by Allison West
Chapter 53
Lying beside Leila on the bed, Wynter ran his fingers through her hair. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he felt her body curl into him. "I'm glad you came here," he said into her ear.
Smiling, Leila rolled onto her back. She stared up at the ceiling before turning her head toward him. "Juliana doesn't mind me imposing?"
"It's not an imposition. If anything, she's probably relieved you're here. Now I won't try to sneak out or cause trouble to see you." It had been true. Wynter had begun a short list of ways to annoy Juliana in hopes she would allow him time away from the refuge.
"You, cause trouble?" Leila laughed and reached out her hand, entwining their fingers together. "That's my territory."
"Certainly, when it comes to keeping me awake, you succeed."
"Oh, come on!" Leila squeezed his hand, probably in retaliation.
He grimaced, pretending it hurt. Apparently, dark angels had more strength than humans. It had been something he hadn't learned or realized until today. Not that he minded; he loved Leila in every possible way, even if she looked like Ophelia. "You're going to break my hand!"
She unclenched her hold, letting his hand free. He didn't move it away or budge in the slightest.
"What is it like?" Wynter asked. Leila gave him a peculiar look. Wynter tried to clarify himself. "Becoming human again? Mortal. What's it like?"
"Not as bad as you might think." She refused to meet his stare. "It's the Underworld that is my biggest problem."
"What do you mean?"
"The deal I made. It still stands. Do you think it's possible that we could save my soul from the demon I promised it to?" Her voice cracked.
"Anything's possible." Wynter relaxed on the mattress and momentarily shut his eyes. There had to be a way around the deal she'd made. Tomorrow, he'd ask Juliana. Hopefully, she'd help them.
Leila didn't say a word. Had she fallen asleep? Several minutes passed. He could hear her steady exhale of each breath; it was rhythmic.
"Are you still awake?" she asked.
"Nope. Sound asleep." Wynter loved joking with Leila. He wanted to lighten the mood before they fell asleep.
Leila shifted restlessly on the bed, rolling again on her side, facing him.
He leaned in and planted a soft, chaste kiss to her lips. "Sleep. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."
"We do?" Leila asked, sounding tired but seeming to ignore her body.
Wynter shut his eyes, but he listened to her sweet voice and the hum in the back of her throat as she tried to contemplate what she wanted to say. He felt it first, then a piercing flash of blue flooded his vision. Even lying in bed and shutting his eyes didn't alleviate the agony coursing through his body.
"Wynter? What is it?" Leila rested a hand on his arm. "What's wrong?"
Her voice brought him back, dulling the pain and the shades of blue swimming in his vision. It disappeared. Whatever he was meant to see had gone. Wynter didn't know if Leila had chased the vision away, or if he'd done it himself with fear.
He hadn't saved a soul since Erebus had taken Leila. One soul save and he'd screwed everything up. Now he tried to be a good student, to learn everything he could, and to make sure he wouldn't endanger anyone else.
Rubbing his eyes, he sat up in bed beside Leila. "It felt like a vision, but I didn't see anything." Maybe he'd dream it? Dark angels could dream of the souls they had to save, right? It would certainly be easier and less painful.
Leila sighed, seeming unsure of herself. "It's late. Maybe you're overtired?"
Wynter shifted back down, pulling the covers up around them.
Leila rested her head against the pillow, wrapping an arm around his waist. "I know you're probably reluctant to save another soul, but what you do is important. You can't be afraid of what might happen. Trust me, Wynter, you are an amazing dark angel."
Wynter stared into her eyes, seeing the truth—it was how she felt. "Right, because you know so many of my kind."
As a mortal, she had a set number of days, and he would do anything to spend those with her.
Chapter 54
Intense heat filled the bedroom, and Leila pushed the covers off, coughing. Smoke billowed into the room, making it nearly impossible to breathe. "Wynter." She tugged at his arm, forcefully waking him from sleep. A strange noise came from outside, and that had likely woken her more than the heat and suffocating fumes.
His eyes opened and he rubbed at them, sitting up. "Leila, come on. We need to wake the others and get everyone outside."
