by Alisa Woods
She’d learned that long ago. She’d only just let herself hope again.
Daxon was holding the mouse’s box. It was sniffing curiously at the beacon resting on the clear acrylic bottom. “I can’t believe this.”
“We’re going to change the world, boss,” Lizza said through the headset.
Charlotte had come up to stand with them, and the machine was winding down, so they all removed their headsets and set them on the rack. Charlotte gave her a nod—their signal it was time to ask Daxon.
“Okay, so, here’s the thing,” Lizza said to him, angling to pull his attention from the mouse. Tomaz was relieving him of the box anyway. “Live Subject 25 needs to go get some testing to make sure he came through okay. Or she. Not really sure there.”
“It’s a she!” Tomaz offered up.
Daxon still seemed dazzled.
Lizza peered at him. “You okay?”
Daxon blinked. “Yeah. Just… I’m not sure I truly believed it until just this minute.”
“Believe it,” Lizza said. “And here’s where I tell you that we need more money. For a second machine.” Crap, she was bad at this part.
Daxon gave her a look like she was crazed for a moment, which didn’t help with the already tight squeeze on Lizza’s chest. “Well, of course, you need a second machine.” He turned to Charlotte. “Why do we need a second machine, Charlotte?”
“So we don’t have to reconfigure the machine each time we want to send or receive.” But she was smiling like she’d already prepped him with this, and she was just gently reminding him.
“Right.” Daxon nodded. “But seriously, Charlotte. This needs to ramp up. In a hurry. I want plans and numbers and equipment spec sheets… everything you can think of. Everything you can dream of. We’re going big with this.” He was running a hand through his hair, and the excitement was infectious. Everyone, even Lizza, had smiles plastered on their faces now. “And for heaven’s sake, get a helmet cam on that mouse. I want to see what it’s seeing!”
Lizza could tell by the gleam in his eye. He wants to travel too. She still had said nothing to Charlotte, but she would have to soon. Especially if they were making plans to scale up…
“I’ll have all that to you just as soon as we can.” Charlotte glanced at Lizza, which only reminded her of what was on the agenda as soon as they’d cleared Daxon out of the building.
Trapping a horde of dark angelings and possibly rescuing the man she loved.
“Great. Okay. Right.” Daxon was pressing his hands together like he was praying only he was tapping them to his lips. The gleam had gone from excited to exhilarated in two seconds. He opened his hands and gestured to them. “I’ll get out of your hair. Let you work. And start things in motion on my end.” He was backing toward the door, carried away on his enthusiasm. Then he stopped and lurched forward again. He enveloped Charlotte in an unexpected hug. “You did it!”
Charlotte grinned. Lizza’s eyebrows arched. The techs were holding back their smiles. Tajael was the only one who didn’t seem to think it was funny. He just frowned from the corner.
But then Daxon released Charlotte and turned to Lizza to shake her hand. “Thank you. Thank you for this.” He quickly went around shaking everyone’s hand, even Tajael’s, and Lizza figured that must have mollified him because he was back to smiling by the time Daxon backed out of the lab, his phone already out.
“I think he’s a little happy,” Lizza said. It was the closest she’d come to laughing in days and days. Ever since Oriel left… the first time.
“As are we all… about the experiments.” Charlotte gave her a sympathetic look.
Tajael was whispering in angeltongue into his phone.
Lizza knew the plan, but now that it was time to roll it out, her heart was lurching around inside her like it was drunk. Or trying to escape. Tomaz handed her the box that held Oriel’s sword.
“Be careful,” Tomaz said, a kind look in his eyes. “And tell Oriel I’d like a lesson in how to use it when he gets back.”
Oh, crap, she was going to cry. She smiled instead. “Will do.”
When Tajael swiped off his phone, he said, “All right, everything’s set. Are you ready?”
She clutched Oriel’s box and nodded.
