Goddesses Don't Get Sick (13 page)

THIRTY-SIX.

THEY MADE LOVE
with the slow caution and tenderness of new lovers, but ones lacking the usual awkwardness of two people learning each other’s body for the first time. Each touch was perfect, each caress bringing them to new heights until they were left clinging to each other, panting and trembling at the intensity of the shared experience.

After, they lay sprawled out on the bed, both trying to catch their breath as their hearts continued to race, their bodies slick with rapidly cooling sweat.

“Is…is it always like that?” Tuyen eventually managed, swallowing to try and moisten his dry throat. Angela laughed giddily. Rolling towards him, she wrapped an arm across his body, the other reaching up to run her fingers through the Angel’s hair.

“No,” she murmured into his neck happily. “That was much better than…anything.”

Even as her body began to drift towards a tired and contented sleep, Angela couldn’t help but marvel at how different it had been with Tuyen. His inexperience hadn’t counted for anything, so attuned were they to each other. Angela normally felt crowded after sex, and often moved away from her partner, but with Tuyen…she couldn’t bear to let him go. Even though she knew he would have to leave, she wasn’t ready for that moment. Not yet.

Smiling gently as Angela rested her head on his chest, Tuyen stroked her hair, enjoying the closeness of her body as he tried to order his thoughts. He could sense Angela through the feather; a feeling of bliss radiated from her that he’d never felt before, allaying any fears he might have had about his performance. The Angel thought back to how they’d been mere minutes before, and shivered in delight.

He looked down at Angela’s tousled form, golden in the fading sunlight, and noticed a feather stuck in her hair. Gently pulling it free, he twirled it between his thumb and forefinger, vaguely confused as to how it had gotten there. Tuyen had pulled his wings back when they’d fallen to the bed, but when he’d climaxed his wings had snapped out, rigid like the rest of his body, and shaken free any loose feathers in the sharp motion.

Lifting his head, Tuyen could see about a dozen feathers littered on the floor and the bed around them. He grinned foolishly, for some reason finding humour in the way he had molted feathers, just as Angela was known to leave strands of her hair on his clothes when they hugged.

Feathers for my Goddess
, the Angel thought disjointedly, coherency slowly returning to his mind as the euphoria that had flooded his senses began to drain.

It was then that Tuyen came to the full realization of his situation. Of what he had done. Of the doctrine the Angel had broken in his act.

It was then that the fear returned.

Stifling a small groan of despair, Tuyen closed his eyes and pressed the palm of his free hand to his forehead with a grimace. The Angel was loath to leave Angela now, not so soon, but he needed space from the intoxication of her presence. Space, and time to think over what he had done. Gently, he tried to lift Angela’s arm from his chest and slide away. Aroused from her doze by the movement, she clung to him more tightly.

“No,” she begged sleepily.

“Ange, I have to go,” Tuyen pleaded. She shook her head, furrowed brow creasing her features. Her eyes, however, stayed closed, as if opening them would bring reality crashing down on her once again.

“Not now. Later. Just…hold me now.” She sighed into the side of his neck and snuggled closer. Tuyen stiffened, but he gave in—as he always did to her wishes—relaxing into her embrace once more.

“I love you,” Angela murmured. Tuyen smiled sadly and kissed her forehead.

“I love you too, Goddess,” he whispered. Resting his head next to hers as she slowly drifted to sleep, he closed his own eyes to stop the tears that threatened.

After she’d fallen asleep, Tuyen carefully untangled himself from Angela’s hold and got up from the bed. Moving with uncanny silence, he retrieved his trousers and pulled them on, his eye catching the crumpled letter lying on the floor nearby. Sighing inaudibly, the Angel picked it up and smoothed it out, placing the letter on the bedside table. He considered gathering up the feathers, but decided against it, instead only picking one up and placing it on the pillow where he’d lain.

Tuyen looked at Angela, her naked form beautiful in the twilight, before he gently kissed her on the lips and covered her with a blanket. He stayed for a moment longer, watching his Goddess sleep until he eventually exhaled and left the apartment through the door.

Walking out of the building and onto the empty street, Tuyen shoved his hands into his pockets and walked up the middle of the road. His thoughts returned to Angela—not that they strayed far from her, these days—and the Angel delighted at the memory of her touch. Her embrace.

She’s perfect
, he thought dreamily, utterly lost in himself.

The barest hint of a rustle, silent to mortal ears, caused Tuyen to stop and lift his head. The smile that had been forming on his lips faded when he saw a score of Sentinels, silhouetted black against the setting sun, their eyes glowing and turned to him.

No…

Before he could move, one of them dropped from the building on which it had been perched and landed in front of him. The being regarded Tuyen silently, a dull glow emanating from its body as it stared coldly at its subordinate.

Suddenly, it struck Tuyen across the face; a backhanded swipe full of fire as it rocked him to his knees.

Cowering in the middle of the road, unable to touch his face for the pain it brought, Tuyen closed his eyes and waited for the punishment he had feared for years.

Nothing happened.

After what felt like an eternity, he opened his eyes and looked around to find himself alone once more. Rising shakily to his feet, Tuyen spread his wings and touched them, afraid to believe that they were still his.

Why?
He wondered to himself, folding his wings close to his body self-consciously.

“Am I not fallen?” He asked the air softly.

