Storm and Fury by Jennifer L. Armentrout

28

“Are you sure you’re safe up here?” Zayne asked, offering me a hand as I reached the top of the fire escape of the building overlooking Franklin Square.

Staring up at him, I raised an eyebrow. He was in his Warden form, a beautiful, primal sight with his blond hair parted by his fierce horns. I placed my hand in his warm, hard one. “You sound like Misha.”

“In other words, I sound like I’m asking reasonable questions?” He hauled me up with one arm, and I don’t even know what happened.

Zayne either underestimated how strong he was or overestimated how much effort it took to lift me, but I ended up clearing the ledge and then some. My feet nowhere near the cement rooftop, I toppled forward, into Zayne. He dropped my hand and caught me with his arms around my waist.

“Whoa,” he said, laughing as he sat me down on my feet. “And I’m supposed to not be worried about you up here?”

“That wasn’t my fault.” I tipped my head back. Silvery moonlight sliced across his face. “You’re like the Incredible Hulk.”

“I don’t know about that.”

I expected Zayne to let me go and step back, keeping a respectable distance like he always did, but when he didn’t, I wished I could see his eyes and I wished I knew what he was thinking. We weren’t as close as we had been on the subway, but I could feel the warmth of his body.

I took a quick, shallow breath as I placed my hands on his arms. “You don’t have to worry about me up here. For real, though.”

“I can’t help but worry about you, when we’re over two hundred feet in the air.” His arms loosened, and his hands slid to my lower back. “You’re badass, Trinity, but I don’t think you’ll do well if you slip and fall.”

“I’m not going to slip and fall,” I told him. “And I can make some pretty awesome jumps.” I pulled away, breaking his now-loose hold. “I can show you—”

“Yeah, no.” He caught my hand, pulling me back toward him. “I don’t need a demonstration. We’re up here patrolling, not showing off.”

“But I want to show off,” I said, tugging on my hand, but his grip tightened. “I can clear the alley and go from roof to roof. Probably even over the street if I get a good running start.”

“I really do not suggest that you attempt that.”

“And what am I supposed to do if we see a demon or Bael down below? You’ll just jump and I’m supposed to slowly make my way to the fire escape and climb down it?”

Zayne pulled me toward the center of the roof, his wings tucked back. “You can quickly make your way down the fire escape.”

“That will make me very useful if you need help.” I rolled my eyes.

“I’d rather have you alive than useful.” Zayne let go of my hand then. “Besides, it’s been quiet the last couple of nights.”

Zayne was right about that.

But tonight felt different because we now knew Bael had been here.

As I moseyed away from the center of the building, Zayne was right behind me, like a shadow...like Misha. My heart squeezed as I reached up, rubbing at the center of my chest.

I missed Misha so badly it was a physical ache that I wondered how Zayne could be so distant from his clan. I spun toward him. “Can I ask you something?”

“You know, I would think something was wrong with you if you didn’t have a question to ask me,” he replied.

I snorted. “Well, you’ll be able to tell if I ever get possessed.”

“True.” His wings spread out behind him, nearly blocking out the moon. “What is your question?”

“How often do you see your clan?”

There was a beat of silence. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Weird thing to be curious about.”

“So? Just answer the question.”

“I check in with them often.”

I inched closer to him. “Based on the way Danika and Jasmine acted, it seemed like it had been weeks, if not longer.”

“Well, it has been a while since I saw them, and sometimes I check in with Nicolai or Dez over the phone or out here, in the city.”

“So, how long has it been since you’ve been home?” I asked, and Zayne’s wings snapped back, tucking close to him. I crossed my arms. “What? That is your home, Zayne.”

“It doesn’t feel like it. Not with my father gone and—” He cut himself off and then he turned, stalking toward the ledge. “It’s been a while since I’ve gone there.”

“Don’t you... Don’t you miss them?” I asked. “I mean, I haven’t been gone that long and I miss everyone so much it hurts.”

“It’s not the same.” He hopped up on the ledge, perched there as he overlooked the city down below. “My clan is still here, in this city, and I can see them whenever I want.”

“Yeah, you can,” I said, hands curling into fists. “It must be nice to have that privilege.”

His head turned to the side and a long moment passed. “You don’t understand. Going back there...all I can think about is my father and how I wasn’t able to save him and how I wasn’t able to stop...stop Layla from being hurt. That place used to hold good memories. Great ones, but now...not so much.”

I stared at the shape of him. “I know how that feels, Zayne, or have you forgot that?”

