Celestial (Angels of Elysium, #2)

by Olivia Wildenstein

“You don’t belong with them.” A deep swallow jostled his throat. “With whom do I belong?” He ran a trembling hand down his face, as though to scrub away his frustration. “Why couldn’t we have met in twenty years?” My heart bounced. Squeezed. Bounced. Squeezed. “Where do I belong, Seraph?” The feathered shafts whispered through the air of the small gallery as they finally began to retract. “With me, Celeste. You belong with me. To me.” And then he was stepping forward, filling my space. Filling all the space. “The same way I belong to you.” He unbuttoned his vest, then took my hand and flattened it against his white shirt, right at the bottom ridge of his rib cage. It was nowhere near his heart and yet something beat beneath his skin.

“You can feel mine, Celeste, because my reckless soul has decided it belongs with yours.” The air darkened as his wings curled around our bodies. “Ta yot neshahadzaleh, levsheh.” His fingertips danced up the length of my spine, then back down, before wrapping delicately around my waist. “You are my soulhalf, sweetheart.”

His smile solidified. “You bring out emotions I didn’t even know I possessed, Celeste. Emotions I’m still not equipped to contend with.” He combed back a lock of my hair, tucked it behind my ear, his fingers sweeping across the back of my conical stud before balancing on the curve of my neck. “Be patient with me, levsheh.” Levsheh . . . sweetheart. Now that I knew what it meant, I decided it was a gorgeous sounding word.

“Asher . . .” Using his angels-given name was so strange that it momentarily gave me pause. “Yes?” “Why did you lie about having met your soulhalf years ago?” “I didn’t lie. I did meet her years ago.” He beheld my scintillating skin with such reverence that my shine intensified. “At a guild banquet in my honor. I even got to see her beautiful wings that night and glimpse her virtuous soul.” My mouth slipped open, and for a moment, I lost the ability to produce sound, but then it returned with such force that my words came out shrilly. “You were talking about me?” “Who did you think I was talking about?” “Not me.” I bit my lip. Released it. “Did you know it then?” “That your soul would own mine? No. For the bond to happen, there needs to be physical contact, and we didn’t touch that night. Thank Elysium, for you were still so young.” “When did you know then?” “I began to wonder the day we sat on the bench outside of Bofinger’s house, but found out for certain the day you hugged me in front of Ish Eliza. My soul tried to flee my body when it sensed yours.” I blinked. “All I remember was thinking you were two seconds away from murdering me for having touched your wings.” His lips bent some more, and although his expression wasn’t carefree, it was mesmerizing. “You really think the worst of me.” “Before I met you, I heard stories of how great and heroic you were. The golden boy of Elysium.” With the hand not feeling up his soul, I traced the shape of his smile and raised one o...

“You’re sparkling, Celeste.” “Just making sure your gaze doesn’t stray.” His thumb dipped under the hem of my jacket and settled on the indent of my waist. “You don’t need to smolder me to make certain of that.” “One can never be too careful. Our worlds are full of alluring people, all of whom would steal you away in a heartbeat.” “You’re my soulhalf. There is no one else for me.” He angled his body toward mine. “But rest assured that if anyone so much as tries to separate us, I’ll extinguish their souls.” He said this so very softly and yet his threat resonated in my marrow.

“Not much to look at, huh?” I started to cross my arms when he rose and pressed them apart. “There’s so much to see that I’m trying to decide where to begin.”

suckled, catching the last dregs of my orgasm. “Your taste, Celeste.” He lifted his head and licked his swollen lips. “Elysian nectar.”

This time, when my hands went to his zipper, he didn’t stop me. I pushed his trousers down to reveal what, until then, I’d only gotten to feel. And yep. That part of him was proportionate to his wingspan. He was a beast. Everywhere. I sank onto my knees. “My turn. Finally.” “I don’t want to come inside your mouth, Celeste.” He grasped the sides of my face, his thumbs digging into my cheekbones to tilt my face up. “I want to come between your legs.”

