by T. G. Ayer
"Flavia said you did. Covering your tracks now, are you?" She raised an eyebrow, trying not to think about the heat that simmered between them. From Julian's rapid breath, it was clear he wasn't immune.
"Don't be silly. This reeks of Persephone."
When he spoke, his lips were so close she just had to lift her head a fraction of an inch for them to touch hers. The heated brush of his breath called to her. Instead, she remained motionless while trying to force her heart to return to a more decent rate. "I thought so too."
"Then why did you accuse me?" Julian glared at her, although she was sure she saw amusement in his eyes.
Evie lifted her chin, even though the action brought her mouth way too close to his. "How was I to know you wouldn't defend her and think I'm making all of this up? And how am I to be sure it wasn't really you in the first place?"
Evie's eyes narrowed as she met his eyes. He stared back at her, blinking so slowly, so lazily that she wondered how it was possible when his heart raced wildly beneath her fingers.
It was inevitable that their lips touched.
Evie breathed and leaned into Julian as his hands went around her waist. Just one kiss made her world turn on its head. They dragged apart just for air, while Julian took her lip between his teeth. Evie shivered as her body answered, her need hot and visceral.
"Julian." His lips took hers again. He kissed her deeply, wildly and she drowned in the intoxicating scent of him.
His lips released hers and he gripped his fingers into her hair, forcing them apart. "This isn't right." He shook his head and Evie watched him, a strange dread filling her. "No, don't look like that. This…you…it's perfect. But you are Hades now and I am mortal. And I'm dying. You have no idea what it's like to watch the people you love wither away and die right before your eyes. I just can't…"
Evie shook her head. She almost told him that she knew exactly what it was like, but she didn't. She just leaned forward and kissed him.
Heat flared at her lips and he claimed her mouth, devouring her with a ferocious need. He kissed her, wild heated kisses filled with simmering need. His hands moved, slipped under her shirt. His fingers sizzled on her bare skin as he pressed her to him.
She wanted more and so did he, the need between them a blazing inferno. She moaned into his mouth and he kissed her harder, his hand moving to her breast, his thumb caressing sensitive skin.
And then he groaned and moved away, the air a cold blast of reality. Julian shook his head, his eyes one moment burning with need and the next black with iron fury. "Let's get out of here before I throw you to the chimera myself." Julian grabbed her arm and began to lead her out of the passage.
Evie pulled her elbow out of his grasp. Twin spots of anger rode high on her cheekbones. She hated being manhandled, especially right after he'd just kissed her senseless.
"Look, sorry." Julian held his hands up in surrender, his jaw tightening "I won't drag you there, okay? Just let's get out of here and find out exactly how you ended up here."
"Well, I have a feeling you won't need to look very far," Evie snapped, trying to get her emotions under control.
"If it is Persephone, she won't give up easily. You have to be careful, and not so trusting."
"I don't have to be anything. What I want to do is go home." Evie knew she sounded petulant, but at this point she didn't particularly care. She was tired and missed home too much. She had to watch her back, and now she had to watch her heart as well.
"Sorry, can't make that wish come true. The Binding holds you here for a month. No more, no less."
"No prizes for why it's called The Binding."
Evie kept her eyes off Julian as she walked. She had the tendency to get all riled up over nothing just because she was looking at his face. She heard him chuckle and felt a tiny bit better. Enough that by the time they got back to the living area, she was considerably calmer and considerably less embarrassed.
"If you try to leave, it will keep you here forever, Evangeline." Julian's eyes were filled with worry. He'd been watching her.
Had he seen her emotional upheaval? Did he know he'd sent all her emotions into a frenzy with those heavenly kisses? Did he know her heart had broken for him?
Now she stared at him. She'd forgotten he was now mortal, and that he would begin to age. Something his body would not have experienced since he'd been brought here two thousand years ago.
"I thought I would be here forever. Never thought I would ever have the opportunity to return home."
"Do you ever go up?" Evie pointed upward to Earth-side, trying to keep the conversation light, trying to forget.
Julian nodded, his eyes shadowed. "I used to go, a long time ago. But when my parents died, I had no one to visit. What would I do up there?"
"Sightsee?"
"I see enough. One trip away shows me more about how awful people are to each other than I can handle."
"It's not that bad, you know." Evie tried and failed to make him feel better. It was clear he was weighed down by a melancholy that he couldn't shake.
And she wondered how much of it was her fault.
Chapter 22
Evie's run-in with the chimera, and Julian's super-sizzling kiss, stayed with her until the next day. She could not unravel her twisted emotions. So many things were so very wrong with her life.
She was accidentally Ruler of the Underworld, now stuck down in Hades for the next month, with no one for company but a too-hot-to-handle Julian and a bitter Persephone. Granted Cerberus provided her with some companionship, but it wasn't the same.
She missed her friends, missed home, missed her job too.
She did her best to avoid the company of the beautiful Persephone. Funny how the myths of the daughter of Ceres made her seem rather the damsel-in-distress. Nothing like the shrew she really was.
Evie cringed at the memory of her last run-in with the woman. Sure, Persephone had a problem with the fact her master was a woman. But it wasn't as if Evie was celebrating the fact.
