Two weeks ago, he had realised it was a lie.
He had felt it in the pit of his stomach when she had been smiling at an older male seated on the other side of a large wooden desk. A rather prim female had sat rod straight beside her through the entire meeting, and Emelia had tensed whenever the female had leaned over to touch her arm and speak with her. After that meeting, Emelia had appeared drained. She had returned to her quarters and indulged in a large quantity of wine whilst curled up on her couch.
Since then, he had studied her more closely, and now he was able to see the truth behind the false smiles she used to keep everyone else at bay, ones designed to make them leave her alone.
Strangely, the thought that she wanted to be alone made the need to go to her burn fiercer within him.
The familiar ache to speak with her built inside him. He wanted to hear her voice and know it at last. The distance between them was too vast for him to hear it, clawed at him in a way he didn’t understand. It left him hollow inside, as if a piece of him was suddenly absent.
Missing.
As he watched her, that unsettling sensation faded. The more he fell into studying her, cataloguing her graceful movements as she fought her inanimate foe, the less aware of the world he grew. The less aware of himself.
Until he was only aware of her.
And then a new ache bloomed. It rapidly grew into a beast that devoured his restraint, one that pushed him to go to her so she wouldn’t be alone. He fought it with the same ferocity he always did, although his reasons for resisting it had changed over the weeks.
At first, he had stayed away from her because he had been sure she wouldn’t want to see him, that his presence would terrify her after her ordeal.
Then, he had stayed away because he was sure she would have forgotten him, and he didn’t want to remind her of the things that had happened to her when she had been overcoming them.
Now, he stayed away because he had witnessed the truth—that she was concealing her true feelings and was scarred by what had happened—and he felt he had already failed her.
The dragon who had harmed her both physically and mentally was surely still alive in Hell, was very possibly inflicting pain upon another innocent female, and he had done nothing to stop the male.
He curled his fingers into fists and clenched them as rage burned through him, aimed at himself and his inaction, and at the dragon.
A dragon he wanted to destroy.
But he couldn’t.
He knew what would happen if he ventured into Hell. To set foot in that realm was to weaken himself dramatically. He had read the reports, had scoured every damned scroll and book in the Echelon library, each record of an Echelon angel entering Hell.
The fallen angel, Satan, had invoked barriers around that realm, ones designed to strip angels of their powers, rendering them weak and unable to challenge him.
The things that could happen to him, the pain he would suffer if he entered Hell, didn’t bear thinking about. He couldn’t do it.
He wasn’t sure how much longer he could deny the hunger that blazed inside him, though. It constantly pushed him, had him on edge at all times, restless with a need to do something. He had to do something.
“I am done.”
He barely heard those words, didn’t acknowledge the female or notice her leave.
He kept his focus locked on Emelia.
Because she alone grounded him.
She alone gave him the strength to remain where he was, away from the danger of Hell.
But the effect she had on him was wearing thin now, in danger of breaking, and he was sure he would do something rash and dangerous, potentially deadly to himself, if the power she had over him shattered.
There was only one thing he could do to stop that from happening.
He needed to see her again.
CHAPTER 4
Emelia ran her hand through the water, the soft music filling her ears as she let her thoughts drift. Every inch of her ached, her muscles tired from her workout and her knuckles sore. It felt good to push herself this hard, though. She had even managed to sleep a few times after a boxing session this vigorous, and one of those times, she had been nightmare-free.
At first, the ever-annoying Linda hadn’t been impressed with her ‘funnelling her anger and pain into fighting’, but then Mark had called them both into his office and had sided with her for once, reassuring Linda that Emelia had always handled things this way.
Some people did their therapy with words. Emelia preferred to do it with her fists.
Boxing had been her go-to method of getting all her feelings out ever since her parents had passed away. It was how she dealt with frustration and anger, and hurt. It was how she built herself up and made herself stronger.
Linda had reluctantly accepted that, but still insisted on twice-weekly sessions.
Emelia begrudgingly admitted they were helping, but they felt invasive too, and sometimes she felt as if she was suffocating and had to make her excuses and leave early.
Like today.
She had gone straight from a failed session to the gym and had spent three hours working up a sweat and wearing herself out. She felt better for it.
Although she wasn’t sure she would be able to sleep tonight.
She had woken from a nightmare this morning, had shot awake with her heart thundering and sweat crawling down her spine, drenching the covers. She had been shaking so violently, she had been afraid to try to move from the bed, had been sure her legs would give out if she had tried. Tears had burned the backs of her eyes when anger had swept through her, not anger directed at Zephyr for the things he had done, but fury directed at herself for letting him strip all the strength she had clawed back together from her.
“Shit,” she muttered as the water sloshed into the overflow.
She reached into the water and pulled the plug to let some out. She stared at the water level as it dropped, thoughts crowding her mind. She let them come, but refused to let fear take hold of her. This was her space, and she was in control here, not the dragon.
