Angel's Power
Evernight
Publishing
Copyright© 2013 Erin M. Leaf
ISBN: 978-1-77130-678-2
Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor:
JS
Cook
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this
copyrighted work is illegal.
No part of
this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are
fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
To my mother,
who loves
angels.
ANGEL’S POWER
Angel Shifters, 2
Erin M. Leaf
Copyright
© 2013
Chapter One
Ariel stared at her bare arms,
then
roughly dragged her shirt sleeves down to cover her
legacy marks, the symbol of the People. Every angel shifter was born with them.
Hers used to be ordinary brown and smoothly drawn. They were supposed to look
like tattoos of abstract lines and feathers drawn on her skin, stretching up
her arms and over her shoulders, but now they were all wrong.
Broken
, she thought to herself, a pang
of fear lodged in her sternum. She swallowed it down. She didn’t have time for
this, no matter how much the mottled blue discoloring the brown remnants
bothered her. In some places a hint of silver edged the marks. Worst of all,
when she changed, releasing her angel form, her wings were mottled, too. She
didn’t know what the hell was wrong, but something was. Her wings were changing
and she had no idea why. The tips of her feathers flashed silver when she held
them up to the light.
She shoved the heavy drapes away
from the windows and stared down over the stone circle. The full moon lit the glittering
snow, making it almost as bright as day in the clearing behind Castle Archangel.
In another ten minutes, she had to go down there and support her brother,
Gabriel. He was their Alpha. The leader of their people. And their species was
in the midst of a crisis, even more than they’d been a few decades ago when
they’d been outed to the humans. They’d all thought that would be the end of everything.
It hadn’t been, even though everyone found out the truth: that the angels of
myth were shape-shifters, another sentient species that co-evolved along with
humans on Earth. And sure, it was difficult as the world grappled with the
revelation, but it was nothing compared to what was happening now. Demons
walked among them once more.
Ariel rubbed her face, then forced
herself to stand up straight and confident. She was her brother’s first advisor.
One of the People’s most important councilors. She had no right to mope around
just because her wings were changing colors. Her brother’s had changed from
brown to ebon when he’d become Alpha. His mate’s wings had changed from brown
to snow white when Raphael became Omega, their People’s healer. Maybe whatever
was happening to her wings was meant to be, too. Perhaps she was drifting into
some destiny she couldn’t predict and it was all part of God’s plan.
Yeah, right, and pigs will fly
across the castle grounds tomorrow,
she thought skeptically as she
strode through the large chamber. More likely she had some sort of illness and
she’d drop dead any day now with no warning.
If Gabriel could hear you
thinking that, he’d kick your ass,
she told herself. She stopped in front
of the door leading onto the second floor landing of the huge stone building,
trying to press her worry down into nothing. She failed. Instead, she took a
deep breath and curled her fingers around the brass handle. It warmed in her
hand, the metal suddenly glowing with heat. She jerked her arm away and stared
at it. The metal looked pitted. Deformed. Shit. She shook her head. She’d have
to deal with this later. She was out of time for self-pity.
“Time to be a grown-up and fake it,”
she murmured as she shoved the door open with her foot.
****
“Are you sure it’s wise to go to
Castle Archangel?” Suriel’s mother asked him, not for the first time.
He shrugged, wishing he had a good
answer for her. “I don’t think any time will ever be the perfect moment to go,
but the longer I delay, the more likely something terrible will happen to the
People. They need my protection.” He shoved a pair of jeans into his pack.
“There are angels here, too. The
People don’t only live at the castle,” his mother replied.
Suriel grimaced. “I know, but the
danger I sense isn’t here. It lies to the south. I can’t let the first true
Alpha in years wander around unprotected when my power may tip the balance
between life and death.”
His mother sighed and glanced
around the cave where he’d been staying for the past year. “Are you bringing
your books?”
He paused, hand on the zipper of
the thick canvas. “No. I don’t really have any way to carry them.”
“I can ship them to you,” she said,
running a hand along the top of his battered bookshelf.
He finished zipping his pack and
straightened up. What could he say to her? That he wasn’t sure of his welcome
at the castle? “I’ll let you know when I get there,” he replied. He started
unbuttoning his shirt. It was cold out, but once he shifted into angel-form, he
wouldn’t notice the cold. He took it off and folded it, shoving it into the
outside pocket of his pack. He shivered, though he wasn’t sure if it was
because of the temperature or fear of the unknown. Going to Castle Archangel
was a risk. A huge one. He hoped he’d be welcome. His brother Raphael was
there, after all. And he had enough control over his power now so that he
wasn’t damaging furniture anymore just by walking past.
“I’m worried about you,” his mother
said. She walked up to him and put her hand on his chest. Her fingers were
cold. “Your power isn’t stable.”
He shrugged. He knew that. “What
can I do? There are demons among us. If I don’t go…” He trailed off, not
wanting to imagine what could happen if he didn’t lend his strength to the
fight. “It’s stable enough.”
“I know,” his mother said, quietly.
“Even so, you’re my son. I want nothing more than for you to be safe. Having a
child and watching them go into danger is the worst thing for a parent. And Raphael
is already there.”
He pulled her into a hug. “Having
me there will keep Raphael safer. Besides, nothing is certain anymore. If I go,
we have a chance.” It wasn’t arrogance that made him say that. He was a
sorcerer. He had power over the winds. He could manipulate energy. And
sometimes, if he tried really hard, glimpses of the future passed through his
mind like a kaleidoscope of images, sometimes blurry, sometimes horrifically
sharp and urgent. One of those visions had been why he’d sent his younger brother
to Castle Archangel. He’d seen Raphael healing the Alpha. He squeezed his
mother gently, not wanting to tell her that he saw more violence in the future.
He needed to go sooner rather than later.
She hugged him back fiercely.
“Maybe you’ll find a mate there, someone to keep you sane. Someone to share
your burden.” She leaned back thumping a fist on his shoulder. “Promise me you
won’t say no if some girl asks you out.”
Was she kidding? A look at the
expression on her face told him she wasn’t. He forced a smile. “Mom, I won’t
have time for dating. And I would never risk it, even if I did.” He pulled away
and walked to the mouth of the cave. Flurries swirled across the valley under
an overcast sky. He shivered harder. “You know my power can kill. I could never
expose a woman to the fury of the winds. It would be tantamount to murder.”
His mother stepped up next to him,
putting a hand on his arm. “Not if you find the right woman.”
He sighed as he looked down at her.
She wasn’t looking at him and he knew she was thinking about his father. He
could always tell. His father had died when his younger brother had been born.
The People said he’d taken his own life, flying too high into the atmosphere
until he ran out of air, but Suriel knew that wasn’t true. His father would
never do that. Even as a child of five, he’d known his father had more honor
than that. He suspected his father had run into a demon somewhere in the skies,
though no one believed him except for his mother and brother.
I wonder if they’ll believe me now,
he mused, thinking
about the fight at Castle Archangel. The new Alpha, his brother Raphael’s mate,
had defeated their old leader. As Samael lay dying, he’d changed into the demon
that had possessed him for years. It had been a shocking awakening for the
angels gathered to witness the fight.
His mother gave him a look. “Not
all women are weak. There is someone out there for you.” She was shivering now,
too, in the cold air. She’d flown up here wearing only a halter, in the middle
of winter, because she’d somehow known he was leaving. A parent’s instinct, he
supposed. He hadn’t wanted her to come, but what could he do? Mothers were
notoriously difficult to command. He grabbed his leather jacket and tucked it
around her shoulders. “You didn’t answer me,” she said, wrapping the jacket
he’d given her close to her neck.