Praefatio: A Novel (19 page)

Gavin looked ashamed, hanging his head slightly before something seemed to occur to him. He shoved Tyler gently aside and stepped in my direction. The Fallen grew restless, inching closer down the sides of the walls as their wings ruffled in protest.
Where are Caius and Arcturus?

“Grace, Remi, please accept my sincere apology for our rudeness. We would never dream of treating our guests so poorly, even those
without
an invitation.” His diplomatic gestures and the intonation of his voice made him a far better peacemaker than Tyler.

Gavin continued forward. He smiled to himself, then turned so quickly that if you blinked you’d have missed it. He whispered in Tyler’s ear, and Tyler left for seconds, then returned with the cherubs before I had time to process it all.

“You see, Grace,” Gavin said as he circled me. He motioned to the cherubs to sit. “Many of my family consider you public enemy number one, come to destroy us, our way of life, our very existence. Most believe your being here is a ruse to get us to trust you so you can learn our ways, assess our weak points, and plan an attack.” He stopped, looked at me, no emotion, stoic.

“I don’t want any trouble. I was asked to come here. I came, willingly. If you want me to go, I will.” I hadn’t realized I was shaking until then. Had Remi been right? Had I been brought to Kheiron to die?

Gavin grabbed me, and surprise colored Remi’s face. Tyler grabbed Remi by the arms, held them behind his back, and Emeria grabbed the cherubs.
Where had she come from?
Gavin’s hold on me only accentuated my heaving chest. His breath on my skin, his fingers on my neck caused me to shiver. I’m certain the others mistook it for fear.

“If I kill you now, we lose everything, and start a war with Michael,” Gavin said while running a finger from my neck to my chin. “But the war is coming anyway.” He turned my head from side to side, paying special attention to either side of my neck. “If we keep you alive, let you live with us, kind of like … a
pet
… ” Gavin slowly pulled my head by my hair, and lowered his head as if he wasn’t sure whether to slit my throat or kill me. “ … we learn everything we can from you and your little cherubs, learn how to defeat you. After all, you are half angel, and we’d do well to learn from you … alive. Worst case scenario, we feed off you, making you weak, then kill you, and Michael gets nothing.”

The mood in the room shifted, swung right by Gavin’s impassioned words. The rumbling grew quieter as acceptance of those seemingly plausible words was at hand.

Writhing and twisting, Remi struggled to free himself from Tyler’s grasp. Gavin turned me to face him, placed his hands around my neck, and looked right into my eyes, then down at my mouth. “Either way, don’t get too comfortable, Grace. This will not end the way you think.” Then something in his eyes changed from angry to sad to desperate. He whispered, “Sorry.” Gavin let go abruptly, and I fell forward, reeling. He lunged toward me from behind and yanked a large feather from my wings.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!” It felt like someone had stabbed me with an ice pick in the back.

Remi’s eyes burned with anger as he wriggled under Tyler’s hold. He looked as if he would kill Gavin if only he could break free.

Gavin shoved me aside and I fell to the floor. Wincing, I looked up just in time to see Gavin move to Remi and grab his throat. Then Gavin pushed the feather into Remi’s open mouth. I’d never seen Remi so red.

Gavin turned to Emeria, who had been silent. “Take them to their quarters until I can decide what to do with them.” Gavin looked at me. “Make sure she’s fed, given human comforts.”

By then I was sobbing uncontrollably. Kheiron was turning out to be a really bad idea. The cherubs couldn’t protect me. They seemed powerless in Emeria’s grip. We’d walked right into their trap, had come willingly. Here, we’d be powerless to defend ourselves. And Gavin? All of it had been a lie. He didn’t love me or want to keep me safe. He was the most duplicitous of all. The only good thing to come of that night was the knowledge that I hadn’t lost Remi. He’d risked his life to prove it.

As I passed him, Gavin spoke. “Remiel, don’t come here again unless you’re invited. If you do, you’ll end up with much more than a feather in your mouth.”

Someflippinghomecoming

My “quarters,” as Gavin called them, were, for lack of a better term, unexpected. But I guess there were worse places I could have been sent after having a feather yanked from my wing.

