“I’m always honest with you.” Zayne stared up at me as a half grin formed. “Well, mostly. There were a few times in the past I wasn’t completely honest.”
I almost started to ask which times he was referencing in case there was more than I knew, but stopped myself. “I need you to be completely honest now, no matter what the answer is.”
“Of course.”
Skin prickling, I started to pace in front of the TV. “I need to know the truth, Zayne.”
He moved to the edge of the couch. “Yeah, I’ve gotten that. What do you need to know?”
Swallowing the rise of fear-induced nausea, I forced the question out. “You came back to me without me having to barter or plead. You came back more powerful than even me, and yes, I had to do the thing with the Sword of Michael, and that was stressful and all, but you are alive after dying.”
His head tilted. “Yes.” A pause. “I am.”
“They wanted you here to help stop Gabriel, but them letting you Fall? Having no problem with you being with me? All of it seems too good to be true. There has to have been a cost to this. A catch.” I crossed my arms, still pacing in front of the TV. “I need to know if this is temporary? You being here with me? Are you going to be taken away from me once we defeat Gabriel? Are the Alphas and other angels going to come for you? Try to take your grace or entomb you?”
“No.” There was no hesitation there. “I feared that myself, and knowing what I do about angels, I didn’t trust that there was no catch. Them making this something temporary sounds like something they’d enjoy. I expected that to be the case, but this isn’t temporary, Trin.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked.
“Because your father told me it wasn’t.”
I stopped moving. My heart might’ve stopped moving. “He said you get to stay with me? He said those exact words and didn’t leave it up to interpretation?”
“Michael said I would remain by your side as long as you would have me.” Never taking his gaze off me, he bent to swipe a chip off the floor and tossed it onto the coffee table. “And then he thoughtfully tacked on that I would remain by your side as long as I stayed alive.”
“Really?” I whispered, too afraid to relax. “The ‘as long as you stayed alive’ part sounds like something he’d say.”
Zayne nodded. “This isn’t temporary, Trin.”
“But why?” I asked, walking forward and stopping in front of him. “Why would they do something so...so nice?” I knew how bad that sounded, but people thought angels were pillars of virtue and generosity. They were more of the teach people a lesson through loss and grief type, and yeah, I was sure there were fluffy and loving ones out there. We just never dealt with that kind. “It just doesn’t sound like them.”
“It’s not, but I think...your father had a lot to do with them allowing this. Actually, I know your father did.”
“Really?” I wanted to believe that but his history proved that he wasn’t the type of dad to get heavily involved.
Or to care.
“You know how I thought that Michael expected me to Fall? Even Cayman thought that.” Zayne’s hands reached out and settled on my hips. He pulled me into the vee of his legs. “Could it be because he realized I wouldn’t be bound to their rules of combat between angels? Sure. I bet that was what he used to convince the other angels. But I know it was more than that.” He stared up at me, the striking lines of his face more clear to me than they’d ever been. “The night he made me your Protector, he whispered something to me. I thought I understood what it meant, but I think he was telling me more than I realized.”
I remembered seeing my father whisper to him. When I asked Zayne about it, he’d said it hadn’t been about the Harbinger. Then I got, well, distracted as per usual. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘My daughter will one day give you grace and restore you to your Glory.’ Then he said he hoped I’d learned to know when to follow the rules and when not to,” he told me. “I really didn’t get that whole grace and Glory thing, but I knew what he meant by following the rules. He was talking about us—about the rules that governed a Trueborn and Protector, and I know he was telling me to not follow them.”
A shaky breath left me. Zayne had followed the rules his entire life, and what had that gotten him? He’d lost Layla before he even had her, and it didn’t matter that if they had gotten together he would’ve realized how strong his feelings were or weren’t. He followed the rules, and grew farther apart from his clan. And I remembered when he told me he was tired of following the rules. That was the first night we’d been together.
“But you were weakened because we didn’t follow the rules,” I reasoned. “You died because—”
“And my Glory was restored because of you—because I loved you. I was given grace because I love you,” he said. “Not following the rules led me to this very moment, and yeah, I lost my Glory in the Fall, but I’m here. I’m with you, and sure, we could think that he gave me that heads-up so I was more likely to be here with you to fight Gabriel, but I think it was more than that. I know it was. He wants you to be happy, and he knew that allowing me to return to you would do that.”
Never in a million years would I have considered that was what my father had whispered to him. Nor would I have ever considered that he even spared a moment to think of my happiness. Ever.
“There isn’t a lot he can do for you, being what he is or being what I imagine is expected of him.” He stared up at me, eyes a stunning clear blue. “And I don’t say that as a way to excuse his general lack of paternal abilities, but this was something he could do for you.”
“If you’re right, I...I don’t even know what to say,” I admitted, squeezing my eyes shut. When they reopened, there were tiny bursts of light. “I think it’s easier for me to think he’s not capable of doing something like that.”
“Why?” Zayne asked.
It was hard to put what I felt into words. “Because it...makes me think about what it’s like to have a father, a real one who is involved and cares. It makes me want that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting that.”
“I know, but it makes me sad and angry to know that I have one who can’t be that,” I admitted. “So it’s easier just to think of him as what he is—an archangel who is capable of only feeling cool displeasure.”
His gaze searched my face. “I understand,” he said, and I believed that he did even though he had a father who had been a daily part of his life. Who he loved and had been loved by, even when they had disagreed fiercely with one another.