Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We huddled on the overgrown grass at the edge of the meadow while Tumiel and Zaqiel hunted for game.
The rest of the party were dotted about a few feet from us.
Sarq crouched by my father’s unconscious body, his expression flat.
Once again, he looked up and caught me watching, but I tore my gaze away quickly, transferring it to Shem, who was sitting in a tree to our left, long legs dangling from the branch as he tore into strips of something black and disgusting-looking.
He looked my way as if sensing my regard, and the corner of his mouth lifted, flashing bloody fangs.
Oh, God, was that flesh he was munching on? What kind of flesh?
“I saw them stripping meat off the dead herald claws,” Jamie said.
My stomach turned, and I tore my gaze from Shem, dropping it to the grass.
I’d filled them in on my chat with Tumiel and on how I’d detected sorrow in his tone when he’d spoken about us reaching the gates.
“You’re reading too much into it,” Javier said, taking us back to our conversation of a moment ago.
I sighed and shook my head. “Yeah? And what if I’m not. We know nothing about these creatures.”
“The celestial said they were manipulative,” Jamie reminded me. “Maybe Tumiel was trying to mess with your head. Make you think getting into the golden city was a bad thing.”
“He didn’t say that,” Javier reminded us. “It was his tone, according to Rue.” The way he said it implied I might have misinterpreted that too.
Maybe I had.
Maybe I was projecting my own sorrow onto the situation. I dragged a hand down my face. “Forget it. We need to find another way to get that sword.”
“Distraction,” Bastian said. “We create a distraction.”
“How?” Jamie asked.
“We wait for our next rest stop and then we cause a commotion. Maybe a fight?”
“Yes.” Javier’s eyes lit up. “We can pretend to have an altercation, and when they come to break it up, Rue can try to get her hand on that sword. I mean, she doesn’t need to take it from Tumiel. Just touch it.”
He was right. All I needed to do was peel back the covering and touch the sword. No big deal. We could do this.
“Mummy, my feet hurt.”
The plaintive whine drew my attention to a young boy, maybe eight or nine. He looked vaguely familiar. I’d seen him in Sissy’s class. His mother sat with him, looking gray and exhausted.
“I know, sweetheart.” She hugged him to her. “I know, just a little farther.”
“My stomach hurts,” he said.
“I know, baby. I know.”
My heart ached for them, for all of them, and my doubts from the other night, doubts that I would have declined Shem’s deal if not for my dad, melted away.
I’d do this regardless.
Tumiel and Zaqiel appeared carrying several small carcasses. Rabbit or hare, I wasn’t sure. But there definitely wasn’t enough to feed us all. The others must have realized this because a murmur of dissent spawned by hunger began to rise off my party.
“Shit.” Jamie closed his eyes. “We’re gonna have to decide who goes hungry.”
“Yeah, looks like it.” I stood, drawing attention to me. “Thank you.” I inclined my head in Tumiel and Zaqiel’s direction. “We appreciate you hunting for us.”
Silence fell, and I noted several looks of shame. Good, they should be contrite. We’d be dead if not for these creatures and we had to remember that.
Tumiel dropped the small haul onto the ground. “You’ll need to gut and clean them. Start a fire.”
Jamie stepped forward. “We can do that.”
“And who gets to eat?” someone called out. “There isn’t enough for us all.”
I looked over to find the same man who’d challenged my dad in the bus glaring at me now. That look had my hackles rising immediately and I had to remind myself that he’d lost people, that he was grieving.
I kept my tone low and even. “What’s your name?”
He blinked in surprise. “Matthew. Matt…”
“Okay, Matthew, you’re right, there isn’t enough food for us all. So, who do you think should get to eat? Who do you think can go hungry another night?”
It might be considered a risky move, but it was essential. This guy was a troublemaker, someone who could upset the balance of the group. I needed to get him on my side, and the best way to do that was to make him feel like he had some control.
He opened and closed his mouth, and then settled into a mutinous glare.