The door of the lab swung open, and one of the security guys walked in—only Lizza knew in an instant he wasn’t part of the human security contingent. Even though he had the same black body armor, he was preternaturally good-looking. High, carved cheekbones. A sweep of longish brown hair that looked like it had been in a fight. And fierce brown eyes—where Oriel’s eyes had always had a sweet and soft quality to them, this angeling’s eyes seemed bottomless and weary like they’d seen far too much.
His nameplate said Asa—a relatively normal name for an angeling.
“All ready to go on our end,” he said to Tajael, barely acknowledging everyone else in the room.
“Okay,” Tajael said. “We’ll transport from here. Too busy in the middle of the day for our normal protocols.”
Asa nodded and an instant later, his security body armor disappeared, and an entirely different kind of armor took its place—rugged, black leather pants, a jacket that protected his shoulders, and gauntlets of leather strapped to his arms. A dark, inky tattoo peeked from between the leather straps crisscrossing his chest. And if that wasn’t enough to identify him as an angeling, the midnight-black wings would do it.
Asa was shadow, but the good kind—the kind that helped rescue Charlotte.
The tech guys were wide-eyed at the sudden transformation, but chill. They’d been at ground zero when Charlotte was kidnapped by shadow angelings… and there when Asa and his Regiment had helped rescue her. They were in on the whole escapade, but it was still startling to see an angeling in the middle of the lab.
“Thanks for your help with this,” Lizza said to Asa.
He gave her a short nod and peered at the box in her hands. He didn’t ask, though, just said, “I’ll be your escort. Are you ready?”
“I just have to send the email.” She turned to Tajael. “Should I do that now?”
He nodded, so she parked the box with Oriel’s sword on her hip and pulled out her phone. This was the final step that would launch the trap into motion. She’d already sent Oriel the instructions about how he should have the shadow forces attack. She wanted him to meet her at the apartment first. She’d pretend to be sick and leave work early, which meant most of the angelings of light would still guard the office—Oriel would know the routines and could explain to Elyon that normally the bulk of the forces would be where the two scientists were. By splitting them up—Charlotte would remain at the office—it would weaken them. Oriel should then come to her apartment as an advanced scout—just one shadow angeling wouldn’t immediately send everyone on full alert. Then, once Oriel had successfully brought down the wards to her apartment, he could signal back to the rest of Elyon’s Regiment to storm the apartment, defeat the angelings in the air and her Guardian inside, then take the office in a second wave of attack. In theory, Lizza and Oriel would be long gone before all the carnage set in… that was the cover story, in any event.
The only one Oriel would know coming into this.
In reality, a host of angelings would lie in wait in her apartment, ready to prosecute the war in her living room. She would be protected behind a second set of wards, but only after Oriel was inside with her—this was her demand, one which Tajael had been extremely reluctant to meet. But the alternative was to wait for Elyon and his massive forces to surprise them, attacking at the time of their choosing. No matter how vigilant the angelings of light tried to be, it was possible Elyon would find a real weakness. Or he would just wait and attack them after Micah had assembled an overwhelming force of shadow angelings from the other angels.
This trap, with supposed access to the wards, should be an irresistible lure.
She hoped.
The wildcard was whether Oriel would follow the instructions—or be able to c
onvince Elyon to play along. And all that was assuming Oriel had even gotten the email. There had been no response from him. This second email—signaling she was leaving the office—could trigger everything… or just go unread.
There was no way to know.
She pressed send and looked up into Asa’s deep brown eyes. “Okay. Let’s go.”
He calmly placed a hand on her shoulder and looked to Tajael for the signal. Once he heard over the phone that the wards were down, Tajael nodded, and Asa twisted away, dragging her through an interdimensional doorway straight into her living room.
It was packed with angelings, all shadow—no way they could mix the light and shadow forces in such close company—but the thing that made her catch her breath was the angel in their midst. She’d been briefed on the whole operation, so she knew he was Razael, the leader of Asa’s Regiment, but she hadn’t expected him to be so… overwhelming.
