Page 29 of Reaper Unhinged
Uriel took several steps toward the drakes. They blew smoke from their nostrils, clearly agitated by his proximity. They pawed at the ground harder, as if urging him to come closer, to get into range so they could attack.
“Uriel?” I laced my fingers through his before tugging him away from the drakes and toward me. “Hey, look at me.”
He tore his gaze away from the drakes and dropped it to our joined hands before raising it to my face.
His mouth parted as if he wanted to speak, but then he closed his eyes and took a breath. “I’m fine.”
No, he wasn’t. He’d been mutilated, and he hadn’t grieved. He’d picked himself up and gotten on with it. He’d acted like it didn’t matter, but it fucking did. His wings were a part of him. They were a part of who he was.
I placed my palm on his cheek. “It’s okay to grieve the loss of your wings. It’s okay to be angry and want to hurt the celestials who did this to you. It’s okay to rage.”
He covered my hand with his. “No, Fee. It isn’t, because if I allow myself tofeelany of that, I’m afraid I’ll fall apart.”
I stepped closer. “You’re allowed to fall apart, Uriel, because I’ll be there to put you back together when you do.”
He opened his eyes and seared me with his ember gaze. The pupils dilated, drawing me in and eliciting a tugging inside my chest.
“Thank you,” he said.
I dropped my hand from his cheek with a smile. “But let’s wait tillafterwe get that power source.”
He let out a surprised chuckle that warmed my heart. I gave his hand a squeeze and released him.
“Fee?”
My heartbeat accelerated. There was no mistaking that voice.
I turned to see Azazel standing in the Den doorway. To anyone else, he may have looked huge and forbidding backlit by amber light, but to me, he was anything but. To me, he was my heart.
He held out his arms, and I flew into them. He lifted me off my feet, crushing me to him, one palm cupping the back of my head and the bar of his other arm around my waist.
I was peripherally aware of Uriel slipping past us into the Den, but I was enraptured by my soulmate, by the connection that thrummed between us, reminding us how irrevocably we were linked.
Azazel’s gaze was hungry, devouring my features as if seeing them for the first time, and then he kissed me, claiming my lips with expert passion that made my heart swell and my core melt.
I sank my fingers into his hair and savored the shape of his lips and the taste of bitter ale on his tongue. He was mine, and I was drowning in him, desperate to be swept away. Azazel groaned into my mouth, deepening the kiss for a delicious moment of abandon that made my head spin and my body clench in anticipation of more. But then he pulled back, breaking the kiss with a soft curse. His lips skated down my neck, and his tongue flicked out to taste me.
“Do you need to feed?” My voice was a rasp.
He shook his head. “I’m fine.” His chest heaved as he pressed his forehead to mine. “I fucking missed you.”
I blinked back tears. “I missed you more.”
He set me down almost reluctantly, but he didn’t let go of me.
I pressed a kiss to his hard jaw. “Where’s Mal?”
“Inside,” Azazel said. “Sulking because I beat him at rock paper scissors and the right to greet you first.”
“I don’t sulk.” Mal stepped out into the night to join us. “I get even.” He grinned at me, lopsided and totally Mal.
He looked too good in his travel clothes of soft leather and dark cloak. His hair was ruffled and fell across his forehead in a roguish manner, and his emerald eyes were sharp and intensely fixed on me.
“My turn,” he said. Azazel kissed the top of my head and released me. “I’ll order us some food. Five minutes.” He shot Mal a warning glare as he went past.
“Uriel’s at the bar with Keon,” Mal called out without taking his eyes off me.
It was like being in a predator’s sights. It was like the air was being slowly sucked out of my lungs. There would have been a time I would have been tempted to back up. To put distance between us, but not any longer. Instead, I canted my head coquettishly and crooked my finger, beckoning him to hurry up.
