All That Falls (11 page)

“When I woke in the morning, I had this overwhelming feeling of dread. I knew. Just knew.” Cerise licked her lips, letting the tears fall. “I searched the house, but he wasn’t in it. I started calling around, trying to find him, but inside I thought:
He’s dead
. I felt like I’d crushed him. He’d crushed me, too, of course. But I was alive to see the sun, so that didn’t seem as important.

“By afternoon, Hayden was turning over rocks at the crash pads they’d used before they were famous. I didn’t want to look for Griffin in the city though. I knew I wouldn’t find him there.

“I borrowed a pair of his snow boots. I’m so tall and have the hands and feet to match. Sometimes Griffin and I wore each other’s stuff. Naturally it fit us differently, but somehow it worked.” She smiled ruefully. “He was thin…such a child-man.” She sighed. “Sometimes he could be ruthless, but I’d look at his face, so young and sweet, and I almost couldn’t believe it. That’s how beauty is dangerous. It makes you make allowances that you really shouldn’t.” Cerise bit her lip. “When I went out that day, I started walking and didn’t stop until I found footprints in the snow. I remember everything about those moments. I remember tying the purple sash on my wool coat. I remember the way the snow dust covered the tops of the ugly green boots. I remember staring at the tracks in the snow and
realizing that the shape…” Cerise trailed off for a moment, her voice wistful. “From the shape, I knew he hadn’t been walking. He’d been running for his life…or to end it. The tracks led right off the cliff. There were no other footprints in the snow. No animal or person had pursued him that night. If he ran from something it was the demons inside him…maybe the ones that rose from the things I said.” She shrugged. “I’ll never know if he was running toward the edge of the cliff on purpose. It had been pitch-black that night. He might just have been running, and the edge was there.” She paused. “I only know that he didn’t slip and fall the way the story’s been reported. The marks near the edge where someone slipped were mine. I went to look. I saw his body, and I almost joined him at the bottom of the ravine. But I guess I didn’t love him with every part of my heart because I clawed my way back up.”

Alissa’s small hand, warm and reassuring, held firmly to Cerise’s.

“I want his songbook. Sometimes he used it as a journal. I have to see what he wrote that last week. I need to.”

“We’ll get it back for you.”

“What if the angel doesn’t want to give it up?”

“We’ll get it back,” Alissa repeated.

Cerise woke to the sound of someone humming. She moved the arm that was across her eyes, confused for a moment about where she was until she realized she had fallen asleep on the couch in Merrick and Alissa’s penthouse.

Cerise remembered that Merrick had returned after having recovered his people. Arrangements to bury the dead and to reward the living had been managed quickly, and then, after pointing out the guest room where she could sleep, Merrick had taken Alissa to bed. Cerise had lain on the couch, unable to make herself move to the guest room. Exhaustion had battled insomnia until exhaustion won out.

Sitting up now, she found the source of the humming. Alissa’s father, Richard, was dressed in jeans, a cream fisherman’s knit sweater, and house slippers. He set a dish of warm cranberry scones on the sleek coffee table, and she smiled at him. Cerise had grown into her looks, but before that, she’d lived through what she referred to as her ballerina troll years. She’d been graceful, but hardly attractive. Thick-browed, enormously tall, and fifteen squishy pounds too heavy for the magazine photo spreads they’d forced her to do, she’d been painfully self-conscious. Over time, her face morphed into something exotic, her body grew strong, and if not exactly lithe, at least toned and voluptuous. Before her looks had evolved, she’d suffered the usual girlhood insecurities, which her father and the council had done nothing to assuage. Richard North, however,
who’d had a wife and daughter formed of blonde perfection, had been generous and kind in his flattery of Cerise, telling her she’d grow up to become an Amazon queen. She hadn’t believed it at the time, but as an adult woman she did feel powerful and confident.

And the little girl she’d been would always be grateful to Richard North for the sweet prophecy that had meant the world to her at the time.

“Hi, Richard,” she said.

