He's Yours

“What have you done Celeste?”

The woman stood in the open doorway with the sword that was once her brother’s strapped to her back and a swaddle of scarlet stained cloth clutched to her chest, ocean eyes pleading and desperate. “I need your help, Raz.”

He grabbed her elbow and pulled her into the cottage, quickly closing the door behind her. The Guard had been constantly popping in and out of the area for months looking for the woman, waiting to see if she would show up. Even though it was deep into the night, there was no telling when they may come knocking. Raz had initially thought it was them at the door, but the sight of his sister had made his stomach drop and the panic rise.

What mess was she going to get them into this time?

What a mess she had become.

The woman who had once been so beautiful, a vision of elegance and grace that was renowned throughout The Kingdom and beyond, now was little more than a shell of her former self, garnered in a dress soiled with dirt and blood.

Raz reached out, his hand skimming over her hollow cheek before brushing through the blonde hair that had been brutishly chopped around her shoulders. “Your hair…”

“We had to cut it.” Celeste shook his hand away, her voice dismissing his concern. “It’s not a big deal, and it was the only way to get around without drawing more attention to ourselves. Ben didn’t want to, but it’s only hair and I’d argue that he looks better with it short.”

His eyes fell and locked on the concealed bundle in her embrace. He didn’t need to ask. He already knew. “Ben’s dead,” he spoke quietly, studying the thin blanket. “They caught him a few weeks ago. He said he killed your One, but we both know that’s not true. Ben didn’t have it in him to hurt a fly, much less do what you did to that man. I don’t think I need to tell you what they did to him.” The blanket squirmed. “What they’ll do to you.” It cooed. “To that.”

Celeste held the child closer. She knew very well what would happen to her. What would happen to her child. After all, she had done the same to other mothers. To other babies. Snuffed out more lives than she could recall without so much as a second thought. But she couldn’t let that happen to him. She couldn’t be held down and forced to watch as they took the child’s life before taking hers. She couldn’t listen to his screams. Watch the life drain from his eyes.

She had to protect him.

“Please Raz,” her voice broke as the tears began to flow. “You can’t let them pull out his wings. You can’t let him die like that. He didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not his fault.”

He met her gaze, cold and unforgiving. “It’s never their fault, Celeste. It’s their parents. It’s yours and Ben’s. You did this to your child. Not me.”

Her breath came in short and heavy gasps. “Please.” She pulled the blanket down from the child’s face and pushed him against her brother’s chest. “Please. I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but he’s not one of them. He’s the only good thing I’ve ever done.” She choked on her confession, the shame bitter on her tongue. “I thought about killing him before they could. Smothering him or cutting him down the moment he was out. But when I looked at him I saw you. He looks just like you. My brother. His uncle. Your nephew. Look at him.”

He didn’t want to, but he did. “He looks like a potato.”

“He looks like you!” Celeste pressed the child harder against the man. “Not Ben or me. You. Like he was meant to be yours. Are you really going to let him die? Stand there and watch as they tear his wings off and he bleeds out? Listen to his cries?”

Raz hadn’t even thought to do it but his hands moved on their own, cradling the child as his mother pulled away. He looked down at the innocent creature, his face and skin still messed with the fluids of his birth, little lips parting in a yawn.

His hair and wings black.

Like the darkness.

Ocean blue peeked out from the fluttering of his eyelids as they opened to look at the man.

Like the light at the end of a tunnel.

A hope.

A chance to right what he had wronged.

“What’s his name?”

“I named him after you and Ben.” Celeste forced a painful smile. “His name’s Ren.”

“What kind of shitty name is Ren?”

A few light chuckles escaped her lips, not surprised by her brother’s reaction. “Well, I wasn’t going to name him Baz.”

He nodded. “Ren’s good. It suits him.” And it did. The boy didn’t need a traditional name like the rest of the angels had. He may be one, but he would never be one of them. He would never be accepted. Death was probably the kindest thing for the child.

But Raz didn’t really feel that way.

The thought of allowing The Guard to take the child was worse than what he knew they would do to him if he chose to save the child.

When he chose to save the child.

He had to save the child.

There was no other option.

“What will you do?”

She smiled, knowing what his decision was. “I won’t let them take me. I’ll go back into the mountains, and I’ll do it myself.”

He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, only focus on the child, concentrate on the one thing he could save. “Are you sure you want to do that? You still have a chance for Him to forgive you.”

“I don’t want Him to forgive me.” Her teeth clenched in a snarl. “I hate Him. I hate what He’s done to me. To Ben. To our child. We didn’t deserve any of this. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

Maybe she was right.

Maybe she wasn’t.

What did it matter?

Right or wrong.

She was as good as dead.

Raz finally looked up, knowing at this point they were only wasting precious time. “I’ll need to go to The Kingdom before they come here first. You need to go.”

Celeste nodded as she looked down at her son. A child she had never wanted. A child she now never wanted to leave.

But she would.

For him.

So he would live.

She unstrapped the baldric from her chest and held her House’s sword in her hands. “Where can I put this?”

Raz led her into his room and opened the closet for her to set it inside next to the glaive that had once been hers.

She ran her fingers down the handles of both weapons one last time before closing the door and facing her brother. Her hand went to the child’s head but hesitated above his black hair before she took it back, afraid that a simple touch would lead to needing more and not being able to let him go. “Forgive me for my sins,” she whispered and quickly kissed her child’s forehead.

The first.

The last.

The only.

“Thank you, Raziel.” Celeste turned and hurried from the room, from the home, knowing any longer and she’d no longer be able to.

She returned to the mountains, high in the peaks, far into the range, to the cave that Ben had left her in. Where she had birthed their child.

Where she kept her pet.

Celeste walked to the back of the cave to where she had circled rocks against the wall. She looked down into the cage she had created and smiled at the creature within. So small and helpless, just like the child she had given away.

She would no longer be able to help Ren.

But she could help this creature.

And it could help her.

She pulled it free of its confines, a pest no larger than her hand, its metallic gray skin smooth to the touch, body thin and weak matching its ten just as thin and weak legs perfectly. Its round head bobbed unsteadily as its one, large, white eye spun in its socket.

So pathetic.

Weak.

Insignificant.

But she saw its potential.

Celeste sat against the cave wall, cradling the pest the way she had her son. “I will make you strong,” she whispered, smiling lovingly at the creature. “And one day, our One will come and take us home. And we will destroy it all. The way they destroyed everything.”

She held it close.

And let it feast.