4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

T he library needed far more work than Briar had originally anticipated. He spent three days scaling the rolling ladders on each wall, pulling dusty books from bowed shelves and stacking them in skyscraper piles on the floor.

A few portraits leaned against the wall beneath three oval windows, and he unearthed a leather couch under a pile of curled maps tied with burlap string. Once he had the secretary cleared, he used the desk as a workplace, sorting fiction, non-fiction and poetry into different areas, and marking each title in an empty spiral notebook he’d found tucked away in a drawer. At this rate, he’d have to fill four notebooks to keep any sort of inventory.

He plopped on the couch, thumbing through an annotated poetry book. Fingers found the cursive scratched into the margins— promises, promises —written next to Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”.

How long had Aster collected poetry? How long had he analyzed sonnets and lyrics? Briar set the book down beside him and grabbed another. The notes beneath the title of “Romeo and Juliet” read: And if we all fell as one where would we be now? Choked, I think. We would strangle ourselves with this inconceivable love, wouldn’t we? This overbearing love for each other. This love we can’t escape in a world we never wanted. This love bred into us. This grotesque, ancient love. We would die without it, we will kill because of it. I want to think I’d catch you, if you fell (will you fall?) but I don’t know, brother.

Wind pushed hard against the windows, sending snow whipping against the glass, loud enough to mask Aster’s footsteps as he walked into the library. Briar didn’t notice him until his tall, broad shape blotted the empty bookshelves to his right.

“I hope you like stew,” Aster said, skimming his hand over the stacked books. “The storm put a stop to our grocery delivery this morning, so Clementine’s braising a sheep. She mentioned cognac, root vegetables, and bone broth.”

Briar wrinkled his nose. “The whole sheep?”

“We’ll be eating from the skull, I believe.”

“I do like stew,” he mumbled, stealing a glance at Aster.

The Great Duke snatched a leather-bound book, flicking through the first few pages. “Are you enjoying my collection?”

“I am. You have eclectic taste.” He turned his eyes toward the book open in his lap. “Who is this about? ‘I want to think I’d catch you, if you fell’.”

“Ah, that. Probably Gabriel, maybe Michael.”

“You love them, don’t you? Even after all these years, you—”

“Love is a complicated thing. After a while it evolves, becomes more. Changes. My love for them is indominable, as is my hate. They’re alike, somehow.”

“Would you kill them?”

“That’s a good question. I’ve had the opportunity. They have, too.” He tapped the scar on his chin. “Yet we’re all still alive.”

“The originals, yes. The rest of us are collateral, right?”

“You shouldn’t be.” Aster heaved a sigh. His black sweater wasn’t thick enough to hide the swell at his shoulders, an odd, oblong shape beneath his clothes. “Replicating birth isn’t easy. It took a long time for us to understand the mechanics of creation. Because of that, every angel born after the inception of humanity took on human likeness. It was easier that way, even if it set us apart.”

“I’ve never seen our ancient bodies,” Briar blurted. He immediately flushed, regret burning hot in his chest. “I’ve heard stories, though.”

“I’d scare you,” Aster said, matter-of-factly. He laughed, that cute, hiccupping laugh. “I’d scare the shit out of you, actually.”

“You wouldn’t, actually .”

Gray eyes shifted. In one swift movement, he was there, seated beside Briar, hovering over him. Aster’s hand rested on his hip. Another eye gazed out from the top of his wrist. Shadows stretched away from Aster’s temples—the likeness of antelope horns—and another, larger eye stared at Briar, diamond-shaped and perched on his forehead. His bones were longer, more prominent. He appeared sharper, deadlier, with ears that curved into points and a deep, pink scar sliced across the bridge of his nose. Briar braced on his palm, leaning backward on the couch. His free hand landed on Aster’s chest.

“I wouldn’t?” Aster asked. Crickets and rain and the scrape of clean metal clouded his voice.

Briar’s throat worked around a swallow. Yes, he was afraid, but fear clashed with wonder. He was awestruck and intimidated and disastrously, unexplainably amorous. He spread his fingers on Aster’s chest, searching for his heartbeat. There . A soft, steady thump, thump, thump drummed against his palm. There you are. Briar studied him—the new eyes blinking on his body, the subtle flex through the back of his sweater, the thin cut of his mouth, the tall point of his horns—and tipped his head. He felt the urge to let himself go limp, to fall against the couch like the final girl in a cheesy horror film, and give himself over to be ravaged. But his clippings ached, sore and hot on his shoulder blades, and he didn’t want a sudden painful flare to ruin whatever this was.

