She choked up the seawater she’d swallowed, back arched as she expelled it from her stomach. “Titus?” she managed to cry out, pushing against his shoulder. His eyes were closed, limbs limp against the waves lapping at him. “Don’t you dare fucking do this!” She checked his pulse, wary of the twisted lump of flesh and exposed bones jutting from his back.
Wings. He had wings, except the right was almost torn off. They were dark, slick feathers a jet black at the edges only softening to a slate grey closer towards his spine.
A screech tore through the air, and Rae looked back over her shoulder just as the cliff finally fell, crashing into the sea. She watched the building drop, almost moving in slow motion before it hit the water, causing a powerful wave. She waited, the wall of water rushing towards them. She covered Titus’s body with her own as it hit with the force of a train, knocking the breath from her lungs as it tried to pull her back into its depths.
She was doing her best to hold on, but failing. The sand was disappearing beneath her along with the water, sucking, pulling with far more strength than she had. Her fingers scrapped against his jacket, trying to find grip before…
Titus gripped her hand, angling his back against the water. “I’ve got you,” he said, his voice several octaves deeper than usual.
Relief almost made her cry, her body shaking as she gripped him harder. “I thought you’d died,” she whispered against his salty skin. “You can’t do that to me.” She never expected such despair at seeing him lifeless, at his face so still. The panic as she tried to find a pulse.
A shadow in the sky, Cassiel landing with a crunch of sand.
Rae clutched the pendant, her palm burning. “Back off,” she growled, not caring that she had no weapon.
“Daemon, I see you survived your first flight,” he chuckled, jumping to perch on a large rock.
Titus jerked his head up, eyes so bright red it was startling. The wings at his back twitched, beginning to lift.
“It’s broken,” Rae said, hand hovering over the high arch. “Stop, you’re going to make it worse.”
Cassiel’s own wings rustled, pulled tight to his back to not touch the sand. “I wonder how your line survived the culling?”
Rae crouched in front of Titus, hair slick against her face. His eyes, the same copper as his wings, were steady on her breasts.
“My eyes are up here, arsehole,” she hissed, releasing the pendant to drop back against her dress.
Cassiel jumped from his rock, moving closer.
“Stay back,” she warned him, holding her hand up in threat. Her other slipped behind her back. “Come any closer and I’ll shoot you.” She was bluffing, but he didn’t know that.
“A gun won’t kill me.”
“Want to test that theory?”
Titus moved beside her, wings a dead weight behind him. The right was hanging on by a single piece of flesh, and he reached around and tore the entire thing off, the wing landing with a thud.
She didn’t know how he was standing, never mind walking.
“Fuck,” she whispered, rushing to his side, she placed her arm around his back, trying to keep him steady. “What do you want Cassiel?”
“I’m not here to harm, just curious,” he said, warily eyeing Titus, his assessment taking in the width of his broken wing in one, quick sweep. “I didn’t exactly expect the night’s activities.”
“Curious about?”
“You, Child of the Gods.” Cassiel cocked his head. “Who gifted you the relic?”
“Relic?”
“Pendant,” he corrected with an impatient huff. “Your pendant’s a relic from when celestrials were revered as gods. Humans were gifted them as an honour for their services.”
“It was a gift from my mother.”
A sharp nod. “It can only be gifted from a parent to a child, but that still doesn’t answer my original question of how your line survived the culling. You, and that relic shouldn’t exist.”
Titus tensed, a flash of blinding colour that pushed Rae back. The light lasted only a second, then something heavy wrapped around her waist, tugging.
A large beast stood where Titus once was. He was as black as the wing that had doubled in size, arched high over his left side. Patterns identical to the symbol tattoos mirrored in his thick fur, with quills jutting from his spine, sharp needles that raised when he growled towards the angel, the sound like metal grinding.