She pushed the plug back into the hole and shirked her damp workout clothes. The water was cooler than usual, but it was still bliss as it warmed tired muscles. She sank into it, stopping at her breasts, and rested her arms along the sides of the tub.
Therapy and intense boxing sessions weren’t the only things that had been helping her recover.
Whenever thoughts of Zephyr flooded her mind, she let them come now, twisted the memories so he was in her place. She pictured the things she would do to him if he ever came for her. Over the last few weeks, the swift death she had imagined had evolved into something darker.
She wanted him to suffer as she had. She wanted him to know the fear she had, the terror and pain she and every other female who had been taken by his kin had experienced. She wanted him to taste what it was like to be weaker, the victim, unable to fight and free himself.
She curled her fingers over the edge of the tub and gripped it as her mind traversed dark paths. He deserved to know what it was like to be tormented, physically hurt whenever he attempted to escape, and mentally wounded whenever he was caught. She wanted to tease him by making him believe the attempt to escape would work and then take pleasure in stopping him.
She wanted to lash out at him, wanted to grin down at him as he had at her whenever his strength failed, wanted to torture him with the thought she might do things to him against his will and he was powerless to stop it from happening.
Every cruel act he had committed against her, she would commit against him. She wouldn’t threaten him with the thought he might be used against his will, though, because he wanted her, would welcome it. She would give him pain instead, would threaten him with the thought he might die.
No.
She closed her eyes, tipped her head back and slid lower in the water. She wouldn’t. Couldn’t. She wasn’t like him.
He was sick. He had taken pleasure from hurti
ng her, from making her believe he was going to do things to her against her will. She was sure he would have taken pleasure from committing those acts on her, but she had fought him every time, clawing him and hitting him, desperately driving him away. He had looked satisfied whenever he had released her, tossing her to the ground like garbage, and she had dragged herself away from him and cried.
He had told her he wanted to break her.
And then he had changed.
She scooped up water and swept it over her face, let it roll over her skin and drip from her jaw as she pondered that for the thousandth time. Why had he changed?
What had happened when he had gone to the dragon clan village and come back injured? What had made him wild with a need to make her belong to him?
She took a deep breath and sank beneath the water.
She didn’t care what had happened.
It wouldn’t change anything.
He might not have abused her as the other dragons had abused the huntresses they had been given by the clan chief, but he had taken everything from her.
She had fought so hard for her position within Archangel, had risen through the mostly male ranks to gain the respect of her peers, and now everyone was treating her as if she was weak, a feeble female more fragile than glass, who needed protecting.
She hated the way they looked at her. Sometimes with pity. Sometimes as if she no longer belonged at Archangel. She felt singled out by everyone, because no one knew how to treat her.
They knew how to handle the other huntresses who had been rescued after her, the ones who were in daily therapy sessions and on serious medication, and the ones who had quit Archangel.
They just didn’t know how to handle her.
Sometimes, she wasn’t sure how to handle herself either.
Part of her wanted out of Archangel, but she didn’t want to give up everything she had worked for. This was the only home she had now. It had become her family.
She felt guilty whenever she saw any of the women who had been taken together with her though. Zephyr had been cruel, sadistic, and twisted, but he had grown to want her to want him, and in the end, she had used it against him. She had manipulated him, and she had gained her freedom.
She didn’t want to think about what might have happened to her if he hadn’t gone away and come back different.
Would she have ended up like the huntresses she saw wandering the halls with Linda, heavily medicated, or worse, like the huntresses who hadn’t survived their ordeal?
Emelia pushed away from those sombre thoughts as she broke the surface of the water. The soft melody of a ballad surrounded her, and she focused on it, on sweetly murmured words about love and revenge.
Revenge was all she cared about.
Mark had ordered her not to even consider it, had made it painfully clear that it wasn’t going to happen by denying her a team she could take to Hell. She was no longer sure she would have been strong enough to head into that realm even if he had given her an entire army to lead.
She was sure she wouldn’t come back, though. None of them would. The dragons were too strong in their own realm. The only way for her to defeat Zephyr was to fight him in her realm, where he would be weak just as Loke had been when Sable had brought him to Archangel HQ.
Loke had escaped, though, with the help of the elf prince and King Thorne, and Sable and Anais, if Emelia had to guess. Her mind drifted back to that night when she had met the angel. The second alarm had signalled a break-in, but it hadn’t been him. Two immortals had teleported into the building, leaving a path of destruction and bodies in their wake, and snatched someone from the cell block. During the chaos, Anais’s dragon shifter Loke had also escaped.
It had been quiet since then.
Too quiet for Emelia.
Her thoughts kept drifting to the angel she had met.
He had been the first and only person to offer her vengeance, and she would be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed he hadn’t returned to make good on his vow.