Zayne cursed. “No, I haven’t. I’m sorry—”

“Don’t apologize. Just...just listen to me,” I said. “You told me that I wasn’t responsible for my mother’s death, and not to sound like an arrogant tool, but I am stronger than you. I could’ve ended Ryker’s life in a heartbeat, but I didn’t. You couldn’t save your father—”

“It’s not the same.”

“How?”

Zayne rose fluidly and turned. “I was distracted with personal shit, Trinity. My head wasn’t in the game. If it was, I could’ve stopped the attack.”

I didn’t know if that was true or not, but I had a feeling it wasn’t that simple. “So, were you just moping around and doing nothing when he died?”

“No. I was fighting a wraith.”

I threw my hands up. “Look, maybe you were distracted, but it wasn’t like you were doing nothing. His death wasn’t your fault, and I have no idea what happened with Layla, but I’m sure that wasn’t on you, either.”

“Oh, that was entirely my fault.” He came down to the roof. “I nearly got her killed, but it’s not just that. It’s more.” He sighed, looking over his shoulder at the street. “I miss them. I do. I just need my space. That’s why I moved out. It’s why I didn’t take over the clan.”

“Because you feel like you failed your father?”

“Because I’m not sure if I...if I can do it.” He was in front of me, wings outstretched. “I don’t know whether I could lead the clan when I no longer believe that what they’re doing is correct.”

My eyes widened at the admission. “The whole killing demons indiscriminately thing?”

He nodded. “Just because we are told something is right doesn’t mean it is.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. The fact that Zayne was questioning the whole all demons are bad thing would be considered bad enough, but this was something I imagined the Alphas would be very, very unhappy to hear.

So would my father.

But after meeting Roth, Layla and, yeah, even Cayman, I thought Zayne had a point. They were helping me when my own clan had originally wanted me to just...move on.

“That’s admirable,” I said finally.

“What?”

“You,” I said, nodding. “It’s admirable that you’re allowing yourself to see what probably less than one percent of Wardens see.”

He cocked his head. “And what do Trueborns think?”

I lifted my shoulders. “I think... I think there’s a lot for me to learn about, well, everything.”

“Yeah.”

“But—”

“I’m done with this conversation,” he said, and I opened my mouth. “Seriously.”

I snapped my mouth shut and then nodded. I was surprised he’d shared what he had. I felt like I’d scaled a fortress wall. As the warm breeze lifted the thin wisps of hair at the nape of my neck, I thought about the day Zayne and his clan had arrived.

“I used to climb the buildings back home when Misha would go atop one to rest. That’s where I was when I saw you guys show up—on the roof of the Great Hall. I don’t know if I told you that or not? Anyway, Misha hated it, always worried that someone would see me or I’d slip and fall,” I said as I walked over to the ledge. “But I loved it—being this high and so close to the stars. I can’t fly, so this is... This is the closest I can get to it.”

Zayne cursed under his breath as I hopped up on the ledge, and he swiftly landed beside me, his large body angled to catch me just in case I lost my balance.

I grinned as I pivoted on the ledge and walked away from him. My peripheral was nothing but shadows and my night vision was basically utter crap, but my balance was on point. Up ahead, I could see where the building ended. When I’d been in the alley before, the gap between the buildings had appeared to be about twenty feet.

Zayne stayed right behind me. “What is up with your fascination with stars?”

Worrying my lower lip, I glanced back at him and then I lifted my gaze to the sky. “Can you see the stars? Right now?”

He didn’t answer immediately, and I imagined it was because that wasn’t a question he’d been expecting. “Yes. Why?”

“Because God has a messed-up sense of humor?” I exhaled heavily, about to talk about something that I talked about even less than I did my mother’s death. I didn’t want to, but I had gotten Zayne to open up just a little, so maybe it was... It was my turn. “My father is an angel—an archangel, Zayne. One so powerful and so...scary to most people that I don’t even like to say his name. His blood pumps through me—his DNA—but so does my mother’s and that of her family. Come to find out, they don’t have the best genetics, and some of those flawed genetics made it through the mix.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have what’s called retinitis pigmentosa, and no, don’t ask me to spell that. I’m probably not even pronouncing it correctly. It’s a...degenerative eye disease that usually ends in partial or total blindness,” I explained rather factually. “It’s usually hereditary but sometimes people can just develop it. A great-grandmother of mine had it and it skipped a couple of generations, and I ended up the lucky winner of crappy eyesight. I have little side vision. Like if I look forward, I can’t even see you. You’re nothing but a blob of shadows. It’s like having horse blinders on,” I said, lifting my hands to the sides of my head. “And my depth perception is pretty terrible.”

