Lipgloss on your Wings - Branded Angel Novels book 1

Chapter 8

Jarryd’s house was just as I remembered it, well it had only been a few days weirdly enough. He opened the front door without a key again, I put it down to ‘angel stuff’ that their house hasn’t been ransacked or inhabited by squatters.

   The atmosphere of the house was different this time, the first time I was there it just felt like a huge empty house, but all around me I felt a calming presence, despite the lack of furnishing and personal items I experienced a warming gesture of home embracing me in the foyer.

    “Ori’s home.”

   As he said the words a big bunny slipper appeared on the staircase, proceeded by another as a tall, slender girl bounded down the steps. Ori had the longest and blackest hair I’d ever seen, it cascaded down her back, crept over her shoulders and wound down past her hips, bouncing with her energetic movements. She was smiling at us, although moments before she’d had to save us from angel murdering lunatics, I absently realised that I was now referring to both of them as angels as if it was a normal occurrence. She was beautiful in a natural way, which I’m sure was no coincidence due to her tree voodoo she conjured earlier.

   “Did you just love my latest creation? I’ve been working on the detail, the purple was my favourite part.”

   She beamed at us showing pristine white teeth, her grey eyes flickering from me, to Jarryd and back again, I was speechless, mainly from being overwhelmed by this surreal world I was suddenly expected to be a part of, but admittedly also a little bit because I really wanted her to like me and didn’t want to open my mouth and say the first thing that I could think of because it would probably be something like; ‘You have long hair.’

   “It’s definitely improved.” He not so quietly whispered to me, “It used to be like standing in a bright pink beehive.” I merely lifted my eyebrows in amusement and acknowledgment.

   “How do you do it?” And there we have it, my first sentence and it sounded rude if not a little accusing. Ori didn’t seem to notice thank… the heavens? Too weird. No thanking anything.

   “I suppose Jarryd hasn’t had time to explain much, if anything, to you yet has he?” I shook my head, gently, I was starting to get a headache. “Jarryd go get drinks, Anna come with me.”

   She led me into the same sitting room I’d been mooching in, I hoped she didn’t have some sort of angel snoop detector, that would have been too much to bear. I glanced at a glass clock on the mantel, it read too close to 1:00am for my liking, I started panicking about getting up for school in the morning and what my dad and brother would be thinking, but looking at the bigger picture I decided at that moment those worries were trivial, if what Jarryd had told me was true, and I wasn’t going to give up the chance to find out more from Ori.

   Tentatively taking a seat opposite her on the squishy sofa I could only look at her and wait expectantly for answers, or for Jarryd and Ashton Kutcher to run into the room telling me I’ve been Punk’d. As blasé as if she was telling me about a beach holiday in Cornwall, Ori began…

   “Jarryd and I, are Elim. That’s our name for what you would call Angels. I have been on the Earth Plane and able to travel between here and Eelysia, that’s the name of our Ethereal Plane, some here call it Heaven others have different names for it, anyway, I’ve been around for, lets say, too many years.” She laughed to herself at that. “But I have only been to the Earth Plane several times for a few decades at a time. It’s hard keeping a low profile, plus people tend to get suspicious with us not aging, but it‘s easier being near my affinity, you may have guessed my role as Angel of Trees, my full name is Orifiel, don‘t worry you can still call me Ori.” She gave me a wink.