CHAPTER 6
Rook paced the small wooden chalet he had found deep in the woods near the lake, one that had seen better days. It stood at the foot of the mountains, shrouded by pines that must have closed in during the years it had been neglected. Snow rested heavily on the roof, causing the beams in the vaulted ceiling to groan at times in a way that had Rook tensing, sure it was about to collapse on his head.
He had spotted the rundown cabin when he had suddenly stopped flying and hadn’t been able to convince himself to keep going.
That need to remain close to Isadora still lingered, tormenting him together with the questions that had been ricocheting around his tired mind all night.
Did he know her?
She had certainly known him.
Was it all a trick?
Maybe she was in on it. But if she had been pretending to know him, then she was a brilliant actress. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from going to her when he had set eyes on her, when he had seen the tears that had streaked her cheeks glistening like rivers of diamonds in the moonlight.
When he had felt her pain.
Really felt it.
An invisible force had pulled him towards her.
Because he had wanted to take that pain away for her.
Even when part of him was sure he had caused it.
He wasn’t familiar with witches, but every instinct he possessed said the golden orb she had created had been about to detonate until she had looked at him. The sight of him had truly shocked her, enough to send her dropping from view and to tear sobs from her. He had heard people cry before, but none of them had affected him like the sound of her choked sobbing.
She had sounded as if she had lost something precious to her, someone she had cared for so deeply that losing them had torn a part of her with it.
A piece of her soul.
No actress could manage such a feat.
No. Her pain had been real.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t in on things.
Perhaps he had done something to the one she had loved, had been responsible for his death, and that was why she felt so familiar, and why the sight of him had hurt her so deeply.
He had killed many people in his years serving Hell, and a lot of angels too.
Was it possible she had loved an angel, as Apollyon’s witch loved him, and Rook had taken that male from her?
Was this all an elaborate scheme to allow her to get revenge on him?
He growled and turned sharply when he reached the kitchen area of the small ski lodge, his boots loud on the wooden floor that creaked beneath his weight with each step. He paced back across the cramped room, passing between the stone fireplace that still stood to his right and what had probably been a couch or something similar before creatures and time had eaten it.
The air was musty, cold enough that his breath fogged as he unleashed another frustrated snarl.
He scrubbed his black hair and frowned, blinked hard to ward off sleep. He couldn’t rest now. He wasn’t safe here, not with the witches nearby.
He doubted he could sleep even if he risked it.
His mind churned with replays of Isadora, with visions of the beauty that had stolen his breath from his lungs. He had imagined so many things about her while he had stared at the drawing of her in his quarters, and half of them had been wrong.
The image of her that he had built in Paris when he had decided to search for her was correct though.
Her hair was silver like the moon.
Her irises were as bright as the light it spilled, a dazzling shade of pale blue.
He hadn’t been able to get close enough to her to see her figure or her clothes, but he had noticed something else about her.
She wore shackles, and the dark score marks on her hands said she had worn them some time.
Because she was a prisoner as Apollyon had said?
She had appeared tired too, darkness circling her eyes and her skin sallow and thin.
Not an act.
He had sensed genuine fatigue in her, as if she hadn’t eaten properly in weeks. Or was her weakness because the shackles she wore inhibited her magic? He had watched her struggling to push the orb towards him through the snow, had studied the toll it had taken on her and how close she had been to collapse at times. She had forced herself to continue though, revealing a strength that was alluring in a way.
The witch had fortitude, a resolve that many lacked.
He could admire that.
Rook paced around the dead couch and rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen up his tight muscles as a feeling pounded inside him, growing stronger with each beat and every thought that spun through his tired mind.
He couldn’t leave her there.
Even if it was a trap, he couldn’t ignore her plight. He couldn’t just walk away and return to his life knowing she was the prisoner of someone, had been mistreated by them and might die because he hadn’t saved her.
As heartless as his kind were meant to be, one still beat inside his chest from time to time.
An inconvenience, but one he endured.
So he would save her and then he would return to Hell, and he would forget about her.