“Wait. Is that why I’ve seen you flinch if something gets close to your face?”

I nodded. “Yeah, if something comes at me from the side, I often can’t see it until it’s, like, right there, in my center vision. My eyes don’t adapt well from light to dark, and extremely bright light is just as bad as extremely dark areas. There are...tiny black spots in my vision, kind of like floaters, and they’re easy to ignore at this point, but I have cataracts already. It’s a side effect of these steroid eyedrops I had to take when I was younger.” I shrugged and started walking along the edge again. “Which is why the moon actually looks like two moons on top of one another until I close my right eye.”

Stopping, I placed my hands on my hips and looked down at the park against the street. The trees were just shapes of thicker darkness against lighter shadows even though the park was lit.

Zayne touched my arm, and when I looked at him, I saw that he’d shifted into his human form. “What does this mean exactly? Are you going blind?”

I lifted a shoulder again. “I don’t know. Probably? The fact that I’m not completely human throws a wrench in the whole thing, and the disease requires a level of genetic mapping to see what the prognosis could be—I assume you know why that can never happen. But the disease isn’t predictable even in humans. Some by my age are completely blind. Others don’t develop symptoms until they’re in their thirties. Maybe my vision loss will slow down because of the angelic blood in me, or it may stop entirely, but it has been getting worse, so I don’t think my angelic side is doing that much good. I just don’t know. No one can answer that. No one can even answer that for a lot of humans with the disease.”

Zayne was quiet as he listened, so I continued. “When my mom noticed I started walking into things more often and having trouble navigating when it was really bright outside, she and Thierry took me to an eye doctor, and the man took one look at my eyes and referred me to a specialist. A lot of really annoying tests later, the disease was confirmed. It was a shock to say the least.” I laughed. “I mean, come on. I’m a Trueborn. Fighting while having these huge gaps in my vision isn’t exactly easy. So, how did this happen? But it is...what it is.”

“I noticed some things, like the flinching and your steps seeming unsure at night, but I never would’ve guessed it,” he said. “Never.”

“Yeah, I don’t think most people do. You know? Most people only think of the blind and the seeing, and they have no understanding or concept of everything in between. I don’t hide that I have this disease.” I looked over at him. “I’ve just learned to compensate for it, so much so that sometimes even I forget...but then I walk into a door or a wall, and then I’m quickly reminded.”

“And the stars?”

A faint smile tugged at my lips as I recalled what the eye specialist in Morgantown had once asked me. “At my last appointment, about a year ago, my eye doctor asked if I could still see the stars at night. It was weird when he asked, because I had to think about it and I realized I couldn’t answer the question,” I admitted. “I hadn’t looked up at the stars in, like, forever, and it sort of hit me, you know? That one day I would look up and I wouldn’t see a star, and that would be it. I’d never be able to see something so...beautiful and simple again. Up until that moment, I’d taken that for granted. So, every night, I look up to see if I can see the stars.”

Zayne didn’t respond, but I felt his intense gaze on me. I started twisting my hair as I lifted a shoulder, unsure of what else to say. “So, yeah...”

A moment passed. “Can you see the stars now?”

I tipped my head back and lifted my gaze. It was a cloudless night and the sky was like a deep oil slick broken up by tiny dots. “I can see them. They’re faint.” Raising my hand, I pointed to two stars, one on top of the other. “Right there. Two of them.” I closed my right eye and the two tiny blurs of white became one blur of white. “Oh, wait.” I laughed. “There’s only one star there.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, and when I glanced at him, he was staring up in the direction I’d pointed. “There’s a star there.” He looked over at me, and our gazes locked. “Do you see more?”

Feeling a little dizzy and silly, I looked away with great effort. I scanned the sky again. “I see a couple. Why? Are there a lot of stars?”

When he didn’t answer, I peeked at him, and found that once again, he was staring at me, his head cocked slightly, causing a strand of blond hair to graze his cheek.

I kept twisting my hair as nervousness grew like a nest of birds waking up and taking flight. I looked away. “I’m guessing the sky is full of stars?”

“It is, but the only ones that matter are the ones you see.”

My gaze flew to his.

He smiled at me. “You are... You are incredibly strong.”

The comment caught me off guard. “What?”