“You’re stunning,” Briar said.

Aster’s brows twitched confusedly. “So, it is my devilish good looks, then.”

“Did you honestly think this would scare me?”

He glanced at Briar’s mouth. “I did. It’s only a partial viewing, though.”

“Let me see them.”

His eyes softened. “What?”

Briar gave a curt nod. “Don’t play dumb, I know they’re corseted. Show them to me.”

Aster eased away, knees perched on the couch cushions beside Briar’s thighs. He pulled his sweater over his head and tossed it away in one fluid motion. In a blink, he’d adorned his human features again, doing away with horns and excessive eyes. Underneath his clothes, Aster’s wings were pinned against his back by a corset the length of his torso. Gold clasps cinched along his stomach, holding the appendages still.

Carefully, Briar reached for the clasp nearest his pants and slid the thin, leather belt through the buckle. He met Aster’s eyes as he undid the second, the third, the fourth, and finally, reached the last fastening. An expanse of smooth, tannish skin filled Briar’s line of sight. Feathers rustled. Aster’s wings flexed, shaking discomfort away. They were beautiful, cream and beige and brown, the same pattern mirrored in white-faced barn owls. Unlike post-humanity angels, Aster wore two pairs, one set rooted at his shoulder blades, the others a few inches below, curving away from the bottom of his ribcage.

Envy sparked. Briar sighed through his nose. Without thinking, he pushed his fingers through the soft plumage. Aster sucked in a quiet, surprised breath and went still. “I miss them,” Briar said, as a means of explanation, and stroked the back of his hand along the hollow bone close to Aster’s spine.

“They’ll grow back,” he whispered.

Briar nodded, ignoring the lump growing in his throat. “The break wasn’t clean, but maybe.”

“Mine weren’t either. It just takes a bit longer. That’s all.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Snow frosted the windows. Briar dragged his thumb over a large feather, hyperaware of the minimal space between them. He pushed away from the couch, craned forward, and accepted the tender brush of Aster’s lips on his cheek. Aster scooped his hand around Briar’s lower back. They stayed like that, suspended, before Briar finally mustered the courage to tilt his head, snagging Aster’s jaw with his mouth.

Their lips met on an inhale. Briar thought to imitate every kiss he’d ever seen. He clung to memories—wet lips, soft tongues, shifting jaws—but movies and voyeurism did nothing to prepare him for Aster’s gentleness. He’d anticipated a searing kiss. He’d imagined the wind being knocked from him. But Aster’s mouth lacked urgency. Instead, he kissed Briar slowly, their mouths pressing and pulling, honey-sweet and painfully polite. Briar lifted his palm from the couch, allowing Aster to take his weight, and cupped his cheek. The damp pass of Aster’s tongue on his bottom lip caused Briar’s hips to jump. He slid his wide hand along vertebrae, climbing higher, and pressed on the sensitive, wounded skin around Briar’s clippings.

Briar yelped. He arched toward Aster’s chest, squirming away from the pressure between his severed wings. “Careful, I—”

“Haven’t let Mallory tend to your clippings,” Aster said, sighing sharply through his nose. He shot Briar a hard glare. “How bad are they?”

He rolled his lips together. “Bad.”

“ How bad?”

“Bad enough,” he snapped.

“Let me tend to them.”

Embarrassment fell like a stone in his stomach. “You’re you . I’ll do it myself or I’ll—”

“Don’t fucking do that,” Aster said. He sounded so, so human. He scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I’m perfectly capable of looking after you. Let me see.”

Briar eased away and turned toward the windows. With Aster at his back, he lifted his long-sleeved shirt over his head, bundling it around his forearms. His nerves buzzed, reeling from the imprint Aster’s mouth had left on his own, and inflaming the scabbed mounds where his wings used to perch. He imagined gore there. Bone splintering skin. Red-rimmed cuts. Dark, unhealed fissures. Briar’s vulnerability was displayed like mangled artwork. Here , he thought. See what I’ve been reduced to—wingless, powerless, flightless. He pulled his knees to his chest, enduring the tight pull around his clippings.

Aster clucked his tongue. He sighed through his nose and curled his hand around Briar’s nape, a grounding touch. “Stay here.”

