dark surface and fragments into stardust.

Everyone pauses. All but Love, who crouches on all fours before Andrew, her wings braced upright, screening him from harm. The panels splay wide and high, grazing the treetops, tiers of plumage bristling.

A second later, Love recognizes what she’s done. At some point, she’d leaped to the ground and flung her wings upward to obstruct the arrows. With her palms flattening the snow, she digs her fingernails into the frost like talons. While aiming a predatory glare at The Court, she feels the dark red of her eyes brightening like fresh blood.

A low, feral snarl rolls from her lungs. “Touch him and die.”

Awe renders every deity immobile. Anger, Wonder, Sorrow, and Envy stare with slack jaws. They have not seen the wings since she was first assigned to the mortal world. Perhaps they’ve forgotten or have been humoring Love, pretending the wings don’t exist.

Love cannot blame them. For she has been doing the same thing.

Muscles, sinew, and joints unfold from their crimped positions. The wingspan branches out, plumes fanning on either side of her, impervious to the furious wind.

Slowly, she gains her feet. The wings flap once, thrusting a gale toward her enemies, nearly blowing them off their feet.

A sharp intake reaches her ears. She twists her head over one shoulder, to where Andrew’s riveted gaze traces every inchof the wings. With the archery stalled in his grip, his eyes dash across the panels with reverence and pride, then cut to Love.

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