Page 61 of Wings of Lies
Sixteen
Unearthly beauty reeled me in like a sucking black hole. Her hair was the color of a starless night, flowing in long waves down her tight, black bodice. She was regal. Her ebony eyes had scarlet rings and were washed with a purple film.
It was another dream-walk, similar to the one of my mom and—I gritted my teeth remembering bits and pieces of that man. I didn’t invade any bodies. Here, without vertigo, my skinny body was my own. A big difference from my last dream-walk, where I was toned, my breasts weren’t pancakes, a strange guy helped warm me, and my mom confessed to?—
“The infamous Saraqael is summoning me?” I jerked back.Saraqael?That was my mom’s name. “What would your precious angel say about this?” She smiled. But there was nothing friendly about it.
“How is it done?”
I peeked around a large pillar and found my mom on the other side of a circle of prominent red symbols. Her body shimmered with a pure white light. Glory.
They were opposites. One dark and sinful, the other light and pure.
“How is what done?” The dark one asked, intrigued. She prowled inside the symbols. Mulberry lips tilted in a predatory smile.
“Children.”
The dark woman laughed, filling the air with a lilting melody. “Saraqael, you can’t have children. You know that.”
“I heard different.” She paused. “And I heard you’ve helped others.”
Swirling black silk grazed the white slippers of my mom’s feet. Long-painted nails attempted to reach for her chin, but the dark woman couldn’t breach the circle of symbols. “Did you now? And did these others happen to have names or locations?” Danger edged her questioning tone.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Shouldn’t you know who you’ve helped?”
Her lips twisted. “I’ve helped many. But your kind? Very few. And none have proven to be successful. Or so I’ve been told.” Her fake smile dropped.
My mom kept quiet.
“You want to know how to have a child. You will give me their name. And do not lie to me, for I know your other half would never allow you to associate with the likes of us, and I wouldn’t want him finding out,” she said sweetly, sounding like she wouldn’t care one bit if he found out.
The light on my mom’s skin guttered. “Miriam,” she whispered.
A genuine smile spread on the dark woman’s face. “Very unexpected of you, Saraqael. Twice today. First summoning me and second, giving up the name so easily.” Black silk swirled, trailing the circle of glistening writing. “But a deal is a deal. Although, I’m not sure you’ll ever have a child. And not because it is still difficult with my methods. But because you and whoever the father will be will need to tangle with a lot of dark energy,” she tittered. “That purist you’re with would send you to hell himself before doing that. You could see my husband.”
My mom lifted her head, determination in her stiff shoulders. “Tell me.”
Purple light flashed,and my eyes opened.
Iwasborn. My mom was an Archangel, and she found a way to have me with the help of the creepy, dark woman.Did that make me the first-born angel in existence? Was that why I had Glory, and they took me?All these questions made my head hurt.
I surveyed my surroundings, trying to block the blue moonlight streaming in, which was making my headache worse. The moonlight shed its light onto a small minimalist room. A table to my right held a flickering candle lamp and a bowl of pink water with a washcloth. The walls were plain with no adornment, no extra furniture but the cream bed and side table.
I pushed myself into a sitting position and gasped. My sides burned, and my legs throbbed with the slightest twitch. Pushing past the pain, I pulled the quilt down. A loose shirt pulled up to my breasts showed a bandage wrapped tightly around my ribs. Lower yet, twotight bandages circled my thighs, painfully so. Tempted to unwind them, I fingered the edge of the gauze. It wassticky?
A substance oozed from the corners. I rubbed it on the pad of my fingers.Was that—I sniffed it.Honey?
More curious than ever, I unwound the gauze at my ribs, then stopped and stared at my wrists. How I didn’t notice before was beyond me, but my cuffs were gone. My wrist and finger splint were not. Or they had been rewrapped.
Continuing my unraveling, the gauze turned pink, darkening with each pull.
“Stop—” I jerked at Aspen’s voice, covering myself. “Your wounds need to stay tightly bound!” he snapped, almost sounding panicked.
He stood in the open doorway, tense. I was so immersed in my head that I forgot about him and the others. But, of course, they were still close by.
