The pain was intense, unlike anything I’d ever felt before, and as I knelt on the ground, hunched in pain, my wings began to die. The soft, downy feathers began to shrivel, to curl into themselves. The luminous color faded until they were no longer white, but sickly and old. And then like a tree in late winter shedding its leaves, they began to fall. They floated toward the ground with exaggerated slowness, drawing out my pain as I watched the things I loved most about myself be taken away.
I sat there on the ground, silently crying long after the light had faded and the physical pain had stopped. I tried to comprehend the emptiness inside me and the way the air pressed in on my empty back. They were gone. I would never know what it was to fly again. I would never feel the rush of the wind, the freedom of the open air against my skin, for the rest of my entire endless existence.
Finally, I looked up. Airis was still there, but she turned to walk away.
“I still love him, you know,” I said, my voice rougher than ever before.
She stopped and turned back. “I know. It is why you have not been banned to hell, but confined to the earth. You committed a crime. But the crime was committed out of love. Father knows you still love him, Gemma. You just don’t love him enough.”
She disappeared then. I knew I would never see her again.
Callum wrapped his arms around me and lifted me from the ground, cradling me against his chest. I imagined I must have felt awfully light without my wings.
“They punished you for loving me.” His voice was raw.
No. They punished me for not loving God enough. “It could have been worse,” I said, realizing I was lucky to not be sentenced to a life in hell. It was proof that God, my Father, was a forgiving being.
If I couldn’t love him from heaven, then I would continue to do so from Earth.
“How? How could things have been worse?”
“They could have taken my wings and you away.”
His hold on me tightened. “I’m not going anywhere.
I laid my head against his chest as he walked away from the place where I fell. Considering this primitive, raw place was now my home, I was more than relieved to hear him say that.
After I Fell
Six months. That’s how long we had together. In those six months I learned a lot about human emotion and how to live somewhere that was a far cry from perfection. Callum built us a cottage in the woods, near the stream where we met. My favorite thing to do was soak my feet in the water, as I often did, sometimes for hours at a time when Callum was at work or off spending time with the son I hadn’t known he had.
Learning to live without my wings was something I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to. Perhaps after many, many years they would only be a memory, but even when I told myself that, something inside me whispered that I would never really forget.
For the most part, we were happy. It wasn’t the blissful, all-encompassing happiness that I knew only existed in heaven. It had its ups and downs, its smiles and frowns. Callum was a man of many moods. I knew most of that was because of the beast. His emotions seemed to run hot and cold and he would fight them, doing his best to battle the side of him he wasn’t quite sure how to control.
That first month was the hardest because he walked around in fear. Fear that he would lose control and hurt someone, hurt me. I knew he wouldn’t. There was too much goodness in him, and the more time that passed the more he began to believe it too.
We laughed a lot, kissed a lot, and ate a lot. Earth was home to more tastes than I ever imagined and learning about them all was an adventure.
I hadn’t seen Callum in almost two days when he pulled into the yard, cutting the engine of the motorcycle that he drove. I was hanging clothes on a line he’d strung between the trees and I dropped what I was holding and ran to meet him. He smiled and kissed me as he always did, but I saw something brewing in his eyes. The beast was close to the surface and it made me afraid.
“Is everything okay, Callum?” I asked, wondering what could’ve changed since the last time I saw him, when he was happy and relaxed.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” he said, setting me away from him.
I went back to the laundry and he went inside to change. I was humming my favorite hymn when I heard him yelling from inside the house, calling my name. I turned just as he burst through the door, racing toward me, fear on his face.
“What’s the matter?”
“Get in the house. Lock yourself in,”
A voice from behind, someone concealed by the sheet hanging on the line, spoke up. “You think those walls will keep me out?”
I turned, yanking the sheet down to reveal a man with dark hair and brown eyes. He had cruelty written on his features.
“No. But I sure as hell will.” Callum snarled.
Who was this man? Callum seemed to know him, but it didn’t seem to be a pleasant acquaintance. I watched his body shake and quiver just like it always did before he shifted, but instead of shedding his skin and sprouting fur, he fell to his knees and let out a cry.
“I prefer you in your human form,” the man said, holding up some kind of amulet.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Get in the house, Gemma,” Callum ordered again, but his voice was strained and weak.
From out of the trees three others materialized. They weren’t human. From the grossly formed faces, disfigured bodies, and empty eyes, I knew these were the demons I’d heard Sinead mention a few times before. I looked back at the man holding the amulet. He smiled and my skin crawled.
I ran toward the house, but I felt the pull of invisible ropes as they wrapped themselves around me, tugged, and then suspended me just above the ground.
“She isn’t part of this,” Callum said as he struggled to his feet.
“Perhaps not, but this way she can see what happens when you fail to fulfill a deal that is signed in blood.”
“What is he talking about, Callum?” I asked.
He looked at me, guilt marring his features. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” I asked, fear beginning to claw at the back of my throat.
“For everything,” he said as sweat dripped down his face. His skin was pale and he swayed on his feet. That amulet had to be the cause of his weakened state.
“Allow me to explain,” said the man with the dark hair. “This man here made a deal. In exchange for his hellhound status, he would indebt himself and future hounds in his lineage to me. He would be there when I called.”
I glanced at Callum, trying to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at me.