that could change the future. This fledgling friendship they had somehow salvaged from the wreckage of what they’d had before was still new and so terribly fragile. The slightest thing might drive them apart again. Haven wasn’t going to make any of that easier.
But the truth might.
“I have something to show you.” Severn withdrew, and before he could lose his nerve, he strode out into the field again. “Don’t lose your shit, okay? It doesn’t change anything. It’s just… well… they are what they are.”
Mikhail emerged from the woods, bringing the shadows with him in his dark glances.
A cloud sailed across the sun, cooling the air. Severn frowned at its timing. Fine, it was now or never. He shook his fingers out, aware of Mikhail’s penetrating glare. He could do this. He just had to trust that Mikhail wouldn’t lose control. They were just wings. Though, Severn wasn’t sure what they looked like. Hopefully, they weren’t hideous.
He breathed in, held the breath, and carefully exhaled, relaxing the illusion holding the wings out of sight.
Chapter 25
Mikhail
Severn stood in the long grass, biting into his bottom lip.
Mikhail had been waiting for Severn’s trick, his lie, his trap to be sprung. Perhaps this was the inevitable betrayal because Severn had never looked more terrified than he did in that moment.
And then the air behind him shimmered, darkened, and peeled apart, unveiling two great, arched demon wings.
Mikhail’s breath snagged in his throat.
More of Severn’s illusion fell away, and more of their expanse emerged. They were clamped closed, but that didn’t lessen their impact. Half as high as Severn again, they rivaled the height of Mikhail’s arches. And then they slowly stretched open, hinged arches flexing. Featherless, dark, and undeniably demon.
Severn, the blue-eyed, blond-haired devil that had caught Mikhail’s heart, had demon wings. He almost laughed, but the look on Severn’s face made the laugh lodge in his throat too. And then Mikhail realized why Severn looked so distraught. He was terrified he’d lose his wings again, to Mikhail.
But he’d still revealed them.
Because they’d agreed there would be no more lies between them.
For Severn to reveal them to Mikhail took great bravery.
Mikhail exhaled the breath he’d been holding.
He held himself back, filtering through the urges to go to Severn, forcing himself to visually examine the wings to keep from startling him. Had he moved forward, he wasn’t sure what he’d have done—touched them, definitely. Embraced him, maybe.
These wings were different from Konstantin’s. More vertical, more angel-like, but without a down of feathers to soften them. Where the membranes stretched, veins pulsed in time with Severn’s demon heart.
“How do they look?” Severn asked hoarsely.
“You don’t know?”
“No… I… They’re, er…” he cleared his throat. “They’re new.”
Mikhail strode forward and circled around their expanse, focusing on the map of muscle and sinew, forcing himself to look at them analytically even as his heart raced. Their shadow fell over him, and Mikhail looked up, admiring their great height. “When did they appear?” He circled around to face Severn again and watched the hybrid angel’s blue-eyed gaze dart away.
“After I leaped from Aerie and caught you.”
Mikhail’s feet jolted to a stop. “You did what?”
He reached for the memory of that moment after Remiel had stabbed him, but there was nothing between that and waking in a field. He’d suspected Severn had performed something to save them both, but had Severn genuinely jumped from Aerie with no wings to save him? “What happened exactly?”
“He, er…” The wings retracted a little, as though Severn ached to pull them close, to protect them. “Remiel threw you over the edge, and I went after you.”
He had jumped. “And you didn’t know you had these?” He’d thrown himself from Aerie after Mikhail without any means of surviving. That seemed… incredulous. Foolhardy. Outright insane.
“No, the wings were a surprise.” He looked down.
By Haven. “Why did you do that?”
“Because…” Severn rolled his lips together, carefully forming the reply, “Because you would have died alone, and I couldn’t let that happen.”
His heart stuttered. “But we’re enemies,” Mikhail whispered. “You came to Aerie ten years ago to kill me.”
Severn threw his hands up and stepped back. “Yeah, well, shit happens, and I didn’t kill you. I don’t pretend to know much of anything anymore. Just that you need to survive.”
Out of the thousands of angels who had observed Remiel stab Mikhail in the back, Severn had been the one to save him. If he’d been the enemy, he would have wanted Mikhail’s death. He’d have let him fall. Instead,