Sable didn’t like him and had gone to ground because of him, but had popped back up on the radar a couple of weeks ago. Emelia had bumped into her in Underworld, a local nightclub run by immortals, and had found the courage to ask about the angel and what an Echelon was.
Apparently, they were demon hunters and very important angels, or VIAs as Sable had called them. It explained why Thorne hadn’t liked him, although his hatred probably had more to do with the fact the angel wanted to steal Sable away from him and take her to a place Emelia felt certain the demon wouldn’t be able to reach.
Of course, Sable had also called the angel numerous, less complimentary things during the couple of beers they had shared at the bar with Thorne watching over her like a hawk.
He hadn’t liked Sable talking to her about the angel, or anything related to that breed of immortal, but Emelia hadn’t been able to stop the questions once they had started to flow.
Sable had only been able to answer one since she was only just learning about all things angel herself.
Had the angel really seen her memories?
According to Sable’s angelic source, the woman her friend was learning from, some angels could see into people’s minds and even manipulate them if they were weak enough.
Was she weak-minded?
She had pondered that question a lot.
She didn’t think she was. When the angel had been present, she had felt a pressing sensation in her head, like a headache.
Or him prodding her mind?
Had it really been him testing it?
She had talked to one of the other women who had been in the room, and what she had felt was different. She had told Emelia that she had experienced a sensation that she wanted to stay just seconds after she had been drawn to going for reinforcements.
Emelia didn’t doubt he had manipulated her.
She also didn’t doubt that he hadn’t felt a single shred of guilt over what he had done, bending someone to his will, forcing them to do something against their own.
Anger flared but swiftly faded, washed away by the question that always rang in her head whenever she thought about him, a question she felt sure only he could answer.
Was she weak-minded?
She didn’t feel strong now, but perhaps she was, because she had survived everything that had happened to her. Maybe she was stronger than she realised.
She would never know the answer, though, because she was never going to see him again.
The hair on her arms rose, and a prickling sensation swept over her nape.
Static electricity flooded the air, setting her on edge.
She sat up, her heart starting to pound as the unnatural charge built and tingles rushed down her spine.
There was a breath of silence, filled with anticipation.
And then the alarms blared.
CHAPTER 5
The alarms were still blaring ten minutes later as Emelia ran beside a group of black-clad hunters down a corridor on the second level of the building. The flashing red lights hurt her tired eyes, and her muscles protested, threatening to cramp as she pushed herself to keep moving.
“Might be a breach in the cell block,” a hunter said to his companion as they broke off, turning down a hallway to her left.
She doubted that. Any breach in the cell block would have been dealt with by now by one of the teams that had been dispatched there.
It was him.
She knew it.
She would never forget the way electricity had charged the air when he had appeared in the building the first time they had met. The strange sensation had faded now, but she hadn’t imagined it.
It was the angel.
He had come back.
She just wasn’t sure where he was.
She had checked the place where they had met, a small observation room next to one of the grim white medical cells where the scientists and doctors at Archangel often studied the non-humans the hunters captured and
brought in for them. The angel hadn’t been there.
Where would he go?
She ground to a halt as she realised something.
She wanted to find him. She wanted to see him again.
Her pulse pounded for a different reason as that hit her, and she moved to the cream wall and pressed her palm to it for support as she stared at the wooden floor. Awareness rushed through her, the past few weeks rolling up on her and leaving her stunned. She had been drawing further and further away from everyone else, even her friends.
But not from him.
What was it about the angel that had her moving towards him, seeking him?
He was a stranger to her, and a dangerous man. Very dangerous. She had witnessed that for herself.
So why was she experiencing a rush of adrenaline, a quiet thrill at the thought he had returned?
Why was she happy that he was here?
Because he was an angel, so she felt he could help her by using his power to free her from the pain of her memories by healing her battered mind somehow?
Or because she had seen the darkness in him, the savage side that had startled her at the time because he was an angel, and had felt the power he commanded, strength that matched, if not surpassed, what Zephyr possessed?
Her fingers tensed against the cream wall.
Did she want the angel to heal her… or destroy the dragon?
She lifted her other hand and pressed it to her chest. Her heart thundered against her palm as she dug her fingertips in, clawing her black T-shirt into her fist.
She wasn’t sure.
A prickling sensation ran up her arms. She dropped her gaze to her left forearm, frowning as the hairs stood on end. A moment later, the familiar charge began to build, barely noticeable at first, but as she focused on it, she could feel it growing.
Was he planning to leave?
Panic propelled her feet into action, and she sprinted down the corridor only to stop at the next cross junction. She slowly turned back the way she had come. The charge was weaker here, away from the spot she had just occupied. Was she moving away from him?
She ran back the way she had come and focused as best she could on the strange feeling. Her breaths came faster as it built inside her, and she was sure she was moving closer to him now. She followed it up through the building, letting her instincts and that electrical charge guide her.
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