He nodded a greeting, buttering a scone and walking back to the kitchen as he bit into it. A few bites later, he returned with a pair of mugs of hot cocoa spiced with cinnamon and a dash of chili powder over the whipped cream.

They ate and drank in companionable silence.

She glanced out the window, and the darkness revealed that it was still the middle of the night. She needed to arrange a way home. She wouldn’t risk having Merrick drive her to the gates. He’d already fought enough battles for the night. Besides, he was too much of a target himself.

She’d wait to leave until it was close to dawn so the ventala would be retreating in preparation for sunrise. They were nocturnal and wouldn’t try to fight their battles after first light.

She’d have to reach out to someone with a helicopter who had clearance to land in the Etherlin. That list of people was limited, and she also needed to be able to count on the discretion of whomever she called. She didn’t want it getting out that she’d been joyriding through the Varden. Too many young women looked up to her and copied her every move. She’d taken a calculated risk that had nearly gotten her killed. The last thing she wanted was for young girls to follow her lead in exploring ventala territory and get hurt.

Richard offered her another scone.

She shook her head and said, “You’re up early.”

“Haven’t been to bed yet.”

“Were you working?” she asked. She knew he’d recently gone back to writing after many years of writer’s block.

“Not working, but I will soon. I was playing cards. When he wins, he can play all night. If he loses, he says he’s tired and needs sleep.” Richard smiled, clearly not fooled by the strategy.

“Who?”

“Lysander.”

She raised her brows. Alissa had said that Lysander lived in a house carved into the side of a mountain, only reachable by air. Alissa and Cerise had thought Lysander must have gone there after leaving the roof.

“Where is Lysander now?”

“In the apartment downstairs.”

“What apartment?”

“Right below this one. He never used to sleep there, but he’ll stay close now. He’s seen the start of the prophecy, and Merrick is part of the key.”

“What prophecy?”

“‘Evil comes at leisure like the disease. Good comes in a hurry like the doctor,’ G.K. Chesterton said. Lysander understands that. Twice, he’s lost someone. He won’t wander this time.”

“What do you mean, Richard?”

He put a hand on her forearm, giving it a squeeze. “Do you want peace? Or do you want knowledge?”

She frowned. “I haven’t found ignorance to be peaceful. There’s a night full of missing memories that haunts me like a ghost. Ignoring the missing pieces has never allowed me to rest. Answers might help or they might not, but at this point, I prefer to know whatever there is to know about things.”

Richard nodded as if sympathizing, but he didn’t reveal anything more about Lysander.

She leaned forward, deciding to focus on what she was most interested in. “Does Lysander have a black duffel bag in the room with him? One with the club’s logo on it?”

Richard glanced down, thinking. Then he nodded.

“Do you have a key to the apartment downstairs?”

“There’s no key. Only a code. Double-oh-four.”

“Zero zero four?”

Richard nodded. “Tread carefully. That one—I think his control is a façade. The pain sometimes turns him wild, and despite your strength of body—and will—you’re no match for him. Nothing human is.”

A tremor tickled Cerise’s spine, but she tightened her muscles against it. “I only want what’s mine, Richard.”

“No. You don’t.”

She flushed at his certainty. Richard had never seen her with Lysander, so how could he know what she wanted from the archangel? Lysander was right about him; Richard seemed to know things that he shouldn’t have.

Cerise swallowed and cleared her throat. “It doesn’t matter what I want. Lysander’s made it clear that he doesn’t want to get involved with me. And I’m not exactly starved for company, Richard. Once I take what doesn’t belong to him, I’ll leave him be.”

Richard’s full smile warmed her until he spoke. “When women go wrong, men go right after them. At least you’ll have lived, possibly shorter than you would have, but nonetheless a little more richly.”

Cryptic and laced with foreboding…lovely,
she thought and shivered.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said, rising.

“You haven’t the right shoes, but he’ll see to you.”

I don’t want him to “see to me.” I don’t want him to notice me at all,
she thought, glancing down. She wore only socks at the moment. If she put on her boots, would they make too much noise? Would she wake the angel as she snuck into his apartment? Possibly.

She left without putting them on.

