CHAPTER 5 — A Heart That Beat Again

ANGEL'S POV

My shadow points to the moon, not away from it. That one impossible sight tells me, I'm somewhere the laws of God's earth no longer work.

Then the air changes.

It happens so fast I don't even have time to be scared. The warmth disappears, as if someone pulled it out of the world. Frost races over the grass toward my bare feet. A flower beside me freezes, then shatters. I crawl back, my hands scraping ice that wasn't there a second ago.

Then something roars.

It isn't an animal. It's deeper, louder—a sound that shakes the ground, rattles my chest, and makes my ears ring. I cover my ears, but I can still feel it.

I turn toward it before I can stop myself. Every instinct screams at me to run, but my feet refuse to move. I stand frozen, my gaze betraying me as it drifts back despite every desperate attempt to look away.

He is a god of a man.

He stands alone in the clearing, towering over everything at nearly seven feet four inches. His silver hair falls to his shoulders, shimmering like moonlight. His eyes glow a deep, hungry red, like a furnace burning in the dark.

He is completely naked.

I have never seen a man without clothes before. My face burns with a heat that feels like it could consume me. I tear my eyes away immediately, telling myself it is wrong, regretting the second I dared to look.

But my body betrays me. Slowly, almost against my will, my head turns back. I fight it. I tell myself to stop, to be pure, to be blind—but I can't. I am powerless against the pull of him.

My breath hitches, getting stuck in my throat as my eyes rake over him. He is massive. Powerful. His skin is as white as bone, stretched tight over hard, heavy muscles that look like they were carved from stone. His chest is broad, his pectoral muscles twitching with every slow breath he takes. My gaze slides down, tracing the hard lines of his stomach, following the deep V-line that disappears into his groin. Blood and frost smear across his skin, clinging to his muscles and making his body glisten under the moonlight.

He looks dangerous. He looks primal. He looks like everything I have been taught to fear—and everything I suddenly, desperately want. A heavy, aching hunger blooms in my chest, a forbidden heat that makes my knees weak.

Above him, fifteen massive dragons circle in the sky, their wings blocking out the moon. As the man snaps his head up to snarl at the nearest beast, his lips pull back. Two long, sharp fangs catch the moonlight.

He is a monster, but he is the most breathtaking creature I have ever seen. I don't want to run anymore. I want him to stay right here so I can keep looking at him.

But everything around me is still far too dangerous to ignore, even with his beauty pulling my eyes away. The colossal beasts standing before me say otherwise. Fire burns inside their mouth, and their wings are bigger than the church in Ashbrook.

Every myth I copied into my diary by candlelight, every "silly superstition" Sister Agnes warned me not to waste my curiosity on, is standing right in front of me, breathing fire and ice beneath a sky with one giant moon that looks big enough to be two back in Bucharest. Maybe I’ve fallen into the world from one of my forbidden books.

I duck behind the nearest tree before any of them can turn my way. My heart is slamming so hard I can feel it in my throat. I press my back to the frozen bark and squeeze my eyes shut, praying the way I've prayed my whole life, fast and quiet under my breath —

Lord, don't let them see me, Lord, please protect me.

And then I feel it. Heat. Right beside my face.

I open my eyes and a dragon's head is turned directly toward my tree, its jaws already glowing orange from the inside.

No time to run. No time to scream.

Fire explodes toward me. I throw my arms over my head and pray harder than ever. Please, God. Just one more chance.

The flames rush around me—but they never touch me. Not my skin. Not my hair. Not even my dress. The heat burns the air around me, but the fire bends away, curling into the frozen grass behind me.

I stand there, shaking, until the dragon loses interest and flies back into the battle.

“Thank You, Lord,” I whisper, still unsure why I was spared.

But one thing is clear—God is still with me, even in this place. Relief washes over me, leaving me weak and dizzy.

I peek from behind the tree.

