Darque Wants

by Diana Steele

  Adelaide furrowed her brow. “But, I asked you yesterday if there was any news and you said-“she started.

  He raised a hand to silence her. “That I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  Adelaide glowered at him. She ignored the excitement of actually being included in the plans for long enough to be frustrated that he assumed she would just agree to something right on the spot. She pulled her leather pants, tank-top combination out of her chest and laid it on the bed as she replied with, “Okay, well what is this sudden matter that has you angered all of a sudden.”

  He rolled his deep, violet eyes. “I am not angry. I’m just nervous.”

  Adelaide froze with her hand on the waste of her pants. She didn’t like the sound of the great Daman, nervous. “What is there to be nervous about?”

  “One of the soldiers has got it in his mind that our little hiatus is coming to an end.” He replied as he stepped in front of the mirror.

  Adelaide, who had already dressed herself, scurried over to his side to help him latch on his armor. Her capable hands effortlessly flitted through the knots as she continued to help him. “What does that mean?”

  He shrugged. “We are readying our legions for another battle. The general thinks that they will advance first. They have plans to press into our territory.”

  “And if they aren’t?” she asked as she finished with him. She stepped in front of him, dipping her hand into her jar of oil and lathering every inch of her skin with it.

  He helped her, reaching over her shoulder to get his hand into the jar and covering her back with the substance. She had to admit that his touch, although not sensual at all, calmed the nerves that were threatening to overcome her.

  He moved his hands over to her wings, his touch growing markedly gentler as he responded with, “Then we launch a surprise attack.” He replied.

  She nodded, unscrewing the top to a mason jar filled with flakes of gold and rubbing into the oil. She found that the best way to disguise her during the day was with gold. Something about the glinting, shiny surface of her body kept her hidden in a bed of clouds even from the heightened senses of the vampires, probably because they avoided the light at every opportunity they got. “So, either way, a battle is happening?” she demanded.

  He gave a curt nod, moving on to the gold flakes himself. She winced at the sensation of the sandy surface adhering itself to her skin. She felt disguised, different, protected, but she also felt like taking a long shower. “So you want me to survey their camp?” she asked.

  He nodded as he pulled Adelaide’s hair up into a bun at the top of her head. With the amount of hair she had hanging off of the top of her head, the same task would have taken her twice as long to do. “Yes,” he replied. When he finished, he grasped her shoulders and turned her around so that she was facing him. “Look, don’t do anything stupid.” He ordered.

  Adelaide shot him an even stare. She couldn’t believe that after two years of working for the demons he was still telling her to be careful. If she wanted her judgment undermined, she would have just stayed with her own family.

  Without so much as a response from her, Daman knew that he had said something wrong. He sighed, wrapping his arms around her. Something about that embrace made her nerves flare up again. “Don’t, you’ll get my gold all over you.”

  He continued to hug her, pressing his chest against her. “I don’t care. I want you all over me.” He replied.

  She could only hear the shaking in his strong voice because she simply knew him just that well. Her heart fluttered inside of her chest, despite his well-meaning embrace. She wanted him to kiss her, to caress her in that way that only demons knew how to do. Just in that moment, she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. “I can’t.” she gasped. “I need you to kiss me.”

  At that, he drew himself away from her, holding her at arm’s length. “You know I am not willing to do that.” He replied. “I cannot risk you expelling any unnecessary energy.”

  She would have told him that the energy she would spend receiving his love was far from unneeded. In fact nothing would help her more. But to tell him that would be to get into an argument with him that she had gotten into far too many times. “Whatever.” She hissed.

  He rolled his eyes, wrapped his hand around her wrist and led her outside of the tent. Just outside of the doorway stood the general. He was at least seven feet tall, his slender build accented by the stringy muscles he flexed just underneath his thin skin. Although his body was seamless and wrinkle-free, Adelaide could tell from the shadow in his eyes that he was at least a couple centuries old. He gave Daman a curt nod. “Thank you.” He uttered in a sharp, tense voice.

  He beckoned for her to follow him as he fell into step with Adelaide and Daman. She kept her nose high and her chin lifted as they flew through the long corridor that led to the field that separated the long stretch of no man’s land that separated the enemies from each other. “Fly north for four miles.” He ordered. “Then veer west. I do not want you approaching them head on.” He explained.

  Adelaide nodded. It was safer for her to do that anyway. As soon as they reached the empty field, they stopped, the general turning so that he was facing her. He gazed down at her with those sharp eyes of his, demanding everything of her, but expecting nothing. That weight on her shoulders grew heavier and heavier the longer she stood there. “Remember, our success in contingent on yours.” He gave her the same farewell he always had.

  She gave a short nod, and then shifted her gaze to Daman, who stood only a few paces back, staring at her with that same worried expression on his face. In that moment, she saw something, a shadow in his dark eyes, doubt perhaps? Fear? Whatever it was, it weighed deep on her heart. In that last moment, that last stare that she granted him; she knew in that instance that he believed she would fail, and he was disheartened for it.

