Wings of Redemption by Sarah Gilman Read Free Book Online Page A

place?”
    “Yes.”
    She folded her arms, but not fast enough to hide her shaking hands. She did that a lot—attempted to look fierce when she must feel anything but. Had to respect that. “How does it work? Do I have a scythe hovering over my head?”
    “No.” Kestrel touched his temple. “It’s your voice. When you arrived at the gate and started yelling, I heard you clear as a bell, even though I was up here at the time—we’re over three miles from the gate. My father, who also had this talent, called the phenomena ‘death whispers.’”
    “Everything I say out loud, you can hear, even if you’re not in the room with me?”
    “Yes.”
    “So, when I was talking with Carny…”
    “I only heard you , not anything she was saying to you. It’s like listening to someone talk on the phone in those situations.”
    Her eyes widened. “That’s how you knew I wasn’t sleeping. You heard me singing.”
    “Your voice is lovely, by the way. Are you sure you’re a photographer, not a singer?”
    Her gaze grew distant. “Singing is one thing. Singing professionally is quite another.”
    “You’re very talented.”
    “But not cutthroat enough to make it in that business.”
    “Humans are strange. Here, talents are embraced, not fought over.”
    “Here, you don’t have to earn money to pay the rent, right?” In the class she’d taken, she’d been fascinated to learn that colony citizens traded amongst themselves, no currency involved. Eden only used money to attain goods from humans. “It’s a different world.”
    “Indeed.”
    They fell into silence. Kestrel arranged raspberries in a straight line. “Saffron, I don’t know how you might die. That’s the thing. Please, stay.”
    “If this started when I arrived, I should probably leave.”
    “I’m not certain it started when you arrived. That may be simply when you came into range. At least let me take you to Eden’s medical center. They can check to see if—”
    “I have my own doctor.” She shook her head. “It’s clear what’s going to be the death of me. A demon.”
    “Unless you do something aggressive, no demon here will dare touch you under my watch. If you leave, there will be nothing I can do to help you. I won’t be able to tell you when the danger is gone. You don’t want to wonder about something like that.”
    “Hmm.”
    He clenched his teeth, hard, waiting. He rearranged the raspberries into a circle.
    “Okay,” she whispered.
    “You’ll stay?”
    “Yeah, and I’ll see your doctor. But I don’t trust the demons and I shouldn’t trust you. I’m a Morin—you owe me nothing. Before I met you, I would have thought an archangel would be happy about my impending death.”
    “Death is never something to be happy about,” he said.
    She nodded. “Thank you for helping me.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    “Also, Carny told me I should stay. She seemed to think I have something to do with you being in a better mood than normal.”
    “Carny has a hard time minding her own business, but if you’re inclined to listen to her advice, by all means.”
    “Before I knew my life was on the line, I was excited. I was hoping…”
    “What?”
    “I was hoping that you just wanted me to stay.” She looked away and started talking faster. “But that’s ridiculous. I don’t know why I thought that.”
    Before he could figure out how to respond, his cell phone rang. He stared at Saffron and let the phone go for two rings. Three.
    She wanted him to “just want” her to stay? He pressed his lips together to avoid grinning like an overeager fledgling. Ridiculous? Absolutely.
    Four rings.
    Saffron Morin. Morin. Morin. Morin. He had to remember exactly who this woman was. Getting cozy and kissing her hadn’t been a good idea. The kisses had been perfect—her sweet taste, her velvet-soft skin, the natural way she returned the warm contact—but that was exactly the problem.
    Neither of them needed illusions.
    He’d go through with