“I need help. Hunter’s contacting me through the ether. And I don’t know how to fight it.”
Astonishment opened the Fallen Ephilohim’s perfect features as his straight dark eyebrows rose and he blinked his beautiful dark lashes. Still like the endless cosmos, he paused, then slowly set the silver sword on a glass dining table nearby. Taking a deep inhalation, Heathren flexed his shoulders in a movement like a raptor, shrugging his enormous seven-layer wings of silver-opal filaments quickly back inside his spine. They disappeared until it was only the Intercessor Judiciary standing before Layla, tall and lean and precise.
Staring her down with a deep scowl on his viciously angelic face.
CHAPTER 12 – HEATHREN
The Fallen Ephilohim Archangel Heathren Merkami crossed his arms over his chest, settling a hip back against the counter of the white kitchen behind him as he stared Layla down. Dressed in modern clothing Layla had never seen him in, he wore a men’s white silk shirt with long sleeves, open at the collar and baring luminous white skin and collarbones. Wearing light grey slacks and a grey snakeskin belt, his feet were bare, his impressively long silver-white hair spilling loose over one shoulder to his lean waist. Like Reginald, Heathren had beautifully high arches and cut shoulders with a dancer’s grace, though he was impressively tall like Rhennic and almost rail-thin slender.
But like Adrian, there was nothing weak about him as he stared Layla down. From his piercing attention with those pale silver eyes over his beautifully high cheekbones, to the way he frowned and set his handsomely masculine jaw, the Intercessor Judiciary was all business as he lifted one straight dark eyebrow at her.
Deeply intimidating.
“How did you get in here?” He spoke at last, as cold as Reginald and thrice as cutting. Layla shivered at the sound of it – like knives stroking her flesh as she stared at the furiously beautiful Fallen Ephilohim.
“Adrian.” Was all she could say, intimidated to her bones.
“He gave you the cube I left him.” Heathren’s dark brows lifted, astonishment in his pale silver eyes as his wrath finally cleared. Blinking his long dark lashes a few times as if processing internally, he inhaled a deep breath. As he exhaled, he seemed to settle, the final dregs of his fury easing away.
“Do come in, Layla.” Heathren spoke, his highly-cultured voice clarion now and far more kind as he straightened from the kitchen island, opening one hand in welcome. “My home is yours. You may leave your bags by the door and enter. Shall we make tea?”
“Tea?” Layla blinked, suddenly not knowing how to process the fact that she was standing in an Archangel’s foyer and he was inviting her in.
“Lourdoners are quite fond of tea.” He chuckled with wit, though it was still beautifully cutting.
“Lourdoners?” Layla blinked again, confused.
“Londoners, in your world.” Heathren chuckled more gently now. “Please, come in. Forgive me for frightening you, but I have many wards around this place. It is my private home; my sanctuary. Very few people in all the heavens and earth have the privilege of the gift I gave Adrian, for him to contact me in an emergency. But I see now that his emergency is yours. Come in; leave your things. And be welcome in my home.”
As Heathren Merkami turned to the chrome and white kitchen behind him, Layla finally realized she was welcome here. She was still wary, though, as she left her red leather purse with her rolling suitcase by the big silver doors and moved into the Archangel’s penthouse. He glanced at her as she came to the open kitchen with its large white-tiled island and bank of white leather barstools – an accent wall of orchids to her left by the big floor-to-ceiling windows.
As Heathren took a white ceramic teapot and two cups down from a cupboard, he nodded to the barstools. Layla took a seat, noting beautiful patterns in the cracked glaze of the white ceramic tiles on the bar. Starting a modern human-world electric kettle to heat, Heathren moved to a rack of brushed steel tea canisters by the stove. Glancing to Layla, he asked, “English breakfast, Earl Grey, or chamomile?”
“Earl Grey.” Layla answered, feeling like her visit was outlandishly normal suddenly.
“Cream and sugar?” The Archangel asked as he fetched one canister.
“Yes to cream. And honey if you have it.” Layla responded.
“I do have it.” The Fallen Archangel nodded peaceably as he reached up to the cupboards and took down a crock of honey, then went to the brushed-steel fridge and took out a glass bottle of heavy cream with a plug of natural separation on top. The electric kettle was already boiling, and taking it off, he spooned tea leaves into the pot’s basket, then poured the hot water.
Bringing everything to the island, he selected a barstool across from Layla and sat, spooning honey into her cup and his. They said nothing as the tea brewed, only stared at each other in an evaluating kind of silence. Heathren’s pale silver-white gaze bored into her, and Layla felt the strange sensation of his Archangelic magic sweep her then, whirling through her in an ephemeral wave as if he read her very soul with it. Layla shuddered involuntarily, even though she’d felt the touch of Heathren’s magics before. By the time Heathren poured their tea, mixed in honey and cream, and slid Layla’s over, she felt like she was having an interview to become the Queen’s bodyguard.
With just as many security evaluations.
“So you need my assistance.” Heathren began at last as he sipped his tea.
“I do.” Layla answered as she sipped hers, finding it the perfect temperature from the cream and honey. “It’s about Hunter, and my magic.”
“What has our dear friend Hunter gotten himself into this time?”
It was a moment before Layla realized it was Heathren’s version of a joke; excessively dry with only the tiniest quirk at one corner of his full lips to give his humor away. Layla knew Adrian had been checking in with Heathren after Deep Harbor, and had told him Layla’s magic had coiled up inside her and was basically useless after that battle. Heathren was the primary Intercessoria agent on Hunter’s case, and knew everything that had happened to everyone in Layla’s life these past months. He was technically a friend, helping them at every turn against her nemesis.
Though Layla was still never quite certain she could trust him.
“Well… it’s not Hunter exactly,” Layla began as he stared her down, “it’s me.”
“Let me guess.” Heathren’s pale silver gaze sharpened upon her as he set his tea down with a precise gesture. “Ever since your Dragon went quiet inside you at Deep Harbor, you’ve been trying to figure out how to get her back. Meanwhile, the soul-searching you’re doing has sensitized you to the ether. Hunter can use etheric magic and is now starting to use your moments of extreme openness to contact you mind-to-mind. How close am I?”