He hasn't stopped fighting. Ice bursts from his hand, freezing a river fifty feet away in a single breath. But that's not the most amazing part. He's not just fighting back. He's controlling every move.

He freezes the ground beneath two dragons, making them crash instead of land. He shatters a rock into sharp shards and sends them slicing through a dragon's wing. Then a blast of fire races toward a nearby field. He throws himself in front of it. The flames hit him, and he drops hard. A grunt escapes his lips. That's all. Not even a scream.

I press a trembling hand over my mouth.

How can one man hold so much power? Is he an angel? A demon? A monster? Or... a king?

I couldn't make sense of him. But the way all fifteen dragons hesitated, their massive wings beating against the frozen air instead of attacking, told me everything I needed to know.

Even monsters feared him.

Yet fear wasn't enough to make them flee.

With a furious roar, one dragon hurled itself at him, determined to bring him down no matter the cost.

He simply lifts one hand. The stream of fire stops in the air, freezes, then it drops to the ground, breaking into bright red pieces of glass.

“Fire... frozen?” I whisper, my voice shaking. “That's impossible.”

None of my books ever talked about this.

Then I see it.

Every move drains him. His skin grows paler as frost thickens and cracks around him. His power isn't just killing the dragons. It's killing him too.

Something brushes my ankle.

“Ahh!” I yelp, jumping back before I can stop myself.

I stare down.

A tiny snow moth flutters over the ice, its pale white wings glowing against the blue snow.

I let out a shaky breath. “Oh... you stupid little thing.”

Too late.

My scream rips through the silent forest. The dragons keep attacking, but his head jerks toward the sound. His crimson eyes search the trees until they find me.

Across the frozen, broken field, our eyes meet. For one heartbeat, the battle disappears. It's just the two of us, staring at each other as if we both know something we shouldn't. Then he looks away.

Did he really see me... or only sense that I was there?

The thought barely settles before guilt crashes into me. Because of me, he misses the next attack— Sharp claws rip across his side. Fire slams into his shoulder. He stumbles, then drops to one knee.

Guilt hits me hard.

He's getting hurt because of me. I distracted him when he was fighting for his life.

“No,” I whisper. “No... no.”

I can't hide anymore.

Before I can think, I grab a fist-sized rock from the frozen ground. My hands shake so badly I almost drop it. I'm not a fighter. Sister Agnes always said my hands were made for prayer, not war.

I throw it anyway, as hard as I can toward the dragon at the back of the group. It hits its wing. Useless.  

It doesn’t even look at me.  

I grab another stone. Then another. My arms ache, and my hands are torn open, but I keep throwing. None of it is enough. He's burning because of my stupid mistake, and the guilt cuts deeper than the pain. Suddenly every dragon pulls at once. It feels like magic. Like they're draining the life out of him. Even from here, I feel it—the air itself is being sucked out.

He gasps. Blood spills from his mouth. He is no longer fighting them. He is fighting to stay alive. Before I can think, I run from behind the tree into the open. I have no plans. 

“Hey!” I shout. “Leave him alone! All of you against one? That's not fair!”

One dragon's massive tail crashed down like a falling tree. He vanished beneath it. When he rose again, blood streamed from the fresh gash across his throat. The pain that tore through me felt as if the wound had been carved into my own flesh. I ran harder, my lungs burning, my vision blurred with tears.

Too far. Too small. Too human. But none of it mattered. I couldn't let him die alone.

Before I reached him, he suddenly threw back his head and roared. It wasn't a human sound. It was ancient. Wild. Heartbreaking.

The world answered.

Ice exploded from him in a violent circle, hurling me backward. I hit the frozen ground hard, the breath knocked from my lungs.

The air froze. The trees froze. The birds froze. Above us, the dragons stopped in mid-flight, their wings spread wide, flames trapped inside their open mouths like dying candles. Then they shattered. A thousand glittering pieces burst into the night, disappearing beneath the silver moonlight.

