Page 14 of Feathers and Scales

He hesitated. “Do you want me to tell her what happened?”

“No.”We both know she’s too self-sacrificing.The last thing Izzy needed was her friend getting herself killed and the Archfiend getting her power. He nodded, grabbed his cup, and crossed the living room to his room. The door snicked shut.

A twinge scored through Izzy’s stomach, and she breathed through the pain, pushing it from her mind.

“Are you alright?” Sarah asked.

“I’m fine.” Classical music blasted from Simon’s door. “Will that suffice?”

Daxton nodded, but his body remained forward and tense.

“We’re dragon shifters,” Sarah said, grabbing a mug of tea. “Born to destroy the creatures preying on mortals. It’s said that we came fromall predatory animals. We shift to our dragon form when needed. The dragon side is instinct while our human side is rational thought. But it’s a constant battle to keep our dragon hidden.”

“So…two personalities waging war for control?”

Sarah chuckled. “Not any more than your heart battles your mind. They may want different things, but they’re both a part of you.”

“Makes sense.” Izzy described her spirit form in the same way. But she didn’t shift into a spirit as much detach from her mortal body.

“And you are a…?” Sarah blew across the tea and took a sip.

“A Fallen.”

Daxton and Sarah stilled.

Her chest tightened, and her hands trembled beneath the table, fearing she’d said something wrong.

The inflection in Daxton’s tone hit like an accusation. “You’re an angel?”

Longing yanked at Izzy’s heart. She winced. That cursed word stirred a memory—a light orb, emotionless, free in a chasm of everything: past, future, and present. No emotion, just being. “I was, in a sense. It is one of the closest words to what I was in human terms.”

“The official ancient term for the dragons is cherubim, protectors of humankind,” Sarah said. “Some even believe we’re a type of angel.”

Focusing within herself, she browsed the library of knowledge in her brain for that term. She’d compartmentalized the memories she’d collected during each of her reincarnated lives into a never-ending maze. “The cherubim are referenced in the book of Ezekiel. Middle Eastern artwork depicts it as a lion or bull with eagle wings and a human face. How did that arise from a dragon?”

“People’s imaginations create whatever they want.”

Izzy’s own origin seemed to center on the God of Abrahamic religions. The religion’s origins occurred during the time she was Dormant—a condition in which to stop herself from reincarnating, she kept her spirit attached to her human body after she died.

Before the Fallen’s transgressions caused the Supreme to cast them to Earth, she’d existed as light. Afterward, she’d been born human with the need and means to kill demons.

“May I ask you, Sarah?” Izzy asked. “Why haven’t I come upon anything like you?”

“We’ve never come across anything like you, either.”

“And you protect mankind from what?”

“Those seeking to destroy it. Tattered Ones, or I believe you call them Archfiends, are the main offenders.”

Creating dragons to kill Archfiends was a logical move for the Supreme when considering human safety. But surely a chance encounter like hers and Daxton’s would have happened sooner. Though, the Supreme could have kept them from each other until this moment for some unexplainable reason.

Would the dragons see the Fallen as foes? Izzy wasn’t an Archfiend, nor did she have any plans to follow that path. If she acted like a good representative of her kind, perhaps the dragons and Fallen would team up to defeat their common enemy. Or perhaps the dragons would think preemptively and take out the Fallen before they fell victim to greed and became an Archfiend.

Izzy had to find out how they’d react even if a gnawing at the back of her mind whispered, “What would Daxton think of you?”

“We do refer to them as Archfiends,” Izzy said.

“How do you know about them?” Sarah asked.