“Tonight, I vow to forever protect your body, your heart, and your soul.” In slow motion, his hips pulled back, then pressed forward, and a tremor zinged through both our bodies. “Ni aheeva ta, Celeste.” “What does that mean?” “It means: I love you.”

I smiled. “I’ll take your request under consideration.” His hand slid between my thighs. “Please do.” When the pads of his fingers began to rub slow, targeted circles, he whispered, “Since you won’t spread your wings, at least spread your legs.” “Asher . . . I’m so sore.” “It’s just my fingers. Let me have something to think about during my lonely flight back to the guild.”

“You love me, huh?” Naya bobbed her head. “When we played Neither Yes Nor No, I asked Celeste if she loved you, and she said no, but then she lost a feather.” Asher dipped his chin into his neck. “And when did you ladies play this game?” I raised an eyebrow. “Why?” “Just curious as to how long you’ve loved me.” I was about to say that I didn’t love him, that he needed to get over himself, but my wing bones began to itch. Stupid lie detectors. “Wednesday morning,” Naya piped in. “Huh.” Asher rolled his shoulders forward until his forearms landed on the table with a thump that matched the sound of the gulp dropping down my throat.

Asher draped one arm around Naya’s shoulders, then flipped his free hand palm-side up, an invitation for me to take it. I looked at it, looked at him, then relented and placed my hand in his. Intakes of breaths echoed a little everywhere at our PDA. Naya clutched her chest as though the organ was about to pound right out. “My heart is sooo happy.”

Adam laid his cheek against his father’s shoulder and looked at me, really looked at me, and for the most fleeting minute, I thought I detected recognition, but then he smooshed his fists into his eyes and yawned. When he looked at me again, the flicker of recognition was gone. “Bonsoir, Celeste.” My shoulder blades jammed together at hearing him speak French. “Goodnight, Adam.” Gabriel readjusted his hold on the four-year-old. “He loves speaking French.” He seemed amused by this quirk. I doubted he’d have been amused had he known the reason for it. I bet Tobias wasn’t amused. I bet he shook in his navy tunic every time Adam used French words.

“Maybe that’s the problem. How quiet we all are! Silence is the bane of our existence. I think it’s time we all stop tiptoeing around the Seven and turn this autocracy into a democracy, because for all his heart and intent, Asher is only one man. A man who needs us. A man who needs her.” Tobias’s hand carved through the air toward me. “Not to mention Naya needs a father. Can you imagine if they took us away from Adam, Gabriel? Can you imagine what it would do to our boy?”

“And then she asked”—she took a slow breath—“if I still loved Jarod Adler.” I kept my calm, even though on the inside I was a geyser about to feathering blow. “That’s a silly question. You don’t know any boys named Jarod.” Did my voice sound as strangled as it felt? A tremor racked her small body. “Naya?” I stopped running my hand up and down her hunched spine. “What did you tell the ishim?” “I told her the only man I loved was Apa.” Good girl. “Who’s Jarod, Celeste?” “No one, honey.” “Why does his name make my heart hurt if he’s no one?” She swiped her cheek, and it was so slick with tears, the friction made it squeak. “Maybe you read a sad story about him?” She looked up at me. “I don’t know how to read.”

“The moment your soul and mine would’ve collided, we would’ve become inseparable. Whether it happened here or in Elysium, whether I was married or not. You can rewrite this story a million different ways, Celeste, but it will always end the same. It will end with you and me.”

already said? “Hey, Cee?” “Yeah?” “From the moment I first saw you, I knew you were an angel.” I rolled my heated eyes. “I wasn’t very angelic back then.” “Don’t sell yourself short. You might not have a halo, but you always had the aura.”

I’m not lost, Erel.” The raspy feminine voice made my mouth slip off Asher’s and my hands claw at the glittery smoke that hadn’t yet cleared. “Mimi!” She spun away from a flying, white-clad sentinel, her eyes lambent with joy. “Celeste!” She opened her arms, and I fell into them, new tears tumbling over the ones that hadn’t yet dried. “Oh, Mimi,” I sobbed. “How I’ve missed you, my beautiful girl. How I’ve missed you.” Her arms crushed me to her, carefully avoiding my wings, and it struck me that she had arms, that she had a body, but then everything I’d learned about the celestial world over the years slotted into place, and I remembered that once souls made it to Elysium, they could pick the form of their choosing.

