skin, ether Severn missed with all his incubus heart. He needed this angel, needed to be close to him, to fix him, needed to love him. He was half himself without him.
But most of all, he needed to stop him.
Severn had half a mind to kiss him. He’d get himself killed for it, but it’d be worth it.
“I’ll kill us both before leaving Aerie and London,” Mikhail vowed. The passion in those words was undeniable.
Severn swallowed hard, with a click. Gods, this angel was everything. So fierce, so passionate, so thoroughly fucked up, and if Severn had any doubts about his own love, those were dashed now. He wanted to sweep him into his arms, wanted to kiss his breath away, make him moan and beg and turn that fury into wild, devastating lust. But when it happened, it had to be real. No more lies.
He blinked away. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” And stepped from his trapped position between Mikhail and the dresser.
He walked away, wondering if these steps were the hardest he’d ever had to take.
Chapter 13
Mikhail
Remiel was not the kind of guardian he’d expected.
Mikhail stared at the empty seats around the council table. The church was silent. Peaceful. Even though the demons depicted in the stained glass windows leered at him.
The guardian angel was more calculating than reports had made him out to be, more careful. Mikhail was well aware he was being watched, studied. Probably for his final judgment. And perhaps he should have bent the truth some, but it was not in his nature to lie. He could not change the things that had happened. But he would master his own fate and not have another guardian deliver it for him. Of course, he could not fight all the angels, but he would fight until his last breath to hold on to everything he loved.
He loved Aerie. He loved London too. And his angels. He’d been so afraid to love, like it was some mystical force he could not control, but love didn’t ask to be controlled. It just was. And love was powerful. He was learning that now, albeit too late.
He wondered if perhaps love had given him six wings. Or at least, the loss of love.
Remiel had asked if he still loved Severn. It seemed like a simple question, but the guardian wouldn’t have understood any answer. Remiel did not know love, so how could he be the judge of it?
“Your Grace.”
Mikhail looked up from his musings and saw Solo standing in the church doorway, reluctant to enter. His wings were tucked away beneath illusion, and his face was set, chest gently rising and falling, as though he was making an effort to calm his breathing. Darkness had fallen on the street behind him. Mikhail must have been lost to his thoughts for hours.
“Yes?”
“The correctioners you asked me to report on…”
Ah, the tension stemmed from that order to visit the correctional facilities, not from the… other thing they weren’t discussing. “What did you discover?”
Solo finally approached the table. “I visited the one near Harrow unannounced, as you suggested. What I found was disturbing.”
“Go on.”
Severn’s words about how Mikhail truly thought the human correctioners did rehabilitate wayward cambion and nephilim came back to him now. Severn had implied more went on than Mikhail was aware of. It appeared as though Severn had been correct.
Solo’s face was more than grim, it was as pale as milk in the church’s flickering lights. His silence spoke for him. Whatever he’d seen, it had shaken him.
Mikhail rose to his feet. “Tell me.”
“The captured cambion are killed with no efforts made to correct them, Your Grace.”
Perhaps he should have been surprised, but a numbness was spreading through him. Because Severn had been right. Again. “And the nephilim?”
“I… I fear they are being exploited, put to work in ways that are degrading. Their trusting nature has left them vulnerable.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“I visited another facility and caught them in the midst of trying to conceal the evidence of their wrongdoing. I fear it is rife.”
And Severn had known? Or suspected? “Take a rank of angels to each facility within a few hours flight of here and shut them all down. Bring the nephilim here, to our hospital, and see to it they are cared for. Report to me at dawn.”
Solo nodded. “And any cambion we find?”
“Release them.”
“Release them?”
“They do not control their heritage. Demons will take them in.”
“Er... yes. And the human correctioners?”
“Relieve them of their duties—firmly. I