by Ella Summers
I smiled. “So you trusted them.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” He opened the door to our room.
The moment I stepped inside, the chuckles died on my lips. “The room has only one bed.”
“It is the honeymoon suite,” he said matter-of-factly and shut the door. “Newlyweds typically have no desire for separate beds.” He began taking his clothes off.
I just stared at him, frozen. He sure was jumping into things fast.
But Damiel didn’t make a move on me. He just lay down and pulled the blanket over himself.
“You should get some rest,” he told me. “We start bright and early tomorrow morning.”
“Right.” The embarrassment of my false assumption burned my cheeks.
Though I usually removed most of my clothes for comfort during sleep, this time I got into bed with everything but my boots on. Damiel’s amused eyes panned down my fully-clothed body. Then he turned around and switched off the nightstand lamp.
I lay awake for a while, mentally berating myself for worrying about what Damiel might do. How ridiculous! He would never try to force himself upon me. I knew that. And if he got too cheeky, I’d just break his arm, like any self-respecting angel would do.
But that wasn’t the half of it.
The most ridiculous part of it all was that I wanted him to make a move. I longed for his hand to brush against mine. For him to hold me, kiss me, seduce me one sinful promise at a time.
And yet, when I’d thought that opportunity had come, I’d tensed up, frozen by fear.
Because I was scared. Scared for myself. Scared for the intimacy I wanted to share with Damiel. Scared that it was already too late, that I was falling for the Legion’s Master Interrogator. Today had been a real eye-opener. I’d learned so much about him, and I liked what I saw in him.
My father had warned me to keep my distance from Damiel, but how could I possibly do that now, after he’d spilled his soul to me?
I didn’t think Damiel could ever fall for anyone. Love anyone. He’d opened up to me, true, but he was still so closed off. His heart was closed. Looking out for me, protecting me, those were completely different than having feelings for me.
Slowly, I realized Damiel’s breathing had changed. He’d fallen asleep, and so I finally surrendered myself to sleep too.
14
A Lifelong Lie
I dreamt I was in bed with an angel. I nestled up closer to him, sinking into the warm arms that held me. A feeling of absolute contentment washed over me.
Then I opened my eyes and found it was Damiel who held me. And that this wasn’t a dream at all. I jumped out of the bed.
His brows lifted. “You didn’t sleep well,” he observed.
“I…” My cheeks hot, I averted my eyes from his bare chest.
“Bad dreams?”
“Something like that.”
Like the dream that Damiel and I were cuddling. Except it hadn’t been a dream at all.
“We should get going,” he said, standing.
I was thankful that his nudity did not extend lower than his chest. Otherwise, my blush would have spread far beyond my cheeks. My embarrassment would have scorched my entire body.
While Damiel put on his shirt and shoes, I took my time with my boots. I didn’t look at Damiel as we dressed, in case he tried to draw me into a conversation. I tried to pretend that lacing up my boots required my undivided attention.
Then we went to eat something from the breakfast buffet in the hotel’s restaurant. He had pancakes. I had tea and a plate of fruit. As we sat there, eating breakfast on a pink-and-white checkerboard tablecloth, it struck me how very normal this was—and how completely unlike our usual lives. There was even a lace doily under the water carafe. Angels didn’t get to have things like doilies and pink-and-white checkerboard tablecloths. Instead, we lived with the perks of a fire sword and an overly-inflated ego.
Damiel and I ate. We didn’t speak at all, but he was watching me the whole time. He appeared to be completely at ease. I was not. Waking up in the arms of the Legion’s Master Interrogator had unnerved me. I couldn’t imagine why.
After breakfast, we walked to the nearby sacred springs. From there, we could take a closer look at the defenses that warded the Hive fortress.
We followed a forest trail that wound around several pools of water, each one with its own waterfall. Some of the pools were small, no larger than a normal bathtub. Other pools were bigger, more majestic—and lay at the bottom of a deep plunge, a drastic vertical drop. Cascading streams slid over smooth rocks, connecting all the pools together.
“Something is bothering you,” Damiel said as we crossed over an arched bridge.
Around the wooden bridge grew bright, tropical flowers, their fragrant aroma sweetening the humid air. I heard birds singing in the woods, though I didn’t see any of them.
“What makes you think something is bothering me?” I asked Damiel. “Reading my thoughts again?”
I hoped not, especially not my thoughts about him.
“No, I’m not reading your mind,” he told me. “You have learned to block your thoughts well since I first met you.”
“Try not to sound too disappointed.”
“I’m not at all disappointed. Since I can’t read your thoughts, I get to decipher your body language.”
He said it like the opportunity was a treat.
“Bodies can lie,” I said.
His brows lifted as he watched me. He seemed very comfortable with himself. “So they can. That’s why it’s so important that I know your history. When your body language lines up with what I know about you, your thoughts are clear.”
“And what is my body telling you?” I dared ask.
