PROLOGUE
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“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
–Genesis 8:22
When Heaven and Hell went to war, we were what remained.
The farmers and the fishermen. People who lived on the land and tilled the soil and made things grow. We fed the masses who joined the celestial armies, and because we were useful, we were left alone.
They said we were already Blessed, because God loves the salt of the Earth, and we believed them.
And more important than all that—than my service to the heavenly cause, or my loyalty to the Heavenly Host—was the fact that I got to stay free.
I’m not the kind of girl who could evernotbe free.
The wind whistles in my ears as my mare, Annie, gallops across the Texas prairies, aiming straight for the break in the celestial curtain. The sun is just about to set, catching the wildflower fields on fire with crimson light, and we race toward that sunset like the forces of hell are nipping at our heels. My thighs ache from the long ride today, out toward Austin, where I can see the blue sky for the first time in damn near two decades.
So I ride, and I listen to Annie’s breathing, and my heart pounds in my chest. My rifle is slung over my back, a touch of safety in this wild world of beasts and devils. If anything messes with me, I know how to use it. My daddy taught me well.
Patience and a steady hand, Tilda.
He would be angry I came out here, if he was still around.
But I’m almost there, where the moon peeks over the horizon, hanging low in an empty lavender sky. There’s something about the Texas sky that always makes me feel freer—that reminds me I’m just a tiny speck of dust in a big old galaxy, spinning in circles on my itty bitty planet. And I haven’t seen it like this since I was a kid—since before the shimmering red shield tinted the fields rose gold.
“Easy,” I coo to my horse, sitting up straighter as we slow down. She comes to a trot, then a walk, then stands perfectly still in the tall grass. I dismount and take Annie by the reins, stepping forward as I see the change from pink to big, beautiful blue.
The stars are twinkling in the dusk: signs of life in what sometimes feels like an empty world. The rebels say our Angels are aliens.
Sometimes, I think they might be right, no matter how absurd it sounds.
“If there’s anyone out there, send me a sign,” I whisper. “It gets awfully lonely out here on the prairie.”
No one replies.
I’m alone after all.
So why does it feel like there’s someone here? Someone with their arms around me, calling my name on a summer breeze…
If I close my eyes, I can almost feel the scrape of five o’clock shadow on my jaw, breath on the shell of my ear.
The full moon brings out something strange in me.
But it’s got to be a fantasy, or maybe a memory. Memories of a girl who was fourteen when the Angels came, riding her horse on a night just like this one as scores of glowing beings descended from the heavens.
It sends a shiver down my spine.
But I don’t have the time to dwell on it, as I wait for my four compatriots to join me. Because it’s time to rally the troops.
We have a wolf den to raid.
CHAPTER ONE
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REYES