Finding Heathcliff

Forty-Two

Feeling alarmed when he couldn't hear the familiar breathing of her sleep, nor read the usual plethora of her wakeful thoughts, Azrael lifted the tent's flap to check on her.

"I can't sleep, Azrael," Astrid whispered at the same moment as if she had been expecting him. "I... don't mind if you come in and sleep here... as you always do?" she ventured.

He crawled inside without hesitation and unrolled the second bedroll he had hidden in the corner.

"How did you know?" he asked, lying down and turning towards her, searching her eyes in the near perfect darkness that filled the tent.

"I might be naive, but I'm not stupid. The other two share the second tent, and... this place smells like you," she smiled briefly before adding, "It is the same scent I noticed in my pillows on quite a few nights since I left the castle."

Azrael swallowed; this could go either way. But the fact that she was still talking to him after everything he had done was encouraging. This girl wasn't someone who would point her finger at others and judge their faults and mistakes without looking at them from all possible angles, without considering their circumstances.

"How are you feeling, Lady?" he asked, changing the precarious subject, his arms itching to wrap around her as always. She was so close...

Her giggle surprised him. "I promise I'll never speak to you again if you keep calling me Lady. I'm Astrid, Azrael."

He closed his eyes as he listened to her name rolling off his tongue, "Astrid." It was very addictive.

"See? It didn't hurt, did it?" she teased, her hand reaching out for him instinctively, her body seeking his closeness out of habit.

He wrapped his arms around her and closed the remaining distance between them before she could realise what she had done. She was right; it didn't hurt now. But it would, when the moment to part from her would arrive.

He felt her stiffen in his embrace as he rested his chin on top of her head, his body encasing her entirely. But she submitted again to the familiarity of the gesture and placed her head in its spot in the crook of his shoulder, sighing contentedly.

Azrael thought she had fallen asleep when she asked, "Where is Evangeline?"

He wasn't expecting the question; her thoughts had been full of her demon until a moment ago, she wondered why he had tried to kill her, how he had died... But, apparently, she wasn't ready to receive those answers.

"I sent her to Oblivis ahead of us to prepare Michael for our arrival."

"Is she your... woman?" Astrid whispered, using the term Orion had used to call her, for the lack of a better word. Did fallen angels get engaged or married?

Out of all the things he was expecting her to ask him... Azrael mused, a tiny smile playing on his lips as he replied, "She used to be my girlfriend. A long time ago."

Astrid nodded, recognising the word from the books she had read. It was a term people had used a lot in the past. For the first time, she realised that she had no idea if changing several partners before getting married was something people in Eurovea still did. All the nobles frequenting her uncle were either engaged or married, just like she and...

"You... didn't love each other enough," Astrid said, pushing those thoughts away, then added, "You didn't lose your wings for her?"

That was what she had read in the Book of Angels-- angels lost their wings for committing a sin, the most common being lust.

"No, we don't get punished for falling in love with other angels; that's what we are supposed to do," he said.

She could hear his smile in the words, and it made her blush. But knowing that she would never gather enough courage to bring this subject up again, Astrid ignored her embarrassment, buried her head deeper into his chest, and continued her interrogation.

"But you did lose your wings for a woman."

"Yes, a human woman of angel origin, a long time before I met Evangeline."

Astrid's breath caught. Evangeline wasn't important. This other woman was.

"Tell me," she whispered.

He sighed. "The moment I met her on one of my... missions, I fell in love with her. I showed myself to her, and soon, she seemed to have fallen in love with me. Once I couldn't hide my feelings for the human any longer, I was banished from Heaven, I fell." He paused, taking a deep breath before he continued, "It didn't take me long to understand that she didn't love me as much as I loved her. She married someone else and I... watched her from the distance, unable to move on, until the day she died."

"She didn't love you? Why?" Astrid muttered, unable to believe it.

"As a fallen angel, I had very little to offer to her. You saw how Jophiel and Stella live. But even before I fell... she was always a little afraid of me..."

"Because you were an angel of death?" Astrid murmured, surprising him again.

"How do you know that?" he asked, impressed by her lack of fear and repulsion, which he was used to receiving from other humans.

"Your favourite book," she said, a smile he could not see making her voice waver. "The Book Thief."

He chuckled; of course, she had put it together. She was so unique and precious, and... not his.

"Sleep, Lady. Astrid." He corrected himself before she could protest.

"So what will happen now?" she asked, her words slurred by sleep so much that he had to pick their real meaning from her mind.

"I'll get my wings back when we meet Michael, and I'll have to go back to Heaven. It's not my choice, Astrid."

She understood; he could feel her tortured thoughts relax as she allowed herself to accept the inevitable.

"Thank you for saving my life, angel of death," she muttered, finally allowing the sleep take her.

Azrael never let go of her as she slept in his arms, realising just how she had already realised how important their presence in each other's life had become. He would trade his wings for a year of happiness with her and the rest of eternity in Hell... But as he had told her, he didn't have a choice. There were rules to follow, and he had never seen Michael breaking them for anyone.