Indebted

by Amy A. Bartol

  “Yes, but here is the disturbing part of all of this. The further I get from you, the colder I feel,” he says in confusion.

  “You mean, you can’t set out to find the person that you are seeing in your head because I keep drawing you back to me?’ I ask.

  “Yes. I have several theories as to why this is happening, but I have come up with no definitive answer yet,” he admits.

  My mind furiously attacks the puzzle that Phaedrus just presented to me. I could be in greater danger than the other target, and therefore, in greater need of Phaedrus’ help. Or, I could just be a draw for him by my very nature, blocking out the other target. My mind shifts again as I think that maybe I’m meant to go with Phaedrus on his next mission. Maybe he can’t leave me because I’m supposed to help him—go with him.

  “I had not thought of that, Evie,” Phaedrus murmurs, reading all of my thoughts as if I had been speaking them aloud. “I have never had a partner before, it would be unusual for that to be the case.”

  “Who is your target?” I ask him out of curiosity.

  “I don’t have names, just faces,” Phaedrus says, sounding frustrated. “It is all very strange. I don’t know how I am to find them if I cannot follow my senses to them.”

  “Them? There is more than one target?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he replies, deep in thought. I was just about to ask him more questions regarding his pending mission when I hear a growl coming from outside. A part of my mind is constantly monitoring what is going on around me. Even though I can’t understand any of the conversations taking place outside in the courtyard, I listen anyway. I know that growl, I think as I bolt to the door to find Reed. It only takes me seconds to see him where my clone had just left him by the tree, but he is no longer alone. Scores of Powers are surrounding him, causing me to stiffen. They arrived so silently, I hadn’t even heard them coming.

  My wings force their way out of my back as I realize Reed is alone amid Powers from Dominion. Plucking one of the wicked-sharp swords off the wall near the door, I turn and stride out into the courtyard, calling over my shoulder to Phaedrus, “Get Zee.” As I approach the mob of angels by the tree, all eyes turn to focus on me. I scan the crowd, seeing several faces that I recognize from my stay at the chateau. Foremost among them is Preben, the Power who was in charge of me after I arrived there. I recognize his silver hair and light brown wings that are so similar to Zephyr’s wings in coloring.

  Seeing Preben makes me lose some of the fear I have associated with these angels. He had tried to help me when I was at the chateau, even when he thought that I might be evil. I slow my pace and attempt to reign in my aggressive emotions that urge me to attack them for the threat they represent to Reed. My instincts to protect him are almost overwhelming me, making it difficult to assess the situation clearly. Adopting a casual mien, I stretch my hand out to Reed as I near him. He instantly takes my hand in his.

  “Your bodyguards have arrived, love,” Reed says in a casual tone, but I can feel that he is tense. He reaches down, taking the sword from my other hand and holds it non-threateningly at his side.

  Trying to play along with his relaxed air, I reply, “They can’t all be my bodyguards.”

  “You are very important to us,” Preben says, smiling at me easily as I regard him with skepticism. He is so tall; I almost have to take a step back from him. Remembering how he helped me by translating for me what the war council was saying during my trial and how he allowed Reed and me to be together later, some of the animosity I’m feeling dissipates and I smile back at him.

  “Hmmm,” I reply, quirking my eyebrow at him, “You mean I can stop praying for death now?”

  Preben’s smile deepens. “I have my doubts that you ever began, Seraph,” Preben replies in a mildly mocking way that makes me smile a little more, too.

  Assessing all of the members of his unit that are standing behind him, forty or more, I ask, “So many angels just to guard me? You must think I can’t defend myself at all.”

  “You are very young. How can you possibly stand against ancient evil like the Gancanagh?” he asks me rhetorically.

  “They don’t want to kill me, Preben. They want me for their queen. I think my odds are better than everyone else’s as far as they are concerned. They will want to keep me alive so that they can turn me later, but I doubt they will feel the same way about you when they come,” I say with honesty, looking at the other angels amassed around us who are listening to our every word. “Are you sure this is something you want to get involved in?”

