“I told you. I was born to kill.” He definitely wasn’t smiling now. In fact, his voice had a despairing edge.
“But why the fae in particular—if you hate us so much?”
Sharp tendrils of his magic cut at the air, and he pulled his gaze away from me.
I heaved a sigh. “Fine. Don’t elaborate. I wouldn’t expect you to. We can get on with the journey now that you’ve healed my legs.” My stomach grumbled loudly.
Adonis scowled. “You should have told me you were hungry.”
I rubbed my belly. “I didn’t feel the hunger until now. Now that my legs are no longer screaming at me.”
He cocked his head, studying me like a curious child would a dying insect. “And why didn’t you tell me you were tired?”
My jaw tightened. “Because I didn’t want you to know. You don’t tell me things, and I don’t tell you things. That’s our relationship.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “I see. I thought you were big on chatter.” He stood and crossed to his horse. He rummaged in his leather pack for a moment, then pulled out some packages wrapped in brown paper. He pulled out a flask too.
The rock felt frozen beneath my bum, and I pulled my coat a little tighter around me. “Do you feel hunger?”
“No. But sometimes, I eat for pleasure. I understand your kind need sustenance.”
I began unwrapping the food he’d brought: a package of bread, one of chorizo, and one of cheese. My mouth watered, and I had to restrain myself from throwing my arms around Adonis’s neck to thank him for understanding the concept of “needing sustenance.”
I drew my Nyxobian blade to slice the chorizo, before I gave up on manners and just started gnawing on it like a wild animal. When I took a break from the chorizo to build myself a hasty cheese sandwich, Drakon ambled over and snatched the sausage from the ground.
I grumbled through my mouthful of sandwich. “That was mine.”
When I finished eating, crumbs littered my blue coat. “Sorry. Did you want any?”
Adonis’s eyes were wide. “I honestly didn’t know the fae got quite that hungry.”
“Older fae can control it better.”
“And how old are you?”
I cleared my throat. “Not as old as I’d pretended to be.”
“How old?”
“Twenty-five.”
His eyes snapped open. “Sweet heavenly gods. You were just born.”
I folded my arms. “Johnny isn’t that much older than me. Born in the seventies.” I squinted in the sunlight. “How does it work, exactly? Why are you all such different ages?”
He sipped from his flask. “Johnny, Kratos, and I—we’re different than other archangels.”
“Different how?”
“The Heavenly Host is made up of ten archangels. Like us, they’re nearly impossible to kill. But they’re heavenly beings. Johnny, Kratos, and I—we’re archangels who were born on earth.”
I frowned. “And your parents were…what exactly?”
“My father was an archangel. My mother was a human.”
Surprise flickered through me. “So you’re…half human.”
“There’s nothing human about me. An archangel is defined by his soul.”
“Right.” His mother would have died thousands of years ago, but his father? I couldn’t quite believe he was telling me all this, and I had a burning desire to know more about him. About all of this.
“Did your father return to the heavens?” I asked.
His gaze shuttered, and something about the raw look in his eyes told me not to push anymore on this question. I’d touched a nerve somehow. Still, I needed to know more. Needed to know how and why all this had happened.
“Why did it start?” I asked. “The Great Nightmare?”
“Once the wars started between humans, demons, the fae—the Heavenly Host decided it was time for a purification. Since the fall, they’ve just been waiting for the right moment to unleash us. And you all gave it to them with your infighting.”
“I see.” I swallowed hard. “Why does Johnny make me feel so…hungry when he stands near me?”
Adonis’s keen eyes searched me. “He’s an angel of famine.”
“Famine,” I repeated. “And you’re…death.”
“Is that what you feel when I stand near you?”
Not exactly. But I wasn’t going to tell him that standing near him made me yearn for the excruciating pleasure I knew he could give me. That he made my blood heat, my breasts strain against my clothes until I wanted to pull them off.
Nope, no way I was saying that. The archangel’s ego was oppressive enough as it was. Instead, I said, “Something like that. Shadows seem to cling to you. You give off a bit of a death vibe.”
I almost thought I saw a flicker of disappointment in his pale eyes. He sipped his flask before handing it to me. “And what do you feel when you’re near Kratos?”
My throat tightened. Like I want to fall to my knees. “He exudes dominance. Like he was born to conquer.”
“And there you have it.”
My pulse raced as a glimmer of understanding began to spark in my mind. “Death, Famine, Conquest…” My stomach clenched as I pieced it all together. “Your horse.”
Adonis’s pale, gray eyes pierced me. I shivered, and he widened his wings, shielding me from the wintry winds that whipped at my hair and skin. The feathered tip of one wing brushed against my skin, and I shivered.
“I thought it was a human myth,” I said hollowly.
“You thought what was a human myth?”
“The four horsemen of the apocalypse.”
Chapter 10
“I prefer angel to horseman,” he said, “but either is fine.”
My throat had gone dry. “So that means there’s one more. War, right?”
A hint of mockery in his smile. “I think your young mind has learned all it can handle at this point.”
The wind rushed over the river, carrying with it the scent of early wisteria shoots.
I didn’t understand him, or the archangels, or the horsemen. Adonis was a dark and foreign power. I only knew that in the sound of the wind rustling the leaves, I felt the Old Gods calling me.
“And your purpose on earth is to kill in massive numbers.” I hugged my knees to my chest. “I don’t know what you have planned for me, Adonis, but I happen to believe that the good guys always win in the end. Even if you have to go through several years of hell and death to get there.”
Shadows slid through his eyes. “And you’re sure you know who the good guys are?”
A shiver danced up my neck. “Not exactly. But I think the Old Gods are the good guys. I felt them in the forest outside Hotemet Castle. I feel them out here, even, whispering on the February wind, mingling with the early scents of spring. And I felt them on Eimmal, when their power flowed through my body like an ancient river. They’re looking after the fae, the humans.”