When he received no reply, the Angel shook his head in confusion and continued to walk the way he was headed. His face burned from the strike, a painful reminder of the rules he had broken.

Snapping awake the moment Tuyen was struck, Angela blinked in confusion for a moment at her surroundings. The empty room; the rumbled sheets; the smell of sweat, and sex, and…feathers scattered everywhere. Lying back down with a small smile, Angela picked up the feather on the pillow next to her and toyed with it, much the way Tuyen had done so earlier.

She’d never dared to hope that such a perfect moment could happen in her life. Angela doubted she’d ever forget it, and right now did not care that she might never experience it again. Though there was the faintest pang of sadness at Tuyen’s absence. As she drifted back to sleep, Angela found herself wondering if this was something that would come back to haunt either herself or Tuyen in their future.

I hope he’s okay
, she thought sleepily to herself.
I wonder when I’ll see him again…
The thought tried to continue, but failed as the darkness of sleep finally secured its hold over her.

THIRTY-SEVEN.

LESS THAN A WEEK LATER,
Angela stood before a full-length mirror in her wedding gown. Her apartment was full almost to bursting with excited bridesmaids, the mother of the groom, and various extended family members—all from Jason’s side, of course—running around in an attempt to get everything ready for the wedding. It was utter bedlam, even though there was still over two hours before the ceremony was due to begin.

Only Angela stood still, thoughts elsewhere as everyone around her fussed and fidgeted with her hair and makeup, pulling her this way and that.

Almost everyone took her silence to mean that she was calm and ready for the event, but all Angela could think about was whether she had made the right decision. Jason was a fine man, and once upon a time would have been all she wanted.

But he wasn’t who she wanted now.

Ever since they’d spent that evening together, Angela couldn’t stop thinking about Tuyen. About how much she loved him, how right it felt to be with him. She knew he didn’t want to give up his wings—and she could understand why—but Angela couldn’t help but feel that, if she insisted, he would stay with her.

But then all of the other questions arose, until it just became too much to think about.

(
You promised him you wouldn’t ask for anything more
)

She sighed softly as someone tugged at her hair, adding yet another pin to hold a nonexistent strand in place.
Maybe this is just the way it’s meant to be
, Angela thought sadly.

She was so lost in her thoughts, that she didn’t even notice Sharon watching Angela with a look of concern. Her friend was gnawing her lip distractedly, as if she wanted to say something but didn’t know what—or how.

Hand straying to the chain around her neck, Angela suddenly found herself wondering if she should remove it. Once she’d gotten over the paranoia that Tuyen had been manipulating her through it, Angela had found that she loved the idea. That the Angel could maintain a kind of contact with her.

She knew Tuyen would probably be somewhere where he could see the wedding—watching from above, perhaps?—but Angela wasn’t sure if he’d want to know what she was feeling as she got married. She didn’t want him upset by her own regret of her choices. Would anyone want an empathic link with someone they loved while that person married another?

Reaching a decision, Angela was about to remove it when one of the older ladies—Jason’s great aunt?—spotted it.

“Ooh, that’s lovely, dearest! It goes perfectly with your earrings and the colour even matches your dress!”

As the rest of the bridal party gathered around to admire the necklace, Angela sighed softly to herself and looked out the window.

I am so sorry, my Angel
.

It wasn’t until Angela was sitting in the church’s small back room, waiting for the ceremony to begin, that Sharon gathered the confidence to talk to her friend.

“Ange, are you sure you want to do this?” Sharon asked, snapping Angela from her thoughts. She looked at Sharon for a long moment, before nodding and smiling nervously.

“It’s just…” Sharon struggled for the words. “Are you marrying Jason because you love him? Or…because he’s who you think you should love?”

Angela turned her head away from Sharon for a moment, swallowing tightly.

“I love Jason,” she spoke softly, before turning back to look at Sharon. There was the faintest trace of pleading in the bride’s eyes as she looked at her friend, her hand clutching reflexively at the feather around her neck.

Sharon had figured long ago that it was Tuyen who had given Angela the feather, although she didn’t know its true nature. Watching her friend now, it was in a rare moment of clarity that Sharon realized Angela had loved him, and still did.

“What about Tuyen?” She asked softly, causing Angela to…flinch?

“He…it wouldn’t work,” Angela dropped her head.

Sharon was about to press the matter when there was a knock at the door. Vera poked her head in and smiled at Angela.

“We’re all ready for you, dear.”

Swallowing, Angela nodded and smiled weakly, taking her time to stand up and smooth out her dress. Sharon handed her the bouquet, before she took Angela by the wrist and forced her to look at her.

“Please tell me you know what you’re doing, Ange.”

“I do,” Angela sighed internally, but managed a wan smile for her friend. “Trust me?”

“As long as you’re sure,” Sharon murmured doubtfully, collecting her own bouquet and opening the door.

The two friends caught each other’s eye as the other bridesmaid joined them and they lined up in the foyer. Angela smiled hesitantly, Sharon comfortingly; a silent moment of reassurance passing between them, before the organ began to play and the main doors opened.

“Do you, Jason, take Angela as your wife, to have and to hold, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?”

“I do.”

“And do you, Angela, take Jason to be your husband, to have and to hold, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?”

“…I do.”

“If anyone here can find any reason for these two not to be married, I ask you to speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

Silence.

“I now pronounce you man and wife.”