CHAPTER 8
Rook’s legs were killing him by the time he reached the door of Isadora’s cell in the basement. He pressed his hand to the cold metal, sensing her on the other side. She was calm, still in a daze if he had to guess. Had the spell she had cast that had apparently backfired really caused her injuries?
Had that spell been to forget him or the immortality spell the witches had wanted to take from her?
He lingered, unsure of the answer, or how he felt about it if she had wanted to forget him. He thought back to last night, to how she had looked at him with bold warmth in her eyes that had bordered on affection and the way she had breathed his name with such need that it had shocked him and sent him reeling.
He had been king of the fools before this moment, because he had sought to convince himself that he was either a target of an act by her or her enemy, while a secret part of himself had dared to hope that the feelings that had shone in her eyes had been real.
And for him.
He blew out his breath. “Ah, hell.”
He gripped the silver handle and pressed down, no relief filling him when it gave and the door opened a crack. All he felt were nerves that were foreign to him, a sense of unease that set him on edge as he gathered the courage to step into the room.
He drew down another deep breath and pushed the door open.
Isadora scurried away on her hands and knees, racing for the far corner, muttering to herself. Her manacles scraped over the stone, tearing at his black heart, and his eyes sought her. She twisted onto her backside and huddled up, forming a small ball, her silver hair like a waterfall in the moonlight, tangled and wild.
The connection he had felt with her burst back to life. The intensity of it damn near stole his breath as he stared at her and a deep ache formed inside him, a sense of longing that felt as if it had lasted centuries.
She was something to him. Something more than his ward?
He wanted to ask her that, but he held his tongue, because he wasn’t sure he could take the thought of her saying again that she didn’t know him.
He would get the answers he needed, but they wouldn’t come from her. Apollyon would be the one he interrogated, because now he believed the angel had known him, and that he knew Isadora too.
Knew what Isadora had been to him.
“Isadora,” he murmured softly, not wanting to frighten her. “It’s time to leave.”
She continued muttering to herself, strange words that held power. Was she trying to protect herself with a spell? From him?
He wouldn’t hurt her. He wasn’t sure he could hurt her. The thought of it turned his stomach, had him wanting to rage again, to unleash all the fury of Hell on this world, or maybe on himself if he dared to harm her.
He eased into the room and sank to his haunches in front of her, keeping his distance so he didn’t scare her.
“Isadora?”
She stilled, her small body tensing, and then lifted her head slightly. He felt her gaze land on his boots and traverse his greaves. She stopped on his knees and he knew why. His skin was no longer black, his demonic appearance receded now, but blood from the puncture wounds covered him.
It didn’t surprise him when she shrank away and muttered another spell.
“I won’t hurt you.” He carefully stretched a hand out towards her and she fell silent again. “I just want to take you away from here.”
She shook her head. “The men…”
“Taken care of. The people who did this to you… they’re gone, Isadora. I took care of them.” Anger swelled once more to set his blood on fire, igniting a hunger to fight the males all over again, to draw out their deaths this time because it wasn’t a spell that had reduced Isadora to a scared, timid little thing.
It was what they had done to her.
Things he didn’t want to imagine because he was liable to go off the deep end again if he did.
“Let me free you.” He reached closer to her. “I can remove those shackles.”
She looked down at them. Shoved her hands towards him. His black heart ached all over again at the sight of her scarred wrists, at the dirt that covered them together with traces of blood, and all the bruises that littered her arms.
Rook shuffled closer.
He eased both hands towards hers, his focus locked on her, monitoring her for even the slightest sign that she was either afraid or about to attack him. She didn’t know him and she had been through hell because of males. There was every chance she might panic and attack him as her instincts labelled him as a danger to her.
She tensed when he gently wrapped his hand around one of her cuffs.
“Not going to hurt you,” he murmured, hoping to soothe her.
He wanted to chuckle at that. He had waged war for centuries, driven by the sole purpose of achieving power, uncaring of what he had to do to achieve it. How many lives had the hands he placed on her shackles taken? How many times had they been brutal and fierce, unyielding as they gripped his sword or the necks of his enemies? How many times had he used them to push unwilling mortals and demons into cells like this one?
