“No.” Gideon’s voice cracked. “Members of the Council, I beg you—”
“You have been given an order, Guardian. Will you uphold it?” Gabriel sneered, and Gideon looked to the head councilman for salvation. Methuselah clenched his jaw but didn’t contradict Gabriel’s demand.
The crowd separating Gideon from Tabitha parted, and his mind filled with an empty ringing sound. Like one in a dream, he stepped forward as Tabitha raised her now-red eyes, her cursed fangs glistening and bloody.
“You would do this to me? After everything?” she snarled as he came to a stop inches from her crouched form.
“Gabriel, brother, please—”
“You are not my brother!” Gabriel spat venomously, and Gideon shrank away from his loathing. “Now do as instructed. Or would you prefer to take her place?”
If Gideon was a better man, he would have. But he was selfish and afraid. Her wings fluttered in panic, sensing their demise, and Tabitha’s eyes widened in surprise as he gathered his determination.
“Gideon?”
“Forgive me,” he whispered, and she shrieked, scrambling to escape her doom.
But she wasn’t fast enough. Her feet slipped on the bloodied ground, and he captured her before she had a chance to flee. Wrapping his hand around the back of her neck, he held her down as his soul shuddered and cracked. She begged for mercy then, but it was far too late. Neither of them would receive it now.
Power flickered over his skin as he grasped the joint of her wing where it met her back, burrowing beneath to connect to her spine. She bucked and shrieked like a wild boar, her nails scratching the marble before breaking off. He closed his emotions down, accepting the numbing fog.
“For my people,” he murmured. “For my Maker.”
“Gideon!” she cried, except it didn’t sound like her. “Gideon!”
Lifting his gaze, Gideon met a pair of terrified chocolate eyes. His skin was sickly pale, his hair mussed, and Gideon swore he was skinnier than the last night he’d seen him. It was impossible for the boy to be here. Yet Gideon would know his face anywhere.
“Riley?”
Riley’s breath hitched as he reached for Gideon, close but not enough to bridge the gap between them. “Don’t do it.”
“I have to.”
“Please. Don’t.”
But Riley didn’t understand. There was no point in fighting it because Gideon had already done it. He had already been here, lived this. It was nothing but a memory now. And of all the things angels could do, they had never learned how to change the past.
Gideon tightened his grip on Tabitha’s wing, feeling it tear and shatter beneath his hand as Riley sobbed. “Forgive me, kapara.”
“Gideon!”
Gideon jerked awake with a cry, tumbling from the couch in Raphael’s office. He caught himself at the last moment before his stomach heaved. Scrambling across the floor, he barely grabbed the nearest trash can in time as his body betrayed him. Sour vomit and bile poured past his lips as his stomach emptied of its meager contents. He couldn’t remember the last time he had vomited. A century ago? Longer?
After the last bout of sickness passed, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and coughed. He staggered out of Raphael’s office on sleep-ladened legs and took refuge in the nearest bathroom. He washed his hands and splashed cool water on his face, cringing away from his reflection in the mirror. The bags beneath his eyes were too dark, the pallor of his skin unnaturally white.
Shaking the remnants of the dream—memory—away, Gideon dried his face and left the bathroom. The Grand Hall was never silent; there was always someone working, someone training. Angels bustled past him, some sending him pitying glances, others shooting him distrustful, judgmental looks. For the most part, he ignored them.
He followed the subtle bonds tethering him to his Secondaries until he found them hunkered down in an empty office, sleeping on an abandoned couch. They slept tangled in each other’s arms, Jai tucked into Noel’s chest as they both breathed deeply. Jai twitched and whimpered every so often, and Noel would subconsciously tighten their embrace in comfort. Try as he might, Gideon couldn’t stop his twinge of jealous loneliness.
For too many centuries, he held himself back from getting too close. To romantic prospects, to old friends and colleagues from before the Fall, to his Secondaries… to Riley. In the beginning, it had been easier, a method of survival, but it had morphed into a prison of his own making. To a certain extent, he believed he deserved it. By sacrificing happiness, by walking the road of eternity alone, he was paying penance for his sins.
But what good had it accomplished?
Gabriel still hated him, would always hate him. It hadn’t brought Shaina back or rewritten the scrolls of history. He had alienated the two males who had steadily become his brothers. And he’d lost the only person who truly brought him peace.
He thought by standing apart, he would protect Jai and Noel from his reputation, but it had only hindered their ability to work together. They were the strongest Guardian team in a hundred years, yet he had held them at arm’s length.
Thankfully, his Secondaries were stubborn. Jai chipped away at the walls Gideon hid behind with nothing but stone-cold determination and loyal ferocity for ammunition. And Noel, he’d slithered through the cracks to heal Gideon’s wounds with his gentle affection and kind wisdom. Gideon didn’t deserve them, but they’d stuck by him, fought with and for him, chosen him.
Yet it hardly compared to the transformation Riley had caused. He’d blown through their lives like a hurricane, throwing everything into exquisite disarray. Where Gideon’s Secondaries had forced their way into his heart, his ward had merely asked. Riley invited him to something more, coaxing his injured soul into the light, and the magnitude of Gideon’s feelings terrified him.
He’d denied himself affection for too long to give in without a fight, and, as Noel had so aptly pointed out, he was still clinging to the one thing that made him somewhat normal. Riley was male, and Gideon wasn’t… he couldn’t…
His list of failings were too long already, and this was just another nail in the coffin. No matter what Jai and Noel said, Gideon couldn’t give Riley what he needed. His hang-ups with sex went far beyond the simple fact that Riley resided in a body he had no idea how to touch. Noel was correct; Gideon bunkered down behind the defense that he was heterosexual, but there had always been something wrong with him.
Even as a young male, he’d lacked the libido he witnessed in other members of his sex. How often had he sat around the table as Raphael and Michael bragged of their conquests? How many nights had he laid beside Gabriel as his best friend confessed his experiences with bright eyes and flushed cheeks?
It didn’t take long for Gideon to understand he was deficient in some way. Where his brothers would scope out potential partners for a night of pleasure, he preferred taking care of such nonsense—when the need arose—himself. Of course, it didn’t stop him from trying to emulate their passions. He tried to fake it for as long as he could before he’d resigned himself to the truth.
Sex didn’t hold an appeal, not the way it did to everyone else. In general, Gideon could do without it. If sexual release was needed, he would satisfy the itch himself. It wasn’t that he couldn’t get it up or experience sexual pleasure. He just didn’t have the interest, most of the time.