Page 4 of Lips of an Angel

I chuckled. Every part of Raleigh’s face had some piercing sticking through it. When he’d run out of room in his ears, he turned to his eyebrows, nose, lips, and tongue. The tiny diamonds on the tips of the jewelry sparkled when he moved, and it wasmesmerizing.

“Thank you for handling that.”

He shrugged. “It’s my job. Go on back to the office and do yours.” He said it with an affectionate smile. “I’ll come get you after last call.”

I started toward the office, but watched Raleigh work his way through the crowd out of the corner of my eye until he disappeared from view.

Sometime later, three knocks echoed through the office. I glanced at the clock. Two a.m. had ticked over, and it was time to start cleaning up for the night.

I returned two knocks, the signal that let Raleigh know it was okay to enter. The door swung open as I shut down the computer and scrubbed my bleary eyes.

“You okay?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe. He crossed his muscular arms over his equally toned chest, pulling his black T-shirt tight and making his tattoos dance over his biceps and ripple across the space below his collarbone.

“Tired,” I signed. To the point where even moving my hands felt like work.

“Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll help Jack close the bar down. Kali’s sending a car for me, so I won’t be home tonight.”

Despite my true feelings toward Kali, I gave Raleigh a cheeky grin. “What’s she giving you this time, sugar baby?”

Raleigh pinned me with a look that would have sent one of our drunk patrons scrambling for another bar. I stared right back, unfazed. Raleigh could never scare me. “A one-way ticket to Tanzania for a certain friend of mine that can’t keep his hands quiet.”

I ignored his joke. “Are you sure you’re okay closing without me?”

“Go. To. Bed. The dishes are already done and I think between Jack and I, we can handle the trash. I’ll see you in the morning?”

Raleigh retreated to the main area of the bar, while I took the rickety wooden staircase up to our apartment.

I hardly ever set foot into the main area of the bar, yet there was something about it that never failed to make me feeldirty. Maybe it was the sheer thought of how much booze they had to scrub off the floors by the end of the night. Regardless, the first thing I did after every shift was head for the shower, and tonight was no different. I stood under the spray, waiting until the water started to run cold before actually washing myself. I quickly rinsed and jumped out, tucking a towel around my waist.

In the privacy of the apartment I could finally relax. Somewhat. Until the town car came, there was still a chance Raleigh could come upstairs, so I stayed in the bathroom for now. I let out a deep breath, one that I felt like I’d been holding all night. My skin crawled, my marks demanding my attention. It was tough keeping them at bay for hours on end, like an itch I couldn’t scratch. I looked in the mirror. The all-seeing eye decorated my body, starting at the tips of my fingers, running up my arms and across my chest to fall back and down both legs. To anyone else, they looked like mere tattoos. It scared the shit out of me the first time theyactivated. Over the years the sensations had grown until they felt akin to a hundred butterflies tickling my skin.

Stretching my muscles, I looked over my shoulder. Tattooed there were wings that fluttered and rippled beneath the surface of my skin. When they’d first appeared, they’d been so faint you could hardly see them. Hadn’t been hard to hide them behind long sleeves until it became socially acceptable for me to have “tattoos.” As I got older and my powers grew stronger, the lines and shadows darkened. The wings on my back were the most prominent. If you looked close enough, you could see each and every barbule on the feathers. No tattoo artist could accomplish that level of detail—I know; I’d been told as much.

In the mirror those tattoos blurred, twisting and contorting until my wings—my real ones—broke the skin. It used to be painful but I’d gotten used to it. Keeping them hidden all the time was far worse.

I shuffled into the center of the bathroom, trying to stretch out my wings as much as possible. The small bathroom wasn’t overly accommodating, but it was better than nothing. I stretched out as far as I could, but even a soft beat left our set of hand towels clumped on the floor. I’d worry about it later. I was too busy basking in my true form—even if only for a few minutes. Though I used the term “enjoyed” loosely.

I sighed. The word “basking” was a little too triumphant for a quick stretch in a confined bathroom. I examined myself in the mirror. The eyes dotting my skin emitted a warm glow that blurred the edges of my form. If I turned the bathroom lights off, those glowing tattoos would’ve almost been enough to illuminate the room.

It had been fifteen years, and I still hadn’t adjusted to my new life.

I hadn’t always been this way. When I was fourteen, I died. Though if you asked Raleigh or my parents, they would tell you I was in a coma. A medic saved me—an angel.Anotherangel, I suppose I should say. She took one look at me and decided I was too young to die. Sometimes, I wish I’d been asked. Or that she could have saved someone else from that night—because in all that time, I had yet to meet another angel.

I hadn’t come clean to my parents, or to Raleigh. The more time that passed, the more insecure I grew about the secret, and the more stressful talking became. Like every word was an omission. But if I didn’t speak—couldn’tspeak—I wasn’t lying to the people I loved.

When someone pictured an angel, I’m sure I wasn’t what they imagined. Raleigh and I grew up in a small, rural town in Georgia. From a young age, we’d been exposed to the image of what Christianity wanted us to believe angels were: gorgeous creatures, often women, with great swanlike wings and a radiant halo. That was all well and good, except the Biblical description of angels was totally different, even nightmare-inducing to someone unfamiliar with them. And seraphim were on another spectrum entirely.

Not that either existed.

True angels were sort of a hybrid. Instead of six wings like a Biblically-accurate seraph, I only had two. Second highest in the angels’ ranks were the cherubim, depicted with eyes decorating their entire bodies like my markings. Somewhere along the line, the eyes vanished and wings were clipped. Artists began to paint halos on them to distinguish angels from humans, and we became a thing of beauty.

Though as I stood there staring at myself, I couldn’t see it. Maybe a halo would have helped. Instead, every strand of hair on my head shimmered like vibrant gold thread. Someone else might appreciate that, but it only setmefurther apart from everyone else.

As if being mute didn’t already do that.

I could heal others with a touch, could purify the deadliest of poisons from the veins, could stop death in its tracks. Why the hell couldn’t I make myselftalk?

If I had my way, I’d keep my true self hidden under the surface of the skin, but it got uncomfortable after a while. Besides, with Raleigh around, my powers were always primed to kick into gear; it was like that car accident only challenged him to be as reckless as possible. That man needed an angel at his side.

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