As soon as we were inside the cave, I used my earth magic to grow a curtain of hanging vines over the entrance. The fit was tight and not the least bit comfortable. Damiel and I were so closely squeezed together that our faces nearly touched. I could feel his breath on my face.
“Could you stop that?” I whispered.
“Stop what?”
“Breathing.”
“You want me to stop breathing?”
“It tickles.”
His eyes twinkled with amusement.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“You’re ticklish. That wasn’t in your file.”
“It’s not something I like to advertise.”
He nodded. “I understand. It’s a weakness. You want to hide that.”
“Right.”
“And yet you told me.” The delight still hadn’t faded from his eyes.
“I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he agreed. “An angel cannot afford to show weakness.” His voice dropped. His head dropped too, to whisper into my ear, “But I’m glad you confided in me.”
His breath sent hot shivers across my skin.
“Ok. Well, then.” I realized my hand was touching his back. I dropped it. “Now that that’s cleared up, could you stop breathing?”
He snorted. “You make bold demands.”
“I know you can hold your breath.”
“I can, but with my breath held, I can’t smell all that well. And then how will I know when the patrol has passed?”
“You can hear them.”
“I prefer to hold on to as many of my senses as possible. I don’t wish to unnecessarily cripple myself. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course.” I didn’t sigh, not even a little. We were standing so close, he would have felt it.
“Unless there’s another reason, besides your ticklish face, that being so close to me makes you uncomfortable.” His brows lifted, inviting me to elaborate.
“No. Not at all.”
“Is your neck as ticklish as your face?” His eyes dropped, his gaze following the contours of my throat, the motion so smooth that it felt like a visual caress.
My heart stuttered. “I beg your pardon?” I managed to croak out.
“You could turn your back to me. Then I wouldn’t be breathing on your face,” he explained.
The thought of Damiel behind me made me nervous, and not because I was afraid he’d stab me in the back.
“But if you were behind me, you’d be breathing down my neck. Which is also ticklish.”
His brows lifted. “What bizarre weaknesses you have.”
He turned his back to me. I was behind him now.
He wasn’t breathing on me any longer—or, worse yet, looking at me. But now I had nowhere to put my hands. This small cave was a tight fit, and he filled all the space in front of me. I couldn’t wrap my arms around him and hug him from behind. Nor could I put my hands on his shoulders. I couldn’t fold them in front of myself; that would have put my hands level with his butt, and then he might think I was trying to cop a feel. I didn’t want to press my chest against him, which I’d have to do if I folded my arms behind myself.
So I settled for folding my arms across my chest, which meant I was poking him in the back. It wasn’t ideal, but at least it also wasn’t intimate.
He snorted softly in response to my decision.
I suppressed a sigh, which he surely felt at our close proximity. Things had been so much simpler when I’d been afraid of him, when I hadn’t had this ridiculous crush on him. My feelings, my attraction to him, was making me second-guess and overanalyze everything I did.
We passed the rest of our time in the cave in silence. Eventually, the Hive patrol passed us by, and so Damiel and I emerged from our hiding spot and climbed to higher ground.
The patrol was nowhere in sight, but what we saw was far more unsettling. We stood in the middle of a wilderness, right at the border between sea and land. Behind us, the water stretched on as far as I could see. And before us, across the prairie, an enormous pillar of light shot up high into the sky.
Magic. Magic was swirling in the sky. The Hive was brewing up one hell of a spell.
12
Before Gods and Demons
Magic swirled overhead like a growing storm. This was definitely not your everyday, ho-hum, natural occurrence. The magic pillar of light that shot into the sky was coming from the direction of the city Illias had described to us. That city was a good place to start trying to figure out what was going on here—and to find a way into the Hive’s fortress. Chances were good that fortress was at the epicenter of this magic spell.
And so Damiel and I traveled across the prairie expanse, toward the city. People sometimes said the road to hell was paved with good intentions, but this road was paved with more traditional materials, namely asphalt. The hot sun bounced off that asphalt, drenching me in sweat. I might have been fireproof—most of the time—but even angels sweated.
Damiel glanced at me as we walked. “I bet this isn’t how you pictured your honeymoon: on an enemy world, dressed and armed for battle.”
“It’s a very different sort of honeymoon,” I agreed.
“But somehow very fitting for an angel.”
“Yes.”
I liked this part of Damiel, the lighter, more humorous side. The side that only came out when he let his guard down and opened up to me, when he showed me the man inside, the man behind the angel mask.
After what he’d done for me in the guardian spirits’ test, I knew he was honorable, but honor wasn’t everything. I liked that Damiel had humor as well as honor.
“No, this isn’t how I pictured my honeymoon,” I told him. “I thought I’d know the groom better, but I hardly know anything about you.”
“What would you like to know?”
“About your family. You’ve never mentioned them.”
“It was from a different life, Cadence. A life before the Legion.”
I could have sworn I’d caught a hint of sadness in his voice as he spoke.
“They are all dead,” he told me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I shouldn’t have pried.” I hastily looked away.
“Wait.”
I turned back to meet his cerulean stare.
“You should know,” he said.
“If it’s too painful…”
He chuckled darkly. “Hasn’t the Legion taught you anything? Pain makes us stronger.”
“You don’t have to be strong, Damiel. Not about this. Not about losing your family.”
But he was undeterred. “I want you to know about my past. It might help you make sense of who I became. The angel I am today.” He drew in a deep breath, his chest heaving, like he would need all the air on this world to tell me his tale. “I remember the Earth that was, an Earth before the gods and demons brought their Immortal War here, an Earth before the monsters came.”
Wow. He was old. Much older than I’d thought.
“I was just a child back then, when the demons came to the Earth. They were the first deities we saw. I later found out that some of the gods had made secret visits to the Earth for years, watching us, studying our world. The demons learned that the gods were here, and so they sent in their army. Unlike the gods, they didn’t do it with any amount of secrecy. They made their presence known to humanity and to the gods alike. And that is how the Earth became just another battlefield in the Immortal War.”