“You?” The dark-haired one steps towards me. Beside him, another man, angel, Christ, I don’t know, snaps his head around.

“You know this woman, Gabe?” the white-haired man asks him.

Gabe? So he has a name. My gaze flicks between them. Dark hair versus pure snow-white.

“I…” Gabe looks from him to me, the words lost on his lips.

“Do you?” the white-haired man insists.

“Ether, I don’t know how to explain,” Gabe starts, but Ether cuts him off.

“This is a conversation we shall take up another time,” he says, returning his gaze to me. His eyes are just as blue as Gabe’s, though nowhere near as cold. There is heat beyond the ice.

“I appreciate this is unusual…” Ether starts.

Unusual? I would have laughed had I not been so utterly mute. They all have wings, for crying out loud. If three men standing in my back garden wasn’t unusual enough, then having sodding huge black wings certainly puts them at the top of the goddamn unusual mountain.

Rain pelts harder, lightning erupts in angry strokes, but all I can do is move involuntarily towards them. A pull in my stomach wrenches me forward. I should be running away, screaming. I should be inside calling my mum, the police, a goddamn priest, but I do none of those things. Rain runs in rivulets over my skin, clamping my hair against my head as I step down onto the boggy grass.

The third angel moves forward, holding his hand up. I stop in my tracks. He shakes his head.

Slightly shorter than the other two, with dark blonde hair and a kind but haunted face, he steps towards me. Summer-blue eyes regard me with weariness, but behind that is something else, something strange, given the circumstances… Awe. He appears in awe of me, though perhaps it is just my own feelings reflected in his eyes.

“Mihr, what is it?” Gabe asks.

Mihr? I’ve never heard that name before. I stand transfixed, my clothes plastered against my skin, my hair stuck to my face and my teeth chattering as I absorb the three men, imprinting them into my memories. They all have the same soul-searching eyes, all a bright blue but in varying shades. None look older than their mid-twenties, but something about them makes me think they are far, far older than that.

“Mihr, what do you sense?” Ether asks, following up Gabe’s question with another.

I have the sudden, sick-making feeling that they won’t be staying long. Why does the thought of their leaving make me feel so bereft? I should be terrified, knowing what they are. Well, knowing who one of them is, at least. I have no idea whether the other two men take lives like he does. Are they even men?

Gabe moves forward and rests his hand against Mihr’s outstretched arm.

We exchange looks and something squeezes infinitesimally tighter around my heart. I was wrong, the drawing inside hasn’t captured Gabe’s essence at all. How can I capture sin wrapped in heaven, darkness wrapped in light? Or is it the other way around? I don’t know. I don’t understand what it is that I see, that I sense about this man. About all of them.

I take another step forward.

Mihr shakes his head again and points his finger upwards, before moving his fingers and hands in a way that is familiar, yet utterly alien. Is that sign language? It isn’t any that I recognise but Gabe and Ether appear to understand him well enough. Mihr drops his arm, and steps back. His mouth is drawn in a thin line over a tense jaw. He doesn’t take his eyes off me. Not once. What is he trying to say?

Should I fear him, fear them all? Is he trying to protect me? Are they here to take my life, just like Gabe took that baby boy’s?

I have so many questions, but I am mute now, as well as deaf. Wait? I should be deaf. I shouldn’t be able to hear them. My hearing aids are indoors. How can I hear them? I feel the rumble of thunder, the pull in the sky before the lightning flashes once again, and I know that if I had my hearing aids in I would have heard the sound, but I don’t. So why can I hear these men speak? I don’t understand. None of this makes sense.

“There are many things we need to discuss, daughter of Celeste and Eos, missing daughter of Clan Vitae, but it appears we have been summoned. If we do not return, Queen Adrielle will become suspicious. I am sorry we have arrived only to leave you once again. The next time we shall stay, explain. I promise you this…” He stops, realising he doesn’t even know my name.

“Fern, her name is Fern,” Gabe says softly.

The sound of my name from his lips pulls me towards them once more. I am under his spell, their spell. I take another step. The ground seems to undulate beneath my feet, as a woozy feeling ripples up my body. Who are Celeste and Eos? Clan Vitae? Queen Adrielle? What is Ether saying? I don’t understand any of it. They blur in front of me, and I blink back the raindrops, wiping at my eyes.

“Fern, we will return for you. Take this,” Ether says, handing me a cold, jagged stone. Our fingers touch only briefly but a searing heat zings against my skin, despite the freezing rain. “We have no need for this anymore, now that we have found you…”

“I can hear you…” I say, the words leaking from my mouth. “How can I hear you?”

Ether cocks his head to the side, a frown pulling his eyebrows together. Rain streams down his face and drips from his strong jaw.

“We shall be back, angel,” he says.

Angel?