“You’re standing here talking about losing your vision like it’s nothing. Like it’s no big deal, and it’s huge. You know that.” Reaching over, he placed his hand on mine, startling me. Gently, he untangled my fingers from my hair. “But you’re dealing with that. Living with that. If that’s not the definition of strength, I don’t know what is.”

The nest of birds moved to my chest. “I don’t think it’s strength.”

He pulled my hand away from my hair. “Trin...”

Flushing at the first use of my nickname and realizing I liked it when he called me that, I turned my gaze back to the two stars that were really one. “What I mean is, I don’t think it’s being strong. I can’t change what’s going to happen. Maybe one day there’ll be a cure and it will work for me, but until then, I have to accept this and I can’t dwell on it, because it is scary—it’s scary as Hell to really think that all of this will be gone and I’ll have to learn to live differently with the expectations of who I am and what I am, but I have to deal with it. And I do so by not letting it define me or consume every waking moment of my life. That’s not strength. That doesn’t make me special.” I shrugged. “It just means I’m...doing the best I can.”

Still holding my hand, he squeezed. “Like I said, the definition of strength.”

As if I had no control, I found myself staring into his eyes again, thinking that it was going to suck one day when I couldn’t see the stars, but it was going to be a damn shame when I could no longer see those pale blue wolf eyes.

“I can’t believe you haven’t told me until now.”

“Don’t take it personally. It’s not something I talk a lot about, because I just... I don’t know. I don’t want people treating me different because of it.” I turned to him. “I don’t want you treating me different.”

“I wouldn’t.” He stepped into me, careful of the fact we were still on the ledge. “Okay. That’s not exactly true. I admire the Hell out of you, but I already admired you. So now it’s more.”

I tried to stop smiling, but I couldn’t as I looked down at where he still held my hand. With the moonlight, I could see it.

“What are you going to do if it does get worse?” he asked.

“Maybe I’ll get myself a seeing-eye gargoyle.”

Zayne chuckled. “I can be that for you.”

“Uh, yeah, I feel like you’d grow very bored of that.”

“I don’t think so.” His fingers curled around my chin, bringing my gaze back to his. Air hitched in my throat. “I don’t think...there’s ever a boring second around you.”

“You don’t?” Needing a little space after discussing something so personal, I pulled free and backed up. “Good. I bet you can’t catch me.”

Pivoting around, I took off running on the ledge. I heard him shout my name, but it was lost in the wind as I picked up speed, the wind lifting my hair from my shoulders and sending it streaming behind me. I reached the edge of the ledge at a breakneck speed and there wasn’t a moment of hesitation or fear. I jumped, surrounded by nothing but air, and in those brief seconds, right before I began to fall, I became weightless and I knew that was what flying felt like.

Hitting the ledge of the building across the alley, I tucked and rolled off the rest of the speed, popping back with a wild smile breaking out across my mouth.

Zayne landed a second behind me, fully shifted again, and his wings lifted out and spread wide. The roof was more lit here so I could see the stunned look etched into his features.

Tossing back my head, I laughed as Zayne stormed toward me, fully shifted once more. “You should see your face right now. Oh my God, you actually do look speechless.” I spun away from him. “Didn’t know that was an actual thing—”

Zayne was on me in a heartbeat.

I squeaked as he caught me, lifting me clear off my feet as he held me to his chest. He pivoted, pressing me back against the cool metal of a maintenance shed. Like the night in the subway, there was no space between us, and I don’t know exactly when I’d curled my legs around his lean waist, but I had and I liked it.

A lot.

“You...” He glared down at me, the tips of his fangs exposed. “You...”

“What?” Clutching his shoulders, I was breathless and it had nothing to do with the jump and everything to do with how close we were.

“You’re maddening,” he said, pressing in, and a deep pulsing throb sent a shiver down my spine.

My eyes widened as I stared up at him. I wasn’t even sure if he was aware of what he was doing. He was furious. That much was clear, but there was something heavier and thicker riding that anger.

“You’re out of your mind.” One hand slid from my waist, over my hip, down to my thigh. His hand clenched, the sharp claws snagging the thin fabric of the leggings.

Okay. He knew what he was doing.

“You’re utterly reckless and completely impulsive,” he continued, and I tipped my head back against the shed, finding it difficult to get air into my lungs. “If you do something like that again...”

“What?” I squeezed his shoulders as his wings lifted and came down, cocooning us. Before, the utter darkness had caused me to panic, but now, it made me bold, like I could do anything in the shelter he created. “What are you going to do?”

“Something.” His words were hot against my neck, causing all my muscles to tense.

