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I lifted my gaze to meet Nathaniel’s. “She ever needs anything, I’ve got your back.”
He nodded once in understanding.
“Okay, boys, get your gorgeous butts over here so we can eat. I’m starving,” Sierra called from the table in the dining room. I hadn’t even noticed her leave the chair beside me.
Nathaniel took Nova from me, and we joined Sierra at the table, which was weighed down with a platter of sandwiches and a bowl of what looked like potato salad.
Lunch went better than I’d expected. The life Sierra and Nathaniel had created here was simple and more domestic than I’d ever pictured my brother having, but he looked happier than I’d ever seen him. The anger he’d carried since the day I met him had dissipated. I wouldn’t call him smiley or anything, but there was a contentment that radiated from him. Even under the layers of suspicion and protectiveness, I could see it.
“Nate, you should show Samuel the upstairs,” Sierra said as we cleared the dishes.
“Sure.” There was a glimmer in his eyes that meant I was either going to really like his upstairs or really hate it.
We left Sierra with the baby, and I followed him upstairs to a surprisingly nice hallway with a set of glass doors at the back that opened to the second-floor deck.
Nathaniel waved a hand around, gesturing to different doors. “Bedroom, bedroom, bathroom, bathroom, and gym.”
He opened the last door, revealing a bright room with shiny wooden floors covered in mats. Knives, stakes, and an assortment of other weapons lined the walls. There was a punching bag hanging in one corner and a row of dummies covered in scars from various weapons.
“Impressive,” I said, stepping into the room. “I’ll have to show you mine someday.” Like that would ever happen. Unless Sierra dragged him, Nathaniel would never come to Boston.
“It isn’t the training room at the manor in Heaven, but it’s better than nothing and it’s more private than the gym I was using when we lived at the apartment.”
The idea of Nathaniel working out in a public gym still made me want to laugh. He wasn’t exactly a people person. He loved Sierra, and there were a few humans he’d learned to tolerate since moving to Earth, but I was pretty sure he still avoided most humans whenever possible.
He made his way to the middle of the mats and turned to raise a brow at me. “Go a few rounds?”
I smirked at him. “You sure you want to do that? Do you even remember how to fight anymore after all the time you’ve spent playing house?”
“Stop being a dick. You couldn’t survive a week in my life. I haven’t had a solid night of sleep in a month and a half.”
“So you’re tiredandout of practice.”
He didn’t even bother replying to that. He dropped to a crouch and pulled twin blades from his boots, tossing them to the floor at the edge of the mat. His T-shirt followed a second later, and he spread his dark red wings, which marked him as a warrior born into the sixth order.
I followed suit, stripping out of my shirt and weapons belt and letting my own wings unfurl.
We’d sparred a thousand times before, so it was always a challenge to find new techniques. We knew each other too well, could read our body language and see almost every move coming.
Our fight eventually ended when we were both dripping in sweat with me on top of Nathaniel. I shook out my hair, showering him with droplets, and pressed my forearm into his throat.
He just grinned up at me. “You ever tried fighting without your wings?”
“Why would I do that?”
He gave me a pointed look. “Because you never know when you could lose them.” His words hit like a punch to the gut. Last fall, he’d lost his wings in the fight with Dantalion. They’d taken nearly two months to grow back, and that was with help from Danielle, the newest member of the secret order. She was a seventh-order angel with a rare talent for being able to heal angels as well as humans.
But I wasn’t worried about losing my wings in battle. His words hit hard for an entirely different reason.
I was nine years old again, seeing silver wings tinged in blood lying on the floor beside the broken body of a woman I’d both loved and hated at the same time. Blood drenched the tips of her jet-black hair where it fell against the slashes in her back. She lifted her head and looked at me, her icy blue eyes filled with rancor. There was blood seeping out of a cut on her forehead too, directly above her right eye.
“You win,” the woman spat out, her gaze fixing on the archangel who stood behind me. “You get exactly what you wanted.”
“Samuel?” Nathaniel’s voice brought me back to the present.
He was still under me, his hand wrapped around the arm I still had held to his throat, but he seemed to have forgotten about the fight just as much as I had. He was studying me with concern.
“You good?”