Ophelia's eyes burned, but she nodded in understanding, forgetting he couldn't see her. "Okay." She stood and bumped into the dresser, unfamiliar with the layout of his room. "Do you hear that?" It sounded like voices, a lot of them.
Wynter grabbed her arm, leading her out of his bedroom and into the hallway. "Get up! Fire!" He pounded on the doors of the left side of the hall, and Ophelia pounded on the right. The flames downstairs lit up the refuge, making it seem as though it were the middle of the day.
Dark angels piled out of their rooms. Everyone glanced down at the staircase.
"What?" Ophelia asked. "Aren't you all immortal?"
Juliana coughed, pushing through the half dozen dark angels to the top of the staircase. "We might be immortal, but I can guarantee you no one wants to suffer from being burned alive." She walked back toward her room as the fire roared below.
Ophelia gripped Wynter's hand, afraid. Maybe the dark angels wouldn't die here tonight, but she could.
"Come on!" Juliana said, insisting everyone follow her. She led them into her bedroom, shut the door, and opened the window leading outside. Her room sat nestled at the front of the house, and the window just above the porch offered a ledge. The noise Ophelia heard earlier that had likely woken her seemed deafening now.
"Up there!" a man from down below shouted, tossing an arm-sized lit branch at the window. It missed, hitting the shutters instead.
Leila's eyes grew big. "You expect us to go out that way?" An angry mob stood waiting outside. They'd caused this fire, intending to drive the dark angels out of their home.
Juliana stared at Ophelia, her voice calm, reassuring. "This is our only way out. Being burned to death is not how anyone wants to die."
"Okay." Ophelia decided not to argue. More smoke had poured into the room from beneath the door. They needed to get outside, soon.
"One at a time." Juliana pointed at Ophelia. "The mortal goes first."
Ophelia glanced at Wynter, wondering how Juliana knew that she had lost her undead status. The dark angel hadn't referred to her as a grim reaper, and Ophelia looked like the deceased princess. Juliana probably put enough of the story together to know that Ophelia would be the most in danger. "What about Luna?" she asked. The young child clung to her dark angel mother.
Juliana's face remained grim. "Go now."
"Go," Wynter said and nudged her toward the open window.
She could feel the cool breeze outside and let out an enormous sigh, glancing down.
Knowing there wasn't much time, she moved as fast as she could. Ophelia sat on the ledge, swinging her legs out and then her body. She took a few tentative steps, the porch roof holding her weight. The heat from the first floor bled out and up toward her. Coughing, she reached the edge of the ledge and glanced down at the angry mob down below.
"Death to Ophelia!"
"Sorcery! You witch!"
"Burn her!"
They were here to kill her. "I'm sorry!" She turned around toward the window. They'd come for her. She hoped they wouldn't hurt the dark angels.
Unable to escape any other way, she walked toward the edge of the porch roof, and the screams quieted but didn't dissipate entirely. Her toes hung over the edge before she launched herself down to the ground.
She fell, albeit ungracefully. The fall had been harder than she had anticipated. The ground was unforgiving and she scraped her knees on grass, but she didn't care.
Bef
ore she could even attempt to stand, she was surrounded, and men twice Wynter's size pinned her hands behind her back and tied them with rope. As the men lifted her up off the ground, her eyes darted toward the window, watching it shut. Wynter stood inside, staring out at her. She couldn't hear him but could read the words on his lips.
I'm sorry.
Ophelia fought the rope, only to find herself forced into iron chains. The metal dug into her skin as two of the huge men shoved her into a human cage, carted by four horses. She'd seen the iron bars house prisoners as they transported them to the kingdom for sentencing.
"Where are you taking me?" Ophelia shouted, grateful they hadn't muzzled or killed her.
The sun hadn't yet risen. Ophelia had no idea the hour, or worse, what had become of the dark angels in the refuge?
Flames engulfed the entire house.
"No!" she rushed to one side of the cage, hoping she could knock it over, open it, and escape. It didn't budge. "Wynter!"