Silence.

Not the quiet after a battle. Something deeper. Stranger. A silence so complete it made the world feel empty.

Fear wrapped icy fingers around my heart. For one terrible moment, I thought I had frozen too—that I simply hadn't realized I was already dead. My shaking hands flew to my face. I was still breathing and trembling. The cold bit into my skin until my teeth clattered, yet I was the only living soul the ice had spared.

He was on his knees at the center of it all. A small, weary smile touched his lips—so gentle it almost hurt to look at. Then, without another word, he pitched forward, collapsing face-first into the snow.

"No..." The word broke inside me. "No! You can't die!"

I stumbled toward him, falling to my knees before I even realized I was moving. The snow soaked through my dress as I crawled the last few feet.

"Please... please wake up."

I gathered him into my lap. His body felt impossibly heavy, still and cold. Blood stained my trembling hands, my dress, the white snow beneath us. I waited for his chest to rise.

It didn't.

"Please..." My voice cracked into a sob. "Please open your eyes."

My hands are shaking so hard I can barely hold his face. He's very young, I think wildly, no older than twenty-one. Someone my age who hadn't even had the chance to become anything. How can he just die like this?

I'm crying. Really crying. Hot tears fall onto his cold skin while the sharp smell of snow fills the air. I'm crying for a stranger I met only five minutes ago in a nightmare I still don't understand. Yet seeing him like this feels like someone has torn my heart open. Something inside me mourned him with a grief I couldn't explain.

"Why?" I whisper, angry at myself, at my own heart for hurting this much. "Why does this hurt so much? I don't even know your name."

Then I feel his heart stop completely, as if it heard my question. The silver moon slips behind a dark cloud, and the world seems to lose its light. Something inside me gives up trying to understand and simply breaks. I sob so hard my whole body shakes, the kind of crying I haven't done since I was a little girl.

That's when I noticed his bare skin against mine. I don't know why he's naked, but I quickly take off my cardigan and cover him. My fingers fumble as I keep my eyes on his face, refusing to look anywhere else.

Modesty. Dignity. Even in death.

"Lord," I whisper, resting my forehead against his. "If you're there... if you can hear me... please. Don't let him die like this."

A tear falls.

Then another.

They land on his face.

The moon breaks free from the clouds, brighter than before. Pale light spreads across the snow as the ice around us slowly begins to melt. Under my hand, against his chest, something stirs.

Once. Twice.

A heartbeat.

For the first time since I fell through the wall, I feel warmth. This time, it isn't mine, but his. It starts as the faintest heat beneath my palm, soft and fragile, before spreading through his cold body little by little.

I freeze.

Did my tears bring him back? Or was it God? A miracle? Magic? Or something else entirely?

Slowly, his eyes open—not wide, only a tiny bit—but even through that narrow opening, I see them burning red.

"…Warm," he breathes, so quiet I nearly miss it. "I have never felt warmth before. Not once. In two hundred years."

“Two hundred years…?” My voice cracks. He's a boy. He can't be—

Then he sees me. Really sees me. Every softness in his face vanishes like it was never there.

I try to scramble back, but his hand shoots out and closes around my wrist before I've moved an inch, his grip like iron, like fire burning straight through my skin.

I gasp.  

“Let go,” I say. My voice doesn’t shake. It won’t. “You’re hurting me.”  

He doesn't. His grip only tightens.

We're so close I can smell him—the warm scent of sweet spice mixed with fresh snow.

"You brought me back."

It's not a question. His voice is low, trembling with something far heavier than gratitude.

I nod because lying would be a sin.

He keeps speaking as if every word costs him the little strength he has left. "Do you have any idea how many centuries I've spent trying to die?"

I can't answer. I can't even breathe. His words knock the air from my lungs.

How could anyone want to die?

His fingers tighten around my wrist until it hurts.

"Who," he growls, "gave you permission to take that away from me?"