38. Elhyor
38
Elhyor
L uc runs to my office, panting, and with something in his eyes akin to panic.
“She’s outside. No one saw anything until she fell,” he says between two heavy intakes of air.
He’s one of the younger bat-shifters and already has his wings out for the battle to come, but his words make no sense.
”Who?” I growl, more than ask, as my guts already know the answer to that question.
”Your bride.”
I don’t even hear him finish the two words before I’m already out of my office and running to the entrance.
What did she do? And why on that damn earth did she give herself away? We had everything under control, and I trust my men.
I’m past the doors in just a few seconds, and I let my wings pop out of my body. I try not to have them out all the time, because they’re bigger than bat wings and it’s not always practical inside, but I need the scary effect they have on most people right now.
Or maybe not.
I was expecting Angélique to be tied down as I arrived outside. I wasn’t prepared for the scene that unfolds under my eyes.
There are dozens of men trying to get to her, but it seems that they have stopped trying to tie her in any way. Their ropes are left on the ground, and I count five bodies lying next to those ropes, and I’m mesmerized by the speed with which Angélique is moving and disposing of each of her opponents. She only has two daggers, but in a blur, I can see her avoiding a blow with one while plunging the other into someone’s chest. By the time the man drops to the ground, her dagger is already in someone else.
But what is even more mesmerizing are her wings.
I get why she hadn’t been taught how to shift now.
Those wings are pure beauty, but they’re also as dark as the night and shimmering like the stars.
She’s coated in her own blood and moves like a demon.
She’s a sight to behold.
She’s magnificent.
And, as her kind calls them, she’s one of the fallen.
She looks more like a queen than a fallen angel. A warrior queen. My queen.
And she deserves her nickname more than I thought when I picked it for her.
But when I see one of the men grab her around the neck, I decide I’ve seen enough.
“ENOUGH,” I roar as I walk to the pile of men surrounding Angélique. I grip the man who tried to strangle her by the collar and throw him away from the group.
The noise hadn’t died down immediately, but it only takes a few seconds before the parvis becomes eerily silent; the only sound resonating is Angélique’s harsh breathing and maybe mine.
My skin has started to itch, and I can feel that my claws have extended without me willing them to do so.
I want to burn them all.
I can already smell fire, see smoke. My vision is hazy, and if I don’t do something fast, the small tendrils of smoke that are slipping from my nose and rolling across my face will turn into a full inferno.
“Who dared touch my wife?” I bellow, and I barely recognize my own voice. It’s so scratchy and so much deeper than I’m used to.
I take in the people around her, but I want Bastian—the leader of Libération —to come forth.
I’ve never known the man to cower, and I don’t even know which one of the two of us he is the most scared of—me or her—right now, but the man advances on shaky legs as he walks to me.
“I’m not your wife,” Angélique spits at me.
“Yet, Little Devil. Very soon you will be. Very soon you’ll be mine,” I answer her, without looking at Bastian, still walking slowly toward me, and I can feel the words vibrate inside of me.
I finally turn to Bastian.
“Who is your second in command?”
I see a woman raising her hand, in an annoyed gesture, in the front row of the crowd as Bastian says her name. “Christina.”
“Good. She’s just been promoted,” I say with a snarl.
I see recognition in his eyes as I open my mouth to let my fire flow from my mouth in a white hot flame.
It doesn’t take long for the fire to eat at his skin and bones. He doesn’t even have time to scream before it’s over.
“May that serve as a lesson,” I tell the crowd and the new leader of Libération , “Whoever comes for my wife, whoever comes for what’s mine, will taste my fire. If they don’t taste her daggers first.”
I hold my hand out to her, and I see a spark in her eyes that tells me that she doesn’t totally agree with what I just said, but that she understands the power of appearances, so she slowly switches her daggers to one hand and gives me the other.
The hand that I pierced not so long ago.
“Elhyor? Can we—”
“Not now. We’ll talk later. Take care of your wounded and dead.” I cut Christina off mid-sentence and turn to walk back to my home, with a future I’m now scared to believe in.