  It was only as she turned around, her narrow eyes searching for an object, a lone tree in the distance to ground her for flight, that she began to wonder what they were not telling her and if it might cost her, her life.

  But those thoughts would not help her. As she launched into a run, every muscle in her body tense as she prepared herself for flight, she forced all of the speculations out of her mind, focusing all of energy instead, on keeping herself alive. She needed to survive this mission, even if they didn’t believe she would. With that last thought, she had summoned enough energy to launch her into the air, so she lifted herself, her body hanging on her own strength; the battle, uphill until she had finally spread her wings. She titled her head back, sucking in a deep breath of the purified, high air. Then tilted her body foreword, racing through the sky.

  Chapter Three

  Adelaide had been racing though the sky for about fifteen minutes when she sensed a shift in the air. She had almost made it the four miles that made up, “no man’s land” and, as yet, nothing of note had happened. She pursed her lips as she shifted her body to the left, veering west like she had been instructed to do so. She could feel vampire magic in the atmosphere, a strong, bitter taste and smell. It covered the clear sky with dark storm clouds. As she continued on, deeper and deeper into the dense forest, she found it almost difficult to see, as the day had grown so dark, it could have been mistaken for night.

  She sighed to herself. This was it, the vampire night she so detested. As she pressed on, she struggled to eradicate her own memories of vampire massacres and sieges and the nearly unbearable night that almost always came with them. She felt a pang deep in her gut at the memory of a bite on the inside of her thigh. She had only just become an angel and still roamed the earth on her own. Vampires were a new thing, existing in her consciousness as scarcely more than a legend. Now, their presence was more real, more felt than ever, and no one in their right mind would ever seek to deny it.

  A flash in the corner of her eye wrenched her out of her thoughts. She yanked her head to the right, in the direction of which she had seen the movement, but there
was nothing but dense forest. She returned her gaze, holding it firmly in front of her and trying to ignore that worry deep in the back of her mind. She dipped lower, seeking cover from the trees to hide her approach. With a sigh, she realized that she had come within a couple yards of very outskirts of their camp and that she needed to slow. She weaved, like wildfire, in and out of the trees, focusing all of her energy on being as precise as possible: the lower she flew, the better she could see what was going on below her. The wind slapped at her face as she went, missing this branch by a fraction of a second and that trunk by even less.

  Finally, she reached the end of the forest and was able to fan out her wings to their full extent. She flew straight up at speeds unmatched by any human machine, holding her head back and her chin up to keep her straight. Once she was satisfied with her height, she tilted herself fanning out over the camp. Her lips folded into a frown at the sight of dense arrangement of tents, not unlike the ones she called home. The stench of blood oozed through the air, easily reaching her even at her high altitude. She scrunched her nose together, not even having to think too hard to recognize the essence of angel within that smell.

  Her eyes teared up, blurring her vision and slowing her down. She lifted her arm to her nose, coughing out the phlegm that had built up in the back of her throat. It was all too unpleasant for her to manage. In fact, she struggled to get that image of conquest out of her head.

  Unfortunately for her, as she was struggling, to ignore her own thoughts, she saw a movement in the corner of her eye. She looked up to find that she had flown so low; she was flying right through a corridor of their camp. She panicked and shot towards the sky as soon as she could, but the shocked gasps that she left in her wake let her know that she had been spotted.

  She veered right; internally cursing herself for having been so careless. She could hear yelling from the ground below and the clanking of metal and she imagined that were gathering their weapons. Her first instinct was to flee, to find cover somewhere far away, then take to the skies again when it was safe enough for her to make it home on her own. But as soon as that plan had formed itself in her head, it was wiped out by the image of her lover and his boss giving her those sad, sorry looks. They expected her to fail, which is why she absolutely refused to give them the satisfaction.

  So she turned around, heading right back for the vampire camp. She would circle for long enough to find out what, exactly it was that they were doing and then zoom back home as fast as she could. If she could get what she needed quickly enough she could get back to the camp with the intelligence they would need to fend off the impending attack. As she continued to fly over the camp, she could hear more sounds of metal clanking against metal and the sound made her heart sink.

  She peered down beneath her, seeing clear signs of a preparation for battle. Camps were usually ghost towns during a cease fire. Not so much as a whisper of plans could be heard when nothing was going on. Yet the bustle of activity happening below her was the exact opposite of this, she could hear everything from clanking of metal, to excited chatter to the odd battle cry being uttered.

  They were planning an ambush.

  With a gasp, she realized that she had collected all the information she would need, but as she was turning to race home, a ball of fire zoomed towards her. It barely missed her as she dove lower to avoid it, but just as it raced past her, making it collide with the trunk of a tree igniting it in flames. The searing wood tumbled towards her, the smoke filling her pristine lungs. She let out a grunt and she darted in the opposite direction, narrowly avoiding it. She had only begun to catch her breath when another fireball, zoomed right for her. Her eyes went wide as she avoided it, the yanking her wings through the air. Her heart pounded against her chest at the sound of the gurgling cry, “Fire!” it rang through the dense air and was all the encouragement she needed to flee.

