“Please,” Azariah moaned, standing by the old avocado-green refrigerator. “I need to speak to all of you.”
“Move,” I growled at him. I kept my rice milk in the fridge.
He stumbled over to Zach, who inched away and revealed Deyva.
She’d been pale after the battle, haggard and angry looking. Now she had pink in her cheeks and, even as she glared at Az, there was a mischievous smile on her lips.
I opened my mouth to ask if Stavros was still breathing and then shut it quickly again. Deyva deserved better than that. And a moment later Stav was thumping down the stairs in a pair of sweatpants, shirtless. Shirtless because his old Boston U t-shirt was hanging down almost to Deyva’s knees.
“Coffee?” Stavros asked me, eyebrows waggling. He had a hickey on his neck and some scratch marks on his back I was pretty sure he didn’t know about, ones that made Zach’s eyes bug out.
“Help yourself,” I grunted.
“What’s up?” Deyva asked Zach, whose eyes were tracking Stavros with an expression I wasn’t sure how to read.
“Would you all just listen to me for a minute?!” the angel barked, words heavy with power and windows rattling with his command.
I stiffened, clenching too hard on the brown carton in my hand and Deyva’s nose wrinkled.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, angel boy,” Deyva muttered.
Zach’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t correct her or snap back, and Azariah just shuddered with frustration.
“Fine. Dining room table, everyone. Azariah has something he’d like to say.” The others looked at me, everyone ready to argue, and I raised an eyebrow, hushing them all.
“It can wait, I guess,” Zach whispered to Deyva.
“Babe, you want honey?” Stavros asked.
Zach and I shared a wide-eyed glance as Deyva twisted shyly in place, reaching up and fingering the end of one of her gold horns. “Yes, please.”
For a moment, I let my brain go in a direction I really shouldn’t have. What kind of sex did it take for a man to feel comfortable calling a woman ‘babe’ after watching her tear into a monster’s chest and rip out its heart? Brain addling, no doubt. But Deyva seemed cautiously delighted as Stavros passed her a steaming cup of coffee sweetened with a spoonful of our hives’ honey.
And then we all moved into the dining room like the universe’s most dysfunctional family unit.
I took the head seat by the window, Zach on my left, and Deyva and Stavros cuddled up in the chair to my right, as Azariah stood at the other end, his hands braced against the back of the chair.
“I...I have a confession to make to you all,” Azariah said softly, meeting each of our eyes, stopping with Deyva and holding hers longest. Her eyes narrowed back at him and his head ducked. “I would like to begin though, with...with my fall from grace.”
Deyva’s eyes rolled and accidentally landed on mine, a brief moment of understanding passing between us. Was this more holy bullshit we were about to be fed on Azariah’s sanctimonious platter?
“I questioned God,” Az said, some of his usual elegance fading, the words coming out flat. “When Hell rose up, I assumed my maker had some plan, that it was all part of the divine cycle. I thought perhaps the holy fleet would be sent down. The rapture is primarily a human concept, but I even considered the possibility that the blessed would be shepherded home. After...a time, too long I think, I realized that there was no help from Heaven that would be sent to Earth.”
It was strange. Azariah’s words were like a reflection of my own mind. I’d wondered at first if I was being tested. I wondered if I’d been found wanting. And then after a very long while, even after finding Bethel and setting up our sanctuary here, I’d felt abandoned.
Poor Zach. His face was sheet white right now, his eyes fixed to the top of the table in a crushed kind of horror. I would’ve spared him this moment if I could have.
“I implored God to send aid, and when I was refused I grew frustrated and I…” Azariah cleared his throat and Deyva leaned forward, catching his eye. He shrugged once, and Deyva nodded. “I made accusations. My faith faltered, and then so did my wings.”
“What?” Zach gasped. “No. No, you are not telling me that you—that because you were upset for our sake that God—”