Page 43 of Wings of Lies
One of his soldiers took out an axe and bashed the blunt end into her head. She stilled, Rune growled, and the pet bellowed. “Marcus!”
Marcus jerked his attention to the Tenebrous portal. “Prince—wh— what are you doing here?”
“The queen sent me.” He strode forward, blue eyes enflamed.
“Why?” Marcus asked.
“She sensed someone coming through the portal.”
“Sensed?” Marcus asked, taking a few steps closer to the Earth portal.
The pet took in Marcus’s retreating steps, the female cuffed on the ground, and the circle of soldiers that gave the queen’s pet a wide berth. Blue flames erupted on the pet’s hands, and Marcus took another step back.
“Yes, sensed. She spelled the portal. So she was surprised to sense her second-in-command come through the Earth portal when he was supposed to be in Deava. You defied a direct order from your queen. Care to explain?” The blue flames in the pet’s hands formed into balls, and he bounced them as he waited for an answer.
Marcus turned and fled, sprinting to the Earth portal.
Blue flames shot from the pet’s hands, reducing the soldiers to ash and raging toward Marcus. They destroyed the Tenebrous portal along the way and missed Marcus’s feet by inches.
Why’d the pet do that? That was the way back to their kingdom.
The Searcher and Cambion demons were cuffing the female’s arms and didn’t notice what happened.
The pet approached them, extinguishing his flames, and took the female from the Searcher.
“My flames destroyed our way home in attempts to kill the traitor. We’ll have to go the long way,” he said. The Searcher glanced at the portal, and then they walked into the woods together.
Follow Rune, and don’t get caught. I’ll check back in later. If anything happens to the female or they’re not headed in the right direction, signal to me. Do not intervene.
Chapter
Thirteen
It was yet another purple-ringed dream but without the vertigo. This time, I invaded the body of a recent version of myself. I couldn’t tell how old I was, only that I stood taller, and my chest pushed at my shirt.
I sprinted outside into the last light of day and headed toward the woods behind our house. Dark clouds drenched me with their rain and pelted me in the face as I pushed myself into lusceler.
“Bring it on!” I yelled to the sky, slamming my soaked slippers into every puddle. Fist clenched, the pressure swelled with each splash. I pushed myself faster, the canopy of green guarding me from the rain.
It was coming.
It started as a touch, nudging me. Then, based on the torrent of emotions, it rose until the pressure intensified and hit my barrier. And when it hit my barrier, stabbing into me beneath my skin, I only had seconds left.
Millions of little needles tore at my body.
I sank to my knees.
My power tried to obliterate my protective layer. Or at least that’s what it felt like. When I couldn’t hold in my cries any longer, I flung my head back. Wet strands of black hair slapped against my shirt, and I screamed as an explosion of white flame burst free, disintegrating my clothes into a pile of ash.
At release, my screams stopped, hissing rain filling the silence. I wanted to cry, but my body wouldn’t allow it in this state. This was her fault because of her stupid confession. But how could she have kept me so in the dark—lied to me for so long?
The thought turned to acid in my stomach. For nine years, my mom lied to me, to my father, about—I stopped myself. That thought still hadn’t registered. Or it did, but it was too complicated to wrap my brain around.
She hid so much from me. No wonder she’d always been so hellbent on calming me and keeping me off everyone’s radar.
But she couldn’t hide it all. The thought was bitter and filled with a sick kind of resentment. It only happened twice. My mom never gave me an explanation either time. The incidents were ignored and avoided in conversation, brushed away with innocent excuses or her power.
I thought back to the plume of smoke from our burning house and the shock of seeing my room explode with white and purple flame. And even further back, to when I touched him. My eyes flickered to the angelic rune on my wrist, now white and useless. A crutch and a perfect tool to hide what my mom didn’t want anyone to know. I wondered when my father figured it out. If I ever had the misfortune of seeing him again, I could ask.
