Page 33 of Angel I Am Not

I turned my attention back to Melody. “Sorry. I… just…” I stopped myself before another apology could tumble out. “I’m here to learn and I really don’t want to do that. Let’s just focus, alright?”

I gestured for her to face the front but she was still transfixed on my form, watching for anything else to happen.

After what seemed like an eternity trying to ignore Melody’s pointed, curious stares and Nick’s smoldering ones, the class ended.

A flock of students wrapped around me, shouting and yelling questions about where I came from, my connection to the Morningstars—I should have known that was their last name—and what I was studying. It was as if the moment I had accepted my fate, everyone else had unknowingly done the same.

I hated every second of it, the attention, the leering eyes, and the constant reaching as if everyone had suddenly decided touching me was their right.

Something prickled over my skin as anger bristled beneath the surface. My emotions began to overwhelm me as my head spun. There were way too many people surrounding me and I only had a few seconds before my wings decided to make an appearance. Luc had said to embrace my emotions but I didn’t think that included letting everyone in class know that I wasn’t human. There would be no way of explaining my way out of that situation.

Frantic and desperate for an out, my eyes shot to the window beside me. Nick tugged me out of my seat before I could make that decision and dragged me through the small gathering crowd before pushing me into the hall. His body stayed between mine and everyone reaching after us until we cleared the doorway.

I took off through one of the exits, trying to avoid anyone and everyone around me. Shocked gasps followed my departure.

Luc appeared a few feet beside me, pulling me into a narrow space between two buildings beside the art department, hidden from view by several large sculptures. It gave us privacy as I began to panic, scrambling to breathe as my lungs rebelled against me.

Nick appeared seconds later, drawing me against his chest and petting my head in a soft gesture wholly unnatural to him.

The insta-attraction slowly morphing into something deeper between these two men made me feel queasy. Feelings were not something we focused on in Heaven. We did what was best for the realm and then moved on. Everything was about duty and expectations.

The rumbling of Nick’s chest pressed up against my back told me the bastard was laughing. “You were going to jump out of a window, really?” He must have seen I was still hyperventilating though because the amusement disappeared almost immediately. “Ari. Deep breaths.”

Luc crowded me from the front, one hand settling around the front of my neck, squeezing softly enough to drag my focus toward him without hurting. “Look at me.”

I tried to focus on Luc, but I was too far gone. Nick pulled away just in time as my wings sprouted from my back.

The first brush of Nick’s fingers through my feathers had me shivering with pleasure, the panic cracking just enough for me to register what he was doing. He was careful. So fucking careful that it almost made the sensation worse.

It was the first time I had actually enjoyed someone touching them.

“Ari,” Nick breathed.

His fingers slowed just as I twisted enough to look over my shoulder and froze.

The midnight patches that had always scattered my wings had spread. Whole sections that had still been white or cream were darkening toward charcoal, and several of the outer feathers had gone completely black. I twisted farther, trying to see how much had changed since the last time I looked. “When the fuck did it spread that far?”

Nick touched one of the darker feathers again, his claws retracting before his fingers slid along the edge. “They’re fucking beautiful.”

I stared at him. “They’re dark.”

“Yeah.” His brows pulled together like I had said something stupid. “That wasn’t a complaint.”

Luc’s hand moved from my neck to my waist, steadying me as I looked between them. His gaze followed the new color running through my wings, but there wasn’t any disgust there. No alarm.

“Heaven taught you white meant pure,” he said. “That doesn’t make everything darker wrong.”

My throat tightened.

Nick’s fingers slipped through another section of feathers, slower this time. “Does this hurt?”

I shook my head.

“Then stop looking at them like something’s wrong with you.”

There was something almost angry in his voice now, except it wasn’t directed at me.

I looked down, trying to hide the stupid ache that had formed behind my ribs.