He focused on himself, pushing through thoughts of her to fix his mind on ones of his realm and his master. He was sure the Devil would be calling him again, attempting to pull him back to Hell for punishment. He had disobeyed an order. That was grounds for execution. He had captured a few rogue Hell’s angels in his time and had brought them before his master, had watched as the male utterly destroyed them, taking pleasure from exacting his punishment for their defiance.
He had thought it glorious at the time.
It didn’t mean he wanted to be on the receiving end of it.
He pushed deeper, seeking the call he was certain would be there, subdued by how focused he was on the witch.
Only it wasn’t there.
He felt no compulsion to return to Hell.
“The fuck?” he muttered and tried again but met with the same result.
The Devil wasn’t calling him back.
His gut twisted at that, the bad feeling brewing in it again, the same way it had when his master had come to see what had been happening at the plateau. Back then, the feeling had driven him to conceal the picture of Isadora from the male. He still wasn’t sure why. Something deep inside him, a feeling he couldn’t quite make out, compelled him to keep her a secret.
Just as it compelled him to save her now.
Rook strode to the window, scrubbed the side of his fist across the dirty glass, and peered out at the thick forest and the sliver of sky he could see through the dark green canopy. That sky burned shades of copper and pink. The day was waning.
Night was coming.
He rolled his shoulders again, struggling to ease the tension building there as his body prepared itself for the coming fight. Not a fight. It would be a battle. It would take all of his strength to break through the barrier someone had placed over the chateau, leaving him weakened when he faced whoever was holding Isadora, vulnerable to their magic.
Victory would be his though. He wouldn’t allow a few witches to stand between him and the female.
Whatever hits he took, he would keep pushing forwards, wouldn’t stop until she was safe.
He wasn’t sure he could stop even if he wanted to.
The need to save her was strong, controlling him as he opened the door of the chalet and stepped out into the evening. He strode forwards a few steps, into a clearing. Fire burned in his veins, rage that swiftly built from a spark to an inferno as he thought about Isadora in chains, enslaved by her own kind.
He growled and kicked off, shot into the air and spread his wings as he cleared the tops of the pines. He beat them to keep himself steady, twisted in the direction of the chateau and flew towards it.
Towards her.
The strange sensation she caused in him grew stronger as he closed the distance between them, creating an urge to fly faster, to reach her quicker. He pushed himself harder, ignoring the part of him that whispered to conserve his strength for the fight ahead. He couldn’t. He needed to see the witch again.
He reached the chateau as the colours of evening drained from the sky, leaving the fingers of cloud cold against their darkening backdrop, as if someone had just sucked all the warmth from the world.
His gaze zipped to his left as movement there caught his eye.
A lone male.
A long black coat shrouded his slender frame and brushed through the snow as he walked the garden, smoke curling from his lips and the cigarette he held.
Rook halted in the air and narrowed his gaze as he assessed him. He had power. Rook could feel it as he focused, a low hum that matched the magic he could sense in the barrier. Had this witch created it?
Would such a barrier require more than one witch to cast it? If a group had been required to create it, would killing only one of them destroy it?
Hell, would killing this witch shatter the barrier if he had been the sole caster?
He wasn’t sure of the answer to any of those questions.
He was sure of one thing though.
This witch was going to die.
Rook drew the crimson blade hanging at his waist and focused on it as he skimmed the flat of his right hand along it, transforming it into a broadsword.
He grinned and swept down towards the male, landed hard in the snow on the other side of the barrier, directly in front of the witch, and used his own type of magic to alter his appearance.
Normally, angels used a glamour to hide themselves entirely from mortal eyes or to conceal their wings and armour, replacing them with modern clothing so they could blend in with the humans.
Rook went one further.
It drained him, but it was necessary.
He needed to lure the male out from the protective sphere of the barrier.
The witch glanced his way when he moved along the edge of the barrier, pretending to be heading towards the woods that formed a boundary around the gardens of the elegant chateau.
“Merde,” he muttered and started towards Rook, switching to English laced with a thick French accent as he hollered, “Stop there. How did you get out?”
Rook glanced across his shoulder at him, feigning shock and fear, manipulating the glamour with those emotions so the male would see it.
Or at least he would see Isadora looking at him with terror in her eyes.