He did as he was told. Puffy snowflakes fell past the windows. Over the trees, evening darkened a batch of heavy storm clouds. He wanted to rewind the day. Pause the moment they’d kissed. Memorize the shape of Aster’s lips against his own. Demand to be kissed harder. Kiss me like you’d kiss a lover, he wanted to say. Kiss me like you’d kiss a whore. His cheeks burned hotter. Kiss me like you’d kiss a stranger in a nightclub.

The air parted. Aster’s wings rustled pages and tossed books open, stirring the library. Briar saw his reflection in the windows, not flying, just leaping, skipping the space from doorway to couch, and landing behind him.

“This might hurt,” Aster said.

Witch hazel and antiseptic tinged the air.

Briar set his chin atop his folded arms. “I know.”

A cool, wet cloth touched his left clipping. He flinched but stayed silent. Peroxide fizzed. A violent sting sank through skin into bone. Despite a high tolerance for pain, Briar still clenched his jaw, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow. Aster moved speedily. He dabbed at first, then held the cloth over deeper wounds, cleaning infection from bulbous scabs. At one point, he gathered a breath, but no words followed. A few moments after that, he fingered ointment onto the wounded flesh and set gauze then cloth over his clippings. Lastly, he secured a tight bandage around Briar’s chest.

“Angel or not, you’re susceptible to infection. Immortal does not mean unkillable,” Aster said, finally. “I’ll have a bottle of amoxicillin sent to your room. One pill, twice a day.”

“All right.”

“Michael did this to you?”

Briar stared out the window. In the reflection, he watched Aster reach for him, just barely. His fingers twitched, hovered, dropped to the couch. “He did. I resisted. Forced his hand. Encouraged his. . .” Briar’s breath shortened. “Brutality, I suppose.”

“This was a choice. He chose to do this to you,” Aster said.

“There’s no undoing it, so.” He tipped his head from side to side, rolling one shoulder then the other. He turned to glance at Aster. “Thank you. I’ll see you for dinner?”

“Yeah,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Yes, I’ll see you then.”

Briar left the library. He climbed the stairs, inhaling long, trembling breaths. Once his bedroom door closed, his knees buckled. He reached over each shoulder, pawing at the bandages, urging the pain to lessen, willing the terrible memories of Michael to fade. He remembered fistfuls of his own feathers. The crunch of delicate, hollow bones. Saying please, stop, enough .

Crumbled on the floor, Briar cried.

Silently, he began to pray.

Give me the strength to forget him.

Clementine did, indeed, make stew. The hearty meal rivaled the weather, warming Briar from the inside out. He’d spent much of the evening in his bedroom, but after he’d washed his face and concealed the bandages under a thick button-down flannel, he’d joined Aster at the table. They’d shared a bottle of spiced wine and talked about bland things. The storm, how Briar wished to organize the library, whether or not Aster should re-paint the stables. The truth lingered under each neatly packaged answer— oh, yes, a dark stain would look nice on the pasture fence and I love a good short story collection —glowing like embers near a puddle of gasoline.

Briar had kissed Aster.

Aster had kissed Briar.

Now, Briar could think of nothing else. If he wasn’t locking away a memory of Michael, he was actively fantasizing about Aster. He wanted to be touched. He wanted to know what he was capable of feeling, what he was capable of making someone else feel. The simplest things made his blood rush faster. Aster’s sleeves rolled to his elbows, how his teeth scraped a fork, the way he dunked his fingers in his wine glass and sucked them clean. Briar had experienced one kiss— one —and, somehow, he could not function. Something, truly, had to be done.

“I’d like to go for a swim after this,” Briar said. He scooped a piece of gooey, rum-soaked brownie into his mouth. “Join me?”

“You shouldn’t get your bandages wet.”

“I’ll stay in the shallows. Yes or no?”

“Obviously, yes.”

“ Obviously ,” Briar mocked, rolling his eyes. He hid his smile behind his wine glass. “How indulgent are you feeling?”

“That’s quite a question.”

“Wine, Aster. Should we bring another bottle?”

Aster’s smile split into a grin. He took another bite of the brownie and stood, offering a curt nod. “Red, right?”

“I have zero preference,” Briar called.

Laughter answered him. “I’ll meet you in the atrium!”

Briar rushed to his room, undressed as quickly as possible, dug through his drawers until he found a pair of swim trunks, and stopped by the bathroom to do stupid, pseudo-teenage things—check his teeth, push awkwardly at his hair, wrap a robe around his nearly naked body. No wonder people acted possessed after diving into intimacy. If something as boring as a kiss had done this to Briar, he couldn’t blame anyone who’d experienced more for acting outright belligerent.