  The entire group erupts in laughter, like I had just made a joke. Looking at Reed to see if he will explain to me why everyone is laughing, I see that he’s watching me carefully, not giving away anything that he is thinking. I’ll have to learn to be more like him; he doesn’t show his weaknesses to everyone, whereas I wear them on my sleeve.

  Preben gives a sharp nod. “I am quite sure that I want to be involved,” Preben replies. “We were just discussing your protection. I will choose who will be your personal guard, and then the others will be assigned other duties in your army.”

  “Hmmm,” I reply, regarding this new bit of information. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is not my army. It’s Reed’s army. If you join it, you are joining him. As for who will be my bodyguards, I leave that to Reed. He is in charge here.”

  Preben’s eyes narrow. He is used to calling the shots. Dominion has given him authority over all of these angels, but his rank doesn’t translate to us because Reed now outranks everyone here. My Seraphim wings etched on his chest, just above his heart, makes him essentially Seraphim. He ranks above all of the Powers and is now at the top of the chain of command. I didn’t know I was giving him an upgrade when I agreed to bind with him, but I’m glad that there was at least one perk for him in being stuck with me for eternity.

  “That is semantics, Seraph,” Preben states. “Since you are bound to him, you are one, so I fight for you. It is your army, as it is his army. Unless he ceases to exist, then it is just your army.”

  A menacing growl escapes from me. What Preben said just now feels like a threat to me and the growl that it elicited is purely instinctual. It’s my first insight into the risks that Reed has undertaken in binding with me. What lengths will Dominion go to in order to get me back? Any talk of Reed ceasing to exist I take very seriously.

  Reed tightens his grip on my hand a little, but he doesn’t say anything. I think that it’s his way of telling me to play it cool. I squeeze his hand back before letting it go. “Preben, it’s good to see you again,” I say a little icily, extending my hand to him to shake. He looks at it for a second, not sure of what to do. He takes it hesitantly, watching Reed over my shoulder the entire time. I shake his hand, but when I try to let it go, he doesn’t relinquish it right away.

  Preben leans closer to me, saying in a low voice, “I am not your enemy.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first to tell me that and be wrong. We will see, won’t we, Preben?” I reply, pulling my hand gently from his. To everyone else, I say, “Thank you all for coming. If there is anything that you need, please ask and we will try to accommodate you.”

  “We need intel,” Preben says right away. “We have been briefed with the information that has been gathered on the lair in Houghton and other nests that have been uncovered, but you have more personal information. I have listened to your statements to the war council. We need to go over all of it with you again.”

  “I will arrange it,” Reed says with authority. “We will provide you with the information that we have uncovered and you can ask all of your questions. We can do this after you and I speak about Evie’s personal guard. Zee, you in?”

  “Lez go,” Zephyr replies, materializing from nearby and sounding a lot like someone from my generation is supposed to sound. He has been hanging around Buns and it’s starting to rub off. I can almost imagine that he’s really nineteen or twenty years old, instead of a few billion, give or take
. “You won’t be needing this while we parley,” Zee says, wrapping one arm around Preben’s shoulder and plucking the sword from the sheath strapped to his back. Tossing it to Reed nonchalantly, he continues to talk to Preben in a friendly tone. “All of you can follow me to the conference area,” he says to the Dominion angels. Then he turns back to Preben. “You play golf?” he asks, steering him towards the largest Naxi pagoda that is central to the cluster of pagodas.

  Taking my hand once again, Reed says, “Walk with me.” We stroll casually away from the other angels. Reed doesn’t speak until we are halfway across the courtyard. Then, he says to me in a low tone, “Stay by my side until I tell you differently.”

