I HUNCHED OVER HIS lifeless body. The house started to shake as lights flickered around us.
Ethan held up his hand for us to be quiet as the shaking continued. Lamps fell off of the tables, pictures dropped to the floor.
And then… everything suddenly froze.
As if time was stopped.
The atmosphere was a mixture of complete silence and an eerie ringing in my ears.
A huge gasp emitted from Cassius as he opened his eyes and locked onto me. They were a silvery white, different yet the same.
“It worked!” I kissed his mouth then wrapped my arms around his neck, unable to help myself. I’d almost lost him. Tears streamed down my face.
“Um, Stephanie.” Ethan coughed.
I kept choking the life out of Cassius as I hugged him.
“Stephanie.” Ethan said my name again, this time more urgent, as his strong hand landed on my
shoulder in an effort to jerk me away.
“What?”
His eyes widened as he nodded toward Cassius. I pulled back just enough to see a purple feather greet me, followed by a few hundred more. Stumbling back onto my butt, I let out a gasp of surprise as purple wings spread twelve feet across Cassius’s back, poking into the couch and kissing the fireplace.
Cassius’s chest heaved with an over exaggerated inhalation as he fluidly rose to his feet.
The atmosphere remained timeless, serene, as he glanced around the room then into each and every one of our faces and whispered, “Sariel has passed on.”
“No shit, did you eat him?” Alex grumbled earning an elbow from Mason.
Cassius hung his head as his body trembled. Purple feathers shuddered in unison with him as if mourning the loss of the soul they’d once been united with, and then all at once the feathers released a purple mist.
“Even the feathers weep of his absence,” Ethan said in a grave voice sliding his hand behind Genesis back and quietly escorting her out of the room. Alex and Mason followed, maybe they too sensed the stillness in the air, the absolute paralysis of the cells around us as if they too were confused on what course of action to take. After all, what was the protocol when a Dark One suddenly sprouted wings out of his back? And not black, ripped up wings, but true wings, the ones of his father, an archangel.
I stayed glued to the floor as Cassius hovered near me. Was it possible for him to be more beautiful than before? It must be, because he was, his strong jaw was smooth, cut perfectly across a flawless face. Sensual lips curved downward into a scowl as his wings slowly retracted back toward his body then disappeared altogether.
“What happened?” I asked, slowly rising to my feet and making my way toward his shivering body. He might look gorgeous but he also carried an air that he’d just undergone the most traumatic experience of his life.
“Everything,” Cassius whispered. “And yet, nothing I shouldn’t have seen.” His eyes flashed. “I should have seen it. I should have seen all of it, but he was always so vague.” Cassius’s shoulders rose and fell with each laborious breath he took. “It was a future that was too closely tied to mine.”
I pressed my hand to his shoulder, he reached out and caressed my fingertips, his skin was smoother than before, as if it was brand new, barely created a second ago and placed on his body.
“A life for a life,” he said in a low tone.
“And the life taken?”
“Offered. He offered his life, and everything, all of his power and his job, fell to me.”
“More heaviness,” I guessed as Cassius shared a look with me and in that look I saw everything, Sariel offering himself up, the child I’d recognized in the dream, trees, the thrones, and all of the angels.
“When you stabbed me, I didn’t know what I was doing, just tried to give you as much power as I could, I knew you were running into danger. I had no idea that by doing that, I was condemning myself to death.”
“I wanted to help,” I said in a small voice. “It’s my fault he’s dead, if I hadn’t run off—”
“There were several futures, Stephanie.” He cupped my face with his hand. “Believe me when I say, this was the best one, the one—now that I know Sariel’s thoughts— that he very much hoped for.”
“And the others?”