My fingers touched the edges of his hair. “You need to give me a little more detail on that,” I told him. “Because I’m a hundred percent going to do that again.”

“I’m going to need to get a leash for you.” He shifted his body and my entire body seem to jerk against the unexpected hardness between his hips.

Oh God.

My heart was pounding as heat pooled. “If you got a leash for me, I’d choke you with it.”

His husky chuckle burned my lips. “You would.”

“Yes,”I told him, agreeing and giving permission for something he hadn’t asked for but I wanted to give him. Something I think he wanted to give me.

He was so still and so quiet and then he said, “The second you kissed me in the training rooms, I knew you were going to be trouble.”

“Is that why you ran from me?”

“I’m not running from you now,” he said. “It seems I’m running after you now.”

Then the barest brush of his lips against mine caused my entire body to arch. My lips parted, giving him access, and I felt the wicked tip of one fang against my lip. I shuddered against Zayne, and he made this deep, throaty groan that was nearly my undoing.

“We shouldn’t...” He trailed off, dragging that sharp fang across my lower lip. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

I couldn’t think of any damn thing we should be doing right now other than this. “Why?”

“Why?” He laughed, low and soft against my lips. “Besides the fact this complicates things?”

“I like complications.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” His forehead rested against mine. “You’ve been through a lot, Trin. You have a lot on your mind, and I’m not—”

A sudden screech ripped through the air, forcing us apart. Zayne lowered me to the roof and spun, tucking his wings so I wasn’t smacked upside the head by one.

I didn’t see them at first, not until the two creatures landed on the roof. They looked like bats—huge, walking bats. Moonlight streamed through their thin, nearly translucent wings.

“Imps,” Zayne sighed.

I unhooked my blades and braced myself. Imps weren’t known for their intelligence, but they made up for the lack of brains with their violent tendencies. “Don’t they normally hang out in caves?”

“Normally. Guess they’re out sightseeing.”

“Do you think they’re looking for me?”

“Well, we’re about to find out.”

One of them screeched and rushed Zayne. The other took flight and landed nimbly in front of me. It was too dark to risk throwing the blades so this fight was going to be hand to...bat wing?

I giggled.

“Do I really want to know why you’re laughing over there?” Zayne asked, catching the imp around its neck.

Grinning, I darted back as the imp took a swing at me. I dipped under the demon’s outstretched arms and sprang up behind it, then spun and slammed the iron blade deep into its back.

It let out a high-pitched shriek before bursting into flames. I turned in time to see the other demon do the same. I started toward him—

Jerked backward, I nearly lost my grip on my daggers as talons snatched me by my shirt. A stuttered heartbeat later, I was lifted off my feet. I shrieked as the imp started to take flight. The material of my shirt began to tear.

Zayne spun to where I dangled several feet off the roof. “Christ.”

Lifting my daggers, I swept them back in wide, high arcs, catching the imp’s hind legs. The wickedly sharp blades cut into the creature’s skin and bone. Wet warmth sprayed into the air. It screamed, a sound that reminded me of an angry baby—if an angry baby was also part-hyena. The thing let go, and I was falling.

Into nothing.

A roar of wind and night air rose up to snatch me. I couldn’t even scream as terror exploded into my gut as I fell.

Oh God. Oh God.Oh God, this was going to hurt. This was going to hurt bad—

Arms caught me around the waist, jerking me up and back into a hard chest. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs, but I knew it was Zayne.

Zayne had caught me.

Air whipped around us as his wings spread out, slowing our fall, and then he landed in a crouch, the impact jarring me to the very core.

“Holy crap,” I whispered as I blinked rapidly. My hair had come free from its bun and was plastered to my face. The handles of my daggers felt like they were embedded into my palms. “Holy crap, I didn’t drop my daggers.”

“Are you okay?” Zayne’s voice was tighter than normal as let go of me, and I quickly spun toward him. “Trinity?”

“Yeah.” Sheathing my daggers, I checked my shoulders. “It didn’t claw me. I think it was trying to carry me off. Thank you.” I looked up at him. “You probably just saved my life there.”

“I think I totally saved your life there.”

“Totally,” I agreed, looking around and realizing we were in the alley near the fire escape. “Are you okay?”

“It got me in the chest.” He looked down, cursing.

My stomach dropped as I reached for him as concern blossomed. “How bad?”

“Not that bad,” Zayne said, stepping back from me. “But we should head back. I’m going to need to clean this up.”

Worried, I quickly agreed and desperately tried to ignore the sudden, arctic blast rolling off Zayne.