Page 110 of Even Angels fall
I need to breathe.
Elhyor seems to realize my brain went back to a dark place, so he comes next to me and sits on the tip of the desk. It’s more like his ass leans on the desk than anything else, but then he moves his hand to the top of my thigh and squeezes slightly.
It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s enough to help me deflate a bit.
“I guess it all went to shit,” Léandre says. “Well, not completely,” he adds as he turns his holo so he can look at the time, “it’s eight minutes past twelve, and I’m still me.”
Oh.
Well, we might have lost—hopefully only temporarily—Brice and his team, but it seems that they really managed to destroy the servers and to save Léandre.
There is finally a smile drawing on my lips and a weight I definitely knew was on my shoulders lifts just like that.
I don’t care that I’m half naked. I just jump from the desk and run the three steps separating me from Léandre before hugging him tightly to me.
I feel like crying from happiness, but as much as this pleases me, we still have things to do, things to plan and my father to take down, so I release Léandre and take a step back.
“I’m glad you’re still yourself,” I tell him, “but yes, we need to plan an extraction. First we need to find where Michaël has the team held. Luc is working on it.”
“I can’t see where your dad…” Léandre starts to say, but my eyes must betray me because I don’t think I can keep calling Michaël my father and even less my dad after what happened today. He doesn’t deserve any term that could be taken as an endearment. “Michaël. I can’t see where he would be holding them.Les écurieswould be the most logical, but everyone inside of Versailles knows the official dungeons are down there. So, even if they are well guarded, I doubt he would pick somewhere so evident to hold them. I know that’s not where he put my dad. I bribed a guard to know that.”
”Where does that leave us?” Elhyor asks.
“Knowing him? He built a dungeon somewhere without telling any of the other archangels because he plans on having them there before he’s forced to step down,” I answer.
“You really think he wants to take over the whole organization?” Elhyor asks.
“With what happened today, the fact he’s still holding Gabriel, the fact he wants you dead… Do you really believe it’s not a possibility?” I answer back with my own question.
Elyor does take a long time to answer, but he’s cut by Cassiopé.
“Are you even sure that my dad is alive?” She asks. “None of you seemed to be certain when you came back. Do you have any proof that he is not dead? Because the way I see it, and I hope to hell that I’m wrong, he might very well be dead, and we’re goingto go on a wild goose hunt all for nothing. I love my dad, I really love him and I’ll search the earth for any trace of him. I will. Even if it’s just to recover his body. But he’smydad and nothing forces you to do that, too.”
She didn’t stop to breathe once again, but this time she isn’t even a bit breathless, and her face is nothing but determined.
She might not be a warrior, and she might not be part of any of Elhyor’s teams, but she looks so fierce at this moment. But things keep getting weirder and weirder because Léandre grabs her hand like no one is watching them.
“I won’t let you search alone. We’re in this together,” he says before kissing her knuckles.
Did I miss something? Léandre doesn’t sound like today was just a hookup, yet they met yesterday. I think I’m gonna need some more explanation from him because even if I like the look of them together, I’m not sure I really understand what is happening.
“Cassiopé, you know how I feel about Brice; do you really believe I would let you on your own in this mission?” Elhyor asks when Cassiopé finally looks at him again.
She seems relieved, as if some part of her really believed that he would let her down in this kind of situation.
Elhyor sees this too and his shoulders droop a bit. It’s almost imperceptible but I see it all the same and my heart hurts for him because if there’s one sure I know from the little time I spent with him so far it’s that Elhyor would never give up on someone he considers family, and I’m not sure he calls that most of his men, but I’m pretty sure he does about Brice.
“What can I do to help, then?” Cassiopé asks full of resolve.
75
Angélique
It turns out that the only thing we can do for now is to either train or spend our time in the library, in search of any old blueprint of buildings owned by the archangels.
I don’t think my father would be such an idiot that he would build a dungeon in a building the other archangels could stumble upon, but it’s the only lead we have so far. So, it keeps everyone busy.
It’s been three days already, and I’ve given up on trying to stay in the archive room with Cassiopé and Léandre. They’re cute together, so cute that it’s almost nauseating, but I can’t really blame them. Léandre thought he was going to disappear, or at least, the essence of him, and now he has a chance to build something with Cassiopé. So, I understand the need he had to spend every minute and every second of a single day with her. I would lie if I said that I haven’t spent more time with Elhyor either.