Razael looked like a man—an impossibly beautiful man, maybe mid-twenties, blazing blue eyes, long dark hair tucked behind his ears—but he was far larger than any human could be. His obsidian wings were out, carving space of out the room, and a power emanated from him that vibrated the air. And sure enough, the inky black tattoo on his chest matched Asa’s.
Asa had stowed his wings immediately, his hand still on her shoulder, urging her forward. The other angelings, clad in armor of the immortal kind and sporting their blades, cleared a path for them to Razael, whose attention was riveted on her and Oriel’s box with his blade.
“So this is the one we fight for?” he asked of Asa.
He grimaced. “It’s not too late to abandon this ill-conceived plan. We’re long past repaying Tajael for his assistance with your daughter.”
What? Lizza scowled at Asa. She thought they were all on board with this.
Razael’s attention never wavered from her. “How certain are you that Elyon is gathering support from the other dark angels?” he asked her.
She straightened under the intensity of his stare. “I believe Oriel. He has no reason to lie to me.”
Asa rubbed a hand across his forehead.
Razael huffed a small laugh. “He has every reason to lie to you. Being in shadow has a certain liberating quality… especially for someone fresh off their Fall.”
She frowned. All the sex Oriel said he’d had with that angeling—he’d called it a Sin, but what if that wasn’t true? Maybe he enjoyed it. It was sex after all. Not that she was personally familiar with having sex—and she didn’t think it was a Sin like he did—but maybe he had been liberated the way Razael was implying. Maybe he’d changed. He could be tricking her in some elaborate scheme that would double-cross back on her and destroy everything. A momentary flicker of doubt seized hold of her… then she remembered his kiss. Both kisses. There were no lies in those. She could feel the Truth, as Oriel would say, of his love in them.
“He loves me,” she said simply. “His Fall was because of me. There’s no question in my mind that he’s trying to make his Fall count for something.”
Asa seemed even more disgusted. “An angeling of light in lust and love, willing to die for his redemption. Lots of rational thinking going on there.” He gave Razael an imploring look. “You sure about this?”
But Razael seemed less perturbed by the whole thing. “I’m certain that Elyon is not expecting to find me inside this human’s apartment. It’s a level of advantage we don’t often enjoy.”
“True.” Asa’s agreement seemed highly grudging.
Razael nodded to one of the angelings by the door. “Raise the wards.” To the rest, he said, “Cloak yourselves.” An instant later, the apartment appeared to be empty except for Lizza, Razael, and Asa. But the jostling of bodies and a steady whisper of breathing was still with them. Razael tilted his head back toward the bedroom. “Lock her in the wards until her Fallen angeling arrives. Then stand guard.” To her, he added, not unkindly, “I hope, for your sake, this angeling’s love is true, even in shadow.”
She had no answer for that, but Razael was right—everything hinged on whether Oriel truly loved her. Or if he was playing her for a fool.
Asa took hold of her shoulder again, guiding her through unseen bodies of the angeling crowd. When they reached her bedroom, he gestured her inside but stayed outside the threshold. “You’re human,” he said, voice low. “You can walk out this door anytime, even after I raise the wards. However, I would not recommend it. No matter what you hear happening.”
She nodded and stepped back.
He whispered the incantations and gestured around the edges of the doorway. When he was done, she could tell no difference—just as with every other time she’d been through this routine, outside her apartment or the office—but she assumed the wards were up.
“I’d close the door and stay far from it as well,” Asa said gravely. “Just because an angel blade can’t pierce the wards doesn’t mean a bullet can’t. Or any other physical item without magical properties.”
She swallowed. “How will I know when you’ve brought Oriel?”
“Just stand clear of the door.” Then he turned his back on her and marched to the end of the hallway, taking a stance there, blade drawn, ready to stop anything from coming down the hallway to her bedroom that shouldn’t.
Like a legion of shadow angelings she was luring into a trap.
She quickly closed the door, set Oriel’s box on the bed, and retreated to the far corner of the room. She had nothing to do but wait… but she found herself with her hands laced together, offering up a prayer.
Please let Oriel truly love me, she thought. And let him still be alive.
