Angel’s Conquest (Elemental Angels #6)

Chapter 1

A n ancient oak’s spindly tree branch snagged against Clara Ander’s fine cloak, nearly choking off her air supply and her hasty retreat. Her preference for keeping the former alive and well was only mildly contingent on the latter succeeding.

If she failed, well . . . it wasn’t something she was willing to contemplate.

She’d learned long ago that Hell wasn’t simply some pit in the ground reserved for those with bad behavior and dark intentions. For Clara, it was a highly personalized and promised experience, complete with custom-measured cells and unbreakable chains, and one that was tipping closer to her defenses with each passing moon.

The cloak pulled harder against her windpipe, and pain lanced across a throat already too tight and dry from her exertions. Before the forest’s darkened terrain swallowed her entirely, she managed to kick her leg out and steady herself against a moss-slicken log.

Maybe she did need a moment of rest. Just one moment, though. A slight nod of relief over not having been taken out before she’d had her first chance at freedom, and by a damned tree at that. Outside of the occasional controlled hunts her father, the king, permitted her to entertain, her wolf’s reflexes had received little use as of late. Thank the Moon Mother they’d not failed her now. She’d take whatever they could offer.

Though the moon was newly high overhead, its crescent sliver was hardly enough to illuminate the slim footpaths winding across the forest floor. Clara had heard tales of passages leading away from the stronghold, ones that led to the human lands, but how the hell did she know she’d taken the right one? Surely, the merchant she’d purchased her hiking boots from hadn’t lied to her, had she?

She isn’t in my father’s employ, not directly. Did I misjudge the old female’s loyalty?

No, best not to think that way. Clara had to be on the right path, especially after the kind of money she’d been forced to pony up. In that line of work, a trade so reliant on favorable word of mouth, giving out poor information was bad for business.

Yes, the female had sent Clara in the right direction.

Shoring up her shaky beliefs, she clasped her cloak tighter around her shoulders and breathed in the forest around her. The slow speed at which she inhaled grated at her wolf. Patience had never been a strong suit for her lycan side, and that was a danger Clara could not afford. Yes, her wolf’s sense of smell was infinitely stronger, as well as the beast’s eyesight, but with Clara’s luck, her wolf would veer her off in the direction of whatever late-spring game hadn’t managed to hole itself up in its den this far into nightfall, and then where would she be?

Not in the direction of the human lands and definitely not in the more urgent direction away from the stronghold.

It was a risk she couldn’t take, and the inward growls that answered made her wolf’s stance perfectly known.

Great. Another thing to feel guilty about.

Putting her wolf from her mind, Clara again inhaled, this time drawing in the furtive aromas of a wood that had been just as much a garden to her as it had been a guardhouse.

Damp earth. Piquant bulbs to ward off predators. Moldy leaves, rotting bark, crisp water . . . Her eyes flew open.

“Water! Yes!” Clara bolted in the direction of the soft babbling stream, which the merchant had assured her would lead Clara safely out of lycan territory and into the human lands.

Humans.

For a race of creatures so foreign to her own, they’d certainly taken up more of her thoughts over the past several weeks than anything else. Even as she urged her exhausted body over gnarled tree roots and trained all her senses on the tinkling murmurs of the water ahead, her wolf again voiced her concern at what Clara was rushing them toward.

With each clumsy step she took away from her father’s stronghold, a different weight settled within her bones, one of urgency and desperation that cocooned the one emotion she and her wolf could agree upon: hope. Clara clung to the stuff like the vital resource it was. All good things dried up eventually: wells, fossil fuels, love. Not hope. Clara would roll over and offer her wolf’s belly to the earliest awaiting fangs before she’d accept that.

As if summoning the precious stuff, Clara reached beneath her leather-lined wool mantle and clasped the moonstone relic dangling from her neck. The smooth surface cooled her clammy skin where the curve of it nestled against her palm, anchoring her to the unknown path before her. When she’d taken it from the royal coffers after offering to see it safely stowed there, she had been surprised at how light it was. Topping out at no more than six inches in length, the curved fang-like stone had been shockingly easy to steal, especially for one so foreign to the act.

