Wings of the Wicked - By Courtney Allison Moulton Page 0,10
became, and then there was no denying he wasn’t human.
“It’s not like we can really do anything about it anyway,” I said. “Bastian’s sending his worst after me, but at least they want me alive. I think we can use that to our advantage, since they don’t want to kill me. That nycterid had every opportunity to kill me, but he didn’t. He could have just flown up there to drop me to my death, but he was determined not to let me go. Don’t forget that.”
“I haven’t forgotten. But we can’t trust Cadan. You don’t know him like I do.”
“Stop being so cryptic,” I grumbled. “You keep saying how bad he is, yet you’ve never told me why.”
“For one, he’s demonic. He’s manipulative, deceitful, violent, and cruel. He’s just like the rest of them.”
I opened my mouth to tell him how prejudiced that was, but I clamped it back shut. My amnesia hadn’t totally worn off, but everything I could remember told me that the demonic reapers were evil. Will had fought them for centuries without ever forgetting anything. Demonic reapers constantly tried to kill us. That should have been reason enough to mistrust all of them.
But why did I want to find a reason to redeem them, especially Cadan? He’d never tried to hurt me, and before my current incarnation, I had never met him. In truth, we’d caused him more damage than he’d caused us. Was my humanity making me more forgiving than I should have been? Gabriel wouldn’t have given Cadan a second thought before destroying him.
“If he’s telling the truth, then I’m kind of scared,” I confessed. “He said the things after me are really nasty.”
“Then we’ll fight them. I won’t let them take you.”
I forced a smile. I knew how strong he was—and how much stronger I was than him—but it was how hard he fought for me that made me feel the safest. He loved me and he did his best to protect me. If Will wouldn’t tell me what had happened with Cadan, then he wasn’t ready to tell me. It had taken me a while to figure that out about him.
In any case, I had a long night ahead of me. Who knew what the reapers had in store for me—and I wasn’t just talking about the demonic. We were supposed to meet with Marcus and Ava.
“I have something for you,” Will said suddenly, his face brightening. “Wait here.”
He disappeared through the large kitchen for a moment and returned with my present: a chocolate-dipped waffle bowl with a scoop of my favorite ice cream in it. I squealed as I took the ice cream from him, dancing a little with glee. I set the bowl down and threw my arms around his neck. His scent filled my head, and it felt like home to be so close to him. He wrapped his arms around my waist, his hands touching my bare skin as my hoodie and tank top rode up, and warmth fluttered through me.
“I can’t believe you went to Cold Stone for me!” One would have thought I’d get sick of their ice cream, but nope. It was impossible to get sick of Cookie Doughn’t You Want Some.
“I like when you’re happy,” he said, smiling at me as I dug through the drawers for a spoon. “You had it kind of rough last night, so I hope this will cheer you up.”
“Totally does!” I flashed him a grin and sat down on a stool at the breakfast bar.
He leaned over the counter in front of me, resting his weight on his forearms. “Is it good?”
“Hell yes,” I mumbled through a mouthful. “What a stupid question.”
“Someone once told me that there was no such thing as a stupid question.”
“That definitely qualifies as a stupid question.”
“What if somebody doesn’t like cookie dough? Then they wouldn’t think that ice cream was very delicious.”
“Nobody doesn’t like cookie dough,” I said with a soft laugh. “Especially not my angelic reaper Guardian and his sweet tooth.”
His gaze fell for an instant, and the way he tried to hide his smile made it obvious that I’d embarrassed him a little. “I’m sure there’s someone.”
“You’ll never find a human being alive who doesn’t like cookie dough.”
“So now you’re adding restrictions to this bet?”
“Who said it was a bet?”
“I felt it was implied.”
“Well, all right then.”
“So it has to be a human?” he asked, visibly struggling not to smile. “And alive?”