Storm and Fury(61)

“You know, I would think something was wrong with you if you didn’t have a question to ask me,” he replied.

I snorted. “Well, you’ll be able to tell if I ever get possessed.”

“True.” His wings spread out behind him, nearly blocking out the moon. “What is your question?”

“How often do you see your clan?”

There was a beat of silence. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Weird thing to be curious about.”

“So? Just answer the question.”

“I check in with them often.”

I inched closer to him. “Based on the way Danika and Jasmine acted, it seemed like it had been weeks, if not longer.”

“Well, it has been a while since I saw them, and sometimes I check in with Nicolai or Dez over the phone or out here, in the city.”

“So, how long has it been since you’ve been home?” I asked, and Zayne’s wings snapped back, tucking close to him. I crossed my arms. “What? That is your home, Zayne.”

“It doesn’t feel like it. Not with my father gone and—” He cut himself off and then he turned, stalking toward the ledge. “It’s been a while since I’ve gone there.”

“Don’t you... Don’t you miss them?” I asked. “I mean, I haven’t been gone that long and I miss everyone so much it hurts.”

“It’s not the same.” He hopped up on the ledge, perched there as he overlooked the city down below. “My clan is still here, in this city, and I can see them whenever I want.”

“Yeah, you can,” I said, hands curling into fists. “It must be nice to have that privilege.”

His head turned to the side and a long moment passed. “You don’t understand. Going back there...all I can think about is my father and how I wasn’t able to save him and how I wasn’t able to stop...stop Layla from being hurt. That place used to hold good memories. Great ones, but now...not so much.”

I stared at the shape of him. “I know how that feels, Zayne, or have you forgot that?”

Zayne cursed. “No, I haven’t. I’m sorry—”

“Don’t apologize. Just...just listen to me,” I said. “You told me that I wasn’t responsible for my mother’s death, and not to sound like an arrogant tool, but I am stronger than you. I could’ve ended Ryker’s life in a heartbeat, but I didn’t. You couldn’t save your father—”

“It’s not the same.”

“How?”

Zayne rose fluidly and turned. “I was distracted with personal shit, Trinity. My head wasn’t in the game. If it was, I could’ve stopped the attack.”

I didn’t know if that was true or not, but I had a feeling it wasn’t that simple. “So, were you just moping around and doing nothing when he died?”

“No. I was fighting a wraith.”

I threw my hands up. “Look, maybe you were distracted, but it wasn’t like you were doing nothing. His death wasn’t your fault, and I have no idea what happened with Layla, but I’m sure that wasn’t on you, either.”

“Oh, that was entirely my fault.” He came down to the roof. “I nearly got her killed, but it’s not just that. It’s more.” He sighed, looking over his shoulder at the street. “I miss them. I do. I just need my space. That’s why I moved out. It’s why I didn’t take over the clan.”

“Because you feel like you failed your father?”

“Because I’m not sure if I...if I can do it.” He was in front of me, wings outstretched. “I don’t know whether I could lead the clan when I no longer believe that what they’re doing is correct.”

My eyes widened at the admission. “The whole killing demons indiscriminately thing?”

He nodded. “Just because we are told something is right doesn’t mean it is.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. The fact that Zayne was questioning the whole all demons are bad thing would be considered bad enough, but this was something I imagined the Alphas would be very, very unhappy to hear.

So would my father.

But after meeting Roth, Layla and, yeah, even Cayman, I thought Zayne had a point. They were helping me when my own clan had originally wanted me to just...move on.

“That’s admirable,” I said finally.

“What?”

“You,” I said, nodding. “It’s admirable that you’re allowing yourself to see what probably less than one percent of Wardens see.”

He cocked his head. “And what do Trueborns think?”

I lifted my shoulders. “I think... I think there’s a lot for me to learn about, well, everything.”

“Yeah.”

“But—”

“I’m done with this conversation,” he said, and I opened my mouth. “Seriously.”

I snapped my mouth shut and then nodded. I was surprised he’d shared what he had. I felt like I’d scaled a fortress wall. As the warm breeze lifted the thin wisps of hair at the nape of my neck, I thought about the day Zayne and his clan had arrived.

“I used to climb the buildings back home when Misha would go atop one to rest. That’s where I was when I saw you guys show up—on the roof of the Great Hall. I don’t know if I told you that or not? Anyway, Misha hated it, always worried that someone would see me or I’d slip and fall,” I said as I walked over to the ledge. “But I loved it—being this high and so close to the stars. I can’t fly, so this is... This is the closest I can get to it.”

Zayne cursed under his breath as I hopped up on the ledge, and he swiftly landed beside me, his large body angled to catch me just in case I lost my balance.

I grinned as I pivoted on the ledge and walked away from him. My peripheral was nothing but shadows and my night vision was basically utter crap, but my balance was on point. Up ahead, I could see where the building ended. When I’d been in the alley before, the gap between the buildings had appeared to be about twenty feet.

Zayne stayed right behind me. “What is up with your fascination with stars?”

Worrying my lower lip, I glanced back at him and then I lifted my gaze to the sky. “Can you see the stars? Right now?”

He didn’t answer immediately, and I imagined it was because that wasn’t a question he’d been expecting. “Yes. Why?”

“Because God has a messed-up sense of humor?” I exhaled heavily, about to talk about something that I talked about even less than I did my mother’s death. I didn’t want to, but I had gotten Zayne to open up just a little, so maybe it was... It was my turn. “My father is an angel—an archangel, Zayne. One so powerful and so...scary to most people that I don’t even like to say his name. His blood pumps through me—his DNA—but so does my mother’s and that of her family. Come to find out, they don’t have the best genetics, and some of those flawed genetics made it through the mix.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have what’s called retinitis pigmentosa, and no, don’t ask me to spell that. I’m probably not even pronouncing it correctly. It’s a...degenerative eye disease that usually ends in partial or total blindness,” I explained rather factually. “It’s usually hereditary but sometimes people can just develop it. A great-grandmother of mine had it and it skipped a couple of generations, and I ended up the lucky winner of crappy eyesight. I have little side vision. Like if I look forward, I can’t even see you. You’re nothing but a blob of shadows. It’s like having horse blinders on,” I said, lifting my hands to the sides of my head. “And my depth perception is pretty terrible.”

“Wait. Is that why I’ve seen you flinch if something gets close to your face?”

I nodded. “Yeah, if something comes at me from the side, I often can’t see it until it’s, like, right there, in my center vision. My eyes don’t adapt well from light to dark, and extremely bright light is just as bad as extremely dark areas. There are...tiny black spots in my vision, kind of like floaters, and they’re easy to ignore at this point, but I have cataracts already. It’s a side effect of these steroid eyedrops I had to take when I was younger.” I shrugged and started walking along the edge again. “Which is why the moon actually looks like two moons on top of one another until I close my right eye.”

Stopping, I placed my hands on my hips and looked down at the park against the street. The trees were just shapes of thicker darkness against lighter shadows even though the park was lit.

Zayne touched my arm, and when I looked at him, I saw that he’d shifted into his human form. “What does this mean exactly? Are you going blind?”

I lifted a shoulder again. “I don’t know. Probably? The fact that I’m not completely human throws a wrench in the whole thing, and the disease requires a level of genetic mapping to see what the prognosis could be—I assume you know why that can never happen. But the disease isn’t predictable even in humans. Some by my age are completely blind. Others don’t develop symptoms until they’re in their thirties. Maybe my vision loss will slow down because of the angelic blood in me, or it may stop entirely, but it has been getting worse, so I don’t think my angelic side is doing that much good. I just don’t know. No one can answer that. No one can even answer that for a lot of humans with the disease.”