~~David~~
“How… How dare you.”
Jes and David traded glances.
“Uh, what?” he asked.
Moriah pushed herself up onto her elbows. Elbow. She hissed and let her bad arm go limp.
“You fed me demon resonance.”
“Well, I mean, yeah. Laoko said you can’t have human.”
Moriah eyed the tetrad. “I cannot have human.”
“Then you have to have demon, right? Or a fruit, but we don’t have any of those, and–”
“Do you not see what happens to the souls in Hell who eat demon hearts? Do you not see how rabid and violent they become? How bloodthirsty? A hunger for carnage not even their marks can justify.”
“I… I mean, I’ve seen they get a strong kick out of demon hearts. They get stronger, too. I don’t know, but I don’t know why any of that happens. Doesn’t seem to happen to me at all.”
She set her burning glare on him. “You don’t?”
“No, I don’t.”
The damn woman’s face might as well have been carved out of stone, glare unrelenting and permanent.
“You aren’t human.”
“I’m getting that. Doesn’t change the fact I’m trying to help everyone, and that includes you. Now, if you can’t eat demon heart, what can we do?”
“I can eat demon. But the…” Sighing, she nodded toward Jeskura. “Give it to me.”
“Can you feed yourself?” David asked.
“Of course I can feed myself.”
This woman was a colossal pain in the ass. Of all the angels to come after David, of all the angels he could have saved and try to make peace with, why’d it have to be this girl?
She pushed herself up along the crater until she sat back against a tombstone. No one tried to help her. She held out a hand to Jes, glaring, and Jes put the heart in the girl’s hand. And then yanked it away.
“You are ten times the bitch Acelina is. High and mighty angel can’t even sit up, but has the fucking nerve to be a lippy shit. Lilith fucker.” She dropped the heart in the girl’s hand. It rolled off, landed on the dirt and white stones beside Moriah’s leg, and Jes made no effort to pick it back up.
Moriah glowered, leaned over, bit back what must have been a nasty scream, and picked the heart up. She didn’t look at her. Eyes locked on the rest of them, she bit down a piece of the heart, but something inside broke her gaze. She clenched her eyes, and her legs shivered.
“Vile, sinful resonance.” She glared at the heart in her hand, but bit down another chunk. And another. It was a big heart, probably from a brute. How’d Jes and Caera take down one of those juggernauts?
“Tastes almost as good as human,” Jes said. Lips in a snarl, she squatted down beside Dao and watched the angel. “So what now?”
“Give me a few hours,” Laoko said. “The angel–”
Moriah aimed her shotgun glare at Laoko. “Enough, tetrad. Do not speak like you know us.”
“I know angels better than you wish I did.”
“Explain.”
“No.”
Snarling, Moriah took another bite. The wound in her shoulder partly closed in front of their eyes, burned and split flesh pulling over the slash like a stretched blanket. That was some powerful healing, but the new skin looked thin and frail. Her life wasn’t in danger, and she might be able to use the arm soon, but the girl was still weak. The wing stump closed off with skin and short feathers, but no more than that.
“How long until you can fly?” David asked.
“I… don’t know.”
“If we feed you more, will you heal faster?”
Moriah aimed her glare back at him, but at least some of the fury in it had died. A bit.
“Perhaps later. Now I need time.”
“Time,” Caera said, “is not a luxury we have. We have to get moving, soon, and–”
“What is this?” Moriah gestured to David with her wing. “You wear clothes? You… wear the potram rune?”
Much as she was probably looking for a fight, Caera didn’t take the bait. She rolled her eye and sat with David.
“I am,” David said. Caera lay on her side, facing the angel, set her head on his lap, and he slipped his fingers between her bull horns.
“Last I saw of your sister, she…” Sighing, Moriah finished the last bite of her heart. Again, something strange sparked in her eyes, and she clenched them. Whatever it was, it was gone when she looked at him again. “You steal our runes.”
“Hey I didn’t steal shit. I don’t know what the runes are, or what they all mean. But–”
“Don’t,” Jes said. “We don’t need to tell her everything.”
“It’s literally an angel rune, Jes. I think she–”
“No, no. You’re gonna let this bitch go once she’s healed, and it’s better she doesn’t know any more than she does. Or did you plan to tell her every goddamn thing?”
“I’d kinda hoped I could, if we could convince her–”
Jes whip cracked her tail. “You trust way too easily.”
“Indeed,” Acelina said. “If you wish to play diplomat, then play diplomat, boy. Tell her only what benefits us for her to know.”
As much as he hated that idea, playing the sneaky diplomat who only spoke in half truths, the girls had a point. Dumping all his information on Moriah could backfire. He was so damn desperate to get her to believe him, he could feel the impulse to tell her everything in his fingers and tongue, like some sort of compulsion. If everyone could just fucking believe each other, and understand, and–
No. Jes was right. Acelina was right. And much as they weren’t saying it, Caera and Dao were right, too. He was being naive, and he had to grow up. The angels weren’t perfect, pure beings. They were warriors, and some assholes had sent them to murder him.
Fuck, he hated this.