She nods, and her next kiss is softer. Her hands land on the hem of my shirt. “I-I need to confirm that you’re okay. It was bad, Malach. I need to know...”
Her eyes well up, and I rip my shirt off, tearing it in my hurry to reassure her. I grab her hands and put them on my bare chest. “I’m healed, see?” Goosebumps spread across my skin as her nails skim over my ribs. “Not a scratch on me.” Ciprian would ask her to replace the scrapes with marks of her own, but I’m too afraid of messing up to attempt flirting.
I’m not the only one traumatized by my time in S’lach’s basement.
“I hate him,” she sobs, brushing angrily at her tears. “For what he did to you, to Mom, to me. I went to the spine and asked it to keep him out.”
I raise my eyebrows. “How did it react?”
She lifts my right arm to examine the underside. “Understanding, I think. I sensed connection and approval, maybe? Then I heard Mom.”
“Valenara spoke to you?”
She nods. “Through echoes, she’s obviously gone, but it was her voice.”
I stroke her wings. “You were troubled,” I say quietly. Their relationship was complicated, and I need to be careful how I speak about it. Valenara loved Celine. I know that, and Celine does too, but Valenara didn’t have her daughter’s resilience. Few do.
“I didn’t expect it,” she whispers. “But everywhere I turn in this house, she’s there. I want to escape the reminders, but I can’t. And I’m ashamed for wanting to forget. I’m failing her all over again.”
I pull back enough to meet her eyes. “You’re fighting him, my truth. It’s okay to delay grief when there are more pressing matters at hand.”
She drops her forehead to mine and sighs. “I don’t want to talk about her. I just...”Needed someone to know.
“I’m here, Celine.” I kiss her again, and she melts against me.
She’s with me, exactly as I dreamed she would be. All those moments longing for her... I’m not surprised she found a way around my precautions. She’s never been one to give up.
“Your timing was perfect,” I say. “How did you know I needed you?”
“Lyklan.” Celine reaches into her back pocket and pulls out my journal. “He ignored your terrible plan, thank the gods, and made one of his own.”
“That,” I say with a frown. “Is not what I asked him to do.”
Celine scoffs. “I don’t think he cares.”
“And S’lach?” I ask, dread rolling down my spine. His anger rules him entirely. It erases any semblance of control he mightotherwise have had, making him a danger to everyone around him. “He won’t let this go quietly.”
“Neither will I,” she says. “We’re past quiet acceptance. He believes he can send assassins after me, enslave you with his rune, throw us into the monster realm, take your wings, and get away with it?”
“You’ll show him otherwise.”
Celine nods and smiles. The expression chills me to the bone. “He thinks I’m a bomb. I think it’s time for me to blow up in his face.”
“Everything is as secure as we can make it,” Celine says. “Now we wait.”
We’re all gathered in the room I woke up in: Luca, Ciprian, Alistair, and Riven joining us. Seeing them in Celine’s ancestral home is strange. It’s not forbidden to bring non-angels into the realm, but it’s practically unheard of.
“He’ll try to silence you,” I say. “If you face him, that will be his first move.”
Luca frowns. “I don’t like that, baby. If he opens his mouth and takes control of you, how will you keep him out?”
“That’s not how it works,” Celine says. “He would only gain that level of control if he branded me with his rune, which he can’t do from a distance. Even if he could, I don’t think it would stick. His silence has never worked on me.”
Alistair glances at me. “We’ll need to keep an eye on Malach, though. With the brand, S’lach will definitely try to control him again.”
I duck my head, unable to face their pity. The brand is an endless, aching sign of my own weakness. Celine may be strongenough to evade his control, but we all know I’m not. Even now, the burn—I frown. The scorching sensation is gone.
With trembling fingers, I lift my shirt and push the waistband of my pants down enough to see... except there’s nothing there. Only unblemished skin one shade paler than the rest.