So Sef had the hots for Julian. Evie had no intention on crashing that party. All she wanted was to get back home and find out how she was going to get Marcellus back for killing Patrick.
She did her best to avoid Julian too, her mind still a jumble of emotions when she thought of him and his lips and his body.
Evie shook her head then snorted. As if shaking her head would throw those thoughts out of it. It wouldn't work. Not when something deep inside her twisted with need every time she thought about Julian.
She found her feet taking her down the passageway into a part of the tunnels that she'd never been to before. She knew her way around enough not to be fazed by the new passages. Evie decided she would just enjoy the new places she saw while Julian was busy doing some earthquake management. Whatever that meant. He was still hedgy about what exactly he did when he disappeared so often.
The sound of water dripping onto stone rang clear as a bell through the tunnel. A shivering light called her to inspect the room up ahead. The walls were engraved with markings that glowed when she ran her fingertips over them.
Strange. That didn't happen around Julian's quarters. She made a note to double check when she got back.
A low groaning trailed the tunnel toward Evie. She hurried to the room and peered in. Not a good idea to go barging into dark places. The room was similar to so many other cells around here.
Only in this one, the walls and floor were covered in symbols which resembled the ones engraved on the Seals, and more importantly, like the ones on her arms. There were many more, and in so many combinations that Evie could tell the writer had told a story on the hard stone.
Her searching gaze found the source of the groaning.
There, in the center of the room, bound by chains which glowed red, as if living flames resided within each link, sat a man. Four chains bound him, each embedded deep within the ceiling, running along the floor and joining glowing brackets that hugged both wrists and ankles.
> The man was filthy and haggard. Evie knew then and there that she would be doing something about the condition in which he lived. How could Julian allow this to happen? Prisoner or no prisoner, surely he deserved better. She had thought Julian would have more compassion than this.
Then she remembered where she was. Hades. Anyone imprisoned here, didn't get that way leading the perfect life. Who was he and what had he done?
When Evie stepped into the room, fire flared at her feet, sending her darting backward to avoid toasting her toes. Her gasp of surprise drew the man's attention away from his cupped palms to Evie's face.
When their eyes met, Evie was certain she'd seen a flash of emotion so deep it hurt for her to look at it. He rose to his feet, his movement so smooth and clean it was hard to believe he looked like he'd been confined to a cell with his movements restricted by so many chains.
Bits of dust drifted across the floor as Evie watched him. A feather grazed her cheek and Evie brushed it off her face unconsciously. She was so fascinated by this enigmatic man she remained fixed to the spot, waiting for him to speak. But she could not move farther into the room without being chargrilled.
"You should not be here," the man admonished her, which seemed incongruous as he stood clothed in rags and smeared with the dirt and sweat of days, if not months. It was a miracle the cell—there was no denying the man was a prisoner—didn't reek. Instead, there was a hint of frankincense in the air. Just a hint, and just enough to make Evie think it was her imagination.
He took several steps toward her then stopped, groaning again. He hunched over, his spine bent, his jaw clenched hard. A vein throbbed at his temple. All the signs she saw confirmed he was in incredible pain.
"Are you okay?" Evie asked. "Do you need help?"
"You should go. Leave me be." The man seemed intensely upset and desperate for Evie to leave.
"You're hurt. Can I call someone for you?"
"Bah. Call someone? So they can hurt me more?" His words held an edge of anger.
"Who did this to you? Let me speak to Julian—"
"What? Can you not see I'm a prisoner here?"
"Excuse me for trying to help." Evie's eyes narrowed at the man who did not even have the grace to be ashamed for his rudeness.
"I did not ask you for your help, did I?"
"Point taken. I will leave you to your solitude then."
It was possibly the word "solitude" that had been the straw that broke this prisoner's back because he looked about to apologize, or at least call her back. But at that moment, Pollo clacked in with another guard, possibly to check on the prisoner.
"Miss Evangeline! You should not be here." Evie turned to Pollo who stared at her—surprise and shock widening his eyes.
Evie thought she imagined the gasp she heard behind her. She glanced behind her at the prisoner who now had his head down. Perhaps he had hurt himself again, such was the depth of that intake of breath.
"I am fine, Pollo. I will return to keep the prisoner company."
"That might not be such a good idea, Miss Evangeline. I will have to check with His Lordship if it is okay."
"You go right ahead, Pollo. He is not going to change my mind."
This time the sound behind her sounded distinctly like a snigger. And this time, she did not look back. She turned and walked out of the room.
As she walked along the passage, a feather drifted onto her arm. Evie plucked it from her sleeve where it clung with static fingers. Holding it up to the light of a dismal torch, Evie was struck by its unique make-up. So beautiful.
And not unlike her own wings.
A wash of icy cold flowed over Evie as she turned on her heel and entered the room again.
This time, the prisoner had his back to the doorway. The neck of his ragged cloak was pulled down behind him to reveal his back all the way to the base of his spine. At the crown of each shoulder blade Evie saw the shattered, bloody remnants of a pair of wings.
Wings which looked like they had recently been hacked off. Congealed blood still clung to the shattered pieces of bone. Feathers stuck to the bloody gore that dotted the wound.