Not that kissing was boring. Kissing Aster certainly hadn’t been. Not in the slightest.

On his way to the atrium, he caught sight of Sam and Jennifer curled together on the couch in the living room, lit by the crackling fireplace. Luca crossed the landing at the top of the staircase, yowling about their laundry not being finished, and Mallory picked at her dinner in the sitting room, listening to what looked to be an audiobook. A few other people lounged around the estate, dressed in thick socks and winter pajamas. Strange, it was, being subject to such a peculiar haunting.

Briar left his house-shoes at the front of the atrium, feeling across the cold tiles with his bare feet. Snow piled in the cracks on the paneled glass dome, brightened by the eerie green pool light. He draped his robe over a bench next to a succulent terrarium and eased into the water. Steam coiled through the air. Shadows stretched away from bushy caladiums and Chinese evergreens, and the darkness deepened under the weight of the storm. His fingers swooped lazily through the warm water. Toes curled. He leaned against the cold lip near the stairs and shivered, tipping his head back to watch snow flutter through the black. Months ago, he would’ve been in his bunk, journaling about a recent mission or preparing for a new one. He would’ve clung to the promise of patching the wounded and casting out wickedness. But now, here, confined to Astaroth’s estate, he challenged the assumptions he’d once used as a crutch—who had the power to be wicked, to do wrong, to inflict hurt, to judge without cause? Truthfully, he wasn’t sure anymore.

Footsteps padded the tile. Aster melded from the darkness, wings dragging behind him, wearing nothing but black swim shorts. His stomach was etched with fine, tapered muscle, and his wide shoulders rounded below his ears. The shadowed line extending from his sternum, shading the center of his torso, dove down toward the hard line of jutting hipbones. He was exquisite. Perfectly made. He set two glasses on the edge of the pool and filled them with dark, cranberry wine. Briar pulled his slack jaw shut.

Aster handed him a glass. “Can I ask you something?”

Briar nodded. “You can. I can’t promise an answer, though.”

“Fair enough. Why’d you take part in the Celestial Auction?”

“I had the choice between a century imprisoned with Michael as my keeper or a decade spent pleasing a buyer. To be fair, I honestly didn’t think anyone would request a viewing.”

Aster waded into the water. He sipped his wine, watching Briar carefully. “There was a frenzy over you.”

“Who else bid?”

“I’m not supposed to say,” Aster purred, drifting closer. He scooped his palm over Briar’s knee and chuckled under his breath. “But I was bidding against Baal, Azazel and Gabriel.”

Briar paused mid-sip. Gabriel . “Archangels bid during the auction. . . ?”

“Are you na?ve enough to believe they don’t? Anyone bought in the auction signs away their rights. Where else could the powerful on high find a semi-willing whetstone?”

“Literally, anywhere.”

“Sure, maybe. But they’d be breaking their own laws. The auction strips away their duty to morality. If someone leverages a lesser sentence in exchange for retainment, they have no right to cry foul.” He ran his hand along Briar’s leg. Water sloshed over Briar’s belly as Aster moved closer, caging him against the steps. “The Celestial Auction gives angels a chance to behave like demons,” he said. His lips brushed the shell of Briar’s ear. “Everyone wants a taste of forbidden fruit— everyone .”

“I didn’t,” Briar said. He drained the rest of his wine. The gust of Aster’s breath on his throat spiked into the depths of him, throbbing between his thighs.

“Past tense,” Aster noted, curiously.

“Past tense.”

“What do you want?”

“Many things.”

“I’m listening.”

“I guess I’m afraid,” Briar confessed. He swallowed, reaching past Aster to set down his empty glass. “Because I’d like to believe I’m worthy of love. I’d like to believe sex is sacred and bodies are holy. Using them for what I want should be reserved for. . . for heartache—endearing heartache. I’d like to believe I’m capable of finding that, but. . .”

Aster tipped his head. “But?”

“But love isn’t the only catalyst, and sometimes it doesn’t define compatibility.”

“That’s true. What does? For you, I mean. What makes a compatible partnership?”

“Safety,” he said, like a secret. “Lack of judgement. Honesty. I’ve never. . . This is new to me. All of this. I need to be learned, not molded. I’ve spent my life as clay on a pottery wheel, and I’m done being carved away and reshaped.” He sipped his wine. “Your turn.”

“I want to be surprised, I think. Some see partnership as entertainment—I don’t. It’s an exchange of power, and I expect that exchange to be equal. What else do you want?”