Behind him, Mihr steps forward and clamps his hand on Ether’s shoulder. They exchange glances. Ether nods his head sharply then launches himself into the sky. I stumble back at the suddenness of his exit, the cold blast of wind prickling my skin.

Just like that he is gone.

Mihr catches my arm, steadying me. I feel a faint warmth where his skin touches mine, it is different to Ether’s blazing heat. Mihr’s is a steady warmth, like spring sunshine heating a crisp April morning. It compels me to move closer. As ridiculous as it sounds, I want his touch, if only to warm the cold seeping into my bones. I sway unsteadily, and he lets me go. Mihr doesn’t say a word, he simply considers me for long moments before dropping his head to his chest. Then he does something completely unexpected; he drops to his knee like a knight would to his queen. His black wings spread out behind him, stretching wide. His wingspan is huge. I have the sudden urge to touch the sleek, black feathers but as I lean over, my fingers outstretched, he stands upright once again. With one final curt nod of his head, Mihr beats his wings, throwing raindrop pearls into the air as he lifts off into the sky. In seconds he has disappeared. I try to spot him, but just like Ether he has disappeared into the darkness. Gone, as though he had never been here at all.

Then there was one.

Transfixed to the spot, the cold now seeping into my bones, I watch Gabe approach me. He glowers. I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong. I don’t know why I even care. I should be scared, terrified, knowing what he is capable of.

“It shouldn’t be you,” he says.

“What shouldn’t be me?” I wipe at the rain on my face, my teeth chattering in earnest now.

“I had no idea. I didn’t know,” he rambles.

“Didn’t know what? I don’t understand.”

“You saw me and now you are the one who has the power to…” His voice trails off. Shaking his head, he steps towards me. It’s as though he is as drawn to me, as much as I am to him. I don’t understand what it is that I feel, morbid curiosity, or is it something else far more frightening?

He steps forward again, closer than I feel comfortable with, yet not close enough. Rain falls steadily onto my upturned face as I gaze up at him. His eyes draw me in, they frighten me. They remind me of the baby he took and the heartache he dished up.

“Look at you,” he says.

It takes me a few moments to realise it has stopped raining, only to find that his wings are encasing us both. That he has made a shelter from them. We are cocooned together in this private sanctuary of dark, velvety feathers.

“You’re soaked through. You must go inside now,” he says, concern pulling his brows together.

But I don’t want to go inside. I have so many questions. Too many questions. Why arrive then leave so soon?

“It’s been a year…” I say, wanting him to understand in some tiny way the impact his absence has made on me.

“It’s been many years longer for me.”

“What do you mean?” It hasn’t been years!

“There’s no time to explain, Fern.”

I am captured by the way he says my name and the deep bass of his voice. The voice I have become so accustomed to over the past few years. The voice that abandoned me for twelve long months. A voice that scares me as much as it thrills me. I want to back away, I want to lean into his arms.

“Who are you? What are you?” I whisper. Fear and attraction scatters over my skin, two polar opposites messing with my emotions, pulling me in different directions. He took that baby’s life, and yet I can’t hate him for it. I should, but I don’t, and I have no idea why.

He presses his eyes shut, not able to look at me.

“Tell me who you are,” I insist, a sudden anger making me bold.

His eyes snap open and I swear I can see ice mountains form within them. Unscalable, impenetrable. I back up into his wings, stilling when a feather trails across the bare skin of my neck. It shoots an electric current straight over my skin until I feel like a streak of lightning crackling in the sky above us.

“I think you know already what I am. You saw what happened. You looked right into my very soul, but you didn’t run. Why did you follow me?”

He’s right. I know exactly what he is.

“I want you to say it. I want you to tell me, Gabe,” I add, the unfamiliar name strange on my lips. “Why did you take that baby’s life? Why?” My voice cracks, the past year’s pent-up emotions releasing.

“It’s what we do…”

“We?”

“Yes, Mihr, Ether, the rest of Clan Vitae. We take life now…” He struggles with the words, anger and pain marking them, making them sharp.

“We are the Angels of Death. We are the Death Bringers. We are Clan Vitae, and you, Fern, you are our saviour.” He lifts his hand to my face and cups my cheek. His eyes widen as he does so, as if he’s surprised by his own actions. He moves to pull away, but I capture his fingers under mine and press his palm back against my skin, savouring his touch.

For a moment time ceases to exist as we hold each other’s gaze, as we stand toe to toe, hand to cheek. An eternity passes.

His touch starts off warm, like Ether’s and Mihr’s, but then rapidly evolves into something cold and dark.

Something dangerous.

My head swims the longer he cups my face. Black spots begin to mar my vision. My body sways.

“No!” he shouts, yanking his hand away. His wings pull back, allowing the rain to fall on my numbed cheek.

“How cruel this twist of fate,” he says, before launching himself into the sky and disappearing just like the others.

My knees buckle, and I fall to the sodden earth.