I was given a full wing of the house, which was bigger than my old house. My bedroom suite included a room for sleeping, a closet the size of my bedroom at home, a dressing room, a bathroom with a jetted tub and separate shower worthy of
Cribs
—you could seriously fit eight people in there—a sitting area in the bedroom, a sitting room outside of the bedroom, a workout room, a library, an office, and a kitchenette with a small dining table. In addition to the large closet, there were seven additional closets within the suite. My cherubs took residence down the hall.

I had servants of the Order of Lesser Angels. Yeah, we had a class system too. Cerin was placed in charge of the care of me and my “overall well-being.” And managed a staff of four. That is exactly what she said when we met: “And you needn’t worry about housekeeping, wardrobe, textiles, meals, or entertainment. Mr. Vault has made ample preparation for your care.” She was as serious as a Frenchman on Bastille Day.

It was hard not to be taken in with the new living arrangements, but I couldn’t help thinking of the events that led me there. The good thing is wings heal fast and the pain didn’t last long. The embarrassment and betrayal, however, was an entirely different story.

***

The Lesser Angels busied themselves about my suite. Unable to form as anything other than shadows, they ironed, hung, and fluffed whatever required it. They seemed to enjoy tending to the new celebrity resident at Kheiron, Gavin’s personal pet, whistling while they worked.

Over the next few hours, they brought me clothes, patterns, and furniture catalogues and asked for my preferences on meal choices, music, wall color, fabrics, and materials. All of this, they said, was required of them by Gavin, who had not had the nerve to show his face since his performance downstairs.

He’d been so convincing. His protruding fangs ready to pierce my neck, to kill me, to let his “family” kill me. They could have easily snapped my cherubs in two, then killed Remi and me. But Gavin stopped them. Why? Had it all been an act? Perhaps Gavin had done all of that to save my life—mine and Remi’s. It must have been the only way to get the others to agree to let me live at Kheiron and finally call off the hit on me. Had it worked, or had it only bought me more time?

Turned around, disoriented, and unsure of my own feelings, I wondered if Remi had been in on it from the beginning. If he and Gavin had cooked up this whole rivalry thing just so they could pull off that stunt to save my life. I didn’t care. I was still furious with the both of them.

I must have fallen asleep, because when I heard the soft knock at the door, I sat straight up, startled. My eyes felt like they’d been plastered together, but I managed to pry them open, place one foot in front of the other, and find the door.

“Hi, I’m Olivia, otherwise known as LJ, knife wielder and unofficial welcome committee,” said the lanky girl standing in the doorway. She was still in the same blue princess dress she’d worn to the party.

I stepped back into the room, unsure of how to respond to her visit. She’d pulled a knife on me less than six hours ago, and I think she would have succeeded in using it had Tyler not interceded.

LJ shook her head from right to left, which changed her outfit to dark jeans and a long-sleeved scoop neck t-shirt.

For crying out loud
. “Uh, hi,” I may have mumbled, kind of pissed that she just made light of the whole almost killing me thing by trying to impress me with a magical change in wardrobe.

“Oh come on, Grace. I wasn’t going to kill you. But you show up, with cherubs and then your brother? How can we trust you?” She looked past me while she spoke, seemingly talking to no one in particular. LJ plopped down on the ottoman as if not expecting a reply and began flipping through a home design magazine.

“So you had no intention of hurting me, yet you lunged at me with a six-inch blade. Is that right?” I stood over her certain my disgust was showing.

She peered from behind the page she had fixated on. “Look, Grace, Remi crashed what was supposed to be your welcome home slash birthday party. We had no idea if it was a ruse for the two of you and the cherubs to attack us or not. We had to be sure. No hard feelings?” LJ resumed her fixation on a white velvet sofa sprawled across the page of the magazine as if my response didn’t matter and the issue was settled. “Oh, this would look great in here, don’t you think?” She shoved the magazine at me, but I could say nothing of the couch or the room. Her eyes were full of fire and her smile actually twinkled. “So let’s get the couch.”

I smiled back at her, not exactly sure why. There was something about her that I couldn’t resist. Besides, I needed a friend at Kheiron.

LJ turned back to the magazine, apparently satisfied that she’d achieved her goal, whatever it was.

