Page 100 of Death is My Ride or Die

He went quiet for a short time, hesitating. “A long time ago, shortly after I became a creature of death, the Elders in Heaven took notice of my . . . bad behavior. They knew they couldn’t destroy me, not without disturbing the balance between good and evil, but they wanted to keep me close, utilize my death power and my gift of seeing into souls to help the afterlife. When I agreed to this, they transformed me into a Light Angel with magic. If you can imagine it, I once helped guard the Gates of Heaven, determining which souls could enter.”

“Holy crap.”

“The job didn’t last long,” Death said in a grave voice. “They banished me, tore off my wings, then cursed me with the Seven Deadly Sins curse. To limit my capabilities. Or, at least, to try to.” He turned his head over his shoulder with a sly smile. “All angels, including Fallen, are reborn with eternal wings, which we conceal with magic.”

Lightning fractured the sky. Death’s head tilted heavenward as he flexed back his arms, and enormous wings unfurled from his back. They extended in seconds, until they reached nearly half the width of the entire roof.

“Whoa! You weren’t kidding, these arehuge!”

Death’s laughter rumbled like the thunder above. “Thank you.”

My jaw gaped as I analyzed the rows and rows of midnight feathers. “Incredible . . . ”

“Feel free to get a closer look.” His wings fluttered as though to shake out a cramp before curling inward with the arch of a vulture.

My eyes followed the line of his wing to his lower shoulder, where the crease of the wing ended. Death dropped to his knees so that he faced away from me. While this gave me a better view, it also made my heart hammer in my chest to have such a powerful being kneeling for me.Again.

My fingers hovered over the base of the wing. His wings shifted, bending in a way that reminded me of a demonstration in my high school anatomy class. My teacher had stood beside a model of the human skeleton and bent his own arm alongside it, pointing at the various bones underneath his skin.

“Humerus bones,” I said in awe, following the bone that attached from Death’s back to the thick extension of his wing. “The anatomy of your wings is nearly identical to human arms?”

“Correct,” he said. When my finger brushed one of the silky feathers, his wings flinched reflexively and contracted marginally.Careful. “Someone paid attention in anatomy.”

“I’m a nerd,” I admitted.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said, eying me sideways. “Besides, being a nerd means you struggle less to keep up with my extreme intellect.”

“Always humble.”

He spent the next few minutes explaining the musculature of his wings and their ligaments and joints. He angled his right wing closer in my direction. I felt like I was in anatomy class all over again, except this time, the sexiest man on the planet was teaching it.

“What about the connection to your body?” I wondered as my attention slid over his back. I wanted to run my hands across the thick cords of muscle there.

“A scapula sits on either side of my spine, and sockets are connected to the arms.”

Coldness built in my core as I thought of the V-shaped scar on his back. “So when an angel becomes a Fallen . . . ”

“Two of my limbs were essentially torn from my body,” he confirmed through tight teeth. I wanted to understand the purpose of Heaven ripping off his wings, but the stiffness in his shoulders and his overall body language told me to back off.

“Do you mind if I feel them?” A flush crept up my face. “Or is that . . . too sexual?”

His husky laugh rolled out like a purr at the back of his throat. “You can do whatever you want to me, Faith, but know my wings are sensitive in certain areas. My alulae are extremely ticklish.”

“Yourwhat?”

“Feathers,” he muttered. “They’re feathers. Be gentle. Don’t do anything weird, like pluck out a quill.”

“There goes my shot at an authentic calligraphy pen aesthetic.”

My fingers brushed the soft feathers directly on either side of his spine. An energy, a power that I could only describe as ancient coursed throughout me like hot oil, and my mouth parted. Death must have felt it too because he tensed.

“Those are called scapulars. Down feathers, essentially.”

My arm spread up and out until it extended to a different shape of feather along the top of his wing. “And these?”

He shuddered. “Marginal coverts.”

I lowered my hand, and gooseflesh burst across my skin. Death turned curiously over his shoulder, and our eyes locked. Beneath the light of the moon, his vertical pupils were dilated.

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