Gideon’s body heaved with dry sobs as he clutched me to his chest, my face buried in his scarred neck. Jai’s tears were silent but no less heartbreaking. He drenched my hand with his grief as Noel all but choked on his shrieked sobs, face pressed to my uninjured thigh.
“Don’t leave me behind,” Gideon was pleading into my hair, voice weak from his still-healing vocal chords. “Don’t make me do this on my own. Please, my love, my heart, don’t leave me.”
“How could you?” Noel keened. “How could you do this to me? How could you?”
Jai was silent as the grave, but the titanium rope connecting us was the most painful of all. It burned with a sorrow so deep I would never find the bottom, even if I searched for a thousand years.
But the pain was worth every second because the bonds were there! They were there, and they were real. Rope and ribbon, threads of fire and electricity. They engulfed my soul and raged through me until I was overcome.
Out of my control, my body started to shake, my limbs spasming as something—something, something, something—writhed beneath my flesh. It—they—pushed against my spine, against my skin as the bonds raged. They were so hot they burned beneath my ribcage until I feared fire would devour me until I was nothing but ash.
“What’s happening?” Jai croaked.
“Gideon?” Noel whimpered.
“Maker, please,” Gideon begged.
My entire body jolted. My eyes flew open, and my lungs expanded. My heart threatened to leap from my chest as power rushed through me. Those somethings burst from my back, surrounding me in feathers as I breathed. Oh God, I breathed.
The sounds of battle were muted and dull, like the fighting had all but ceased. Gray clouds spotted the sky, but bright sunlight fought through, blinding me for a moment. And then my vision filled with green, green eyes.
And I said, “I know you.”
“Riley?” He barely managed my name before his voice broke.
Mine was nothing but a croak as I smiled and said, “Hey, Giddy.”
Then Gideon groaned deep in his chest—a horrible, broken sound I prayed I never heard again—and hauled me back into a suffocating embrace. Those things sprouting from my back—wings, wings, wings—fluttered chaotically, half-crushed by Gideon’s arms.
“Maker in Heaven, it can’t be,” Noel whimpered. “R-Riley? Baby?”
Gideon’s arms were made of iron, but I managed to angle my head, meeting Noel’s frantic, colorless eyes over the arch of my… wing? “Hi.”
His shriek was a mess of relief and joy, fear and sadness, disbelief and pain. But the relief won out, and he lunged at Gideon and me, pushing and shoving until Gideon gave up enough of my body to accommodate Noel in our hug. Disregarding all the manner of filth covering us, Noel peppered my face with wet kisses. He half-laughed, half-cried as his hands ran over every inch of me, as if to verify I was real and alive and breathing.
“You have wings? How do you have wings?” He touched the silver feathers that I still didn’t believe were mine.
I shook my head. “I don’t…”
“You will return Angel in all the ways that matter.”
“Oh my God,” I murmured as Gideon’s big hand slid over the bone of my wing—my wing!
They spread, stretching in freedom. They caught the sunlight, silver gleaming. But the tips of each feather were red like they’d been dipped in crimson. Silver, like my Seraph mother. Red, like my Fallen father.
“They’re beautiful,” Gideon whispered.
“How?” Noel marveled.
I was still trying to come to terms with being alive; I couldn’t explain the hows or whys. I wasn’t even sure if this was real.
Until Noel grabbed my injured thigh, and pain shot through me. I hissed, and my wings curled into my back reflexively. It allowed Gideon to settle me carefully on the ground between his spread knees. Noel knelt before me, fussing over the blood still moistening my clothes.
The wound on my stomach was closed, but I could feel the organs inside me struggling to reform themselves. I tasted blood on the back of my tongue.
“He’s still hurt,” Noel panicked. “Gideon, he’s still bleeding!”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just my leg. It’s fine. Just… careful.”
Ignoring their concern, I searched for the missing piece to this picture. Where was Jai? He’d been right beside me, and now he was gone. Wait, not gone entirely. He stood several feet away, staring at me with dry, bloodshot eyes. His entire body trembled, but when I reached for him, he flinched away.
“Jai?”
“Your heart stopped,” he said gruffly. “You weren’t breathing. You were fucking dead!”
“Yeah, kinda,” I said, and a strangled noise scraped his throat. “I’m here now. Jai, I’m right here.”
“Are you real?” he asked, and I’d never seen him look so terrified. “’Cause you need to be real right now. I can’t lose you twice. I can’t… I can’t survive losing you again.”
Pushing through the pain wracking my body, I disentangled myself from Gideon and Noel, climbed to my feet, and stumbled toward him. My ravaged thigh and the cumbersome wings at my back threw off my balance, and I slipped in the mud. But Jai caught me; he would never let me fall.
I cupped his bearded cheek with one hand as I guided his palm to my chest with the other. I pressed his hand to my beating heart, and he moaned in agony.
“I’m real. Okay? I’m here. I’m not leaving you. I’m—”
He cut me off with a rough kiss, our teeth clacking. He tasted like mud and sweat and spices. Throwing my arms around his neck, I kissed his lips, his cheeks, his jaw. His beard prickled my skin as he burrowed into the nape of my neck.
At some point, we collapsed under the weight of our relief. Noel curled himself around my back, forehead pressed to my spine between my wings. Batting the stupid feathers out of his way, Gideon wrapped all three of us in his arms. In a fractured knot, we clung to each other as the sun chased away the clouds.
I lost track of time as we sat in a pile and breathed. It could have been minutes; it could have been hours. I didn’t care. All I wanted was to bask in their touches as my body healed from Lucifer’s blade.
But we couldn’t hide forever.
“How are you here?” Jai asked, breath hot on my neck. “You were dead. Riley, you were dead.”
“I was, yeah. I mean, in a way. But not entirely.” I pulled away, and everyone straightened, adding space between us that I didn’t want.
Sensing freedom, my silver wings tried to spread again, nearly smacking Gideon in the face. “Sorry,” I said, trying to figure out how to control the unwieldy things. “I don’t—”
“Just pull them in,” Gideon said, still staring at them in awe. “It’s instinct. Just… pull them in.”
His advice wasn’t exactly helpful, but I tried to do as he said. I pulled, and they folded against my back. Noel caressed the feathers. Jai brushed the arch in wonder.
“I knew your wings would be beautiful,” he whispered, and I almost burst into tears again. “Let them melt into your back. They’re in the way.”