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Izzy dropped into a sitting position on the rooftop, not caring when the concrete bit into his bare legs. A trickle of sweat slid down his back and his breath came in short gasps. Every inch of him ached from the morning workout, and he was okay with that.
It was a foreign feeling, dealing with something as simple as the pain of pushing past his limits doing sit-ups and crunches. After almost three thousand years of the immortality which came from being an angel, and another hundred or so living off borrowed power after he fell, he was adjusting to being mortal.
He was okay with that, too.
“Hey, handsome.” Holden’s familiar baritone made him smile. Strong fingers rested on Izzy’s shoulders, and Holden kneaded along his upper back. “You’re working too hard.”
A breeze drifted through the air, cooling the sheen of sweat on Izzy’s skin. He rolled his head forward and hoped Holden’s attention would relax him. Instead, it reminded him of the second reason he was up here, working out until his arms felt like rubber and his brain no longer functioned.
“It’s taking me too long to get back to where I used to be.” Izzy pulled away and stood. He was trying to ignore the feeling that Holden was hiding something.
Izzy had tried asking him about it. Told him if they were serious about moving in together, they needed to trust each other. Pointed out six months together was too long to be playing these I’m fine, you’re imagining things games. And Holden insisted every time that it was nothing for Izzy to worry about.
Then again, he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. Izzy still hadn’t figured out how to tell Holden about his angelic past. Was it really a fair comparison? Hard to know without having an idea of what Holden’s secret was.
“What happened to your deadline?” Izzy tried to push a lighthearted tone into his voice.
Holden was a journalist and had expected to be locked away for the next couple of days. His love of research was one of the reasons they clicked so well. Doubts aside, Izzy looked forward to this being be his home; so even if he was sequestered and writing, they’d still see each other.
The first few times he visited Izzy in the hospital, he’d been this kind of reserved. Wouldn’t meet Izzy’s gaze. Couldn’t stand still. Except, then it was because he’d been trying to figure out how to ask Izzy out. Now, something darker lined Holden’s hesitation.
Or maybe Izzy was scared of commitment.
“I wrapped up my work and sent it to my editor this morning.” Holden closed the distance between them again. “I missed you too much to procrastinate.” He drew a thumb across Izzy’s cheek. “I’m glad I caught you this morning before you shaved.”
The hidden compliment made Izzy smile. Holden said scruff of his beard made him rugged.
Something crawled over Izzy’s skin, leaving him feeling like he’d stuck a fork in a light socket. Was that really lingering mistrust? “Now that you mention it, I was about to jump in the shower. I might shave if someone isn’t there to stop me.”
“Tempting offer.” Holden kissed him
This time the tingles racing through Izzy were vibrant and delicious, bringing his senses to life.
Through the pleasure, the heavy air sank into his skin, running over his nerves like he was a live wire. What the hell was—
He shoved Holden away as hard as he could and fell back before his brain caught up with instinct. Lightning flashed between them. The crackle filled the air, temporarily blinding Izzy and leaving the heavy scent of ozone in its wake.
His heart hammered in his chest. Doubt. Exhaustion. Every other feeling became background noise. That wasn’t a freak electrical storm. Such a precise, targeted strike could only come from a host of heaven or hell.
“Who the hell is that?” Holden’s question jerked him out of his rambling thoughts and creeping fear.
Izzy followed his gaze. Anyone who could summon such intense energy from nothing was powerful, so there was no reason they’d stick around instead of vanishing into thin air. Then again, it also didn’t make sense they’d only struck once, despite missing.
Abaddon. Izzy’s insides turned in on themselves when he saw her. No wonder it was a precision strike. Powerful was an understatement. She stood just a few rooftops away, several stories up. Her platinum hair was tied back from her face, and she dressed in a denim jacket and crinoline skirt. Only Abaddon, heaven’s top assassin, could simultaneously manifest instant lightning and rock a thrift-shop-chic look.
Izzy swore her eyes met his, even across the hundreds of feet between them. She dipped her head in a short bow, and then vanished.
Anxious dread clawed under his skin. He thought Ronnie was exaggerating about him being in danger. Speaking of, Ronnie needed to know about this. Abaddon only answered to Gabriel, and that meant the original angel was back in action.
Izzy turned back to Holden. “Are you all right?”
“No, really.” Holden brushed invisible dirt off his jeans. “Who the hell was that? What kind of electrical storm only hits one house? And how did she vanish into thin air?”
“Magic?” Izzy hid his wince. How did he know she’d been there, and that she’d disappeared just as quickly?
