Either way it had made an excellent amusement for the night.
“Go ahead,” Brendan said, almost hopeful. “Get it over with.”
Rakir licked his lips but turned away, disgusted again.
Brendan inched closer to Israfel, no longer disguising the longing on his face. Nunkir sat up now, her braids dangling from her head like silver chains, their weight swinging beneath the rain. Her jealousy, frosty even under the best of circumstances, always made the night interesting, and she looked to Israfel much as her brother had done, her face mean with the longing to snap Brendan’s neck once and for all.
Israfel gestured for submission, cutting off any more thoughts of revenge.
“You are perfect,” Brendan said, his lips trembling with the words. “All of you. Just like in the pictures, the paintings . . . but”—he regarded Rakir again, careful—“these angels are different from you—I can sense it.”
Rakir closed his eyes, opened them, battling with his opposing lust and anger. He beseeched Israfel one more time, and much like his sister, received no permission to end his torment.
“Rakir and Nunkir,” Israfel said, “have been my guardians since their days as chicks. Although what you see isn’t even close to their true form. It’s merely a derivative, made to be more pleasing to the eye.”
And they were exceedingly pleasing, especially considering their rank and station. Though most Thrones were cursed with deformities of one kind or another, Rakir and his sister had been created with a flaw that merely made them more appealing—almost complete silence. Israfel could settle for no less than the best of the litter, deliberately choosing a brother and sister whose bond made them ten times more lethal. If pressed, he would admit Rakir was probably his favorite. Strong, but also abnormally tall and lean, his face was cut with perfect angles, his green eyes painfully endearing.
“Patience,” he mouthed to him gently.
Rakir’s wing bones began to tremor, but he remained obedient, gazing into nothing, barely repressed.
“Now tell me why you’re here,” Israfel repeated, setting down his instrument, swinging his legs so that they hung over the chair rail. “Especially after I told you I wished to be alone. You mentioned another human . . .”
Brendan fixated on the scales covering Israfel’s feet and at last tempted fate, clasping him by the ankles, imprisoning him with his hands. Nunkir watched with murder behind her eyes, her lips pressing together so tightly they began to turn blue. “I need your help.” His face paled slightly. “There’s a witch in Luz and I want her burned at the stake.”
“A witch?” Israfel observed the storm through the holes near the ceiling, watching black tufts appear and disappear amid a haze of water. “Whatever does that mean?”
“She’s threatened to kill me, and I believe her. Stephanie pretends to be a normal woman, but in reality she’s capable of anything.”
“She was your lover?”
“Not just mine.” Brendan kissed the side of Israfel’s foot, begging the worst. “She was also with another man in my seminarian group. He’s untouchable. But I’d be doing everyone a favor getting rid of her and that damned sorority. She thought my words today were just a show, for spite, but finally she’s going to suffer like she’s made other people suffer.”
Israfel allowed the quiet to enfold them, listening to Rakir’s occasional sigh of protest as Brendan continued his caresses. The Throne’s fingers twitched, straining to hurt.
“Your kind,” Israfel finally said, “aren’t so different from us, in the end. I had a sister, you know. And she treated me much like your lover treated you. Cruelly and indifferently.”
“What did you do?” Brendan said, catching his breath as Rakir turned back to him.
Israfel swung his legs to the ground and stood from his chair, reeling for a second as the world spun. Colorful specks dotted his vision, and he sensed himself beginning to dream, slipping away into the sweet drunkenness of the drug. He blinked, and Raziel seemed to appear in front of him, so beautiful and perfect that he put Rakir to shame, his figure all blood-red feathers, blue eyes, and gentleness. “I sent her to Hell,” Israfel said, sighing out his illusion. “And she’s been there ever since, chained, rotting. Chained and rotting just like me. How much I hated her—hate her—for what she did.”
“And what did she do?” Brendan tugged at the buttons closing off his shirt. Rakir whimpered at Israfel, pleading now, but his salvation wasn’t about to appear just yet. The Throne panted, desperate to restrain himself. “Something that deserved Hell, I’m sure.”