to Solo with every breath. Maybe Mikhail would one day save them all, if he pulled his head out of his own ass in time.
Solo silently left after that, and Severn finished off the bottle, sinking into one of the chairs. He’d believed Mikhail had been so enraged on Tower Bridge because he loved Severn. Severn was counting on that love to save them both. But one question plagued him as he watched daylight wane: what if their love had died on that bridge?
Chapter 12
Severn
Mikhail had been avoiding him all day, and with every hour that passed, the illusion tightened, becoming brittle, more liable to fail. He was running out of time.
He asked around and discovered Mikhail was in Aerie, so Severn rode the foundation-pillar elevator back up to the once-grand city above the clouds. The doors whispered open to reveal a hive of activity, most of it construction work. Aerie had lost its luster, but it was beginning to rise from its ashes. If angels knew anything, it was how to heal. It wouldn’t be long before Aerie was once again the bustling city presiding over a cowering London. Severn hoped to be alive to see it. The chances of that largely depended on if he retrieved his wings.
He drifted through Aerie’s vast glass hallways, seeking Mikhail, and eventually found someone who pointed him in the direction of the training area.
High-level clouds seeped around Aerie, making the training disks appear to float inside the clouds. The half-obscured disks and shifting mist made training dangerous, hence why Mikhail was alone.
Severn approached the edge of the observation platform—not too close, London was a long way down—and watched the black-winged angel dance in the mist. The sweeping movements Mikhail performed were both striking and lethal. He spun and swept his blade down, wings spread or tucked or flared at an angle to balance himself. He hovered and dove and banked. He was a glorious vision of angel, the likes of which just didn’t exist. Severn had never seen another like him.
His heart quickened. He stepped closer to the edge, aching to spread missing wings and fly with him. A foolish thought. Demons did not fly with angels. But he dreamed it all the same, like he’d dreamed of those soft feathers once again wrapped around him and the kiss they’d shared on a rooftop in the rain.
Mikhail suddenly stopped, wings holding him aloft, and looked over.
Severn swallowed his heart, which had somehow found its way into his throat, and stepped back from the edge. Mikhail couldn’t see his rapt expression at that distance, could he? He took another step back as Mikhail flew in and fluttered to a landing on the platform. His damp hair—wet from the clouds—splayed about his shoulders, sticking to his glistening skin. His wings arched behind him, ragged and ruffled, like he’d ridden them to their last trembling muscle. He looked wild.
Shit, he was so fucking hot. Every nerve in Severn’s body burned with savage desire.
Mikhail stared hard, expecting him to speak, to say something, anything. “A wonderful display,” Severn finally growled out, butchering Remiel’s voice while desperately trying to temper his rising cock. Thankfully, Mikhail appeared to be too caught up in his own head to notice.
Mikhail strode away, back into Aerie’s hallways filled with the noise of construction. Severn cursed under his breath and shook out his hands, trying to wrestle his body back under control. It seemed like Mikhail’s silent dismissal of Remiel was an affront to another guardian, but Severn had never seen two guardians in the same place to know how they should react around each other.
It had taken him ten years to perfect being an angel. He’d only been a guardian for three days. And one of those days he’d spent walking from demon territory to Whitechapel. Gods, this was a fucking disaster waiting to happen.
Body behaving, he strode after Mikhail, aware he drew many curious glances. On approaching Mikhail’s chambers, he didn’t slow, just pushed through the door inside. He was pretty sure guardians went where they pleased, considering all the times Mikhail had barged into his room without knocking.
His gaze slid to the wall, where he knew there to be a crack, hinting at another room. Were his wings behind there?
“What do you want from me, Remiel?” Mikhail demanded, throwing his sword down onto a dresser. Either he’d forgotten to hide the fact he was a beautiful disaster or he no longer cared. Severn wanted to throw his arms around