Briar’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He inhaled sharply, face hot and hands restless beneath the water. “To be desired,” he said, simply, despite the answer weighing heavy inside him. “To want without consequences. To be kissed impolitely. To live freely, and take freely, and be. . .” He hesitated, blushing furiously. “Taken freely. I deserve to live without guilt, for once.”

“You deserve far more than that, but it’s a start.” Aster laughed in his throat, craning forward to bump his nose against Briar’s chin. “You’re desired, Briar. I would kill a man—several men, actually—for the chance to prove it.”

“Murder isn’t necessary,” Briar said, exasperated. He framed Aster’s face in his hands. Water dripped over his knuckles, following hard cheekbones. “You’re welcome to prove it, though.”

They kissed clumsily. Breath stuttered, too fast, too sudden, and Briar’s heart thundered. He caught himself on the top step as Aster slotted his hips between Briar’s legs. Their stomachs skimmed. Briar ran his palms from Aster’s face to his shoulders, then lower, over the expanse of his smooth chest. He didn’t know what to do, how to kiss someone properly, but Aster’s lips guided his inexperienced mouth. He listened to the water slosh and Aster’s wings flutter, to the sound of their lips meeting and parting, to the storm barreling over them. Heat sparked in his groin, stoked by Aster’s teeth snagging his bottom lip, and his raspy voice on a stolen breath—

“Open,” he said.

Briar’s lips parted, opening wider when Aster’s licked into his mouth, tongue stroking his own. He arched, accidentally, pushing against the hard line between Aster’s legs, and flushed at the strangled, desperate hum that spilled between them. He thought of the feral men in Dante and Virgil in Hell and the seduced maiden in The Nightmare . He bit back a moan, grasping for purchase on Aster’s shoulder as they ground against each other. Pleasure ached in him. Relief did, too. The unique brand that came with wanting someone wildly and being wanted back.

Aster pulled away to breathe. He fixed his eyes on Briar’s face, watching him closely as he rolled his hips. The hard length trapped in Aster’s shorts met Briar’s cock, straining against his swim trunks. Heat pulsed, bright and thick, singeing his bones. Briar’s lashes fluttered. Lips trembled. Breath came and went in short bursts. The tension winding beneath his navel tightened.

Take off your shorts, he wanted to say. Let me see you.

Instead, he could do nothing but gasp. His back bowed as Aster’s thumb crept under his bandage, circling his nipple. He met Aster’s eyes on another sharp inhale, his moans steep and frayed, echoing through the empty atrium.

Aster’s breathing turned choppy. He ground between Briar’s legs again, small, short rocks of his hips, and dug his fingers into Briar’s ribs. Briar wanted to tear the useless fabric from between them. He wanted to open himself, bare himself, give himself. He wanted, feverishly, to be taken. To be fucked like one of Aster’s midnight cravings. To give into the swollen, insatiable hunger suddenly awake and alive inside him. He shot forward, taking Aster’s mouth in another needy kiss.

Wind snapped against the glass dome. A loud crack filled the air outside, then a chorus of frightened whinnies. Damn . Briar’s eyes flew open. Aster pulled away, startled. They stayed like that, pressed together on the steps of the pool, hard and flushed.

“The horses,” Briar said, stupidly, between gulping breaths.

Aster sighed through his nose. “The stable door blew open.”

“Should someone check on them?”

“Probably,” he said, frustration tipping each syllable. He made a frustrated noise, something halfway to a growl, and pecked Briar on the mouth. “Apologies for the inconvenience.”

“It’s. . .” Briar swallowed. He shook his head, stumbling over an appropriate response. “It’s fine. I’m fine. But don’t you employ—or rent, or, or whatever —an entire staff for situations like this?”

“If it were anything but my horses, I’d let them handle it.”

“Right, your treasured horses.” Briar heaved a sigh. “You’re quite sweet for a Great Duke of Hell, you know.”

He huffed, annoyed. “And you’re quite promiscuous for a virtuous War Angel. See to yourself while I see to my treasured horses,” he said, glancing at Briar’s crotch.

Briar blushed terribly. He didn’t have a chance to respond. Aster kissed him again, stepped out of the pool, and disappeared into the darkness, leaving wet footprints behind.

Briar lingered, listening to the whipping wind, recalling the way Aster fit between his thighs. He closed his eyes and rubbed the heel of his palm against his clothed cock, reminiscing on The Nightmare , and understanding, suddenly, viscerally, how the maiden felt—apprehended by passion she could not escape.