Why didn’t Holden assume it was a freak lightning storm, or a power surge? The trick of fogging the mind only worked on people who didn’t want to believe what they saw. Anyone who had accepted there was more to the world than what they understood couldn’t be so easily swayed. What did that say about Holden?
Izzy extended his hand and pulled Holden to his feet. His hot palm against Izzy’s sent racing tingles through him.
He wanted to go after Abaddon. Start making calls. Find out what the hell was going on. But he didn’t have the power to chase her down himself, and Holden was his priority. “Do you want a drink? I can make it strong.”
“At ten am? If you have iced tea, that’d be great.”
Izzy always had a fresh pitcher. The normalcy of the conversation helped soothe him, but not enough. Every inch of him twitched with excess electricity—both from the attack and the questions he suspected Holden was gathering.
They made their way down to Izzy’s apartment. He excused himself long enough to call Ronnie, pacing the entire time when she didn’t answer. Neither did Irdu, Lucifer, or anyone else he knew in hell or outside Gabe’s circle in heaven. Who the fuck knew where Michael was. Izzy left her an insistent message and returned to Holden.
Izzy grabbed glasses, ice, and the pitcher from the fridge. He tried to focus on the conversation. On distracting Holden. Too many concerns hummed through him, carried on waves of stress.
Ronnie had warned Izzy that Gabe would recover quickly from her stripping him of his powers, and that he’d be pissed—go figure—but Izzy had no idea what that had to do with him. Then again, maybe it was Abaddon who had a grudge against him. Just because she was one of those who never acted on her own didn’t mean she couldn’t start now...
Or maybe this wasn’t about Izzy at all. A strange hum vibrated in his ears. Silence. He looked up to find Holden watching him expectantly.
Crap. He’d probably asked Izzy something. “I’m sorry, what?”
Holden shoved aside a few stacks of books on the breakfast bar to make an empty space in front of the stool he sat on. He nodded at a book on his right. “What exactly did they believe about angels and possession in thirteenth century South America?”
He was referencing the tome with the worn leather cover, cracked spine, and pages so yellowed Izzy had to turn them with latex gloves to keep the oils on his fingers from damaging them further.
Izzy set Holden’s drink in front of him, grabbed the book, and returned it to its sleeve, and then its spot on the top shelf. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated like magical girls in tutus who vanish into thin air, fire that guts your house and church, but leaves all the surrounding buildings intact, and freak lightning storms that only strike where you’re standing?”
Izzy whirled to face him, anxiousness growing at the direct questions.
Holden raised an eyebrow. “Or a different kind of complicated?”
Izzy had about two seconds to come up with an answer and still look like he meant it. Holden obviously wasn’t buying the current excuses, but it wasn’t as though the truth sounded any better. Screw it.
“They all fall into the same category of complicated,” Izzy said.
Angels and demons didn’t keep their presence secret from humanity because of some overarching command from above. They mostly kept quiet these days, because people as a whole were cynical. Plastic boxes lined with tiny wires and solder transmitted terabytes of data over oceans in the blink of an eye, and it wasn’t a miracle. Not a lot of people were going to believe a random priest who spent his weekends swapping theology with his congregation had wielded an ethereal pike and been an actual muse thousands of years ago.
Holden’s cheeks puffed out and then deflated as he exhaled. “So, am I seeing things, or not?”
Was he? Izzy couldn’t meet his gaze, and his wandering eyes landed instead on another book on the counter. This one about prophets; people who could see auras. Prophets knew—not just believed but knew with all certainty—something besides the standard world around them existed. The blind faith was gone for those people. Could Holden be...?
No. Izzy just needed to talk him out of what he’d seen. Do a verbal version of the thought clouding an agent would do.
A nagging thought nudged the back of his mind, about how he’d wanted transparency. But this wasn’t his secret to share. “Maybe. I didn’t see it, so I don’t know.” He didn’t like this.
Creases marred Holden’s forehead, and he scowled. “Of course. Just like before your accident, you didn’t really glow. I imagined that, too.” There was no question in his statement.
Could he really...? Izzy didn’t know if he was terrified Holden might have the same gifts as a prophet, or relieved. “What kind of glow?”
A low growl rumbled from Holden’s chest. The noise he made when he was frustrated with work, or the world around him, and apparently now Izzy. Holden breathed deep. “The glowing kind of glow. Not like your friend, Ronnie. She might as well be a fucking light bulb. At least now she’s ditched that whole visage of leaking chaos thing. Not a good look for someone with her skin, by the way. But you still might as well have been your own power source.”
Yeah, that was Ronnie. The chaos Holden described had been her aural reflection of having two separate entities living in the same head. Indecision made Izzy’s skull feel like it was full of helium. He should be excited about this. He’d never picked a prophet’s brain, and this meant no more lying to Holden. So why did the possibility leave him disconcerted instead?
