Page 80 of Lustling

I look at Cassiel and try to lure him into being the safe face I need. “Cassiel is the least intimidating out of the three of you,” I say lightly.

Bastion snorts. “He might look like the safest bet, Hellcat, but underneath all that pretty, he’s the deadliest of us all.” His voice is smug and fond, and I cannot help laughing.

I step closer to Cassiel, cup his cheek, and tease him with an insolence that feels like armor. “A nightmare wrapped in a daydream.”

He flushes, burning behind his silver-blue eyes. He nervously flicks his gaze between me and Deimos.

Deimos’s grin splits his face. “Did you just quote Taylor Swift to a cast out angel?” he asks, amusement eating the edges of his frustration.

“I’m not wrong,” I say, because truth is a small, saving thing.

Deimos laughs then, a real sound that loosens the last of the tension. Cassiel’s posture shifts; the standoff melts into something truer. He steps forward in a movement that is quiet but certain.

“I will look after her,” he says simply. The words are not showy. They are concrete. They sit in the air like an iron promise.

Deimos’s smile vanishes. For a breath the room is all teeth and sharp edges. “And protect her?” he asks, the word a dare.

Cassiel tightens, wings fluttering beneath his skin like a caged storm. “With my life,” he replies without hesitation.

The charge between them snaps taut. Deimos stares at Cassiel for a long time, weighing, testing, then finally he relents. His scowl does not soften but he lets go. He reaches for me, fast and possessive, and pulls me in for a bruising kiss. His mouth on mine says everything and then something more—warning for Cassiel and promise for me.

“With your life, Angel,” Deimos mutters against my mouth as he releases me.

Cassiel’s jaw clenches. I roll my eyes at them both and take Cassiel’s hand, fitting my fingers into the warmth of his palm. His hand is steady, less showy than Bastion’s or Deimos’s, but it fits. It calms.

“Come on,” I whisper, and Cassiel moves, not flashy, not loud, just efficient. In a breath he snaps the two of us out of the apartment. The world drops away and we stand on a walkway I have not seen since before I belonged to any of them, and for the first time in a long time I feel the small, trembling part of me that still remembers childhood breathe.

FORTY-SEVEN

The shadows swallow us a few blocks from the house, and something unfamiliar coils low in my ribs. It isn't duty. It isn't calculation. It is a warm, stubborn possessiveness that clamps down on the hollow where I usually keep my better angels.

Protectiveness. Pride. The thought makes my jaw ache.

She doesn't let go of my hand as we walk. That, more than anything, does something to me. She chosemyhand—mycomfort—for this. Not Bastion. Not Deimos. Me. The whisper of that truth is small and outrageous and it steadies the world.

Halfway up the walk I stop and tug her toward me on instinct, the motion as natural as breath. She blinks up at me, confusion softening her features. “Cass?” she asks.

I don't speak. I don't need to. Words would be clumsy. My hand slides to the nape of her neck, fingertips finding the warm place where hair meets skin, and before she can say anything I close the tiny distance between us. The kiss is slow, all the things I fail to say folded into it—an apology, a promise, an admission. She exhales against me and the fine tension in her shoulders loosens. We both need this, it becomes painfully obvious. When I lift my head the smallness of her smile is enough to steady me.

“Thanks,” she murmurs.

I nod. My throat feels too tight to speak otherwise. She takes my hand again and leads the rest of the way, but as we reach the porch she lets go, letting the moment become hers to steal. The lock yields before she knocks.

A woman stands in the doorway. Her breath catches and her hands fly to her mouth. “Oh my god.” In the next heartbeat Lillien is in her mother's arms and the house becomes a thing of sobs and stiff laughter and the straining, fragile relief of parents who feared the worst.

Her father appears just inside the hall, the lines around his eyes deepening. “Lillien?” he says, astonishment bleeding into hope.

“I’m here,” she says, and for a tiny, terrible moment I sense that the word is tethered to everything she has lost and everything she is only now beginning to learn.

Then their faces shift. Her father straightens, brows knitting. “Who’s this?” he asks, and I meet his gaze with the practiced, polite tilt of my head.

“Sir,” I say, minimal and civil.

They do not immediately relax. Her mother blurts, a ridiculous, terrified thing—“Did you join a cult?”—and I almost laugh at the absurdity of it.

Lillien, quicker than I expected, laughs too. “No, Mom. No cult.” She answers with such light that you could almost forget the edges.

Her father looks me over anew, searching for something to settle him. “And he’s…?”