Michael (The Airel Saga, Book 2) - By Aaron Patterson Page 0,6
most?
And who was Michael? Yeah, really. It was there nagging me in the back of my mind, but if I opened that door, what if I didn’t like what I found there? Did I have to go there? He had lied to me about his past and who his dad was. What else had he lied about? Had he really planned to kill me?
How can a girl know and be sure about love when she’s not sure who, precisely, she loves? Everything I thought I knew about him—that he was gentle, strong, beautiful and flawed, funny and serious, perfect and broken—how much of it was true? And considering what he had lived with… what he had to do to be the son of Stanley Alexander…I couldn’t begin to make sense of it.
In the end all of it made me want to be in his corner. There was something unexplainable about my attraction to him. Sure, it was physical. That was the attention-getter for everyone, right? But there was also a deep mystery to him; something both compelling and unknowable. That was the hook in my jaws, and it had been there since that fateful day I had spilled my coffee.
I tried to shrug off the deep thoughts and dressed in cargo pants, hiking boots and a dark blue tank top. I would be ready to hike out to the cliff later. Hopefully. I had to find Kreios.
I also figured my life, my school, my friends outside of Kim and Michael were all gone now. Everything was different now.
I had been shoved violently out of the nest, just like that baby eagle I had dreamt about. I sighed. So much about life was just impossible and huge. Would I learn to fly before I hit bottom?
Would I ever see my parents again? Would it be safe? For them? Was it better if they thought I was dead?
My head ached.
My chest ached too, but I refused to look at the scar in the mirror or touch it. I knew it was there and it made sure I did. It throbbed endlessly, pulsing with my cleaved and restarted heart.
But now I was ready for my day.
“Ready for anything?” She asked.
Sure. I’ve already cheated death today. Who else wants a piece?
CHAPTER V
Portland, Oregon, Pearl District, present day
KREIOS COULD REMEMBER THE battles he had fought. He knew the look of each man that had died under the edge of his sword. Through it all he was the master of his temper, his anger, his rage. Time and conscience had taught him to hold it in check, to act and not let emotions rule.
But he could also remember the few times that he had lost his temper. Time and conscience had also taught him that everything was personal. The difference between angel and animal was self-control, keeping instinct and impulse in check. This was one of those times when he was more animal, operating on instinct.
Wide open and out of control.
The howling inferno of his righteous anger—his prickling sense of justice—filled him, and he allowed it to consume him to the core of his being.
There were three women he had ever dared to love. The manifestation of that love to each one was different but no less complete. And now his loss was complete. Filled up for each of them. He knew about price. And he knew he was nothing more than a fallen angel, in the final analysis. He deserved all of it. All of the futility. All of the pain.
He thought it especially ironic that the Seer’s Bloodstone was red—his anger was hatefully red as well. It pulsed through him in a fire that only the red of guilty blood could quench.
“Look,” the woman said, “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I’m not the one you’re looking for!” She sounded confident, but it was a thin shell. In the same way, she was rough and untended, the slightest hint of femininity beneath it all.
“I am not surprised anymore,” said Kreios, half to himself, half to the jeans-clad woman with wild red hair. “But this will be messy; an embarrassment.” They stood in the back parking lot of the Riverside Bar facing one another.
She bent her knees slightly as Kreios advanced toward her. “What do you want?” She lowered her shoulder, hand on hip. The front of her shirt, its buttons undone just a bit too far, fell slightly open, revealing a leather string that held something around her neck.