Page 68 of Angel's Temper

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Brass hissed as he surged against his invisible bonds.

The lascivious crimson smile that curled Ragana’s lips would forever remind Molly of blood welling up over bone. “Tell me, Molly, has he shared with you what he’s discovered about your true nature? Why he’s spent so much time in your company as of late, lapping at your heels and running around your little restaurant like a dog begging for scraps?”

“I don’t care about anything that comes out of your mouth,” Molly fired back.

“You will,” Ragana assured her. “Especially when my mouth reveals more about your beloved than perhaps his own.” Then she whirled away from Brass, her skirts flaring out around her ankles, and skewered Molly with those dark eyes. “Do you have headaches? Unusual bouts of heat coursing through your veins, even among the coldest temperatures? Or, perhaps, a general unease beneath your skin, like there are thousands of burrowing midges crawling throughout your very bones.”

Molly continued to thrash and struggle, but something about Ragana’s saccharine words stilled her efforts. She cranked her head in the witch’s direction, fully prepared to douse her with a dose of murderous stink-eye, but instead, tendrils of truth pulled her to hear the rest.

“That’s right, my dear. You have magic.”

The bonds around Molly vanished, and she crumpled to the ground. A dizzying rush of oxygen to her long-deprived limbs gave her all the coordination of a newborn giraffe as she got her legs under her. “No, I don’t. I’m human.”

“Are you?”

Distant words surfaced to the front of her mind. Words that had been spoken against her bare neck in melting, drugging pleasure back when her largest concern was lusting after the employee who’d said them.

Oh, little witch . . . I love how responsive you are. Where shall I touch you next, hmm? What will make your magic sing?

Molly glanced sidelong at Brass but addressed Ragana. “We’re soul bound. It’s why my body has felt different lately.”

“Is that what he told you? Oh, my dear. Men are truly the consummate liars, aren’t they? And yet women are always painted as the conniving she-devils. I’ll never understand why men always turn to deceit when the truth is so much more powerful to play with.” Then the witch took Molly’s hands in hers and stared down at her with the devotion of a mother imparting hard-won wisdom to a naïve adolescent. Brass’s golden eyes tracked Molly’s hands, which had grown heavy with the weight of her doubt, especially as she didn’t remove them from Ragana’s grip.

“You are an empath with a wonderful burgeoning magic of your own. I dare say it’s gotten stronger with your little love connection, but it’s the reason your angel sought you out in the first place and why he can’t help but stay at your side. Your power draws his emotions into you, lessening the burden he’d been doomed to carry alone. It’s why my curse has been regrettably less prevalent in his mind when he’s kept you near. It has nothing to do with your little bonding, unless, of course, you count the return of his full celestial power. That he did need you for.”

For some reason, the legend of Icarus shot to the forefront of Molly’s mind as Ragana released her hands and they fell motionless at her sides. Beeswax wings had always been part of the standard tale, but Molly had always enjoyed the version that spoke of the individual feathers more. How they had been constructed of metal first, before being cobbled together in a leather framework using beeswax. It was a small distinction but a significant one.

Foundations, after all, were truly nothing without the bonds that tied them. As an orphan, she knew that better than most.

Standing before Brass, however, still innately leaning into his magnetic strength that relentlessly called to her, she couldn’t help but see the cracks beginning to form.

Or perhaps how long they’d been there when she was too blind to see them.

“Is that true?” she whispered. “Do I have magic? Real magic? That you knew about?”

Ragana’s singsong voice chimed throughout the arena, filling Molly’s heart with dagger-like shards. “Do be honest, sentinel. Show her that honor you’re so proud of.”

When he didn’t answer, Molly stepped closer to him with sluggish steps. “Brass?”

And then she saw the one thing she’d fought so hard her entire life to protect herself against. It was etched on the rigid outlines of a face she’d memorized and had formed in the fires of a gaze her soul called its own.

Pity. Regret. Shame. And the truth.

“Yes,” he ground out. “But?—”

“No buts. We’re done. You are mine.” Ragana curled her fingers into a fist, and a wave of magic blanketed Brass. Molly screamed as she felt the instant his tether on his rage snapped. All other magic binding him fell away, and a red haze fell over eyes that had once consumed her in their undying emotion and unspoken promises.

Then he stood, and Molly’s heart broke for the second time.

Brass was no longer her angel but a cursed beast.

Chapter 30

A manic cackling echoed through the night, growing louder as Brass’s metallic wings spread from his back. Everything Molly had come to recognize about him had vanished with the swiftness of clouds as even they scuttled to get out of range.

“No!” Molly ran to him, tears streaming down her cheeks, but an invisible wave of magic rippled in front of her and blocked her path. Through the waves, that disorderly thatch of hair she’d smoothed back countless times fell over vermilion eyes that were not Brass’s and never made a move to land on her.

Molly screamed at Ragana. “What did you do to him?”

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