Then she went to the box, pulled out the blade, and returned to put her back to the corner again.
Lizza’s message said to wait… and Oriel was glad for it.
He spent the better part of a day in agony, writhing on Terah’s bed and thinking he might not survive to see the attack. The blades of light had been poison indeed, and he’d been nearly taken by them. Terah was absent from her cell most of the time, just stopping in to see if he still lived.
By the end of the first twenty-four hours, he could fairly say he would.
Terah returned and gave him a dark life kiss—shadow magic, he supposed—once she’d decided he would actually live. She said it was to speed up his healing because Elyon was eager to attack, and he wanted Oriel front and center, first to die if things didn’t go as they should. That part of Lizza’s plan was brilliant. It would give Oriel a chance to see what trap they had laid for the dark angel’s forces, say one last goodbye if luck was with him, and then orchestrate his final glory in destroying as many of the dark angelings as he could. The plan was inspired, but once Terah had revived him, she’d wanted sex… and he’d barely fended her off. He simply couldn’t, not after those searing kisses with Lizza. He feigned that the light magic had left him weakened, which wasn’t entirely untrue.
Terah had left in a huff and not returned since. He’d rested as long as he could then just paced her cell. But he truly must gather his strength for his looming end.
If everything fell apart, at least he had delivered his message to Tajael about Elyon’s weakness. And he’d kissed Lizza one last time. He regretted nothing—not his Fall to save her, not his soon-to-be death in the service of the war. Those were righteous things, and he would do them again. He could vainly wish for an alternative world wherein he could be like Tajael, an angeling of the light who still managed to love the bright-shining woman of his heart—but Oriel couldn’t regret something he’d never had a chance of achieving.
When he tired of pacing, he stretched his wings and did loops along the walls of Terah’s cell, from the floor to the towering height, building his strength again. It had been sapped with the strikes of a dozen blades, and his shoulder was still sore from Tajael’s wound in particular. Was this how humans felt? Long and slow recoveries were not familiar to him. Angelings either died in combat or quickly recovered. If they were merely sparring
against their own kind, like magic with like magic, recovery was swift. If they were injured by non-magical weapons, anything short of decapitation involved fast healing. Against opposite magic—light against shadow—the strikes were much more likely to kill. Light and shadow were mortal enemies, an embodiment of the eternal struggle of Virtue and Sin, and they were as likely to extinguish each other as anything. This was why Elyon’s greater numbers were such a threat. No matter how skilled with a blade, angelings of light couldn’t hold against their dark magic.
Oriel was on his hundredth loop, top to bottom, of Terah’s cell—he’d been counting as a way to calm his mind—when she reappeared.
“Ah! Excellent,” she purred. “I was hoping you’d have a little pent-up energy to spend.”
She eyed him as he landed next to her, and he knew that look. “I’m not interested, Terah.”
“Not interested?” She pulled a horrified face. “I believe you still owe me, hot boy of light.”
“I owe you my life,” he said, magically replacing his flimsy toga with battle armor, just to drive his point home. “Something I’ll be risking shortly to bring Elyon the victory he wants. Surely that will rebound to you. You don’t need me in your bed as well.”
“Need is such a subjective word.” She sauntered up to him, running a hand into his hair and grabbing hold. “And I’ll decide what I need, hot stuff.”
“You don’t want me, Terah,” he said, gently pulling his head away from her grasp. He didn’t want to unduly anger her, not at this point. It would too likely scuttle his plans.
“I do want you,” she insisted. “Between my legs.” But he could tell her frustration was mounting. She could force him—and in Truth, he wouldn’t put up much resistance. The mission was more important than anything, including his dignity or his desires. But any Lust he had for her had long fled, as soon as the possibility of returning to Lizza, even briefly, had become real. She had to know it. And he knew her—well enough to know that she enjoyed the seduction, not the more violent taking of pleasure. There was plenty of that in this realm, but Terah wasn’t the kind for it. She and he were more alike than he cared to think.