Page 45 of Wings of Valor
When I first arrived in this cell, I had a feeling Hayliel’s parents didn’t know their daughter was a Seraphim. I’m not sure why she didn’t tell them, but so far I’ve respected her wishes and kept quiet on the subject.
“It must be about her wings, don’t you think, Mari?” Cam continues. “Zeke, is that why they’re after her?”
Shit. I don’t have enough energy to handle this conversation.
“Yeah, I think so.” There. That’s not lying while also not giving away her secret.
Just like the last few times they’ve brought me back to my cell—bloodied and broken—Hayliel’s parents tear off strips of their thin blanket and help wrap my wounds. I don’t know if the potion they’re giving me delays my healing, or if feathers are something that don’t grow back once plucked, but the mending process is painfully long. Too long for me to ever fully heal by the time they collect me again. It doesn’t help that we’re underfed and barely hydrated.
“You’ll run out of sheet if you keep using it on me,” I tell them, not wanting to accept their care but too damn tired to fight them.
“Oh, hush,” Maribella says, her hands shoved between the bars so she can tie a knot in the sheet. “You’re much more important to us than the sheet.”
Her words cause my eyes to burn, but I force the tears aside. Now isn’t the time to break down and become a blubbering mess. I need to be strong. “You’re important, too. Hayliel needs you both to get out of this.”
“We will,” Camael says, his tone allowing little argument. “Do you think she’s safe?”
Do I? I fucking have to—I’ll go mad otherwise. “I do. She’s got her friends to lean on, and I know Raphael and Theo won’t let anything happen to her.”
“Who are they?” Mari’s voice fades, as if she’s underwater.
But she isn’t, because I’m nowhere near water. I’m here, in pain, sitting on a grimy floor in a dungeon somewhere.
She ties another knot in the sheet over a tender section of skin, and I suck in a breath. Goddamn that hurts. “They’re her boyfriends.”
“What do you mean?” Camael asks, growing still. “Aren’t you her boyfriend?”
Ah, shit. Note to self: don’t fucking talk while in pain. Ever.
“Yes, yes. Boys who are friends. Sorry, I’m in a lot of pain,” I say, hoping they’ll buy the excuse. I guess that’s one more thing to add to the box of secrets I have to keep on Hayliel’s behalf. No way in hell am I telling Cam and Mari their daughter isn’t just a Seraphim but also datingthreeangels. She can do that herself when we get out of here.
They seem to buy my story, and things grow silent as they continue checking over my wounds. While they work, I rack my brain for the details of what I overheard earlier. What was it the demon said? Shards of something, I think.
Fuck. Angel blades. What the hell does that even mean?
Not wanting to forget again, I tell Cam and Mari what I overheard, hoping they’ll have some clue about what it means.
“No. They wouldn’t,” Cam says, his face paler than before.
“What? They wouldn’t what?” Mari asks, studying her husband.
“I think they made a bomb filled with broken angel blades.”
His words hit me like a sucker punch, knocking all the oxygen from my lungs as the rest of what I overheard clicks into place. “They intend to use it on the Fallen.”
Shit! Now more than ever, I need access to my mental connections. I try to reach Hayliel, Raphael, Theo—anyone—but it doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked since I fucking got here.
Fucking fuck!
My gaze travels to the hole in the ceiling where light shines in, wishing yet again that I could figure out where the hell we are.
“Have either of you ever gotten a good look out there?” I ask, pointing to the window.
Pain barrels through me as I move, but I push through. I have to.
“Once when we first arrived,” Mari answers. “There was nothing to see but a tower of rock and a sky full of stars.”
Her wording makes me pause. “What do you mean by a tower of rock? Like a pole?”
