On Broken Wings

Chapter 17

Cassius

Lucifer's steps were steady, sure, and strong. He moved like a well-oiled machine with feline grace, the combination of man and Seraph. His muscles were hard against my chest; I could feel them flex and move with each stride he took. Such a powerful being harboring someone like me. It almost made me laugh.

The air was clear after the storm. Raindrops glittered like dew made of diamonds in the sun, which warmed my clammy skin. I tilted my head back so that it would spill across my face in a loving caress of nature. "I never thought it could be so beautiful after a storm," I wondered aloud, reaching out a hand to brush across a low hanging branch. The leaves shuddered and small drops rained down on us in a cool wave.

"Only when the sun shines like this," Lucifer replied. "Usually, the sky would still be clouded over."

"In that case, we're lucky."

"Indeed, we are." He smiled, and it made his face appear less tired, his bottomless golden eyes a bit brighter.

The irony of us thinking we are lucky when just moments before I was sobbing into his chest, the memories having invaded me in a way I couldn't control. They overtook me so quickly. My stomach grew with unease at how much that terrified me. To be at the mercy of those memories and the treatment I received from someone I once believed to be my friend. How the image of his face through the iron bars of the cell still haunted me.

Lucifer held my legs firm against him. Or I supposed. No feeling ran through them, from my toes to my upper thigh. I couldn't even feel the arrow wound. They were numb as if they never existed. I knew something was off from the moment I fell asleep, and when I awoke, I found them unable to move. Somehow, I knew it scared Lucifer more than me. Perhaps it was because he would be the one left behind after I passed. Guilt gnawed at my gut. Hope of the cure was a lost cause to me know. Finding the Garden of Eden had been arduous enough. We knew it existed at some point, or at least in legends, and those always held a bit of truth. That was why I held hope for it.

But finding something that we don't know if it even exists? By the time it would take for us to uncover the whole Garden—which we do not know the true size of—it might be too late. My thoughts filled me with shame and remorse. Should I not hold the tiniest sliver of hope for Lucifer? Should I not want to live?

Of course, I wanted to live. I wanted to soar the skies again with my lover by my side, wanted to look forward to the lazy mornings with breakfast in bed and late nights spent simply talking to one another. I longed for Lucifer's touch, the sound of his voice, his laugh, him.

But I felt my body dying. Slowly shutting down. As if I was never once a healthy man with dreams and desires.

I knew this disease would take over my body. My legs were just the beginning. My heart would be last. I prayed it would never take my mind, that I would be able to spend my last moments with Lucifer with coherent thoughts. It was the least I could do for him.

I prayed Death would come quick and swift. That Lucifer would not mourn over me too long. That he would not become a shell of the person he was when we had first met. I prayed that he would be able enjoy life without me by his side. I prayed every night for one more day—just one more day. I doubt they will hear or answer. My time in the Seraph's good graces were gone.

"Where would you like to go? Now that it has stopped raining," he asked me, standing at a fork in the cobbled path.

"The greenhouse. The benches will be dry in there. I would like to sit and look at the newest blooms, and you can tend to them without worrying about me."