Yet another thought she forced herself to bury beneath her fleeing footsteps.

Please work. Please.

The boots were clunkier than she was used to, but they got the job done, propelling her faster through the woods and over the rocky terrain better acclimated for paws than rubber padding. Beneath the uncomfortably thick soles, soft well-packed earth gave way to thicker copses of overgrowth. Reedy tendril-like branches snagged at her cloak, pinching through the heavy fabric like claws yanking her back home.

“No,” she breathed through heavy lungs, then shook her shoulders free of the constricting vegetation. “Almost there.”

Her wolf whined as Clara pushed her legs harder, higher. They shook with the combined weight of never-been-tested endurance and the crushing load of paranoia. Thighs trembled through the sludge of what she’d left behind and how much time she had before her absence would be noticed.

Reluctantly, she let go of the relic and tucked the thing into her blouse, letting it settle comfortingly between her breasts, rocking against her skin in time with the frantic flutter of her heart. The ancient stone’s steady sway was like a metronome taunting her with its incessant ticking, guiding her down a path that would only reveal itself if every step she took was correct. No lagging behind, no alteration in pace. Just keep moving.

Harder. You’re almost there. You’ve got to be.

As Clara scrambled up a small hill that was only scantily lit by the meager moonlight, her recent machinations played out in her mind like the haunted maneuvers of another, someone more skilled in the arts of evasion. Clara’s studious nature had made it impossible for her not to triple-check everything before she fled, but her solitary circumstances also punctuated the severity of her calculations. Drugging her father’s guards had been surprisingly easy, but the excuses she’d made to the other household staff as to her whereabouts, however, would have no alibi.

If they looked into her story too deeply, asked the wrong person the right question . . .

“Stop it,” she bit out, her breath an arid raspy plea against the new-spring mist. “It has to be just a little farther.”

Within Clara’s mind, her wolf howled her encouragement. Good, the she-wolf heard the water, too. With one final push, Clara heaved herself fully over the mounded earth and crested the hill by ungracefully collapsing onto a nearby boulder, hugging the thing as if it was a long-lost relative coming to greet her. Then a soft sad chuckle escaped her despite her efforts to squash all emotion. The cold stone against her heated cheek wasn’t terribly far off in terms of the tenderness she was used to. The abrasive surface eerily mimicked the bristly rasp of her father’s beard the few times she recalled him showing physical affection when forced to do so under public scrutiny.

It was the only time he was ever forced to do anything.

The memory jolted another spike of adrenaline into her aching body. She craned her head up and over the boulder, measuring the descent of the embankment ahead as best she could.

How much farther could she run? She couldn’t tell which was more tightly wound, her nerves or her muscles. Did it matter? Both screamed in anguish, but staying still was as much a death sentence as what awaited her in the stronghold.

Unless she could reach the human lands.

“Up,” she barked to her straining limbs. “Onward. One foot in front of the other. The stream. We start there.”

It nearly took an act of the Moon Mother herself, but Clara managed to straighten her spine and anchor herself enough to review what the merchant had told her.

“Once the stronghold fits into the L of your hand, follow the stream west until its waters churn into the river. When the runoff reaches the stone circle, look above and find the bridge that will take you to the humans.”

At the time, they’d seemed like simple enough directions. Now, however, with her paranoia poking holes in her mind’s cognitive functions and her body dragging a white flag behind it, the old female’s words felt as murky as the fog around her and just as aimless.

Clara lifted her gloved left hand, bit the fabric at the tip of her trembling middle finger, and yanked the garment free, lest it skew what she was looking for. Well, here goes nothing. Sinking into that eternal hope, she formed the shape of an L with her index finger and thumb and turned to the direction she’d come from. Silence met her stance, and the tension that had taken up residence in her shoulders and spine relaxed slightly. Taking advantage of the stillness and terrified of how long it would last, she shot her hand up in front of her. Once raised, her extended fingers cradled the massive stone stronghold that now appeared no larger than one of the stones she’d almost rolled her ankle on a moment earlier. The sloping roofs barely reached the tip of her index finger’s fingernail, while the expansive gardens stretched no farther than the fleshy pad of her thumb.

