Breathe

Prologue

Eden

           

Two years ago, Cian and Vinny Horne had been my best friends.

          With them, there was never a dull moment, whether it was Cian's and my afternoon chess matches or one of Vinny's varsity soccer games. I could forget about the stress of academics and focus on their company, on the ocean, on the feel of seaspray in my lungs.

          And then Cian's seventeenth birthday came. Nothing was the same after that.

          I didn't know why I let him go. I should have stolen the opportunity, right? Grabbed the two of them and punished them for taking Dempsey away, made Cian stay here? But no—I let them go, watched Cian take that girl's hand and tear her away from there. The image of his back turned to me was burned on the backs of my eyelids.

          He didn't care about me anymore. I was merely a walking reminder of everything he'd lost that night, of that old life he'd left behind.

          "Don't think I'm not upset with you," said a familiar voice from behind me. In the cave's common area, I froze, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling. "Because I am, Eden—but regardless, you're my subordinate, so I'm forced to spare you."

          I clicked my teeth, eyes on the cavernous ground underneath me. Moisture crawled on my skin, the echoing dripping of water sounding somewhere in the distance. "Nick, I can explain—"

          "You can explain why you let them walk away? They're the enemy, Eden, and you practically handed victory to them," he hissed, voice acidic. The stone rotunda arced above our heads, bouncing his words back at me. At my feet was the spot where Lucie had laid a couple months before, begging for her life. Just a couple months since the fallen angels' reputation was ruined. Just a couple months since Dempsey was here. Just a couple months since I'd last seen Cian or his little brother.

          It annoyed me, actually, how my mind still wandered back to them, even after all this time.

          I felt Nick's fingers slip into mine, his chest inches from my back. My heartbeat sped as he moved my hair back from my shoulder, exposing my neck, at which a pulse no longer beat. Each breath he took was like a light kiss of wind on my collarbones. I closed my eyes. His voice dripped disappointment. "There is nothing to explain, Miss King."

          "Dempsey was already gone," I told him. "There was no sense in continuing, and you know that."

          For a moment, he was silent. Then: "Are you telling me, then, that you're just going to let this go—let them go? The league of heaven and humans alike are grinding us into the dirt. We're too powerful to become doormats."

          I sighed. If there was anything I knew about the fallen angel that had created me, it was that he loved the taste of vengeance, no matter how bitter. "I'm tired, Nick. I don't have time to fight anymore. And maybe that's why I let them go. Because they're tired, too."

          Slowly, he released me, his footsteps pounding into the floor as he toured around my side and came to face me. Forest green eyes squinted at me, young despite their years. "Yes, yes. The world is tired. And I say—the world needs to wake up. Open their eyes. The world needs a revolution, Eden."

          I swallowed. "What do you have in mind?"
           "Say it was just us. Just us, the fallen angels, all the demons we wanted, all with no complications. Say that humanity submitted to us, that we sent the Order and all their minions running for the hills. Would you like that, Eden, would you?"

          He grinned at me as he waited for my response, teeth flashing glaring white. The freckle above his left eyebrow seemed to wink at me, all of his facial skin stretched clean and smooth by his lopsided smile. There was darkness in his gaze, insatiable hunger in his heart. He was a fire, growing and blazing through a city until only rubble was left.

          I smiled back at him. "What do you need me to do?"

          "Help me," he replied immediately. "Help me and I'll give you everything, madame," he told me, lifting my hand and bringing it to his lips. Looping his arm through mine and starting to drag me from the common area, he said, "I'll tell you what I need."

          I glanced at him, silently urging him on.

          "Cian Horne must be ours, first of all," Nick said, "for if the Order's golden boy is gone, they won't know what to do."

          "And after that?"

          "And after that, darling, everything will fall into place. He is the puzzle piece."

          I opened my mouth to ask how that was the case, but he shushed me. "Just trust me."

          I trusted him.

          We walked for a while longer, his arm linked in mine, darkness encasing us as the common area faded away and the tunnels grew long, black, and cold. I was used to it by now. When life had already left you, you no longer expected light.

          I thought of Cian, of his scars, of his smile. "Cian's strong, you know. What makes you think he's going to come to you?"

          I couldn't see his face, yet I knew Nick was grinning. "Even angels have weaknesses."