His answer was unexpected. “That you aren’t sure you can trust me.”
“Of course I trust you. We’ve been through a lot together.”
“Yet you still have doubts, doubts put in your head by General Silverstar. And you always listen to your father. You let him rule your life. You act as he commands. You think as he tells you to think.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” Damiel challenged.
I thought about it, trying to be perfectly honest with myself. And, honestly, I had to admit that Damiel had a point. Looking back over my life, I really did always do as my father told me.
“After we worked together last week, you decided I wasn’t a threat, that I wasn’t someone who would hurt and betray you. But then you spoke to your father—and you began to doubt everything,” Damiel pointed out. “Since then, you’ve been cautious. Withdrawn. Worried that I will at any moment betray your trust.”
His blue eyes were lit up with silver and gold magic, brighter than the sky, their cerulean depths reflecting the magic shooting out of the fortress tower. The look in those eyes was intense, like he was reading right through me. Which he was, as he’d just demonstrated. I’d thought things would be easier once I learned to mask my thoughts from other angels, but Damiel didn’t need telepathy to read my mind.
“I do trust you, Damiel,” I said.
“Part of you does. Every so often, I can see the real you peeking through the facade, that part untouched by your father’s distrust. In those moments, you don’t look at me like I am a monster. And you might very well be the only person in all the realms who doesn’t.”
“I know you aren’t a monster. And I’m not the only one who knows that. Jiro does too.”
“Jiro knows I’m a monster. We both are,” Damiel laughed. “He and I have both done many terrible things for the greater good. I do them so our world can be safe. That has to count for something.”
He looked like he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince me.
“It counts for a lot,” I told him. “You are a great man.”
“I’m an angel, love. I haven’t been a man for a very long time.”
“Damiel…”
“Don’t feel sorry f
or me, Cadence. I knew what I was getting into when I marched up to Nyx and demanded to join her Legion. But you…you were raised to this life. You were raised to become an angel from the day you were born. Your father never gave you a choice.”
“I do have a choice. My father does not control every aspect of my life,” I protested.
“All your friends, the positions you’ve held at the Legion—everything was perfectly constructed by General Silverstar. You have always gone on the missions he’s handpicked for you. Just as your friends were handpicked by him too.”
Dad picking my missions… I could see that, but my friends? No, that was paranoia.
“My friends are my own,” I declared. “At least, those that I have. I’m sure you’ve noticed I have precious few friends. People don’t like the ‘Princess’, the archangel’s daughter. At best, I make them uncomfortable.”
“And at worse, you ignite the jealousy and anger in them.”
“Yes.”
“And yet Allegra Prior has stood by you through everything.”
“Because she’s my friend.”
“Is she? Is she indeed?”
I scowled at him. “What are you saying?”
“I think you know what I’m saying. Allegra Prior follows General Silverstar’s orders. From the time you joined the Legion, she’s always been at your side, looking over your shoulder.”
“She’s watching my back, not looking over my shoulder.”
“When every other soldier shunned you, she was there for you. Because General Silverstar ordered her to be there. To watch you. He couldn’t watch you all the time, so he needed someone to make sure you were following the path he’d set out for you.”
My fists clenched. Anger boiled under the surface of my skin. “How dare you!” I hissed under my breath. “Just because the world has withered away your faith, hardening you into a cynical shell, you have no right to drag everyone else into the abyss with you. Allegra is not a spy following my father’s orders.”
His gaze flickered to my clenched fists. “Your emotional response indicates that you do not truly believe those words of protest.”
I glared at him. “You really are an arrogant ass, Damiel Dragonsire.”
“Of course I am,” he agreed, unbothered. “But my own character flaws notwithstanding, I am right. General Silverstar is manipulating your life. And Captain Prior is one of his agents.”
“Do you have any proof of this beyond your own deeply-ingrained cynicism?”
“I did investigate General Silverstar thoroughly.”
“Really? Why?”
“It’s my job to investigate all the angels especially, a task given to me by the First Angel.”
Right. True. But unsettling nonetheless. It was a serious matter to be investigated by the Interrogators—or, as they were also known, the Inquisitors.
“When did you investigate my father?” I asked him.
“After my first mission with you. Something felt off.”
“Off about what?”
“About your life.”
“Something felt wrong about my life?” I laughed. My voice sounded strained, almost screechy. “Oh, is that all? I thought it was something serious.”
He watched me. “I’ve upset you.”
“Yeah, you kind of have. You’re telling me that my whole life is a lie.” I took a deep breath. “What conclusion did you come to after investigating my father?”
“General Silverstar’s actions indicated not that he was betraying the Legion, but that he was controlling you. And that included keeping you from forming any attachments to anyone he didn’t control.”
I thought of my friends. I’d never had a serious boyfriend. I’d never even gotten past the first date before those soldiers found themselves reassigned. All things considered, I supposed I should have been happy they hadn’t found themselves dead.