“OK, well, we should get this place looking like something, don’t you think? I mean don’t you humans have a phrase about life being short? Gavin is going to expect you to have it finished by the time he gets back, and you’re gonna need more than a couch.” She inspected me quickly.

Then she was in the bedroom, assessing the needs for paint, furniture, and decorations while I was pondering Gavin’s absence and the answer to her other questions. I followed her into the bedroom. “Gavin’s gone?”

“Keep up, Grace.” The impatience in her voice was not as harsh as I imagine it could have been. “What you don’t know, you pick up from our minds; what you want to know, that is. We shouldn’t have to tell you everything. This … politeness you have, that
humans
have, it’s useless in the context of Kheiron. And Grace, you have got to keep your mind out of the gutter. This constant pining away for Gavin and ‘oh if he looks at me or touches me’ crap is kind of annoying and particularly gross. We shouldn’t have to listen to it. If you haven’t figured out how to close your mind to others yet, you’re as good as dead.”

Heat rushed from my chest to my neck, then to my cheeks. She’d heard everything I’d thought about since I’d arrived. Everyone had. “I—I—I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

LJ’s smile was like the sun: warm and comforting. Then again, too much exposure to the sun could kill you. Still, it was easy to forget she was Fallen. Light shone beneath her milk chocolate skin. She didn’t look downtrodden and forlorn like the others. I wished I could trust her. I wished I’d believed what she’d said earlier. I wished we’d had more in common than a love of white velvet couches.

“You’re one of us now, Grace. You and me, we’re the same.” LJ’s voice was sharp.

I realized then I had still failed to block her from my mind. “I just want someone to be straight with me for once, to tell me what the heck is going on in plain English. Not ancient text, not Latin, but English.”

“Are you done, Grace?” She looked at me sideways, clearly bored and not at all impressed with my monologue or my outfit. When she reached my red Converse All Stars, she rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Yes.”

“Good. Let’s go horseback riding, then. I promised Gavin I would keep you out of trouble.”

“So you aren’t here to help me decorate, or to apologize, but to babysit me?”

“You don’t need me to help you decorate. You have more household staff than anyone here. Think it, and they’ll pick it from your brain, and one day it will just be as you wish. That’s how it works now. Got it? Now, let’s go riding and, Grace, please don’t ask me how we’re going to get down there.” LJ pointed to the stables in the distance beneath the window.

“Ok. Right.” My voice was nearly a whisper, my pride completely nonexistent. Considering I’d never before been on a horse, I was sure the humiliation I’d already experienced was only the beginning.

Beneath the window were two beautiful black horses flanked by four white horses with huge dark gray wings. The larger black horse was covered in a black saddle that had a deep red cover with Kheiron’s crest embroidered in the middle. LJ saw it had caught my eye. I could have sworn the horse was looking up at me and smiling.

“A gift to you from Gavin,” she noted as she handed me a card. “I’ll meet you down there. I think you’ll enjoy riding at night.”

I wanted to tell her how appreciative I was of her kindness, but when I opened my mouth to speak, she was gone. I opened Gavin’s note slowly, overwhelmed by his gesture. He had thought of me:
Strong, beautiful, stubborn … she reminded me of you.
A smile assaulted my face, and my heart thumped loudly in my chest.

Cerin returned holding a complete riding ensemble. Cerin could not have been more than five feet tall, and that was being generous. Despite her shadowy figure, I could make out faint freckles on her face, across the bridge of her nose. They seemed to dance when she smiled.

Back in my dressing room, I decided to change my hair color to something I thought was more me, something fiery and defiant. I imagined the color; I’d seen it before on a Garnier Nutrisse ad. I ran my hand through my hair, and fervently willed it to change. Deep Burgundy. Nice. Shiny. Purple tones. I loved it. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and tucked it up under my riding helmet.

Cerin helped me into the remaining pieces of my ensemble. She brought me hot tea as I dressed. The tea set was the same one Gavin had used to serve me when I was last in Kheiron. The memory brought a smile to my face. “Thank you, Cerin.”

“You are very kind.” She bowed before exiting the room, slower this time, though I’m guessing still faster than most humans would have been able to detect. I was saddened by how little gratitude servants experienced at Kheiron and intended to mention it to Gavin. We may not have been entirely human, but that wasn’t a reason to act like animals.