“Ah. Daniel has arrived. We may proceed to the removal of your channel key. Your hands please, Asher.” As he uncurled his arm from around my waist, a black-skinned man wearing a golden circlet and a matching tunic bound by overlapping straps of black leather over black leather pants landed beside Seraph Claire. Like Leigh, the man possessed the rarest type of wings, entirely metallic—a pure verity. Unlike Leigh’s, his were golden.

Claire’s gaze settled on Eve. “You’re right. I would’ve terminated the woman’s life.” “Yeah right,” Eve grunted under her breath. Her voice couldn’t have carried to Claire, but her expression must have because Claire’s slender throat straightened. “I thought you two loved each other,” I whispered. “Leigh sacrificed her wings because my mother wouldn’t hear of giving Jarod a chance at redemption. I will never forgive her for that.”

Both four-year-olds carry an alarming amount of memories from their past lives, memories that concern me by the violent emotions they provoke in both nephilim. Yes, they’re young and relatively harmless, but what will happen once they grow into teenagers and take this violence out on their peers? On your children?” “Who?” Eve’s voice was lighter than the warm breeze twisting the long strands of her black hair. She hadn’t been told . . . “Who?” she repeated, this time spearing me with her intent hazel eyes. “Who did we lose four years ago, Eve?” She frowned, but then her eyebrows jolted up. “Leigh? He saved Leigh?” “He saved Leigh.” “Fuck,” she breathed. “Fuck.” A long beat passed. “Who’s the other one?” “Jarod.” Eve’s glossy lips fell open as her mother resumed her soliloquy.

Pippa was the first to flap her wings. “I’m the children’s keeper, which means I’ve had Naya under my tutelage since she was born. I’m not sure what’s going on tonight”—her gaze zipped over the crowd, lashes beating in time with her wings—“but I can vouch that she’s one of the sweetest fletchings I’ve had the pleasure of teaching in my century-long career and beloved by all of her peers. And I really do mean all of them. You will not find a single girl in Guild 24 who doesn’t have a soft spot for our little Naya. Even my colleague Mira, who tries not to get attached to her fletchings, is fond of the child. So fond, in fact, that when our colleague came to collect us, she refused to leave Naya on her own.”

From the corner of my eye, I caught Eliza traipsing up to Claire and murmuring something in her ear. Something that made Claire’s gaze drift over the assembly. Were they revising their strategy, or looking for character witnesses of their own? “Claire, the stage is yours for further questioning,” Asher announced. “Unless you’d prefer Ish Eliza to do your bidding. She seems quite fond of being your lackey.” The collective sucking of air was epic, and if I weren’t worried about how it might harm the vote tonight, I would’ve smirked. Eve certainly did. “Not fond of your mother’s pet?” I asked. “I’ve harbored a few fantasies of charring off her eyebrows and hair since my fire unfortunately doesn’t take to feathers.” “You tried?” “Maybe.” She slanted me a smile.

“Daughter?” Eve cranked her neck back. “Leigh was my best friend, and she’s dead because of you. I know you find me lazy, but rest assured that tonight, my body isn’t beached because I don’t care to exert myself.” Claire’s lips pinched and then pinched some more when a man, who had Eve’s hazel eyes and tall frame, approached Eve and draped an arm around her shoulders. Even though he looked barely older than her, the resemblance was so striking I assumed he was her father since Eve had no siblings. He shot us a sad smile I didn’t have the force to return. Although he had my gratitude too, there were still too many angels swarming the sky and not enough amassed in the canyon.