  I nod my head once in assent. My heartbeat picks up then, hammering at the walls of my chest, while all of the reasons he doesn’t want me out of his sight dance in my mind. Stopping suddenly, Reed pulls me into his arms. When his lips touch mine, all of those thoughts cease. I press my hands to his chest, leaning into him as I kiss him back, tugging his lower lip between mine. My heartbeat races faster as his hand skims over my wing, trailing downward hypnotically. “Don’t be afraid,” Reed whispers close to my ear, “Trust me.”

  I close my eyes, and I focus on slowing down the beat of my heart. He must have heard it and wanted to give the angels another reason for it to be beating so fast. “I trust you,” I breathe back, resting my head against his shoulder. I let him go and we continue towards our pagoda. “I just don’t know who is fronting and who is real.”

  “You let me worry about that, love,” Reed replies with ease.

  “How bad did I just mess up back there?” I ask in a serious tone. He shrugs lightly. “That bad, huh?” I cringe.

  “I would not call it messing up. I would just say you gave them some information that I don’t mind them knowing,” he replies, bringing my hand to his lips and kissing it.

  Stopping in my tracks, I face him and ask, “What did I just tell them?

  Brushing my hair from my face he says, “Well, you walked into the middle of the meeting brandishing a weapon when you thought that I was alone with them, letting them know you don’t trust them and are willing to fight them if necessary,” he explains, tucking my hair behind my ear.

  “Oh,” I say, feeling a blush creeping into my cheeks. I cross my arms in front of me.

  “Then you positioned yourself between me and their leader, like a lioness protecting her cub, letting them know that you value me above your own safety. You demonstrated that the way to get to you is through me,” Reed says.

  I stiffen, biting my bottom lip in panic. “So, I put you in more danger instead of protecting you?” I ask, dropping my arms and pacing a little in front of him while looking at the angels behind me.

  “Yes, thank you,” Reed says, smiling and enjoying the fact that he is now the center of any plot they conceive. “They will attack me to gain your cooperation.”

  “WHAT?” I yell, not caring who hears me, my heart is now ramping up to tear through the walls of my chest.

  Pulling me behind a large tree that shields us from the angels, Reed kisses me deeply. My arms wrap around his neck as I press my body into his. His lips move over mine as his hand threads through my hair at the base of my head, angling my face to his. Running my hands from his neck to his chest, I hear Reed growl low as he reluctantly breaks off our kiss. Drawing back from me, he says, “They would have seen me as a target anyway, Evie. You are mine and they know that I will never let you go. They already knew that I am the key to your compliance because you risked your life to save mine at Dominion. You just solidified the fact that nothing has changed.”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I accuse him, running my hands over the solid muscles in his back.

  “Yes,” he smiles, nuzzling my neck. “They’ll have to go through me if they ever hope to get to you and that is a very satisfying thought.”

  “I’ll never be able to sleep with them here,” I mutter, thinking of all of the ways they could possibly come for Reed. There are so many of them; I can’t possibly protect him.

  “Yes, you will. I will make sure you are sufficiently distracted so that there will be no time to dwell on them.” My mind immediately contemplates several effective distractions that I wouldn’t mind him employing. Reed’s eyes soften with affection. “Let’s go, I need to speak to Preben about your guards,” he says, pulling me forward again.

  “Can you tell him I don’t need any guards? Those guys creep me out. They’re always looking at me like I’m the latest technology and they would like to take me apart to see how I work,” I say honestly, remembering how they acted toward me after the trial at Dominion’s chateau.

  “They’ll get used to you,” he replies. “You’re very alluring. We may have to rotate them often so that they maintain objectivity.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I ask in suspicion.

  “You have a way of turning us to your favor. You wrap us around your little finger. It’s your special gift, but one that is not always an asset when it comes to your safety,” he replies.

  “I would think that you would want them to listen to me,” I reply, picking some imaginary lint off of my sleeve with a pout.

  “No, what I want is to protect you, and unfortunately, that means protecting you from yourself,” he says, watching me close.

  “Protecting me from myself? That’s ridiculous! What am I going to do to me?” I ask rashly.