They carted her away screaming in terror. She'd remembered how difficult receiving his wings had been. She couldn't stop thinking about the burns he'd endure as the fire rolled across his skin, eating him alive. How could Juliana have sentenced her kind to such an unthinkable fate? Death or not, pain, especially so excruciating to endure, was wrong.
"Imposters deserve to go back to Hell where they came from," a voice said alongside the cart. Ophelia observed the men who'd destroyed the refuge and were probably dragging her back to Casmerelda. They appeared to be heading southeast.
"Show us who you really are," a filthy older man said. His skin had been covered in soot from the fire. Had he been one of the leaders who had started this riot? He was dressed in rags and had rotting teeth. Ophelia glanced away, refusing to pay any more attention to him. "What demon drives your soul as a sorceress?"
Ophelia shut her mouth. There would be no bargaining with these men. Exhausted and knowing she'd need her energy for whatever lay ahead, she shuffled down onto the cold metal floor, curling up for slumber. She jolted with each bump and shut her eyes. Would she ever see Wynter again?
Chapter 55
"Come on; we don't have much time," Juliana said, standing in the hall. Flames lapped the stairs and climbed the staircase at a dizzying pace. She ushered everyone carefully down the end of the hall toward Wynter's room.
"How are we planning on getting out of here?" Wynter asked. Sweat dripped down his brow while he skirted the wall, keeping as far from the blaze as possible.
Juliana opened a hidden door and forced everyone inside before shutting it. "Out that window." She pointed at the window leading out to the back of the house.
Margery, a blonde dark angel who looked a few years older than Wynter, opened the window and glanced out. "Clear back here."
"What do you expect us to do, jump?" Wynter didn't like the idea. At least in Juliana's room, there was a balcony that would have minimized the jump by a few additional feet with its slant.
Margery laughed and shook her head, giving Wynter a peculiar smile. "What do we have that humans don't?" She sat on the windowsill, climbing one leg out and then the other. "Wings!"
Margery fell from the second story, her dark angel wings catching her as she softly landed on the ground. They hadn't yet retracted as she gasped, probably catching her breath.
"Luna, you're next. Margery will be down there to help you if you have trouble," Juliana said.
Luna's mother, Colette, walked to the window and gently put her daughter on the ledge.
Luna's eyes were wide, and she shook her head. "No! I don't want to leave you."
Colette soothed her daughter, running her hand across Luna's back, while still holding her waist steady on the windowsill. "Sweetie, my wings aren't strong enough to hold both of us."
"Why can't we fly?" Luna asked.
Colette smiled and kissed her daughter's cheek. "I'll tell you the story as soon as we're outside. I want you to think of the stars and the sun, how beautiful they are and how happy they make you feel. Can you do that for me?"
Luna nodded and let go, falling toward the earth. At the last moment, just above Margery's reach, her white wings expanded gliding her down into Margery's arms. "Look at you," Margery said and smiled, helping her down onto the ground. "Who's next?"
One at a time, each dark angel gracefully fell from the sky, or rather the second story window of the refuge. Wynter waited, the last to escape the treacherous fire. Feeling guilty for bringing Leila to live with them and endangering all of their lives, he made sure everyone had made it safely to the ground before his descent out of the window.
Sitting at the edge of the ledge, his fingers gripped the wood, anxious. He couldn't hear the dark angels down below over the insistent beating of his heart. Taking a breath, he let go and felt the intense rush of adrenaline force his wings to open.
Unlike the other dark angels who had landed elegantly, Wynter tumbled into Margery. Luna managed to hop out of the way, laughing at the ordeal.
"Sorry," Wynter apologized, embarrassed that a child could drift to the ground more skillfully than he could, although she had been a dark angel longer than he had.
Juliana led them away from the refuge. "Follow me," she said, walking toward the darkened night sky, away from the blaze at their backs.
Wynter jogged to catch up with her, wanting to know where they were going. "What's the plan? Rescue Leila and then we find a new home?"
