“I can’t believe I am actually about to do this,” I say, gazing up at a midnight sky filled with a billion stars, all watching me with winking eyes.

“It’s the safest way. Neither of us can hold you for long periods without harming you,” Ether says as he wraps my woollen blanket tightly around me, so I resemble a swaddled newborn. Oh, the irony.

“What if I fall to my death?”

“You won’t.”

“But…” I begin. Mihr steps up beside me, the tip of his wing brushing against my cheek.

“I am going to be flying alongside you. If somehow Ether tires and he drops you, I will be there to make sure you do not fall very far,” he tells me, his fingers moving rapidly.

“That’s not very reassuring,” I say.

“You will be safe in Ether’s arms. He’s a good man.”

I glance up at Ether, who appears to be ignoring Mihr’s compliment. I get the sense that he doesn’t believe he is a good man at all. To be honest, I’m not sure either. How can goodness be measured in a man who dishes out death with a simple touch of his hand? A man who has admitted to such a sin.

I don’t get a chance to ponder it any longer as Mihr’s wings spread out behind him. In a matter of seconds, he is airborne and hovering twenty feet above us both. “Come, we should leave now,” he says.

Ether steps closer to me, wrapping one arm around my back.

“Ready?” he whispers, not giving me a chance to respond as he pulls me tightly against his chest then bends slightly, his other arm sliding over the curve of my bottom before he launches into the air. It’s just as well I’m wrapped so tightly as my arms jerk against the tight material in a futile attempt to grab hold of him whilst my stomach lurches in my mouth. Even through his clothes and the woollen blanket I can feel the searing heat of his skin. I feel the firm warmth of his stomach and hips as they press against my own and I let out a low moan, uncertain if it is fear I feel or something much more disconcerting.

“I won’t drop you, Fern. Try to relax, okay,” Ether says, tightening his hold. The warmth of his breath tickles the skin of my cheek, the heat more prominent between us where my skin isn’t covered.

“Place your head against my chest, we mustn’t touch skin to skin.” It is an order, not a request. Something inside me liquifies.

“Okay,” I murmur, twisting my head sideways and resting against his shirt.

Beside us Mihr is flying, his black wings moving gracefully through the darkened night. We must already be high above the ground because I keep losing sight of him through slivers of white cloud. I watch him, trying not to think about how good it feels pressed so close to Ether. This man has the power to kill me with one touch. They all do… I should be more afraid. I should have asked more questions before agreeing to help. I should have done a lot of things, but all common sense seems to have left me today.

I look at Mihr as he weaves and moves through the clouds beside us. His dark blonde hair is pushed back by the wind, the moonlight casting him in a silvery glow. If he hadn’t looked angelic before, he sure as hell does now. For a moment he disappears behind a bank of thick cloud as we pass through the same white mist. My hair whips about my head, the cold wind finding every available gap, determined to give me hypothermia. I snuggle closer into Ether’s chest, seeking out his warmth. His arms tighten in response.

I twist my head as far as I can to the side, feeling safe enough to watch the landscape move below us. The city is speckled with multicoloured lights, the darkness of night punctuated with the artificial glow of electricity. Roadways move with cars, tiny dinky toys carving through this city landscape of concrete and stone. Everything is so small, unreal.

I’m not sure whether I’m having some weird out-of-body experience, but I feel strangely disjointed and completely unafraid.

Ether shifts his arms around my back and thighs, pressing me even closer to his body. In such close proximity I can smell his scent. It’s flowery, like the first bloom of bluebells across a forest floor, but underneath there are darker, richer tones of musk and heat.

Of sin.

Of darkness wrapped in light.

Just like Gabe and his soul-stripping gaze, just like Mihr and his heart-wrenching voice.

Three men, three angels, each of them drawing me like a moth to a flame. If I had wings, they would be burning by now.

We must have climbed higher as it’s much, much colder now. My teeth begin to chatter as my body stiffens from the freezing cold leaching into my bones. Ether’s body heat isn’t enough to keep me warm. It’s still there, it just isn’t having any effect on the frigid wind and damp cloud.

“Fern, are you okay?” Ether asks.

“I’m cold,” I respond, my body trembling so much I’m worried Ether will drop me.

“It won’t be long now,” he says, trying to reassure me.

Black spots speckle my vision and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to clear them. We aren’t touching skin to skin, so I don’t understand why I feel so strange. My head swims as though I am about to pass out, then lolls backwards, the cold needling my skin.

Ether looks down at me, concern pulling his brows together. His face blurs as I try to focus on him.

“Hold on, Fern,” he says, a note of panic in his voice as he shifts his body to the right. I feel us drop lower, and a few seconds later we’re below the cloud. I automatically search for Mihr, relieved when I see him emerge from the cloud too. He twists in the air, his body turning sharply. What is he doing? The closer he gets, the worse I feel and the more my vision seems to blur.

I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them up again, trying to focus on him.

Only it isn’t Mihr flying towards us like a heat-seeking missile, it’s Gabe, a look of rage on his face.

“Ether,” I manage to squeak before the light goes out and I tumble into darkness…

Black tendrils slide over my skin, feathering up my spine, seeping into open pores. It is not unpleasant, it is the kind of darkness that I imagine a baby feels in its mother’s womb. A lulling darkness, two hearts synchronised as one.

Thump, thump, thump.

Amniotic fluid sliding over paper-thin skin.

Part of me wants to let go, to allow the darkness to fill me up, to swallow me. To sleep forever in its embrace, to go back to that place surrounded by muscle and bone, where love, hope and new beginnings are a promise away…

But the darkness evolves into something else. It coils and weaves, changing, evolving. No longer lulling, it scrapes over my skin, pain and pleasure mixed into a recipe I want to taste. My mouth waters, my scalp prickles, my heart stutters between life and death. Heaven and hell.

Letting go would be easy, living is hard.

But I’m not one to ever take the easy route, so I swim towards the light that shines in the corner of my mind. A tiny spark, drawing me out of this place where my senses are overloaded with the touch of darkness, the sound of silence and the stench of death.

A muffled voice calls my name.

“Wake up, Fern! Wake the hell up!”

It’s Gabe’s voice.

My eyes snap open. “Gabe?” I whisper.

“Fern, FERN,” Ether shouts, pulling me out of the dark and into the light where I am still living, breathing. I could have sworn it was Gabe I’d heard.

I groan as consciousness battles against the pull to return to my mother’s womb, to the caress of death.

“Get her out of here,” I hear Ether roar.

Then his arms let go of me, and I am falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Wind rushes by me as I drop through misty clouds. I tumble in the air, the woollen blanket unravelling, freeing my arms and legs. The world tips upside down, rights itself, then tips once again as I twist and turn like an acrobat in the circus. A scream rips out of my throat only to be snatched by the wind. I freefall to my death, wondering how much it’s going to hurt when I eventually hit the ground. Hoping I fall unconscious before that point comes.

He dropped me. Ether let me go. He said he would keep me safe.

Those thoughts tumble through my head as I free fall.

Death is coming for me and there is nothing I can do to prevent it.