“Wait!” Seraph Daniel’s voice boomed through the Canyon of Reckoning, and the force of his command had me jumping. “Wait! All of Elysium has not voted yet.” “All of Elysium is here, Daniel.” “No. But all of Elysium is coming.” The channel began to toil and haze, blustering an endless stream of glitter and smoke through which materialized angel after angel. “You’ve forgotten the ophanim,” Daniel said, “but the ophanim, for all your talk of negligence, have not forgotten our brother.” Thousands of angels poured out of the channel, and then thousands more. “Do they at least know what they’ve joined us for?” Claire asked, as the guild professors joined the hundreds of thousands assembled. “They know!” Gabriel was rushing back toward Tobias. “Mira and I called all the guilds to explain what was happening.”

Mimi touched Gabriel’s arm to garner his attention. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. I’m Muriel.” He raised an eyebrow, which jostled his tired face. “I was Mimi to Jarod.” His eyebrows leveled out. “The woman who raised our son in his past life,” he whispered reverentially. “Take excellent care of him for me. And the day he finds out, please tell him how much I love him.” Mimi smiled. “And tell him I’m waiting.”

“Celeste, you take good care of this man for me, all right? See that he doesn’t break too many more laws. We’ll always have his back, but I wouldn’t mind a little respite first.” I laughed. Oh, how nice it felt to laugh. “No more law breaking for him, only law amending.” A smile brightened Tobias’s haggard face. “What a fearsome political duo you two will make.” “Elysium will quake,” Gabriel added, Mimi at his side. “Home? I promised Adam an extra-long bedtime story.”

“I hear most human love stories end with the phrase happily ever after.” His wings began to curl around us. “Aren’t we lucky to be angels, then?” His fingers wound through my hair, tipped my head back. “And why is that, neshahadzaleh?” “Because our love story”—I touched my lips to his—“gets to begin this way.”

Naya’s wing bone ceremony was two days ago, and already our brilliant thirteen-year-old was off to earn her first feathers. Yes, ours. Mine and Asher’s. There were no formal adoption papers because there was no need for those in our world, but everyone knew Naya as Asher and Celeste’s daughter. It had felt strange at the beginning, but then the strangeness had faded and I could not imagine being anything else to Naya. Especially after she called me by the Angelic name for Mom: Ama. The first time she’d said it, on my second trip back down to the guild, I’d cried so hard that she’d worried her lip and apologized. I’d hugged her, tucking her little blonde head beneath my chin, and told her I wanted her to call me Ama for all of eternity.

Naya’s cherubic face leaped out of my holo-ranker, along with her score. 4. My heart missed a beat and then recouped it, pounding so frantically I expected I’d go into cardiac arrest any moment. I ran out of the room and screeched Mira’s name. She burst out of the front door office. “What?” “She did it! Naya’s done!” Mira notched her chin higher as though excitement was beneath her, but her subsequent silence told me she was proud.

“Any signs of wing bones?” “I’m surprised you’re asking, Celeste.” His voice was still breaking, but I could already tell it would be deep. “Don’t you know my fathers? You think my bones would appear without them making a public announcement to all the guilds?” I grinned. He didn’t, but his green eyes sparked. “I heard Naya got hers a few days ago.” “She did! And she just accomplished her first mission.” Where Naya already possessed the curves of a young woman, Adam was still gangly and soft-jawed, but a shadow darkened his upper lip. “Tell her I say bravo.”

“Thank you, Apa.” Adam retreated out of the cafeteria. “What are you two still doing here? Go and give your girl my warmest congratulations.” Tobias shoved Asher. “Oh, and, Celeste, I will gladly babysit Asher’s jittery ass again, but on one condition: if it’s a boy, he grows up in my guild.” I cupped my enormous belly as Asher finally walked over to me, turquoise eyes aglow with exhilaration. “I don’t know, brother . . . The New York male guild has an air hockey table and a pool table.”