“How long have you...” Izzy wasn’t sure how to phrase his question. His brain moved a million miles a minute.
Holden rubbed his face. “You believe me?”
Poor guy. Part of the reason it was so hard to find prophets, especially these days, was because if they told the wrong people what they saw, they were drugged, institutionalized, or worse.
“Yeah,” Izzy said. “I believe you.”
The corners of Holden’s mouth pulled up. “Thank, God.”
Maybe. But He was more of a hands-off, learn-for-yourself kind of deity. The odds He’d pulled strings to push Izzy and Holden together were less than non-existent. Was Izzy going to delve into an explanation or try to keep brushing off Holden’s questions?
Izzy’s brain had been stuffed full of knowledge as an angel, but only what he needed to do his job. It had never been enough. After he fell, he spent his free time digging up as much as he could about what everyone everywhere believed, and searching for the similarities. With Holden he had a choice—rob him of the same opportunity by convincing him he was a little nuts, or tell him the truth.
Izzy dropped onto an empty stool. “Have you seen it since you were a kid?”
“As long as I can remember. I learned pretty young not to talk about it.” He drained his tea in a single swallow. “Am I sane after all, or are we both crazy?”
“Either. Both. But what you saw on the roof, the stuff with Ronnie, with me, is all real.” Izzy’s thoughts tripped over something, and he stopped to examine it. He’d missed something important about this revelation, but it was just out of his reach.
Holden was staring again, but this time Izzy knew he hadn’t missed something he’d said. “What?” Izzy asked.
“There’s something else.”
The gears in his brain ground to a halt at the intensity of his scrutiny. “Oh?”
“You’re outright sexy when you’re excited about something,” Holden said, resting a hand on Izzy’s neck.
Heat spread out from his touch, cranking up a notch when he scraped a thumb over Izzy’s stubble.
“I mean, that’s not what I wanted to say... When I found your church a year ago, I couldn’t believe it. The nondenominational sign on the front door was a nice change, especially since you actually are. Nondenominational I mean. But on top of that, I’d never met someone who glowed, who was just down to earth, and wanted to talk to me. And now, with the way I feel about you, and you have answers for me, too?”
He hesitated, eyes searching Izzy’s face, then leaned in and kissed him.
Izzy’s body pulsed with need. He pushed past the hesitation and deepened the kiss, intensely aware of Holden’s every movement.
He stood and pressed closer, sliding between Izzy’s legs, and resting his free hand on Izzy’s chest. Izzy fisted his fingers in Holden’s hair, holding him captive, tongues exploring each other with fervent want.
When they broke apart, Izzy struggled to find his breath.
Holden traced his thumb over Izzy’s stubbled chin. “I’ve been terrified to bring this up with you. I didn’t know what I’d do if you told me I was insane.”
“Me too.” Izzy winced at the less than stellar response, but his relief at having this out in the open made up for it. Was this what Holden had been hiding? The same topic Izzy was worried about?
Logic listed all the reasons spilling heaven’s secrets was a bad idea. But it wasn’t as if Izzy was going to sell anyone out. He was just going to answer Holden’s questions.
Holden stepped back and jammed his hands in his pockets. “So, will you tell me why your cute friend glows? Wait.” He studied Izzy for a moment. “Did you and she ever...?”
“Hook up?” A rush of heat sped through Izzy at the reminder. He had once with Ronnie. More often with Irdu. The reminder left a pit in his chest. Izzy tried to be happy for them, but sometimes it was hard to ignore that he wanted to be a part of what they had. He didn’t need that, though. He had Holden. “Not any time that mattered.”
“Why not?”
“Angels and demons aren’t big on commitment or long-term relationships.”
Holden’s smirk grew, and he dropped onto the couch. “You make it sound like one big orgy.”
“More like several small ones.” Izzy hadn’t meant to dive into the middle of things with his explanation. It might make more sense if he started at the beginning. Or it might just bore the hell out of Holden. People and their perception of angels and demons entertained Izzy.
The air shifted around them, and his next words died in his throat. This was an identical sensation to what he felt on the roof. Heavy, suffocating, and sparking across every nerve.
“Fuck, she’s back.” Holden pointed at the window. The glass exploded in million shards. A ball of electricity filled the living room. Izzy didn’t have time to react before everything slammed into them full force. His vision blurred at the edges, and consciousness slipping away.
His books. Not again. He forced himself toward Holden’s prone form. The room spun and his legs refused to hold his weight. Please. Not with him here.