A rueful smile played across Zeke’s lips. “What always happens, I suppose. After ten years, someone new caught his eye. He said I was too busy with my responsibilities or gone too often. I thought because we had forever, a few weeks here or there wouldn’t matter. I was wrong.
“One day, right before I had to go to Tibet to meet with one of the Drevlin experts, we woke up and he told me he needed to move on. For years I chided myself for not fighting harder, but after time I realized he wasn’t the one for me. I was the son of Ares to him, not Ezekiel. I see that now, but at the time I was heartbroken.”
“I’m sorry you went through that,” I murmured. Without thinking I put my hand over his. “Losing someone important to you leaves scars. It doesn’t matter if in hindsight you never had what you thought you did at the time.”
Zeke put his hand over mine. “You don’t have to answer this, but if you want to tell me, I’d like to know more about you and Lael.”
I didn’t need him to show me more compassion to know he had a kind heart. He was right that I didn’t want to share this pain. I wasn’t ready, but I probably never would be.
A lump formed in my throat as I marshaled my emotions to respond. Dredging up memories of my lost love was still remarkably painful all these years later.
“Lael was one of the most vibrant, passionate people I’d met. His father was Lucien, who’d helped fight the Drevlin before we came to Earth. We met in Italy after the fall of Constantinople. Michael was preparing to defend Europe from the Ottomans. Ares and Gabriel were gathering fighters and Lael was there with his father. From the moment we met, he was the sun my world revolved around.”
I smiled wistfully as I recalled those heady, joyous early days of our romance. “We were inseparable for centuries. He had this fire inside that I was drawn to like a moth to a flame. We’d travel the world, settling in major cities for a decade or two, then find a new place to call home. During those years, we’d fought in every major war, sometimes on the winning side, other times we lost. Rarely did we have a vested interest in who won. Certainly, wewanted our side to win, but there were very few wars that would affect angels. Whenever those happened, Gabriel called a muster and we’d fight for the side most aligned with our interests.
“One of those conflicts was World War I. Lael and I led a small group of soldiers at Marne that almost single-handedly held back the German army. We thought we were invincible, and for years we were. In August 1918, we were at Amiens. It was the start of the end of the war.
“Lael was horrifically injured, his entire body ravaged by an explosion near his position. If he hadn’t been an angel, he’d have died instantly. As it was, he almost died three times before we could stabilize him. His recovery took almost a year, but we’d both been injured before, so I assumed we’d go back to our old life once he was better. It didn’t work out that way.
“The doctors had healed his body, but his mind was haunted by rage and demons I couldn’t comprehend. The Lael I knew and loved disappeared, replaced by this caustic, mocking shadow.”
My hands clenched against the steering wheel as the memories washed over me. “I tried; we all did. Your Dad, Lucien, Gabriel. The best doctors were brought in to try to bring back the person he’d been before the injury. Nothing worked. I clung to the belief that if I loved him enough, he would come back to me.”
I shook my head slowly, swallowing hard. “It was like he was disgusted by the way I still loved him. After four decades of that torment, he finally left. I found a brief note telling me not to look for him, that we were through. It broke me in half.”
Lapsing into silence, I fought against the sting of tears in my eyes. Zeke reached over and squeezed my shoulder firmly.
“I can’t begin to imagine what it was like to watch this happen to the person you loved most and be powerless to help.” His thumb rubbed a small, soothing circle against the fabric of my shirt. “I’m in awe of your resilience, Orion.”
My breath hitched at the intimate gesture and the sincere compassion in Zeke’s voice. Perhaps sensing he was cracking the armor around my heart, he squeezed my shoulder once more before withdrawing his hand.
“Thank you for trusting me with that,” he murmured. “I know it wasn’t easy.”
I turned to look at him directly, feeling naked and vulnerable in a way I hadn’t allowed myself for decades. “Thank you for caring enough to give me someone I can trust again.”
Zeke held my gaze, his eyes swirling with so many unvoiced thoughts and emotions. My heart thundered, waiting with bated breath to see if he would open that door for me or not.
Just then, a soft ping sounded from the dashboard, drawing our attention. The moment shattered as we snapped back into mission mode, the weights of duty dropping squarely back onto our shoulders.
“Looks like we’re here,” I said gruffly, putting the car in park. I drew a steadying breath, firmly boxing up the whirlwind of feelings the last few minutes had unleashed.
There would be time to unpack and dissect it all later. For now, we had a job to do—and I needed to be focused with a clear head. Sliding my game face back into place, I cast one final indecipherable look at Zeke before pushing open the door. “Let’s go.”
Zeke
We hiked for close to a mile to ensure our car wasn’t seen and approached a rundown farmhouse at the end of a lane. It looked innocuous enough against the rolling fields, but this close it thrummed with energy that shouldn’t be found on Earth. Clearing my head, I pointed toward my watch and we both activated the cloaking field Michael had provided in our field equipment. It was the best I’d ever seen. Not only did it mask our scent, dampen any sounds we made, and block our auras from detection, but it also prevented all but the most focused attempts to see us. We were all but invisible to everyone.
Avoiding the sagging porch and creaky wood, we circled the house toward the barn. My heart hammered in my chest in anticipation. We’d planned for this moment for days. Orion acted much calmer than I felt. Either he hid it well or his centuries as a soldier made this operation little more than a blip. Probably a lot of both. His grim, determined expression was as focused as I’d ever seen from him.
The barn door was open halfway, more than enough to grant us access to the dim interior. The room was thick with the scent of musty wood and machine oil. My senses expanded outward, alert for any hint of danger as we crept inside.
Four auras flickered at the edges of my awareness. Angels, their life forces emitting a barely perceptible radiance only another angel could detect. One stood out, brighter than the others. I’d wondered about the need for a bodyguard, but this angel was more powerful than me. He—and it was a he—was not quite at Orion’s level, but he was close.
Gesturing for Orion to follow, I guided us across the dusty floor toward a back room. A door at the far end stood slightly ajar, light spilling through the crack. I gave Orion the hand sign to guard my back and I inched closer to get a look.
Drevlin technology filled the space, the unmistakable array of crystals and glass conduits snaking across the dirt floor. At the center, a raised dais supported a pulsing sphere of near sentient-energy contained within an intricate cage of crystal and metal. Smaller structures on either side of the dais sat on stone slabs. I couldn’t guess at the exact function of the one in the center, but it was a weapon of some kind. A big weapon.
The machine to the left was a communications array, and the one on the right generated power it fed to the other two.