  She turned in the direction in which she had come, racing through the air as fast as she could, her energy coursing through her veins and pouring out of her body with little to no effort at all. Her chest expanded, as her lungs demanded more and more air. She had to fight the urge to hold her breath at the deafening battle cries that filled the air and the spears and fireballs that continued to follow her.

  “Just get to the forest.” She told herself. “Everything will be okay if you can just make it to the trees.” And with that, her body whooshed past the barrier of extreme wooded, cover.

  But the artillery followed her. The balls of fire set the forest alight around her. She darted through the trees, the heat and the beads of her sweat melting the gold off of her. It dripped from her body in heavy drops, covering the soil beneath her. She continued to suck in generous breaths, but the buckets of air she consumed were polluted with heavy, thick, deadly smoke. She could feel her energy draining from her; feel herself growing more and more empty. But with that came a lessening of fire. Her heart lifted as she realized that they must have been running out of firepower. She slowed her flight, knowing that the farther and farther she went away from them, the less danger she would be in. The artillery could only get lighter from there on out. It was as this thought crossed her mind that she saw that same gold light flash out of the corner of her eye. She slowed even more to take stock of what it could possibly be.

  She could hear her own breath echoing in the dense forest and feel her nerves trembling in her body. She needed to know what that thing could have possibly been. She knew of no gold creatures. The only thing that could ever be gold was an angel painted for battle… then it all made sense. Daman knew the vampires had a spy, that’s why they were so worried with sending Adelaide out there on her own. But why wouldn’t they tell her this? Either way, she wasn’t going to stick around for as long as it took for her to figure this one out. She launched herself back into flight, reaching her own record in speed, as she flew though the vampire night.

  She had only made about half a mile before something flew right out of her blind spot, striking her in the torso. She lost her balance as she rammed into the trunk of a massive tree, her head yanking backwards at the impact. A yelp escaped from her mouth as she reached all round her, tumbling through the air at high speeds and struggling to grasp onto something. Her eyes opened just quickly enough for her to catch sight of the branch she was flying towards. She reached out in front of her for whatever was the angelic equivalent of a leap of faith. Her hands wrapped around the branch and she grunted, tensing up her body as much as possible to resist the force pulling her forward. Eventually she slowed enough to be able to perch herself on the branch.

  Luckily, she did not have to wait very long to see what was right in front of her all along, another angel, a male painted in a deep gold, just like her. Her heart stopped. His muscles where massive and dense, like they had been carved out of marble and his wings spanned out at full two feet farther in both directions that hers did. She had met her match. Seeing as she obviously did not possess the advantage in strength required to actually fight him, she settled on running. She turned, pushing off the branch on which she sat with so much force that she sent it flying in back towards him.

  He dodged the potential weapon with ease and raced towards her. He flew above her, his body almost perfectly aligned with hers, then kicked down at her. She grunted at the strike, her back folding in with the impact. She flew even lower, pulling herself to an abrupt halt before veering right. He followed her effortlessly, as if he could read her mind. This time, he reached out and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking her to a stop. She squeezed herself away from his reach, but he was fast enough to snatch the ribbon out of her hair. She let out a deep sigh as her yards of hair came tumbling down around her, getting caught in her wings, covering her face.

  He lunged himself at her one final time, catching another handful of her hair, then threw her to his right. She was, again, flying through the air, a dull ache settling in the back of her head, as she grew nauseously dizzy. Her arm slammed against a tree, and she screamed
as she felt the bone shatter. She could see the ground fast approaching and had already braced her for impact before she felt something grab her underneath her arms and drive her even higher into the sky. She fought as much as she could, banging her good fist against his chest and trying to wrench herself out of his grip, but the pain distracted her and her strength was waning fast. Before she knew it, she was hundreds of feet in the air, even above the cloud cover that had descended over the camp.

  Then he dropped her.

  Her eyes went wide as the air seemed to drag her down towards the ground at a speed she could scarcely fly herself. She winced at the unbelievable pain as she contracted her abdomen, using sheer strength to turn herself against the air resistance, trying her best to get her wings working before….

  As she got closer and closer to the ground, she felt herself falling faster and faster, making it even more difficult to maneuver through the air.

  Finally, she turned and grunted as she propelled her wings forward, but she was too close to the ground. Before she could get herself going again, her leg dragged into the soil, bringing with it a searing burn. That was almost too much for her to bear. Yet, even so, this had slowed her down far too much. When her wings failed, she went tumbling onto the ground; branches slapping her, ashes coating her dripping blood-encrusted skin. She sucked in shallow breaths, forcing herself to remain conscious, no matter how much it hurt to do so.

  Eventually she stopped, slamming against the base of a tree. She took a deep breath and forced herself to stand up, holding onto the trunk for support until she could trust herself again. She had no idea where that male angel had gone, but it didn’t matter. She had to keep going. Her right ankle was sprained, a gash seared across her torso and left arm was completely shattered… but her wings were unscathed. She had the utmost faith that they were strong enough to carry her home.