He couldn’t recall the last time he had touched something so gently, so carefully. Long ago enough that he was surprised he could remember how to be this tender.
His eyes settled on the cuffs.
A tender touch wasn’t going to free Isadora from them though.
That required brute strength.
“I’m going to force them open.” He hoped she understood what that meant, was lucid enough to comprehend that he wasn’t going to hurt her, no matter how fierce he might appear.
She stared at him, dazed and not quite with him.
Was this really the result of a spell backfiring?
She looked as if she was no longer part of the world, was a bystander observing it all from a distance, removed from everything.
He wanted to lift his hand and brush her cheek to feel she was solid and real.
“Will it pass?” He focused back on her wrist and the first manacle.
It had no visible lock, but there was a hinge. Hinges were a weak point.
“Pass?” she murmured, slipping away from him again.
He could feel it as she retreated, floating further from his reach. Her eyes left him, drifting up to the window to his right.
“The moon is pretty tonight.” A little sigh slipped from her lips.
Rook took her momentary distraction as a chance to break the first cuff.
He slipped his fingers beneath the band on either side of her wrist and bit back a growl as he pulled in opposite directions. The metal cut into his fingers but he ignored the sting as he gritted his teeth and poured every drop of his strength into breaking the shackle. His muscles bunched, straining and shaking, and he pushed harder, close to snarling as the cuff finally began to give.
It bent but didn’t break.
The damned thing had to be magically reinforced.
“Fuck,” he grumbled between hard breaths and looked at the oval of metal and then at her.
She stared at her arm.
“Can you squeeze your hand out?” Because he wasn’t sure he could break it.
He didn’t have the strength when it was bleeding out of him.
She nodded, her silver hair brushing the chest of her black t-shirt, and gripped the bent cuff with her left hand as she wriggled her other one, twisting it back and forth as she tried to slip it out.
A smile lit up her face when it popped free and her aqua eyes leaped up to meet his, sending a jolt through him that stole his breath and had him forgetting his pain.
Damn, she was beautiful.
Even with dirt streaking her face, dark circles around her eyes and bruises peppering her skin, she was breathtaking.
Stunning.
She flexed her fingers and turned her hand this way and that, her focus falling away from him to land on it.
He gripped her remaining shackle and gave it the same treatment, bending it enough that she had room to slip her hand out of it.
“Thank you,” she whispered as he tossed the shackles aside, her gaze holding a hint of shyness as it met his and then flitted away.
“Let’s get you out of here.” He stood and held his hand out to her.
She eyed it, turned away and used the rough stones to pull herself onto her feet. He expected her to waver, to show a sign of the fatigue she had to be feeling, but she stood rod straight, resolve entering her eyes as she looked past him to the door.
She was heading towards it before he could even think about helping her, her steps steady but slow, cautious as she approached the hallway.
The spell wasn’t the only thing that had drained her strength. He would need to get her something to eat.
He followed her, remaining close in case she needed him but not daring to butt in and help her without her asking or showing that she needed it. He was learning about her, and he was learning fast. She was liable to lash out at him if he took hold of her now, because she wanted to escape this place unaided, by her own volition.
Her own strength.
The very strength the witches had tried to strip from her with spells and starving her.
She had it in spades, every step she took stronger than the last. She gained confidence as she moved along the corridor, her heeled leather boots shuffling across the flagstones, enough that she released the wall and was walking without its support by the time she reached the staircase.
Her lean black-jeans-clad legs trembled at times as she slowly ascended them, clutching the railing for support.
She faltered near the top and he closed the distance between them, his gut clenching at the thought she might fall.
He stilled when she looked over her shoulder at him, her aqua eyes distant but holding a hint of warmth that rendered him immobile. She didn’t know him. He reminded himself of that as he stared into those tropical eyes and that sense that he knew her returned full force to attempt to knock him on his ass.
She had known him once though, and maybe there was a chance she could know him again if he could find a way to break the spell she had cast on herself.