The hall was cooler than the penthouse, and she hugged her arms to her chest as she entered the steel elevator. Down a floor, the doors slid open with a whisper of sound.

Butterscotch-colored walls and polished wood floors greeted her. She passed a couple of doors of what seemed to be polished copper. There were small plates of the same metal next to the doors with engraved numbers to herald the addresses.

Then she arrived at a much larger door than the others. Instead of metal, it was made of weathered wood that looked centuries old and hand carved. Next to the door the word
Allegro
was painted in gold script above the keypad.

Entering zero, zero, and four, Cerise held her breath. The light of the security pad winked green. She turned the old-fashioned brass doorknob and pushed the heavy door inward. Light from the hall entered the darkened apartment.

Entering, she felt a familiar give to the floor under her feet. It felt like a studio or stage floor.

A sprung floor? In an apartment? Can’t be.

As her eyes adjusted, the apartment’s unexpected décor temporarily distracted her from spotting him. Along an entire wall to her left there were built-in shelves framed with wood that someone had been in the process of hand carving. Tools and wood chips rested on a white tarp that protected the floor.

An occupied king-sized bed stood against the other wall where the headboard seemed to transition into another set of shelves with intricate woodworking. A tree-shaped lamp arched over the head of the bed where Lysander lay sprawled, possibly nude. She should have silently searched the remainder of the room rather than approaching him, but it was as though an invisible cord pulled her toward him.

The dim light shadowed the area’s details until she was nearly to him. He lay bare-chested with a mocha-colored sheet and forest green silk duvet haphazardly covering his waist and below. Her breath caught as she stood over him.

His gold hair fanned out in tangled waves, and he hardly seemed real. Rather, he looked so perfect, it was as if someone had painted him. He didn’t quite fit into the world he currently occupied. A creature so unaccountably beautiful belonged lying in the forest on a bed of moss or in some other wilderness that God had made.

In her stillness, she felt only the thud of her heart…and the compulsion of desperate attraction.

A voice that wasn’t her own seemed to whisper across her mind…

Touch him. No one will see.

Trace that scar where it crosses his collarbone.

With a fingertip.

With your lips.

He will never know.

Dreamlike, her hand stretched toward him. Just before it touched his skin, her breath caught again and the madness of her intent revealed itself. Going rigid, she jerked her hand back.

What the hell?

Her eyes darted across his face and exposed flesh. The lust that tightened her lower body was nearly painful in its ache. She swallowed hard and tried to draw on her muse power for control.

Don’t.

She exhaled slowly.

Touching will only make it worse. He doesn’t belong to this world. He fell and was banished here, forced to walk among us against his will, maybe to serve as temptation. Haven’t you had enough of pretty boys who bring endless pain?

Yes,
she answered emphatically.

She raised her gaze and spotted the duffel he’d carried out of the performing arts center.

Resolve washed over her, sharpening her senses.

That’s what I came for. I can grab it and go.

She watched him while she reached across his body; she didn’t want to accidentally brush his face or shoulder, but it was hard to look at him and not be pulled back into that vortex of wonder and lust. It was easier to resist him when he was awake and provoking her with his arrogance.

The shelf was low, and the angle would be an awkward one when she lifted the duffel bag.

Hurry the hell up!

Silently, she drew in a breath and looked down at his sleeping form. She bit the inside of her mouth, using the pain to keep her focused. The dark brown lashes twitched against his lower lids, and she bit down harder.

Stay asleep. Just a few moments longer.

When the girl reached across him, she woke all Lysander’s senses at once. Roused from dreams of her, it nonetheless did not take more than a second for him to know she was actually in the room with him. He’d lain down alone, regretting that they couldn’t share a bed, and now as if fate had answered temptation’s call, she’d arrived.

He kept his eyes closed, allowing his other senses to feast. Inhaling the scent of oranges alight over female skin, he felt his blood stir. The faint disturbance of air rustled the hair dusting his arms. The sound of the soft hitch in her breath tickled his ears. What made her breath catch? Was it temptation as strong and raw as he felt?