“You should’ve called me. I would’ve come to pick youup.”
The crazy thing was that I believed him. “I left my phone at—” I’d been about to saythe guildbut switched it to, “home.” I reached up and pushed a lock of hair behind my ear with unsteadyfingers.
Jarod followed my hand’s trembling arc back to my hip. I balled my fingers to stifle the tremor before more pity could crowd hisexpression.
“Asher’s a cousin on my mother’s side,” hesaid.
My lids fluttered from the shock of his voluntary admission. Here I’d thought I would never get an answer from him. Or that if I did, it would take morecoaxing.
“I met him the day my mother . . .” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple jostling heavily in his throat. “The day my motherdied.”
I recalled something Tristan had said: that Jarod had lost both his parents by the time he was eight and that he’d destroyed the wings of the stone angel after his mother passed. And then I measured it against what I knew: that he’d been ranked a Triple thatyear.
My nerves began to jangle so fiercely I suspected Jarod could hear them. “How did she dieagain?”
He opened his fingers to display the golden letter opener. “Stabbed herself with this.” A slender, bloodied wound marred his palm—the blade wasn’t as blunt as I’destimated.
Knives couldn’t stop angel hearts, at least, not winged one’s. Which meant Jarod’s mother was a Nephilim, but Nephilim couldn’t have children, so Jarod must have been adopted. Which meant I was wrong about him being able to see what wewere.
But that suddenly wasn’t important anymore. “Did she plant it inside her chest . . .herself?”
He lobbed the letter opener at his bookcase where it clanged against a spherical glass bookend. “No.Iput itthere.”
I gaped in horror at Jarod. “Why?”
“You should run away now, Feather.” He turned his face away. “And this time,stayaway.”
Even though I tried to stay away from the cracked sinners, I’d been around enough of them to learn that a truly dangerous person didn’t avert their eyes when they delivered a threat, much too desirous to savor the fear theyinstilled.
“You killed your mother, Jarod?” I repeatedsoftly.
He raised his chin, leveling his bottomless eyes on me. “Why does this surprise you? My soul’sputrid.”
“I don’t believethat.”
“You should come to terms with the fact that some people have no good in them and that I’m one of thosepeople.”
“Did she hurtyou?”
“Hurt me?” He gave a dark laugh. “I told you already. She wasn’t interested in me,Feather.”
The return of my nickname on his lips solidified my resolve to dig for the soul that lay beneath the granite shell he’d built aroundhimself.
“Why are you still here?Leave!” hebarked.
“Stop trying to scareme.”
He took a step toward me, his expression turning almostferal.
I stood my ground. “I need to understand one lastthing.”
Even though Nephilim couldn’t have children, the fact that he’d destroyed an angel’s wings made me wonder if his adoptive mother had told him stories about us, or if, for some reason that defied all logic, he could see what wewere.
I let my wings ripple into existence, then snapped them out as far as they couldextend.
His gaze jumped to the spires of his canopybed.
“You see them, don’tyou?”