Rook shuffled faster, clutching his hands to his chest, hoping the witch wouldn’t feel the glamour as he neared him. He also hoped the bastard wouldn’t see the sword he held point-down in front of him. Not until it was too late anyway.
He held back a grin as the witch crossed the barrier. He moved faster, limping towards the forest, luring the male there.
He glanced over his shoulder, checking the male was still following.
Ribbons of cerulean light twined around the witch’s fingers as he closed in, and then stuttered as he suddenly halted just a few feet from him.
Damn it.
Rook lifted his gaze to the male’s face and cursed again as surprise flickered in his blue eyes.
“Hang on a minute.” The male frowned at him. “Where did you get those clothes?”
Rook didn’t look down at the black dress he wore, one that hugged a figure he had imagined being sultry and sinful, curvy in all the best ways.
He pivoted on his heel to face the witch, lunged forwards and brought his blade up at the same time. His left shoulder slammed against the male’s right one and he stared at the chateau beyond, at that tiny barred window in the basement where Isadora waited.
He was coming.
The male grunted, a rush of air leaving his lips in a cloud of white, and his eyes slowly widened.
Lowered.
Rook did grin now as he let the glamour fall away, allowing the male to see the crimson blade that pierced his chest as he took a step back and pulled it out of him.
Horror joined the shock in the witch’s blue eyes as he watched the blade leaving him, all four feet of it.
When the tip left him, the male sagged to his knees in the snow and stared down at his knees and the pool of scarlet rapidly forming beneath him to soak into the white.
Rook swept his broadsword to his left, sending a spray of blood across the pristine snow there, and focused beyond the male to the chateau, and the barrier. It was weakening. The power that charged the air was fading as the witch’s life bled from him.
He looked down at the male as he drew up beside him and then back at the castle. An image of Isadora in shackles, her delicate face gaunt and streaked with tears flashed across his mind. A low growl rumbled up his throat and his teeth sharpened in response, the rage in his blood rolling back to a boil as he shifted his gaze to the window where he had seen her last night.
He swung his blade and didn’t look back as the witch’s head thudded to the ground.
He strode forwards, flaring his crimson wings out and snarling as darkness chased over his skin, the urge to shift into his demonic form rushing through him as his mind leaped ahead to imagine killing the others who had harmed Isadora.
He didn’t take his eyes off the window as he approached, couldn’t drag them away as a need to see her pounded inside him.
The barrier was gone by the time he reached the point where he had stood last night and he grinned, flashing fangs, as he stormed right past it and closed in on the chateau. His senses stretched out, covering every square and conical tower on the ancient circular stone building. He counted five inside including Isadora.
Her signature was fainter now, weaker than it had been last night. Had they done something to her?
He moved to her window, needing to see.
She didn’t appear in it as she had before. No light flickered to guide him to her or reveal her to him. He stopped when he reached the wall and hunkered down, not caring that his wings dragged through the snow. All that mattered was seeing Isadora again.
He set his sword down and angled his head so he could peer through the window.
It was dark in the small cell, but his heightened vision took care of that as he focused on the room.
Revealing Isadora.
She sat in the far corner to the right of the door, her eyes wide and glassy as she stared ahead of her.
What had they done to her?
“Isadora?” he murmured, wanting her to look at him but not wanting to draw attention to himself.
Not yet, anyway.
Part of him had been beginning to consider ripping a hole in the wall and just taking Isadora and running with her.
It wasn’t an option now.
The hunger to spill blood, to kill every fucking bastard in the building blazed through him, gripped him and had him itching to fight as he looked at her.
As he saw the bruises that littered her face, neck and arms.
As she slowly lifted her head to look at him through hollow eyes.
They had tortured her.
He had seen it enough times to recognise it, but it had never made him burn like this, twisted tight inside with a need to avenge her.
“Isadora,” he whispered and pressed his right hand to the glass that separated them. “It’s me… Rook.”
Her fine dark eyebrows twitched.
The recognition and relief he expected to fill her eyes didn’t happen. They remained flat and cold.
“The fuck?” he growled to himself, and then softly said to her, “You know me.”
Confusion put a furrow in her brow. “I know… no Rook.”