Could Apollyon’s witch help with that?
Rook stuck close to Isadora as she mounted the final steps, there if she needed him, even if she didn’t want him. She could be angry with him all she liked, all he cared about was keeping her safe.
Which was the most bizarre thing he had ever experienced.
He wasn’t in the habit of caring for others.
He was second in command of the First Battalion, but he didn’t give a damn about the angels under him. He didn’t even give a damn about his commander. He only cared about himself, and most of the angels he had met in Hell were the same way.
But now he cared about someone else.
He hung back and watched Isadora as she crossed the foyer, heading in a direct line for the main door of the chateau, her pace quickening as she closed in on it and her freedom.
Her legs wobbled and he darted forwards a step, his heart in his mouth. She snapped them straight again, locking them and keeping her balance, and took another step forwards, this one more cautious.
He needed to help her get her strength back.
He glanced off to his right, towards the kitchen. She wasn’t the only one who needed sustenance. His injuries were healing now, but they had drained him, and he needed his strength to return if he was going to cast a portal and get them to Paris.
He was sure Apollyon and his witch could help him with Isadora.
Rook looked back at Isadora, loath to leave her even when he knew they were alone. There wasn’t a soul for miles in all directions. She would be safe. He tried to make that sink in. She would be safe and the quicker he made his way to the kitchen, the faster he could return to her, and hopefully he would be back before she ventured too far into the snowy grounds.
He strode towards the corridor on his right and a hot shiver raked down his spine as her eyes landed on him, dragging his focus back to her. He locked his senses on her as he rounded a corner, keeping track of her while he foraged for something they could eat.
The kitchen was further than he remembered, and he was glad that Isadora wasn’t with him when he spared a glance at the dead male he had left near the courtyard exit. He had told her that he had taken care of those who had held her, but he wasn’t sure she understood what that meant, and the thought she might react badly because he had killed someone sat like acid coated lead in his stomach.
Or maybe he was just hungry.
He snagged a bread roll from the box on the large wooden table in the centre of the kitchen and ate it as he found two bags, one of which had some apples in the bottom. He stuffed them with more bread, some meats and cheeses from a cold cupboard-like object that hummed and lit up when he opened it, and added some clear canisters of water.
Satisfied with his haul, he tied the handles of the bags together and hurried back towards the foyer.
Isadora was already out of the door when he reached it, and he stormed after her, tracking her with his senses. Relief washed through him to ease the turbulent churning of his stomach and the ache in his chest when he spotted her shuffling through the snow towards the trees to the left of the castle.
His pace slowed, steps arrested by the sight of her as the moonlight shone on her tangled silver hair and caressed her slender shoulders. With the mountains as her backdrop, and the stars shining in the inky sky above her, she looked ethereal, like something from another world.
An otherworldly creature who was rapidly closing in on the forest while he was struck dumb and staring at her.
“Isadora,” he hollered.
She whipped to face him.
Fell right on her backside in the snow, sending a wave of it outwards from her as she sank into it.
“Damn. Sorry.” He jogged over to her, caught her wrist before she could protest and pulled her back onto her feet.
She stumbled towards him, planted her hands against his crimson-edged black chest piece and stared up at him, the moonlight playing across her face in an entrancing way now, stealing the colour from her eyes.
Her breath fogged in the freezing air as she gazed up at him. Her pupils slowly dilated to devour the blue of her irises.
“I… ah…” He fought to keep his eyes on hers, battled the urge to look at her mouth as the feel of her slender body against his, her breasts and belly pressing into his exposed stomach, roused a fierce desire to kiss her. He awkwardly lifted the two bags he held. “I found food.”
Cold washed over him as she tore her eyes from his to settle them on the bags, stealing the heat of her gaze from him.
“We should keep moving.” He looked down at her clothes and the snow that covered them, already melting into the black material.
She would get sick if they lingered in the freezing night.
The thought of her falling ill sent a shockwave of emotion rolling through him, a potent mixture of concern, determination and resolve.
He mentally braced himself for her outrage, bent at the knee and scooped her up into his arms.