"Leila?" Juliana glanced at him as she kept walking east. "Are you kidding? She's the reason our home burned down. We were lucky to get everyone out unharmed." Her eyes narrowed, and she looked pissed. "We should have seen this coming!"
Wynter walked in pace alongside Juliana. Each stride she took forward quickened with her temper. He responded to her assertion. "How? None of us are fortune tellers or psychics."
Juliana waved her hand through the air. "That's beside the point! She put us all in danger. Just because we're immortal doesn't mean we don't feel pain. I'm glad those villagers took the bait."
"Bait?" Wynter's stomach churned and his skin paled. "You set Leila up to get caught?"
"No. I didn't bring the villagers here, to our home. She did that to us. I merely delivered what they were shouting for as they burned our refuge to the ground."
"You used her," Wynter said, still not believing it. He should have seen it coming when Juliana offered for Leila to go first. It was why she hadn't let anyone else follow.
Juliana stopped walking and stared him down. "Pick a side, Wynter. You're a dark angel; start acting like one."
Chapter 56
Jostled awake, Ophelia groaned and rubbed her eyes as the harsh sun assaulted her vision. Her stomach ached with anguish as she worried about Wynter. She sat up, taking in her surroundings. The castle had come into sight. Mara would save her, wouldn't she? They'd grown to love each other again, mostly.
Sure, she'd run off and caused a muck of trouble, but a sister's love lasted forever. The cart refused to slow as they neared the western side of her old home. "Why aren't we slowing down?" she asked, expecting them to follow the beaten path over the hill and across the moat.
No one answered her. Familiar with the land, she knew they were heading toward a village in Casmerelda, but she couldn't understand why. She contemplated what her captors might do with her, but every answer led back to a death she didn't want to think about.
The last leg of the journey felt the longest. There seemed to be no chance of escape. The bars were iron and locked with a key she didn't have. Should she resign herself to the fact her soul would journey back to the Underworld much too soon? She didn't want to give in and let whoever was behind the attack on the refuge and her abduction feel any amount of satisfaction. Arriving at the village, Leila felt all eyes on her as they paraded her through town. Shouts and boos erupted at first sight. A few onlookers threw horse shit at her, scooping it fresh from the ground. Did they have no respect for the throne or the royal family? It wasn't possible Mara
had been behind the abduction. How had the angry throng found her? Someone must have followed her to the refuge without her knowledge. She hadn't heard so much as another footstep in the forest.
"As your queen, I order you to let her go!" Mara pushed her way through the onlookers and faced Leila. "She is my sister. Any and all crimes convicted are sentenced by the queen, not the people of Casmerelda!" Her cheeks flushed and her nostrils flared. "Defy me and you will be punished." Mara stomped on the brick path, letting her footsteps be heard as she took the last few steps toward the cage. "Open the door at once."
Whispers erupted among the crowd. No one unlocked the cage that held Ophelia inside. "Guards, seize those men!" Mara pointed at the traitors who held her sister captive.
The royal guards stepped back from Mara, vanishing into the crowd. Had they left and deserted their position of honor? Ophelia frowned, unsure what had been going on in Casmerelda since her death.
The man who had been driving the horses pulling Ophelia's cart jumped down onto the ground. He pulled a dagger from his shoe. "How do we know you're really the queen? If Ophelia can die and come back, maybe you can too." Standing across from Mara, he lifted the tip of the blade up to her neck.
Mara swallowed but never let her bottom lip quiver. "You will put that down if you wish to see another sunrise."
Jasper emerged in the front row of onlookers. Did he come to take Mara's soul or her own? She did not want to see her sister die. "Stop!" Ophelia screamed. They wanted Ophelia, but they had her. Mara didn't need to die fighting for her sister.
The assailant laughed and retreated with his dagger. He walked toward the cage, coming face to face with Ophelia. "It's a shame beauty is a mask for the darkness within you. We're not fooled by your cleverness or sly ways." He shoved his hand into his pocket, retrieving a key to unlock the cage she had been confined inside.
Ophelia didn't want to think of all the imaginable ways he intended to kill her. "Please make it fast and quick," she said under her breath as he shoved the key into the lock.