ducked and threw up my hand, as a reflex more than a defensive action. I extended my arm and flung the arrow like a hot potato in the direction from which it had come. Someone in the distance yelped.
LJ hopped down from her horse. Caius flew up into a tree before he motioned to Arcturus that he saw, straight ahead and to his right, two attackers waiting in tall bushes.
“Grace, Caius and I will take care of this. Find shelter on the ground; they won’t be expecting that. Take the Fallen with you. She’ll draw them in with her scent. We’ll keep you safe.”
I was all too happy to comply. To my surprise, LJ was two steps ahead of me on her way out of there. She’d had no intention of fighting.
Arcturus and Caius took flight, circling the humans, sweeping them up into a whirlwind of twigs, leaves, and dirt. A rather large fellow cloaked in black broke free.
“I’ll take the big one, Arcturus.” Caius circled the strange man, who wore a cross around his neck and held an open vial of liquid he insisted on shaking in Caius’s direction.
When Caius suddenly dropped down to the ground shrouded in light and fire, the man covered his eyes and raised his cross, screaming, “You devil. I shall not be fooled by your false light. I command you to obey.”
But Caius walked to the man, ripped the cross from him and threw it on the ground beside him. The man fell to his knees in front of the angel. Caius pulled the man upright. “Worship not the trinkets of silver and gold.”
The man beheld Caius. “Brother, please forgive me. I am a servant in the fight against evil.”
Caius grabbed the feeble man by the neck and said, “I am not your brother, and this is not your fight. Go. Leave this place and never return, or I shall rip the very soul you’ve sold from your body!”
I exhaled the air I’d been holding. I’d never seen Caius like that.
Arcturus joined Caius in the clearing, and the man ran away upon seeing the strange angel.
“Did you see the look on that guy’s face?” Arcturus laughed, jabbing Caius in his ribs and demonstrating a kung fu move. “I thought he was gonna pee his pants, as the humans say,” Arcturus joked.
“Oh man, I would have loved to have seen that,” Caius chimed in.
“I gather you took care of the others?”
“Piece of pie!” Arcturus replied.
Please give us a few minutes, maybe exercise the horses, I directed Arcturus telepathically as he and Caius approached. They immediately busied themselves about thirty feet away with sword fighting. I could have sworn I had seen Jet Li perform some of those same moves in Fearless.
“Thanks for your help back there. It means a lot that you would defend one of us.” LJ seemed to choose her words carefully, but one thing seemed clear. She had a “you and us” mentality despite the fact that we are both angels. I watched her as she sat cross-legged in a clearing and sipped what seemed like hot tea. I just stood staring, not sure what else to do.
“You don’t have to be here. You must know that. The fact that you are here says a lot.” She paused, I assumed for effect. She seemed to take great pleasure in having a captive audience in me, my cherubs, the horses, and whoever else was within an earshot of our conversation.
She knew full well that if Gavin were home, I would be with him and as far away from her as possible. “I get that you think you’re in love with him,” she continued, rolling her eyes at that last jab she’d heard in my thoughts. “Is it true that you haven’t even read your book yet?” She seemed to be feeling me out, angling even.
I had no idea what or how much she knew about me. Clearly she knew enough. “Praefatio? No. I haven’t read the whole thing yet.”
“That’s pretty sad, don’t you think? That you let other people tell you who you are?” She stared at me like I was a freak and sipped. She hadn’t blinked once the entire time. I must have blinked at least three hundred times since we started talking, just to avoid looking at her. She was perfectly gorgeous and completely self-righteous.
I moved to sit directly across from her, doing my best to get on equal footing—at least in theory. Despite my rank, she clearly had an