Wrath watched Serenity paint.

“You look beautiful when you do this, you know.” He wasn’t hitting on her. He was already at her house, already having dinner. He didn’t have to hit on her to get her attention, but she just shook her head.

“You think life is easy,” she accused.

“On the contrary,” he said. “I think it’s very, very hard.”

“Then how do you do it?” She said quietly.

“Do what?”

“Act like this is the first time you’ve been alone with a woman. Act like this is the first time you’ve been vulnerable. You’re opening up to me, Wrath, and I don’t deserve it.”

Her words surprised him. He didn’t consider himself good with words or with people at all. He certainly didn’t consider himself good with women, but Serenity was different. She wasn’t just some woman he had met at art class.

She was the woman who made him smile.

“My entire life is shrouded in darkness and pain. You make me feel calm.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.”

She turned back around and continued painting, and he stood behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders as she moved, and she didn’t complain. She didn’t push him away, and he liked that. He liked her.

“You like to help people,” he pointed out. She was painting a picture of a young woman: a girl. He was sure she thought her painting was dark and mysterious, sad and troubled, but it looked hopeful to him. It looked sweet.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not. On the contrary, it’s quite wonderful. It’s also quite rare.”

“Plenty of people help others,” she shook her head. “But it’s usually because they’re going to get something for it.”

“You don’t seem to want anyone to thank you.”

“What? At the community center? No. Those kids don’t get much help in their world. Teaching a class a few times a week is the least I can do for them. They’ve given me so much.”

“What have they given you?”

“Hope. Peace. Kindness. Friendship.” She paused, looking at the canvas. She reached out with her finger and smeared a little bit of the paint, giving the girl’s clothes a slightly altered effect. “Things aren’t always what we think they are, not at first.”

“No? What did you think when you first saw me?”

“I thought you were a troublemaker,” she admitted. “I also thought it was strange to see you in my class. No offense, but you aren’t my usual demographic.”

“Charming and irresistible?”

“Sure,” she laughed, and he smiled. Serenity sat her paintbrush down and looked at the painting she had started. “I’ll have to finish it later.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“I need to wash my hands now.”

“Of course.”

“You have to move to let me by,” she whispered, and Wrath nodded, but didn’t move. She looked at him like she was noticing him for the very first time, and then Serenity went up on her toes and kissed Wrath.

Heat soared through his body, like this was the first time he’d ever been touched by a pretty girl he liked. He felt young again, and free. Careless. Suddenly, he could fly. He had wings, and it was because of the lost fallen.

She pulled away and smiled at him. Then she pressed her hand to his cheek. He could feel the paint pressing against his skin, but he didn’t care that he’d have a mark.

“Oh, Wrath,” she whispered, and then Serenity went into the kitchen.

 

***

 

Serenity didn’t know why she had kissed him. He was no good for her, and she was no good for him. She was no good for anyone, apparently, if everything he’d said was true.

And unfortunately, she could tell it was true.

There were magic users who weren’t just witches anymore. They were hunters now, and they would do anything to get their prey. They would go to the ends of the Earth if it meant killing a fallen, and Serenity wondered how she’d managed to escape from them for so long.

She’d avoided churches, she knew, but it was more than that.

She’d avoided people.

Oh, she taught her classes and she knew the workers at the community center, but she didn’t get close to people. She didn’t truly engage in their lives. Not anymore. Not since she’d lost Oliver.

She washed her hands, saw the shades of blue and green swirling in the sink, and she wondered what would happen now. She could never go back to who she had been as an angel, to who she’d been before she lost Oliver, but she could move forward.

“Art is what makes me feel human,” she said. Wrath was standing in the doorway behind her. She turned around, facing him. “Nothing else does.”

“Drinking?”

“No.”

“Dancing?”

“No.”

“Making love?” He took a step closer.

“No.”

“Only art?”

“Only art.”

“Then you need to paint,” he said simply, as if it made the most perfect sense in the world. “You need to create, Serenity. You need to find what makes you human because there is no going back for people like us, no going back to who we used to be. This is who we are now, and we have to get used to it.”

“It’s hard,” she whispered.

“You miss your family?”

“Sometimes.”

“Was it worth it?”

She didn’t even hesitate.

“Yes,” she whispered. “It was worth it.”

He handed her a brush and smiled at her. “Then paint, Serenity.”