“You got your wings? Congrats, my man!” he exclaims over the loud music.
“Yeah, not sure how that happened, but I’m not mad about it. That’s for sure.” I grin.
“They’re so… bright.” He stares at them, gawking. He’s not the only one staring. So many angels have crowded us, treating me like a brand-new museum exhibit. I’m pretty sure this is the last place that Cleo wants to be right now, so I pat Matt on the shoulder and make a beeline toward a server with drinks. She looks me up and down and hands me a glass of alcomist. I shake my head.
“Any chance I can get a whole bottle just this once?” I bat my eyelashes at her, making her laugh. She concedes, handing me the bottle on the tray. Well, that worked like a charm. I thank her and turn to look for my girl. She’s shorter than the average angel, but thankfully, I’m taller than the average angel, so I’m able to spot her relatively quickly.
Several angels—men and women—encircle her, touching her platinum feathers. I approach her with the alcomist bottle in hand.
“…so your wings changed color?” a blonde girl asks in curiosity.
“Your new wings are beautiful,” a man I don’t recognize says as he takes another step closer to her, entering her personal space.
Yep. Time to get the hell out of here.
Cleo simply nods at them, feigning interest in what they’re saying. When she notices me, her eyes light up.
“Let’s go, baby. I have an agenda for tonight, remember?”
She nods, but then tugs on my shirt. “Wait… There’s something we need to do first.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, confused. “What’s that?”
She pulls me in, raising her lips to mine for a passionate kiss. I groan at the sudden warm sensation spreading across my body like flames. She breaks away, flushed. “They need to know we aren’t pretending anymore, either.”
I smile at her. “Or that maybe we never were.”
She bites her lip, then her eyes drift down to the bottle in my hand. “A whole bottle?”
I chuckle, grab her hand, and spring back into the air. She follows me closely, spreading her own wings for the first time since the Archangels stole them from her.
“Where are we going?” she asks over the roaring wind.
“You’ll see!”
I lead her across the sky, passing several shops in the marketplace, the headquarters, the gardens, and the havens, until I finally find the exact spot.
Ourspot.
I’ve come here a couple of times since that first night. She just doesn’t know it.
We land on the rooftop simultaneously. She gasps, gazing around. “It feels like it’s been a lifetime since we were last here.”
“That, it does,” I agree, climbing over the golden railing to let my legs dangle off the rooftop’s edge. She follows suit. “You know, I’ve visited here since that night.”
“Oh yeah?”
I nod. “Do you notice anything different about it?”
Her eyes widen. “Am I supposed to?”
“Turn around.” I grin.
She turns and squints her eyes, then a flicker of surprise crosses her face. “I know we’ve only been up here once, but I swear that cozy spot over there next to the bench wasn’t here last time.”
I follow her eyes to the sitting cushions, pillows, and blankets I set up for us, before I ever ran away. “I hoped we’d come back here eventually, but given how I was uncertain of, well, everything, I wasn’t sure if we would. That little spot is our spot.”
I rise and hold out my hand for her. She grasps it, standing herself so that we can walk over to our new cozy spot. It doesn’t seem like anyone ever really comes up to this rooftop, so I figured making it a little hideaway for us would be just fine.
