“Let’s run,” I whisper in Reed’s ear. “We can hide again,” I plead.
“You haven’t even heard our plan, Evie,” Reed says softly, hugging me tighter to him.
“If it involves you getting close to Brennus, then I’m against it.” I say as my stomach twists at the thought of Brennus using his thrall to control Reed.
“Shh, Evie,” Reed says, smoothing back my hair as he listens to the pounding of my heart. “Now that your life is no longer bound to Brennus’ life, I can kill him without any repercussions. The magical contract he made with you that tied you to him is the only reason he’s still alive. Without it, he would already cease to be. I have had so many opportunities to kill him, but I couldn’t do it without killing you, too. But, Brennus broke the contract, so he’s as good as dead when I see him.”
I pale. “Reed, he has an army,” I argue.
“You’ll never be his slave again. I promise you,” Reed breathes in my ear, and I want so badly to believe him. “Let me explain our plan to you. You’ll see.”
Gently, Reed leads me towards our bungalow on the beach. Hesitantly, I look over at Russell who’s watching me walking away with Reed. Pain is in his eyes, seeing me with Reed. I’ve always been Russell’s love in every one of our lifetimes together…except for this one. This one’s different. I’m no longer just human anymore, I’m also angelic and the angel part of me really loves Reed—needs him. But, my soul…my soul will always love Russell—he’s my best friend.
“Are you coming, Russ?” I ask him over my shoulder.
“Naw,” he says, softly swinging his golf club against the sand at his feet. “I already know the plan. We can talk on the beach tomorrow when we train together.”
“Okay,” I agree, not knowing what else to say. I know that my love for Reed is torturing Russell, but I don’t know how to fix it. If there’s a solution, I don’t know what it is. I watch as Russell walks away from me, back towards the other end of the island…as far away from Reed and me as possible.
CHAPTER 2
Infighting
“Concentrate, Red, shoot…you’re all over the place,” Russell breathes, sitting cross-legged next to me on the beach. He directs his clone’s image in front of us to pick up my clone from her feet and slam her to the ground, dissipating her like a small, mushroom cloud.
“Russ-ell,” I breathe in a frustrated tone. “Stop killing my clones.”
“But you make it so easy…” he trails off with a smirk until I elbow him hard in the arm. He’s as tough as a mountain now; nothing short of everything I have would hurt him.
I fall back on the sand, putting my arm over my eyes to block out the intense sunlight above us. It is so physically draining to create these mirror images of me—my clones. Russell can do it now with no problem. Each of his clones look and act like his twin. He can sit next to me on the sandy beach and make the image of himself do whatever he’s thinking, like his mind is within the spirit-like body, carrying his consciousness.
Then there’s me. My whole world spins like I’m on the teacup ride at Disneyland just getting my clone to appear. Directing it and trying to see what she sees is like looking at everything underwater or through someone else’s eyeglasses: everything is distorted and blurry.
Russell pulls my arm back from my eyes as he kneels over me, blotting out the sunlight with his huge six foot five inch frame. “We have time for one more clone…” he trails off again as he looks at my face. “Ah shoot, Red, I’m sorry,” he says in a gruff voice.
Leaning back he pulls a tissue from the pocket of his board shorts, dabbing it at my nose gently.
“Another nose bleed?” I ask tiredly, taking the tissue from his hand and holding it to my nose.
“You have to tell me when you’re gettin’ to that point,” Russell says, sounding guilty. He puts his arm around my shoulder, making me sit up so he can look in my eyes. “How many of me are you seein’?”
“Three…no, four…and all of you should get a haircut,” I reply, trying to minimize the fact that I’m disoriented. He lets go of my shoulder to run his hand through his tawny hair that has been bleached in blond streaks from the sun. Then he has to quickly catch me as I begin to topple over onto his chest.
“Whoa!” he says, before pulling me against his bare chest and letting me rest my head while he strokes my back soothingly. His impressive, crimson wings shoot from the camouflage of his back as he holds me in his arms, making him look every inch the lethal, Seraphim angel that he is now. “Ahh, I hate when my wings do that!” Russell admits with irritation in his voice.
“I know,” I agree, seeing exactly what he means. “It embarrasses me when mine do that on their own.”
“I keep wonderin’ if it would’ve been easier if we were entirely angelic…you know? Does this kind of stuff happen just ‘cuz we’re part human, too?” he asks, sounding frustrated.
“You mean…if we weren’t half-breeds, would we have more control over the angelic part of our nature…like our wings?” I ask for clarity. Closing my eyes, I find that it doesn’t help the dizziness, so I open them again quickly.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant,” Russell says, giving me a quick squeeze.
“Reed said it’s normal. Emotions seem to trigger them. I think age helps. You’re only, what, twenty now?” I ask, knowing he had a birthday in August that I missed. I close my eyes again, not wanting to think of where he had been on his birthday, but goose bumps run the length of my body anyway, thinking of the church in the Ukraine where he’d been held and tortured by a sadistic Ifrit.
“Yeah…that birthday was a little dark,” he mutters, his hair rising on his arms as his wings move agitatedly behind him, kicking up sand. He takes a quick breath, attempting to calm his heart that I can hear pounding in his chest. “I hope I’ll be able to control my wings completely in the next century or two,” he says with a wry smile.
“I bet it’ll be much sooner than that. You seem to master everything so quickly,” I reply honestly. “There’s only one thing you’re going to struggle with, Russell.”
“What’s that?” he asks with a smile in his voice.
“I don’t think you’re ever going to be able to detach and become emotionless like the Seraphim I’ve seen. You’re too human for that…it’s not in your nature,” I reply.
“You only ever met one Seraphim, Casimir, and he was a fallen freak, Red,” he replies. “They can’t all be like him…cold and hard—completely evil.”
“My father is one and he…well, I don’t know what he’s like because I’ve never met him, but I imagine he’s a lot like Casimir,” I reply, feeling some of that hardness inside of me when I think of him.
“Ah, you don’t know that…he’s a divine angel and you don’t know his circumstances—”
“I don’t want to know his circumstances, Russell,” I snap.
“You always were a daddy’s girl—in just about every lifetime I had with you…‘cept when you were a mama’s boy,” he laughs.