Page 82 of Wings of Lies
“Who’s there?”
He didn’t answer at first, giving me a moment to question my mental stability. Actually, I didn’t think I ever stopped after the first instance of voices in my head.
“My sweet Lucille, it’s been a long time since we last talked,” he stated calmly, temperature plummeting. Frostbite was a real possibility.
“How do you know my name? Who are you?”
“No one you know yet. We’ve talked once before, like this. Don’t you recall?”
“No,” I said.
He hummed as something cold prodded my mind. “No, I suppose not,” he said as the temperature plummeted further. I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. “You have Nerium poison lingering in your system.”
That’s what Marcus put in the IVs?
“You said Marcus did this to you?” The slow, vicious words had me wishing I could wake up. Especially since he just read my mind, and I wasn’t a fan.
“Yes. To weaken me for his queen.” Or so I assumed.
“He no longer works for the Tenebrous Queen.”
“How do you know that?”
“I have eyes and ears everywhere. There’s very little I don’t know.” Little picks tormented my arms at the ominous way he spoke.
“Do you know who he does work for? Or how long he hasn’t been working for the Tenebrous Queen?”
“Months. But they only found out he was a traitor recently when he fled.”
Months?So the queen didn’t have Marcus lock me in that room. But if it wasn’t her, then who was it?
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
“You’re trying to figure out who took me? Why?” How did I know this wasn’t all a lie or a game?
“I have no reason to lie or play games.”
The fact that I couldn’t think without an invasion of my thoughts made me itchy. Ice cracked in my ears like an iced-over lake warming. My teeth stopped chattering.Thank heaven.
“I’d rather not.”
“And I’d rather you explain why you’re here, who you are, and why you’re looking for who took me,” I snapped.
The slightest bit of warmth I garnered fled.
“I don’t takekindlyto your tone,” he said, inches away from my face. His breath slithered into my nose and froze all the moisture. Every time I breathed, it felt like I inhaled gaseous ice, freezing me from the inside out.
“I just want answers,” I whispered, afraid that if I pissed him off further, I’d die of hypothermia in this dark dream landscape and never wake up.
“You will not die. Although the fact you do not use more of your gifts is off-putting and quite concerning.”
I opened my mouth to snap back at his patronizing tone, forgetting my fear, when he cut me off.
“I don’t care to hear excuses. Let’s get on with your answers. Who am I? Irrelevant, for now. Why are we looking for who took you? Because my sweet Lucille, we have similar interests. One being on who took Saraqael and why. The next being why I’m here now, which is to help you escape, and there are others, but you’re not ready for them.”
My heart raced at his words. He was looking for my mom.
“I’ve been looking for both of you. But after Marcus’s slipup and my gain, it seems that the worthless underling has learned his lesson because we have yet to find him or his new employer, who we believe may have Saraqael.”
