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Of course, it was—mine was, too, even if she didn't necessarily look it. I could only assume someone must have described his appearance before I came barreling to the rescue in order for him to know that.
"I get to teach you to fly," he mused, and my heart stuttered at the idea.
With my angel’s wings, I could fly—Sariel was going toteach meto fly.
I gaped at him. "I get to fly?... Sariel, I get to fly?!"
He rolled his eyes at my enthusiasm, shaking his head. "It takes work. I doubt you'll figure it out the first few times. Most of us start flying when we're kids and build up our strength."
"Okay, but I still havewings!Iwillfly, eventually. That's so cool!"
My excited bouncing dragged warmth and affection down the bond from him, and, once again, I was baffled by how I hadn't noticed something was wrong sooner.
Thankfully, that conversation was set aside, and I managed to contain myself when the urge to check on him again hit me.
The bed we were sleeping on was surprisingly cozy. The instant relief I felt when Sariel pulled me into his body finished smoothing what was left of my ruffled feathers.
We were okay.
It was hard to sleep—even bundled up in Sariel’s arms—but when I finally did, it was peaceful.
And not long enough, if my pounding head and swollen eyes right now were telling the truth.
Auren woke us by beating on the door; it wasn't until I was staring blearily at everyone else in the room that I realized we must have all been exhausted.
"Coffee downstairs," Atlan grumbled. When I looked at the clock on the nightstand and saw that it was only eight in the morning, I wanted to cry again.
"Right behind you," Neo told him when the grouchier twin managed to roll out of bed and pull a shirt on.
Sariel stepped out of the bathroom, fully dressed and towel-drying his hair with a small smile.
"There's breakfast in the lobby," Auren said when Atlan slid around him and out into the hallway. "If you hurry up, we can grab something before we move on."
"We're coming," Sariel responded, and his brother hesitated a beat. "How long were we in Hell this time, Auren?"
The other grimaced, rubbing his neck in that same awkward tell of his. Whatever he was about to say wasn't good; sure enough, when he told us we'd been gone for almost two months, my stomach dropped.
"What about you guys?” I asked. “You were only there for a like thirty minutes, so—"
"A week or so, give or take a day."
I winced, thinking about the lost time.
Anything could have gone wrong while he’d been absent: the Upper Council could have attacked, the Free Kingdom made a move finally, or just—anything! Anything could have happened, and it was our fault for always getting into these messes. We were lucky that he was able to come to collect us, or there was no telling how much time we would havereallylost.
"Let's try to avoid dimension hopping from now on," the youngest Ambrose added before slipping from the room, giving us both a moment to process that.
Two months of our lives had been wasted in that place. There were more questions that needed to be asked, of course—like why it had taken so long for them to get us out and why Lucifer kept dragging us down there in the first place—but Sariel had a haunted look on his face I didn't like, so I let the subject drop.
I washed my face, at least, and then dragged my mate along with me to find something worth eating.
The little lobby had no hot food options, but I was content to sit down at the tiny round tables and eat some colorful cereal. Sariel joined me, having basically attached himself to my hip, and then the two of us were joined by Reese and Marilyn.
"Are you okay? No, don't answer that; that was a stupid question," Reese said, huffing out a laugh and stuffing a muffin of some kind into her mouth, shaking her head at herself.
"We're alive," Sariel humored, and I tried to smile along with him, "so I can't really complain too much."
"No, you definitely can," Marilyn disagreed, jaw flexing. "What did they even do all that for, anyway?"