But this wasn’t just a case of an overprotective father. What was Dad doing? What did he have planned for me? Why did he never speak of my mother? Why did no one know anything about her?
“I wonder how my mother fits into this,” I said.
“Yes, I was wondering about that as well. I find the mystery surrounding her very suspicious. I wonder…” He looked at me.
“What?”
“I wonder if General Silverstar truly is your father.”
I didn’t want to believe it, that my friends had all been ordered to be my friends. But I could not deny that I did seem to be following my father’s design at every turn. Whatever that design was.
And now this. If my friends weren’t my friends, was my father really my father? Was my whole life a lie?
“He warned me that you would try to do this, to put a wedge between me and him,” I said quietly.
“General Silverstar was right. He knows me too well.”
I shook my head. “No, he knows the Master Interrogator. He doesn’t know Damiel at all.”
Damiel touched my face, brushing away a treacherous tear. I leaned in and kissed him on the lips. I didn’t even know why I did it. But the disappointment in my heart when he stepped back could not be denied.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We have a lot of ground to cover,” he replied and turned away.
We moved deeper into the woods. The springs grew grander and more numerous, but the path was taking us further from the fortress we wanted to scout out.
“What are we doing here?” I wondered.
“Do you trust me?”
I considered his question carefully.
“Your lack of an immediate response is not what I was hoping for,” he said.
“Do you want platitudes or honesty?”
He grunted. “Do you even have to ask?”
I lifted my brows. “Apparently, I do have to ask.”
But I was teasing him. I knew the Interrogator preferred truth, that he sought it out.
“I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided that I do trust you,” I declared. “At least in the matter of reconnaissance.”
“In what matters don’t you trust me?”
Now it was his turn to tease me.
But it wasn’t funny. He’d hit the issue right on the nose. There was one thing I wasn’t sure I could trust to him: my heart.
“The main attraction is this way.” Damiel took my hand, leading me deeper into the woods.
Was it crazy that the touch of his skin against mine made my heart jump in my chest?
Yes, it was crazy. Definitely crazy. Angels had nerves of steel—not light, fluttering-butterfly-wing pulses.
“Almost there,” Damiel said.
The leaves rustled lightly. It sounded like someone was hiding in the woods. From the sounds of it, it was roughly six someones.
And sure enough, as we came up to the final waterfall, six masked people surrounded us from all sides, their guns raised.
“Surrender,” a deep voice declared with obvious pride. “You are now prisoners of the great rebellion.”
15
Welcome to the Rebellion
I lowered my hand to my boot, ready to pull the hidden dagger out of it. The rebels surrounding us were well-armed, but they also appeared to be completely human. Slow and weak, they were no match for two angels.
But Damiel gave his head a slight, almost imperceptible tilt to the side. Trust me, he spoke in my mind.
I dropped my hand to my side.
The rebels grabbed hold of me and Damiel. We allowed ourselves to be led away, playing the part of the hapless tourists the rebels believed us to be. They bound our hands and threw bags over our heads. The inside of my bag smelled like musty old potatoes.
This is all very dramatic, I commented to Damiel. The rebels made quite a show of apprehending us.
Living in the Hive’s shadow, I expect they usually feel so powerless, he replied. This ‘operation’ fills their need to be in charge of their own destiny.
You knew this would happen, I realized. You knew th
ey would take us hostage.
Everything is going exactly to plan.
And just when did you intend to let me in on this plan of yours?
You’re upset.
Damn right I’m upset. You should have told me what you were going to do. You want me to trust you, Damiel, but you don’t trust me.
I do trust you. It’s just… He stopped.
Yes? I prompted him.
I’m not accustomed to sharing leadership. I’m used to telling people what to do, and then they do it.
That’s not going to work here. I’m through doing whatever I’m told.
Learning that my father had controlled my life—that he had manipulated me, right down to assigning ‘friends’ to me—had put an end to my era of blindly following orders.
Good. Damiel’s magic felt amused. Even playful.
Wait, how could I feel his magic?
Why did you want the rebels to capture us? I asked him.
I sought out this place, these springs, because the rebels have been abducting tourists from popular locations. And this is one of the city’s biggest attractions.
Like the yellow-haired woman said last night, the rebels are likely abducting tourists to get the government’s attention, to enact change, to have a voice, I said. Because only when people notice the rebels, can their message be heard. And only when they are heard, can they rally others against the ‘false deities’.
Yes, he agreed. These weapons are entirely out of place in the rebels’ hands. They don’t want to hurt people they believe to be innocent, and their faces as they pointed their guns at us were etched with guilt. Their desperation has driven them to this. We can use that. We can give them a way out.
Ahead of me, I heard the crunch of scratching gravel. The rebels were on the move. I was pulled along roughly by the arm.
“We need to find a place to hide,” said the rebel with a deep voice.
“This way.”
A Hive patrol squad is coming, Damiel told me.