  “Throw yourself in front of the enemy to protect everyone else,” he replies in an instant.

  “I have more game than that,” I mumble, looking at him grudgingly. At Reed’s skeptical look, I drop the subject, walking away towards the pagoda. Reed’s arms snake around me, pulling me back to his chest.

  “You are the most amazing eighteen-year-old I have ever encountered. You have the cognitive abilities of someone thousands of years old, but you have no thought for yourself. It is as if self-preservation is secondary,” he explains quickly.

  “That’s not true at all, Reed. It’s just that I know what I cannot survive without so the risk of dying isn’t as grave as the risk of losing what I love,” I reply, turning in his arms to look at him.

  “Then I will protect what you love so that you will survive,” he says and I know that he is thinking of Russell.

  And I will protect you, I tell myself, but I don’t say it out loud because he is always so adamant that he doesn’t need protection.

  I want to argue with him about the bodyguards, but this isn’t the place to do that. We are out in the open where we can be overheard by just about everyone. Finally, I begin to relax a little as I weigh the benefits of having these angels around when Brennus arrives. “Evie, what are you thinking?” Reed asks.

  “I was thinking that whoever you pick to guard me couldn’t be as sketchy as my last bodyguards. Although, I don’t really know if you can call them bodyguards because they were mostly there to prevent me from leaving. At least the angels won’t stink like Declan, Lachlan, Faolan and Eion,” I say, remembering the sweet, sticky scent of my Gancanagh entourage. Their smell was so potent to me before I was bitten that it burned my nose. The scary part was that, after I was bitten, their scent began to smell pleasant to me. I wonder how they will smell to me when I see them again, I think.

  “Do you realize that this is the first you have spoken of your captivity with the Gancanagh since we’ve been here?” Reed asks in a gentle tone. He hugs me to him, pressing his lips against my temple when he sees the color drain from my face. He was careful not to say Brennus’ name, but I know what he meant.

  “Really…huh?” I murmur, trying to act nonchalant, but I’m shaking so I’m probably not fooling him.

  “Really,” he says, stroking my hair, making tears well up in my eyes. “You haven’t said any more about what you went through.”

  “Well, I already told you what happened, so there is not a lot left to say,” I reply in a low tone because my throat feels tight, like someone i
s squeezing it.

  “You didn’t tell me everything. You told me most of it, but there are details that you omitted…” he says, trailing off to see if I’ll say anything more about being Brennus’ favorite slave. “You gave me a general understanding of the events. You gave me the facts. You didn’t tell me the details or how you felt when certain things were happening to you.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I reply, giving him a ghost of a smile, as my mind races with images of the piles of dead women stacked upon each other, waiting to be incinerated in the ornately carved fireplaces. “I don’t want to waste any of my time with you talking about him.”

  “Why?” he asks me gently, “I want to know.”

  “Well, I don’t want to tell you,” I reply, feeling hollow.

  “Preben and the others are going to ask you questions about the Gancanagh,” he points out and I stiffen. “They will want to go over all of the facts again and they will want you to tell them everything—every conversation you had while you were there—every conversation that you overheard—how they operate—who is the second in command—who is next in line after him…”

  “I can’t,” I whisper, feeling frozen and thinking of Finn. I never mentioned Brennus’ brother and second in command to anyone. Finn helped me when no one else would and I haven’t forgotten that.

  “Why not?” he probes.

  “I already told them everything they need to know,” I mumble, trying to avoid his eyes.

  “Evie,” Reed says, making me look at him, “why can’t you talk to me about this?”

  “What about Russell?” I say, not looking at him.

  “We will have to tell them about Russell now,” he says. “He should be here soon so there will be no hiding him. But, that is not the reason you won’t talk about the Gancanagh to me.”

  When I won’t look his way, he puts his fingers under my chin, turning my face towards him. He looks grave, like I’m hurting him by not talking to him about this. Pulling my chin from his hand I blurt out, “Because it’s disloyal.”