“Incredible.” Her lips curved. “I think I may even have accomplished my mission.” “And what makes you assume this?” he asked, pretending he wasn’t aware she’d succeeded. I wanted to shake my head but let him go on with his farce. “Well, first off, Mirabelle called her stepbrother and stepmother before I left and asked for their forgiveness in front of me. Secondly”—Naya curled her arm to reach her back—“unless I picked up lint from the couch I sat on most of the day, there’s something soft growing right . . . here.” I rocked on the balls of my feet like a child, the word victory balancing on the tip of my tongue. “And lastly, Ama looks about to burst, and I don’t mean because of the baby.” Asher side-eyed me. “She does, doesn’t she?” He splayed his fingers on my swollen waist, receiving a little flutter in return. I covered his hand with mine. “If you don’t tell her already, then I will.” Naya’s grin widened. “I completed my mission, didn’t I?” “You did, Nayaleh,” I gushed.

“Have I mentioned how proud I am?” Asher’s timbre was roughened with emotion. Was my soulhalf about to cry? Possibly. His eyes were very shiny, and I wasn’t smoldering him—for once. “For getting black feathers?” Naya untangled her fingers from mine to give her father a hug. “For earning four feathers on your very first venture out into the world.”

“What do I say when people ask me why they’re black?” “You send them my way.” “I’m serious, Apa.” “You tell them, Starlight, that your wings are black because your father made you this way.” She squeezed a smile onto her lips. “Is this going to be a thing, now? You calling me starlight instead of sweet doll?” “Yes. It’s going to be a thing. I hope you like it.” “How do you say it in Angelic?” “Kalkohav.” She wrinkled her nose. “I like it better in English.” “English it will be then, my darling girl. My starlight.”

My fathers weren’t particularly fond of my system, but as long as I earned my feathers and didn’t waste too much time between my missions, they didn’t interfere. Once I exceeded the one month’s mark, they interfered, though. Usually, they threatened Seraph Asher would pick all of my next sinners, since seraphim were almighty like that. I never took this menace seriously. The archangel was so busy grooming his daughter to become the youngest ascended I doubted he’d waste any time on my ass. I had yet to meet the girl and yet knew everything about her: from the color of her wings—black, like mine, because we were both byproducts of extra-conjugal affairs, but sparkly, unlike mine—to how precocious she was—she’d already earned over nine-hundred feathers. I’d even heard her mother prattle on about how Naya’s voice rivaled the guild’s sparrows. Whoop-de-effing-doo.

As I held the door open for her, a blonde exited a black cab. My gaze stuck to her ass, then swept up her body to the face peeking from behind long, ropy curls. She glided toward the entrance of the pub, the door of which I was still holding open. “Thank you,” she said softly, probably imagining I was being a gentleman and holding it for her. My fathers had hammered good manners into me, but that wasn’t the reason I was acting like an inanimate doorstop. I wasn’t actually certain why I was acting like one. “Adam, come on,” Emmy whined. The blonde glanced over her shoulder as she shrugged out of a jacket with silver angel wings, but not at me. At Emmy. I frowned. After almost a minute, her gaze slid back to me, and a small groove formed between her brows. What in Abaddon was wrong with me? Why was I staring? She wasn’t particularly pretty or anything. I mean, her hair . . . Did she not own a brush? Color crawled up her throat and spread into her cheeks from my enduring scrutiny. Then suddenly, she said, “Emmy Rogers?” Damn, that voice . . . pure, effing velvet.

My eyes narrowed. “What’s your last name, Naya?” Her hands slid to her hips. Perched there. “Moreau. What’s yours, Adam?” My heart calmed. Angels didn’t have last names, so this couldn’t be Elysium’s faultless princess. I checked the pavement for a fallen feather in case she’d lied. Only smooshed dog poop and trampled gum. Relieved, angels only knew why, I glided my gaze back up the length of her. When I reached her chest, my head jerked back. My breathing stilled. Fuck. Me. I grimaced as the expression fleeced me of a feather. Her gaze followed its collapse, while mine traced the wings curled around her, wings that looked like someone had sheared off a piece of starry night sky and fit it to her spine. When her eyes settled back on mine, glittery black as her feathers, I murmured, “And so, we finally meet.”