I roll my eyes and then have to hold on to him tighter as it makes me dizzier. “I wish I could remember all of our lives together. I’m sure you were very interesting as a girl. Were you ever a girlie girl?” I ask. His knowledge of all of our past lifetimes together as my soul mate is as irritating to me as it is fascinating. Just imagining myself as his love for a past eternity is a complete, mind-blowing trip.
“You always thought I was hot,” Russell smirks, not as freaked out as he used to be about remembering our past lifetimes when he was the female.
“It’s impossible for me to picture you as a girl, Russell,” I reply, smelling his masculine scent that’s so attractive, just like him.
“Good, since this is probably the last form I’m ever gonna take, I prefer to be the man…the angel…the man angel…ahhhh…we should come up for a name for what we are now. How do you like ‘mangels?’ Or, what ‘bout ‘Sera-mans?’” he asks me in his gentle, chiding way.
I groan at his attempt to humor me. “That’s awful. I definitely prefer to be called a ‘half-breed’ or the ‘half-humans,’” I say, pushing away from his chest so I can look in his brown eyes.
“We’re gonna hear that a lot from now on. We might as well get used to it,” he says in a cheery voice.
“That doesn’t bother you?” I ask, wiping my nose and seeing that it has finally stopped bleeding.
“Naw, I mean, it’s just jealousy. They all wanna be me,” he replies, looking in my eyes and checking to see if I can focus on him.
“Jealousy?” My eyebrows rise incredulously.
“Yeah,” he smiles slowly. “There’s somethin’ ‘bout me havin’ a soul that makes all the angels I’ve met wanna be me. ‘Course, it helped that I took on the biggest angel I could find when I first met the Power angels from Dominion,” he says, loosening his grip on me a little to see if I topple over again. I manage to hold my balance, but he doesn’t let me go completely.
“What?” I ask.
“Yeah…I hadn’t met Preben or I would’ve punched him first, just ‘cuz he’s the biggest Power I’ve ever seen. Naw, I hit what’s his name?” Russell asks, snapping his fingers as he thinks. “Tycho—I think that was his name. Anyway, I had to let them see that I wasn’t puttin’ up with their shen.”
“What happened?” I ask, my eyes growing wide at this new information.
“Ahh, they let us fight for a while before Zee stepped in and broke it up. I was holdin’ my own and that freaked them out a little, since they know I’m only twenty years old and they’re all like a billion in dog years,” he grins. “They don’t fight like I’ve been trained to fight…when I was a soldier…when I was just a man. They fight like angels and they expect certain things to happen.”
“Like what?” I wonder aloud, not knowing how he and I differ from them.
“They read body language. They expect to know what you’re gonna do before you do it ‘cuz a lot of them have tells. But, I’m part human…I wasn’t raised with them. I didn’t get their angel imprinting branded on me. They can’t read me yet,” he explains.
“So…it made Tycho almost blind when he was fighting you?” I ask, trying to understand.
Russell nods. “But, he still had a wicked right cross,” he says, rubbing his chin as if remembering the pain.
“That was stupid, Russell. He could’ve killed you. You’re not even fully evolved yet,” I say, growing white thinking about what could’ve happened.
“I had a lot of rage at that moment, Red,” Russell says, looking away from my eyes. “I fluctuated between pretendin’ Tycho was that Ifrit, Valentine, to pretendin’ he was Brennus.” I flinch, hearing Russell say Brennus’ name. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to use the vampire’s name in front of you,” Russell says in a low tone, brushing his fingers in my hair soothingly.
“He’s not a vampire, Russell,” I reply, trying to be normal as my hand shakes a little. “He’s an undead Faerie.”
“He’s gonna be an all-dead Faerie when I see him again,” Russell states, sweeping a stray hair back from my face.
Gripping Russell’s arm, I look into his eyes. “Russell, you need to be really cautious around him.”
Russell’s face relaxes. “His skin doesn’t work on me. He can touch me and I won’t go all zombie and do everything he tells me to do, like the angels will if he touches them,” Russell replies. “That makes me the perfect candidate to take him on.”
I frown at his obvious disregard of my warning. “No, it doesn’t,” I say.
Russell’s eyebrows pull together in anger. “He wants to see you on your knees, crawlin’ back to him. He’s gonna kill you for sure if he gets you back and you’ll be his ice-cold, undead…” he trails off.
“Gancanagh lover…his queen,” I finish for him.
Russell’s expression darkens. “I’m not gonna let him do that to you. I’m not gonna let him send your soul to Sheol for eternity, not for those fallen monsters in Hell to torment,” he says, his face flushed with anger. “Why hasn’t he come yet? He said he was comin’ soon. It’s been a couple of weeks! He should’ve made his move by now.”
“He’s really intelligent, Russell. He’s been around forever—he doesn’t act until he has the advantage—the entire advantage,” I explain, knowing just how Brennus operates because I’d spent the last few months as his captive queen. “Then, when he does act, it’s like a snake striking…it’s so fast, you almost never see it coming.”
“He’s bitter, Red,” Russell says softly. “It may cause him to make mistakes.”
I shake my head. “Don’t count on it. He knows almost everything there is to know about me. He got in my head and crawled around…he knows everything about us. He studied me,” I whisper, feeling like I have a rope around my neck, choking me.
“We studied them, too. While you were his pet,” Russell replies. “Let him think that I have the power of a wet firecracker being lit by a flint. He’s gonna underestimate me and then he’s gonna die.”
“He knows what you are to me, Russell,” I say, feeling panicked.
“Really, Red, and what’s that? What am I to you?” Russell asks, and I can hear the undertone of bitterness in his voice.
“You’re my soul mate…my best friend…” I trail off, biting my lip as I see sorrow in his eyes.
“Best friend...” he says, hanging his head. “I am that, Red, if nothin’ else; I am that. But, I remember so many, many lifetimes when I was everythin’ to you—all you needed.”
“I need him,” I whisper, not wanting to try again to explain my intense love for Reed. But, looking at Russell, I feel an unbelievable ache in my chest for him that won’t go away. He’s been my lover in every lifetime but this one and my soul knows him as its match. “I’m bound to Reed for eternity. I swore a vow to him. He’s my aspire and its irrevocable.”