I hesitated, watching a glint of gold through the thick forestry. It wasn’t a blinding glow or even a substantial light, it was the dim gold of light that had been hidden for a very long time, maybe it had never shown correctly.

It was the dim glow of a Star.

That meant the gray haze was of the Fallen.

And they were watching us.

But that didn’t make sense because a Star wouldn’t be with the Fallen unless they were in battle. And the Fallen wouldn’t just watch as Seth and I destroyed so many Shadows, they would engage us. Or run.

I had to have imagined it.

I turned my head back to Seth as he finished off the last of the Shadows near him. Their eel like bodies littered the snow around him, oozing sticky piles of slim on to the pure whiteness around them before disappearing from this world to be banished to hell for the rest of eternity.

“Did you see them?” I tilted my head toward the tree line, finally feeling the Darkness completely retreat. Seth and I were finally alone.

“See what?” Seth asked, clearly having noticed them much sooner than me.

“I think there were people watching us. Maybe Fallen. There was some light when they left. It wasn’t bright, but I saw it,” I explained, hoping he believed me.

“Interesting,” Seth sighed, closing the distance between us. Up close I could see the splatter of thick, black blood across his chest and shoulder blades. His hands were coated in the heavy sludge, and his sword was well doused. But he looked relatively unharmed and his eyes flashed with the pride of victory. “We should find your parents and Jupiter immediately. I’m sure they will want to know what happened.”

I nodded weakly.

Seth took another step forward as if unsure of himself and then pulled me into a hug. “You did good, Stella,” he whispered proudly in my ear. “It’s overwhelming the first time, but you did really, really good.”

I tried to speak but winced instead from his arm across my back. Seth instantly let go, turning me around and lifting my sweater away from my body. I wanted to feel embarrassed, but my back felt completely shredded, as if the skin were just barely hanging on. The backs of my legs, too, felt like they had been sliced by thousands of razor blades from my calves to my thighs, the numbing cold of evil inundating my veins and leaving me stiff and frozen.

“Let’s get you home,” Seth said seriously and my stomach clenched at the level of concern in his voice.

“Is it that bad?” I asked, ready for the truth.

“What the stench? Oh yeah, it’s pretty bad,” he smiled, lightening the mood. “And you look really gross; I can’t even tell what color your hair is anymore. Plus, you have a few paper cuts on your back that might need to be looked at.”

I forced a smile, thankful for his candid nature. He smiled back, but the apprehension was still obvious in his eyes.

“Were you this bad in your first fight?” I winced, hoping for some camaraderie.

“Oh no, I’ve barely ever gotten a scratch,” his smile turned wicked and if I had any strength left I would have punched him. “But I’ve generally used bigger weapons than your little baby sword.”

“It’s the only thing that would fit under my skirt!” I protested, my breath wheezing out unstably. I sucked in a sharp breath when I let my weight lean into Seth; the pressure of his arm against my torn apart skin was almost too much.

“Maybe it’s time to get a bigger sword,” Seth mused, gently slipping an arm under me. “And a longer skirt.”

Chapter Nine

“You need to go to the high council,” Jupiter argued from the kitchen table. I lay on my side, listening to the grownups heated and muffled discussion of tonight’s events from my bedroom. “They need to start an investigation immediately. There is a spy in their midst and your daughter’s life is at stake…. the future of this planet is at stake!”

I cringed, hating that my parents had to defend the orders they were given. They weren’t staying on planet to put me in more danger; they were staying near me to protect me until I could efficiently protect myself. But Jupiter wasn’t seeing their perspective; the possibility of a traitor hiding amongst the elders was dividing the argument down the middle.

But my parents had been ordered to stay. There was nothing they could do and no need to argue. I couldn’t offer my opinion though since I had been ordered to stay in bed, healing salve applied to each wound and sore. I bit my bottom lip to keep from shouting my opinion down at them.

I was their daughter, but heavenly orders came first. Every Star and Warrior understood that our response to this call that was greater than us, greater than our familial responsibilities. Obeying orders was our first priority.

Except what if our “call” had been compromised?

What if our orders were coming from the traitor….?

“I have already sent word. For now we cannot leave Stella alone!” my father answered Jupiter’s demands with a raised voice, completely out of character for him. If you were not part of the Darkness, he had unending patience for you. And if you were part of the Darkness…. well, then you usually didn’t last long enough to see his temper elevate. Jupiter was on the rare receiving end of a deadly Warrior who had lost his patience.

“Sending word is no longer good enough!” Jupiter argued. “You need to make sure, no…. you need to stand over them until a course of action is decided! Staying here is only going to continue to put Stella and Seth in danger. They are…. they are…. what is that phrase…. they are standing turkeys until we do something! I would go there myself if it didn’t mean I had to die first!”

