I expected to get yelled at on the way home for not warning her that he was in there. Instead, she pressed her nose to the glass of my passenger window, brown eyes locked on the crescent moon like it might hold the answers to all her questions.
“I don’t understand it,” Malach admits, drawing my attention back to him.
The bright light from the TV casts his face in a series of harsh, chiseled lines. With his brow furrowed and his jaw clenched, Malach looks carved from stone, like he caught me on a bad day and paid the price.
I scrub my hand over my jaw, stubble scraping the skin of my palm. How can I explain toxic attraction to a virgin who’s still getting the hang of the English language? Words fail me, and Ifinally shrug. “I wouldn’t dare say it to either of them, but they don’t understand it either, Malach.”
“It hurts her,” he says, his face twisting with anger.
I sigh. “It would hurt her worse to let him go.”
Not that I think Alistair would allow that to happen without a fight. He watches Celine with a feral intensity that’s more familiar to me than the unshakable dedication in Malach’s eyes. An obsessed monster I understand—I walk around with its twin in my chest every day. It’s exhausting. Some days I think it would have been better if my parents had allowed my basilisk to be bound instead of fleeing to Earth to prevent it.
“Do you miss home?” I ask before I think better of it, not sure what I’m even getting at. Celine doesn’t talk about the celestial realm. I have almost no picture in my mind of the place she spent most of her life.
“That’s a difficult question.” Malach looks at the TV, his shoulders tensing. “Have you ever arrived somewhere and been overwhelmed? By the sights, the smells, the feeling that settles into your skin that you belong there?”
He doesn’t expect an answer; he’s setting the stage, painting a picture for me, but his description is as foreign to me as their realm.
I was born on Earth. Mom and Dad planned their escape from the monster realm as soon as they found out about me. I’ve spent almost thirty years moving between Fringe communities and hiding what I am... Many things catch my interest, but the sense of home he’s describing—I doubt I’ll ever experience it.
“When I hear the hum of the transportation pathways or see a child’s face after their wings hold them up for the first time, that’s home. Warm, comforting”—Malach clears his throat—“and overshadowed by the agony of watching my realm be cut to ribbons.”
I make a noise to let him know I’m still listening. I asked, but Iwish I could take it back. It’s upsetting Malach to explain, and I’ve ruined the relaxation of our trash TV night.
“You asked me if I miss it, but I miss what it should be... what it could be. I’ll miss the home we might have had until I draw my final breath.” Malach looks at Celine as she sleeps, and his face softens. “Yet nothing compares to how I felt when she left. As if half my soul and all my heart were torn from my body. I thought I would never draw a full breath or sleep a restful night again.”
“You helped her get out though,” I say, remembering Celine’s surprise when learning how she stumbled upon the illegal gateway to Earth. Malach worked behind the scenes, making sure she would find it while never knowing he was to thank for helping her escape.
“Yes, I did, and I would do it again. If she needed my lungs to breathe, I would cut them out for her too.” Wincing, Malach rubs the heel of his hand against his chest. “I would sink to the depths of the sea to spare Celine pain. That is my duty and my honor because she is my home.”
Fuck, that’s poetic.
I focus on the TV, giving him space to process.
It’s four o’clock in the morning. We should go to bed—Celine’s obviously exhausted—but I’m reluctant to move. On the screen, Ashley M. spills her mimosa, dousing Breanna in a drink that in my professional opinion looks about 80 percent champagne and 20 percent orange juice.
No wonder there’s constant drama on this show; they’re always fucking?—
Glass shatters in slow motion. I shoot to my feet. Celine is only a second behind me as the room-darkening shades ripple from the impact of gods know what.
I watch, transfixed, as a glowing ball rolls across the floor, silent and pulsing. It’s beautiful and hypnotic—hardto look at and harder to look away from. The light throbs like a heart, shining brighter with every beat. It should cast shadows, but there’s nothing.
I squint. My eyes water.
Then the orb begins to sing, a high-pitched, awful wail that echoes inside my bones.
“Fuck!” Celine covers one ear with her left hand and reaches for the orb with her right.
Malach shoves her out of the way. “Get down!” He grabs it himself, hissing, and throws it back out the window. A second later, a sound like a million bells ringing all at once deafens me. It’s chased by a resonant hum and the grind of crunching metal.
I blink in confusion, my ears ringing.
A flash of red zips by me.
Celine yanks on the deadbolts with one hand and grabs Malach’s massive sword with the other. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. I stumble over to her, slapping the flat of my hand against the door to hold it shut.
“Baby, wait! We can’t storm out there; we don’t know what’s going on. You were asleep thirty seconds ago!”
