Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
UNKNOWN
“Didn’t have much of a plan here, did ya?”
I gasped and spun around. Reuelle’s voice had been close, yet I couldn’t see her anywhere.
But I knew she saw me. My hands were trembling.
My skin was so cold it felt like it was on fire—which couldn’t have been a good sign.
The air was getting too cold now with the sun setting behind the mountains.
Despite it being early spring, these temperatures couldn’t have even been in the double digits.
This wasn’t a good situation for a pregnant woman with no coat, no shoes, and absolutely no idea where she was.
“I love your devotion to your Little Bird,” Reuelle purred from somewhere to my right.
My toes were burning now, not that I could even see if they were on fire or not.
My belly stuck out too far, so I just had to take solace in knowing if I could feel them burning then at least I could feel them still.
There was still a chance I wouldn’t be taken down by frostbite.
My eyes burned nearly as hot from the tears I was somehow holding in.
I couldn’t let myself lose control yet. I had to get my Little Bird out of this mess.
When I’d woken up from my nap, I had found myself alone in a quiet cabin.
Asmodeus and Reuelle had been nowhere in sight.
In my desperation and panic, I’d simply took off running.
In hindsight, it wasn’t the smartest idea, but it was too late now.
I was out here in the forest with the sun taking warmth from the air with every inch it sank below the horizon.
The orange glow slicing through the trees would have been stunning on a normal day, I would’ve taken a million pictures with my phone, yet now it seemed to mock me.
Or perhaps the sun was taunting me . . .
or haunting me with all the shadows it cast between the trees.
At some point Reuelle had started chasing me. For all I knew she’d hidden in the cabin to provoke me into running so she could chase me. Perhaps this was fun for her. That was probably it, given that she could have easily caught me by now instead of hiding behind trees just out of my sight.
I balled my hands into fists at my side to try and conceal their shaking. “Enough bullshit, Reuelle. I know you’re not human. I know Asmodeus and Azazel aren’t human—”
“Have you figured out what we are yet?” She giggled from somewhere to my left and a lot closer than before.
I gasped and jumped backwards—ice-cold water swept over my bare feet and soaked into the hem of the cotton maxi dress Asmodeus had given me. My teeth were now rattling against each other, and my whole body was shaking.
“Just come out and face me,” I said through my shivering.
Reuelle appeared ten feet in front of me, I hadn’t even seen which way she came from, though I doubted that even mattered. Somehow with the setting sun casting its final shine on her, she looked even more sinister. Those golden horns were almost too bright to look at.
“Just come out and say it.” She grinned and her topaz eyes sparkled. “If we’re not human, then what are we?”
“Just leave me alone.”
“Ah, but we can’t. Not exactly. You’re carrying Azazel’s baby, after all.” She cocked her head to the side. “You have to have a guess by now what the father of your child is?”
I swallowed through the panic lump in my throat. “Fallen angel,” I whispered.
Her grin stretched from ear to ear. She clapped her hands. “I knew you could do it. You have to give yourself more credit.”
My breath left me in a rush and the world spun around me. “Fallen angel . . . Azazel.”
She took a few steps toward me, but when I backed up, she stopped. Her golden gaze dropped to my pregnant belly, then back to my face. “And what does that make Little Bird?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. My pulse quickened or maybe that was Little Bird’s. I pressed my hands to my belly. “I . . . I don’t know? Half-human, half . . . fallen angel?”
“Human?” She pursed her lips and tapped those golden cages on her fingers against her chin. “You sure about that?”
I backed farther away, deeper into the lake and into the colder water. “What do you mean? Of course I’m sure I’m human.”
“Tsk tsk.” She crossed her arms over her chest and moved even closer, keeping the distance between us. “A house full of impregnated women, yet only you broke free of Azazel’s magic . . .”
My stomach rolled. “I don’t know what you’re saying, but you need to back off or get on with it. Stop playing with your food.”
She threw her head back and cackled. “I’m a fallen angel! Playing is what I do.”
I whimpered, despite all my self-control. “What do you want from me?”
“Little Bird.”
I gasped.
She lunged for me, so I leapt backwards into the deeper water, though I had no idea what my plan was.
I’d always been a strong swimmer, but this lake had a strong current whipping around my legs, not to mention I had a huge belly.
Somehow it seemed my odds in the water were higher than staying with the fallen angels, which was definitely a sign I’d lost my damned mind.
“Going to swim away from me are you, mama bird?” Reuelle giggled and it sent chills down my spine.
I backed farther into the water until it reached my waist. Little Bird started kicking against my ribs like it was trying to break free. I pressed my hands to the kicks and tried to steady my breathing. “It is my job to protect my baby from monsters.”
“And yet . . .” she gestured to the water around me, “you chose this lake to enter?”
My eyes widened. I stopped short, the water now entirely covering my belly.
The mucky, slimy mud that had been beneath my feet now felt like soft beach sand between my toes.
The water warmed around me, chasing the chill of the freezing water away.
My shivering stopped. The burning in my skin vanished.
“Ah, so you can feel it.” Her cackle was low and menacing and definitely designed to frighten me . . . and it was working. “I can protect you from the monsters that swim within these waters—”
“You can’t have him—” I gasped and slammed my mouth shut.
Him. HIM. Little Bird was a little boy. All at once I knew it with every fiber of my being. It was like I could feel him . . . hear him . . . see him. It made no sense, yet neither did his father being a fallen angel from Heaven. Tears pooled on my lashes.
The ground shook so hard my knees buckled.
At the exact time, a strong current slammed into my legs, sweeping them out from under me.
I sucked in some air, then plummeted beneath the water.
Hot water rolled into my back, so I spun around to see what it was and the breath I’d been holding left me in a rush, bubbles erupting from my mouth.
The water was crystal-clear, but with the sun setting there wasn’t much light left to see.
Yet it was just enough to spot the four massive feet covered in royal blue scales sinking into the pale-gray sand, talons slicing tracks so deep that water bubbled up over them.
My lungs screamed and burned. I pushed off the sand with my toes and shot to the surface.
The air was ice-cold as I broke the surface and gasped for the air I’d lost. A wall of water shot straight up to the sky, blocking the view of the lake and surrounding mountains.
I gasped and leaned back, craning my neck to look up to the top of this wave.
I’d never seen water that blue. Time seemed to stop as the wave stretched wide.
Seconds turned into hours. Inches turned into miles.
My jaw dropped as I staggered backwards.
I’d seen enough of these in movies and Game of Thrones to know what it was, yet I was under the impression they were fictional .
. . but the royal blue dragon towering over me was definitely real.
Very real. Too real. My body began to tremble for all new reasons.
My chest tightened as I stopped breathing.
The dragon’s wings stretched wide, casting me in its shadow.
It snarled and the flames that billowed from its nose were so hot they were white.
The water running rivers down the dragon’s scales turned to smoke with a hiss.
The dragon stomped its front foot beneath the water and roared like a T-Rex in a Jurassic Park movie.
The force of its stomp sent a wall of water rolling away from it and toward Reuelle on the shore.
Just as the wave was about to hit me, something scooped me right out of the water.
I screamed and the dragon looked at me with blue eyes that were practically white.
And then everything went dark.