“Ducks,” my mother offered sweetly. “Sitting ducks.”

A long silence followed her correction and I imagined Jupiter staring her down from underneath his bushy white eyebrows, seething with irritation. I took the opportunity to try and shift into a more comfortable position, but I ended up pulling at the bandages covering my back instead. I clutched at the sheets around me and winced from the movement.

In the morning, my back would be healed, or so I was told. But it was going to be a very long night. My veins hurt. My actual veins!

“Maybe we send the children home, until they have fully trained,” Nathaniel, the temporary Warrior offered.

Serena and Nathaniel had been called to account for their absence during our fight from my parents and Jupiter who had been furious with them. They were the stand-in Protectors until we were properly trained and should never have left us to the battle tonight alone. Their instincts and powers should have alerted them to our battle, should have cried out to them to come to our aid, but they unexplainably heard nothing.

Granted they had a busy night, fighting off Shadows all over the world that seemed to be acting up in a way of a decoy. But they still should have felt our need and the concentrated effort of so many Shadows in one place. The silence they experienced was eerie and very unsettling. Unless the married couple was a part of this traitorous conspiracy, something was going on that none of us nor the Council in Heaven could fully understand.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and tuned out the angry replies from both my parents and Jupiter at the suggestion Seth and I retreat to heaven. I found myself stuck on Nathaniel’s words though, “home.” I had never been to the lowest level of Heaven where every other Star called home, so it didn’t feel like home to me. In fact, the idea of hiding away in what might as well be a different dimension and leaving this farmhouse, my real home, sounded awful….

“At least they all agree,” Seth smiled sarcastically as he slipped into my room otherwise soundlessly.

“Yeah, it sounds like it,” I laughed weakly.

Seth leaned against the closed door, with his hands behind his back looking uncomfortable surrounded by the girlyness of my room. I forgot I was eavesdropping for a moment as he stood there staring at me, his honey colored eyes settling on mine in a mischievous way that sent a shiver over the core of my body.

It didn’t help that he was shirtless and wearing his low-riding sweatpants that made his hip bones pop out provocatively. I smiled to myself wondering how such a representation of all things good and wholesome could look like that much trouble all packaged up and ready to bring out my daddy’s shot gun.

If he was not my Warrior, now would be the time to start worrying about my suddenly questionable virtue….

But he was my Warrior. And therefore I knew I had nothing to worry about from his full, masculine lips or the way that his eyes twinkled as if pushing all limits and boundaries were innately in his nature.

His skin started to warm and glow, and when I refocused my attention on his eyes I realized it was because of the way I was staring at him.

Objectifying him….

What was wrong with me?

I chose to blame the fact that he was an Angel.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling my own cheeks heat with embarrassment. “Uh, so it’s not going well down there?” I changed the subject and averted my eyes around the room to find something else to look at…. anything else.

“There are too many opinions,” he explained, sliding down the door into a sitting position on the floor. He stretched out his long legs in front of him and crossed his ankles. I avoided the way his stomach muscles folded over each other and the attractive color of light emanating from him in soft waves.

I completely avoided it.

“They all want what’s best for us,” I decided, feeling something stir inside of me…. something like a war between gratitude and teenage rebellion. “And suddenly they can’t trust anybody else. This is a first for them.”

“What do you think is best for us?” Seth asked, his amber eyes turning to gold.

“I want to stay and fight, to train here and show the Darkness we are ready for this war,” I answered quietly, but with the gravity of every one of my convictions.

“That’s what I want too,” Seth smiled confidently. “And that’s what we’ll do.”

Seth stood up, and reached for the door handle. He would inform the grownups of our decision and then, because I trusted him implicitly and because I instinctively could feel out his decisions, he wouldn’t give them an option to argue.

“Seth?” I stopped him before he left. He turned his head and waited patiently as I gathered the courage to ask my next question, “What do you think their plan is? I mean…. the Darkness? What are they trying to do?”

“Kill us,” he answered simply.

I took a moment to swallow and let his words settle over me.

“Then only their tactics have changed,” I decided. “But so have ours.”

“Exactly,” he smiled at me, a fire lighting his face and destiny electrifying his being.

Ultimately it didn’t matter how the Darkness tried to destroy us, our call, our goals…. our fate didn’t change. We were born and bred to fight evil and protect this planet. And that is exactly what we were going to do.

My phone buzzed next to me on the nightstand and I reached for it as Seth closed the door behind him on his way downstairs. Under normal circumstances and if it was anyone else I would have let voicemail bother with it, but Tristan’s familiar picture stared at me and his number scrolled across the bottom of the screen.