Page 53 of Wicked Bonds

He took in her jeans and thin sweater, his lips curling in appreciation.It is rather ravishing, yes.

Ravishing?She nearly snorted at the term.Your age is showing.

Alluring. Beautiful. Stunning.

Her cheeks warmed as he stepped closer with each word. His hand left his pocket to reach up and brush his knuckles against her blush.

Delectable,he added.

You don’t need blood anymore, she reminded him.

Doesn’t make me desire it any less.

The soft clearing of a throat returned their attention to the reason they were here. Stas’s face grew even hotter at the realization of her mother having witnessed their flirtation, making Issac chuckle into her mind.

However, out loud, he sounded entirely normal. Cultured, even. “I can’t see the ethereal markings either. All I see is my Aya.”

Stas’s mother smiled. “You’ll do.” The approval in her tone warmed Stas’s heart. It was a bit overwhelming having her parents back after nearly two decades without them, but she preferred that to the alternative of them really being dead. “I also don’t see any wards from this vantage point. We should try another beach.”

Soft blue feathers appeared as Stas’s mom shifted into her ethereal state. Then she disappeared as she misted to another beach.

Stas wrapped her arms around Issac’s torso. “Don’t spill your coffee on my wings.”

He chuckled again, his free arm encircling her lower back. “I wouldn’t dream of soiling such beauty, love.”

This time she did snort.

There was nothing beautiful about pink wings.

Opal, he whispered into her mind. He didn’t even need to hear her thought to know what she was thinking. Her opinion of her pinkish feathers was very well known between them.

Rather than respond, she misted them to the next beach, where she found her father waiting for them. He had a sword in his hand, something her mother appeared to be commenting on as Stas and Issac appeared.

“…from Gabriel,” her father was saying.

“And does he know you have it?”

Her father shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll figure it out eventually.”

Stas’s mother sighed and shook her head. “You’re incorrigible.”

“So you’ve said before,” he drawled, his green eyes flicking up to Stas. “How is the ward lesson going?”

“Considering we haven’t found one yet, I’d say not well,” Stas replied as Issac moved to her side. His coffee mug remained steady in his hand as he took another sip.

Her misting skills had definitely improved.

Or maybe that was all him.

Perhaps a mixture of both.

Regardless, she was pleased and returned to her corporeal state with a smile as she turned her gaze upward into the night.

Same thing.

No sign of ethereal energy. “We’re sure these wards exist?” Stas asked, frowning. She didn’t trust anything involving Osiris, and he was the one who had supposedly made them. Which could mean nothing or everything, really.

“They might not be in the sky,” her mother murmured, her gaze turning to the black sand and the nearby rocks. “He would have wanted to disguise them—not to hide them from Hydraians, as they can’t see the runes, but from other Seraphim.”