I returned it with a smile. “I’m not trying to catch you out here, Matt. I genuinely want to know what you think. Look around, come on.”
He did just that, his gaze lingering on the two children in our party, on the old man and the women who looked like they were about to pass out.
His throat bobbed. “Women and children first.”
“What?” his companion said. “Why? Dammit, Matt, they probably won’t make it anyway, so why waste food on them?”
Okay, so I’d been wrong, this dude was the troublemaker, the voice of unreasonable shit pouring into Matt’s head. Matt was simply the mouthpiece.
“You don’t know that, Pat,” Matt said softly. “If my little Kimmy was here…”
Oh, shit, he’d had a kid.
The other man’s lip curled derisively. “She isn’t here, though, is she, Matty?
She’s dead and these fuckers got to live.
” A shadow descended behind him, wings silently flaring.
I caught Shem’s eye over the other guy’s shoulder a moment before the man was hauled into the air by Shem’s grip on his nape.
Pat let out a squeal like a stuck pig and Shem shook him like a ragdoll. “You are a disgusting specimen of human waste,” he said. “Not worthy to eat or be eaten.” He dropped him. “Another poisonous word from your mouth and I’ll rip out your wicked tongue.”
He climbed over the prone man and stalked toward me. “Monsters also come wearing human skin, little one, whispering insidious words and spewing filthy lies. Remember that when you lay with your males at night.”
He made it sound dirty and sexual, and I was immediately on the defensive. “Not everyone thinks with their cocks, Shem.”
Whoa, had I said that out loud? The deafening silence and the frozen look on Shem’s face told me that yes, yes, I fucking had.
He flew at me, snatching me off my feet and lifting me into the air and up, up into the tree he’d been in a moment ago.
The rough bark pressed to my back as a cacophony of protests erupted below me, but I could barely focus on anything but the monster who had me pinned.
And in the shadow of his huge frame, electric-blue eyes daring me to look away, daring me to speak, I was forced to recognize the real mortal danger I was in.
That this monster, this creature, could tear open my jugular with a flick of his thumb, a thumb that was at this moment pressed to said jugular.
“Please…”
“Please what, little human?”
“Don’t kill me.”
His breath warmed my cheek, the scent like exotic spices, evoking a strange hunger inside me. “Don’t make me.”
“Okay.”
His eyes flinched. “No. That’s a lie. You can’t help yourself.”
Oh, fuck. “I can try.”
“Maybe…How about this. You keep your mouth in check around others, but it can run wild when we’re alone.”
Why did that sound so suggestive?
“Do we have a deal?” he asked.
“Another deal?” Where had my terror gone? I arched a brow. “You’re getting greedy.”
He smirked. “And you’re getting bold. Deal or no deal?”
“Deal.”
His grip on me slackened and his hand dropped so it was bracketing my collarbones. “You’ll sleep by me tonight.”
My pulse sped up. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
The disquiet was back. “I told you, I’m not going to … I don’t want to have sex with you.”
“And I told you I wouldn’t touch you in that way until you begged for it. Are we done reiterating terms now?”
“Then why do you want me close?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you, little human. You’re alive because of me. Your people live because of me and mine. You’ll do as I say.”
We had a deal that I’d be his once my people were at the gates.
I hadn’t agreed to do his bidding, but I needed to get to the sword, and the best way to do that was to get Tumiel’s guard down.
And to do that, I needed to show him I was compliant, and maybe seeing Shem and me getting on would be enough to do that.
His jaw flexed as he waited for my response.
I sighed and dropped my gaze. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
There was doubt and suspicion in his tone. I had to make this convincing.
“Yes. I’ll lie next to you.” I jerked my chin up and locked gazes with him. “But I swear, if you try anything…” I glared preemptive daggers at him, and his posture relaxed.
“Go eat.” He moved away slightly. “I need to check the perimeter.”
He launched himself into the air, leaving me stranded in the fucking tree.
Thank goodness I was no stranger to climbing.