Relief perfused her aching muscles like water through a parched sponge.

“I made it!” But the joy of solving one problem was short-lived. A low howl stretched through the dark trees, blanketing the night with an ominous warning. Foreboding tension returned, coiling around the base of her spine and tugging her into a frozen shell of herself. Her she-wolf fought and scratched at the surface of her mind, urging her to run, begging her to shift into her wolf form.

And Clara would have. On any other day, she would have given herself over to the wolf and cowered in her mind, content knowing the stronger part of her lycan makeup would carry them far away from any physical threat. However, even as the howl grew, becoming loud enough in its echoes that the stream vibrated with its own fear, it couldn’t sway her. Not in this.

Clara whipped her glove back on and crouched low, ensuring the boulder blocked as much of her body and scent as possible. Then, with one unsteady foot, she tested the steepness of the embankment and nearly crumpled with exhaustion. By the moon, her thighs were shot! She had no idea how many miles she’d run. Couldn’t even recount her exact progress if someone put a knife to her throat demanding the answer, which would soon wind up being a truer statement than she’d like if she didn’t move fast. But she had to try, had to get her bony backside down that hill and use the water to mask her scent. They’d know she came this way, of course, but once she hit the water, all bets were off. The lapping stream would do its job of dispersing whatever descended into it. All she had to do was get there safely.

She dipped lower to the ground and gritted her teeth against the trembling in her thighs. All too quickly, her legs boycotted what she asked of them and dumped her onto her knees. The stinging pain of the impact shot through her kneecaps and wrenched her mouth wide, preparing her body to release the sharp cry that sat poised at the base of her throat. Her palm caught up her wincing sob before it was set free into the night air around her.

Shift! Shift now, before they find you!

Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, but she shook them away, wondering, not for the first time, where this surge of bravery came from. It certainly hadn’t been taught to her, nor had she observed any true acts of heroism from the males in her father’s employ. The most experience she had with the rebellious emotion had been the occasional time or two she’d insisted on fewer chaperones during her garden walks or, Moon Mother forbid, an extra hour’s curfew extension.

Bravery was not a concept that had been readily available to her. Her flight from the stronghold had as much to do with courage as a rat’s plight to the upper decks of a sinking ship had to do with wanting to get a better view of the skyline.

“No,” she whispered through the pain. “I can’t shift.”

Her clothes, the relic, all of it would be left behind if she shifted, and she needed that relic. It was the only thing that would identify her as who she was. Once she reached the human lands, she’d need that relic to prove what she feared her words alone could not, which would be absolutely nothing if she didn’t reach the bridge first.

Clara lifted an aching leg out from under herself and made to rise?—

Her foot lost what little purchase it had against the slick leaves, dragging her down the embankment. Limbs followed her loss of balance. Arms pinwheeled out around her while frantic fingers scrambled for purchase on anything. Dirt and forest debris filled her vision before the tail of her cloak rose up and blocked what was left of the meager moonlight. Any remaining hope was tossed among the wooded detritus along with her tumbling body. The world spun out of control faster than any of the events she had set into motion, faster than the panic gripping her heart and freezing her extremities into commandless weights that whirled around her.

Useless. Everything was useless.

Icy water caught her, welcoming her into its numbing embrace. Chilling prickles nipped at her cheeks and lips while her clothes swelled with an even more exhausting weight. She thrashed and fought against the churning water, but her weak legs had already become tangled in her sopping cloak. Her wolf whined, and Clara tried to kick out again, but her jerky movements caused her temple to smash against a protruding rock along the stream’s bed.

Her protesting mind stilled into a serene calmness before her topsy-turvy world sank into an ocean of black.