Evie's hand went to her mouth in horror. It did not stop her from crying in empathetic agony. What pain he would have endured when those beautiful things had been removed. Evie shuddered as the tears of horror slipped from her eyes. How could anything like this be condoned by Julian?
"Pollo, what is going on here?" Pollo stood at the prisoner's back, wiping the wounds and cleaning them. Hearing Evie's horrified voice, he turned and looked at her, his expression not unlike a little boy caught stealing cookies.
Guilty, but not sorry.
"I am doing my job, Miss Evangeline. That is what His Majesty will say too."
Evie, knowing it was better to stop banging her head against the brick wall of Pollo's stubbornness, turned and started down the passage.
"Wait."
The voice which spoke was gravelly and hesitant. Not Pollo's at all.
Evie returned to the room to see the abused and battered angel facing her.
"Julian cannot do anything about my wings or my incarceration." His voice echoed against the stone walls, gentle and soothing, as if his only care was to ease her pain.
"I would think he should be able to, considering he is the one keeping you here," Evie said dryly.
"It is not Julian who keeps me here. I have been here for almost a thousand years. And this is what I deserve." Now his voice held an edge of iron that frightened Evie. That seemed to reach deep into her heart and twist hard.
"Well, if you say you deserved it, then maybe you do, but I don't see why they need to mutilate you like this."
"They are not the ones doing it."
"Who is doing this to you then?" Evie frowned, confused.
"I am."
"What? Are you soft in the head or something?" Evie shook her head, a smile bordering on pity curving her lips.
"While I have my wings, I hear the bells of Heaven sing and it is more than I can bear." He sounded so sad that tears welled up in Evie's eyes without her even realizing. "When the wings are gone, I get some peace. When they grow back, I start to hear those bells again. The sound is so beautiful, I long for my home. It drives me insane."
"Er, you've got to be insane to do that to yourself. And look at the mess you make. Giving Pollo all this work."
Pollo raised his eyebrows in consternation. Evie was scolding the prisoner. "It's no trouble, Miss Evangeline. Gavriel is a good man although he had to take the punishment his God has commanded he receive. I am happy to tend his wounds."
"Well, Pollo, I hate to tell you this, but you belong in the loony bin right next to our de-winged friend, Gavriel, here." Evie could not understand how anyone, human or otherwise, would willing mutilate themselves like this. It was the same as cutting off one's arm. But neither Pollo nor Gavriel paid her any further attention.
"What did you do anyway? To end up here?"
"I disobeyed. You could say I chose the wrong side, or spoke my mind. It does not really matter now, does it?"
"Of course, it matters—even a one-year prison sentence must have a pretty good crime behind it for the law to hold it up. What did you do? Decimate entire cities? Kill innocent babes while they slept?"
Evie knew she was being a bit dramatic, but his situation was affecting her more than she expected it to. She was not sure why but this man's—no, this angel's—treatment made her incredibly angry.
"Who sent you here?" Evie demanded an answer, would not allow him to evade her probing.
"It was so judged by Heaven that I be sent here."
"God sent you here?" Evie asked, disbelief etched in the lines in her face.
"In a way, yes."
"Why would He do such a thing?"
"I fell in love," Gavriel responded with a tender smile lighting the craggy edges of his face.
Now that was a response she did not expect.
"Why would God punish anyone for love?
" she asked, shaking her head.
"You could say that I defied my Father, and I had to pay the highest price for it."
"What price?"
"I fell from Heaven."
"More like thrown," Evie added dryly.
"That's one way of looking at it." Gavriel smiled and turned his head away.
Evie stared at Gavriel. She tried to force fresh breath through her lungs. It hurt to see those broken, bloody bones and torn wings whose feathers never ceased to float on the invisible currents of air which swirled within his cell. Hurt to imagine the agony Gavriel must have experienced, the deep and excruciating agony akin to having a limb cut off slowly.
And worst of all, it hurt to know he'd done that to himself.
Could the heavenly song be so agonizing for him that it would be necessary to hack those things of beauty off all by himself? Self-flagellation was not unheard of, but self-mutilation was a whole new ballgame for Evie to contemplate. Just the thought of holding a knife in her hand with the intention of carving off her wings was beyond imagining.
She backed away and leaned her weight against the wall beside the doorway, breathing hard. She had no energy to run. Even though that was what she wanted most. To be able to just run away from this place as fast as she possibly could.
She still had so many things to do. Her father was as elusive as ever. She'd lost the last lead on him centuries ago. But she forced herself to think about the here and now.
About the mutilated angel behind the wall.
She had two problems now. The pressure of her own wings at her shoulders bore her down as she empathized with the angel. And the weight of anger was pressing on her gut.
She was furious with Julian for participating in such a heinous activity—even after she reminded herself that Gavriel himself believed he deserved his punishment, but how could he when his reason was love? Evie glanced at the angel but Gavriel was shielded from her sight by Pollo as he cleaned the raw wounds.
She couldn't bear to watch anymore and turned to leave. But the carvings on the lintel caught her eye. Again, angelic script engraved deep into the stone. That was not unusual.