As soon as I open the door, I see why it’s so cold in the cottage. The window is broken and sheets of rain blow onto the bed. I’m so tired I could just sleep on the floor. I grab a folded blanket off the dresser. It’s cold but dry. I close the bedroom door to keep the wind out and pad back into the living room. I lie down on the sofa across from the angel, wrapping myself in the blanket.
He seems to be comfortably asleep. He’s still shirtless, as he has been since the first time I saw him. The bandages must provide a little warmth but not much. I wonder if he gets cold? It must be freezing when flying high up in the sky. Maybe angels are adapted to cold temperatures, just as they’re light for flight.
But this is all a guess, and probably just a justification to make me feel better about taking the only blanket in the cottage. The power is out tonight, which means the heat is out. It rarely freezes in the bay area, but it does get pretty cold at night sometimes. This seems to be one of those times.
I fall asleep listening to the rhythm of his steady breathing and the drumming of the rain on the windows.
~
I dream that I am swimming in the Antarctic, surrounded by broken icebergs. The glacial towers are majestic and deadly beautiful.
I hear Paige calling for me. She’s floundering in the water, coughing, barely keeping herself afloat. Having only her arms to paddle with, I know she can’t tread water for long. I swim toward her, desperate to reach her, but the gut-freezing cold slows my motions, and I waste almost all my energy shivering. Paige calls to me. She’s too far for me to see her face, but I can hear tears in her voice.
“I’m coming!” I try to call to her. “It’s okay, I’ll be there soon.” But my voice comes out in a hoarse whisper hardly reaching my own ears. Frustration cracks through my chest. I can’t even comfort her with reassurances.
Then I hear a motorboat. It cuts through the floating ice chunks as it charges toward me. My mother is on the boat, driving it. With her free hand, she throws precious survival gear overboard, splashing it into the icy water. Cans of soup and beans, life vests and blankets, even shoes and blister packs go over the side of the boat, sinking among the bobbing ice.
“You really should eat your eggs, dear,” says my mother.
The boat heads straight for me and is not slowing down. If anything, it’s speeding up. If I don’t get out of the way, she’ll run me over.
Paige calls out for me in the distance.
“I’m coming.” I call out but only a croaked whisper comes out of my mouth. I try to swim toward her but my muscles are so cold that all I can do is flail. Flail and shiver in the path of my mother’s boat.
“Hush. Shhh.” A soothing voice whispers in my ear.
I feel the sofa cushions being pulled out from against my back. Then warmth envelopes me. Firm muscles embrace me from the space where the cushions used to be. I’m groggily aware of masculine arms wrapping themselves around me, their skin soft as a feather, their muscles steel velvet. Chasing away the ice in my veins and the nightmare.
“Shhh.” A husky whisper in my ear.
I relax into the cocoon of warmth and let the sound of the rain on the roof lull me back to sleep.
~
The warmth is gone, but I’m no longer shivering. I curl up on my own, trying to savor the heat left in the cushions by a body that is no longer there.
When I open my eyes, the morning light makes me wish I hadn’t. Raffe lies on his sofa, watching me with those dark blue eyes. I swallow, suddenly feeling awkward and unkempt. Great. The world has come to an end, my mother is out there with the street gangs, crazier than ever, my sister has been kidnapped by vengeful angels, and I'm concerned that my hair is greasy and my breath smells bad.
I get up abruptly, tossing aside my blanket with more force than is necessary. I grab my toiletries and head for one of the two bathrooms.
“Good morning to you too,” he says in a lazy drawl. I have my hand on the bathroom door when he says, “In case you’re wondering, the answer is yes.”
I pause, afraid to look back. “Yes?” Yes, it was him holding me through the night? Yes, he knows I liked it?
“Yes, you can come with me,” he says as though he already regrets it. “I’ll take you to the aerie.”
CHAPTER 11
The water is still running in the cottage but there is no hot water. I consider taking a shower anyway, not knowing how long it will be before I can take a proper one, but the thought of glacier temperature water hitting me full force makes me hesitate.
I decide to do a thorough sponge bath with a washcloth. At least that way, I can keep various parts of me from freezing all at once.
As predicted, the water is ice-cold, and it brings back pieces of my dream from last night, which inevitably brings back how I got warm enough to be cradled to sleep. It was probably just some kind of angel host behavior triggered by my shivering, the way penguins huddle together when it’s cold. What else could it be?