Page 38 of Not Today, Satan
“They’ve grown since then. You have a few feathers growing out of those stumps. And they aren’t red.” Nate produces something from the front pocket of his vest. “It fell off when I was getting the glass out. I didn’t know if you’d need it.”
He places the feather in my palm, and I squint at it in the firelight. My breath catches as it comes into focus. These aren’t the same as Father’s wings. Not by a long shot. I hold it up to the light with shaking fingers. “Is that… Are they black?”
“And gold.” He leans against my shoulder and stares up at the feather. “They’re beautiful, Devica.”
My stomach backflips when he uses that word again. But he’s not wrong. It’s breathtaking. Black as a raven and threaded with gold, as though woven in by expert fingers.
“It can’t be,” I whisper. The cave spins around me, in and out of focus. My heartbeat picks up, and I close my fist around the feather.
I’ve seen designs like this before. Not in person, but in paintings buried deep in Father’s closet.
“What is it?” he asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
As I open my mouth to answer, a voice pierces the other end of the cave. “This way.”
The blood drains from my face. I’d hoped never to hear that voice again. And certainly not so soon. I’m not back to 100 percent yet.
“I heard something in here.” The voice grows closer. That same growl that whispered in my ear back in Dominus. My body goes cold.
Ferus.
XVII.
I can’t move.
The cave swirls around me, the ground sucking me into its depths like quicksand.
It’s over.
Nate touches my arm, and we lock eyes. His gaze is calm, releasing me from the mud at my feet. He tilts his head in the opposite direction of the voices, and I nod.
I grab my sword from the ground as he slings the bag over his shoulder, and we slink deeper into the flickering shadows of the cave.
“We have direct orders to return her to the boss.” Ferus’s deep boom batters the walls behind us, pebbling goose bumps over my skin. “He’s furious. He doesn’t care what we do to the shadeling, but he wants his daughter homenow.”
His words wind around my spine and tighten. It’s too late to plead innocence. But there’s no way I’m letting Ferus, of all demons, be the one to bring me in.
“Why would she do it?” a second voice I don’t recognize asks. “Help a disgusting shadeling escape?”
Disgusting?Nate mouths at me.
I shrug and nudge him forward, pulling the torches off the wall as we go and extinguishing them against the stone. The darkness should buy us time.
“Who cares?” Ferus replies, closer now. “All that matters is that the demon that brings her in is going to get a big promotion—and I intend to be that demon.”
Not if I can help it.
I push Nate to speed up, tripping on his heels. If we can lose them in the next tunnel, they may think we took a different route and turn back.
Light stretches from the exit of the cave ahead, and my shoulders lift. We’re almost there. A shadow crosses the opening, and my eyes widen. Another souldier. We’re surrounded.
Fuckfuckfuck.
I yank Nate by the back of his vest and shove him against the wall, pressing my body into his. His breath bursts out of him, lifting the hair off my shoulder. I hold my index finger to my mouth and he nods, his chin skimming my temple.
We’re so close that his heart slams against my own, the two rhythms drowning out my thoughts. Damn Father for giving shadelings breath and heartbeats when he decided punishments would be more torturous if humans were as alive down here as they were on Earth.
We can’t stay here. Ferus will reach us eventually, but if we take the exit ahead, those souldiers will arrest us, too.Come on, Dev. Think of something. I force myself to focus on anything besides the way Nate’s body fits against mine.
