Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We walked for an hour. The shadows lengthened, the air grew chillier, but I was warm, flanked by Bastian and Jamie and with Javier close behind us. I was safe with the guys. The guard. The troop.
Protectors.
But we’d failed today. Our actions, my actions, had caused a death, and the weight of that sat heavily on my chest. If not for Shem and his crew, we’d all have perished.
Shem led the group as usual, his strides long and purposeful. He didn’t say another word to me. He didn’t look at me either.
It bothered me, and that pissed me off.
What the fuck did I care if he was angry with me? He was a monster. They all were. But he’d saved my life.
So that he could own me.
But why? Why did he want me in particular? It had to do with that sword, with the fact I could wield it. But the why to that was a huge unanswered question mark.
It was driving me crazy.
I needed to understand what it meant, and for that I’d have to speak to him, direct and firm.
Not now, though. I’d have to find the right time.
Probably best to wait until we stopped and made camp.
Then I’d apologize and see if I could get him to level with me.
To stop playing games and just fucking tell me why they needed me.
“Are you okay?” Jamie asked for the third time.
My instinct was to snap at him and tell him to back off. That I was fine. But that was my guilt talking. The guilt that had almost gotten everyone killed and lost us Matthew.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Bastian said.
“Yeah, it was. I’m owning it. But it won’t happen again. It can’t.”
“What are you saying?” Javier asked.
“I’m saying that we forget Michael. I’m saying we stick to the deal I made and get everyone to safety.”
“You’re giving up?” Jamie sounded incredulous.
I hated those words. Give up. Quit. It just wasn’t who I was, but in this case… “I made a deal to protect you all and I won’t do something that will put you in danger.”
“I won’t go without you,” Jamie said, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. “I’m not leaving you.”
Fucking hell, this guy and his heart-warming words. The urge to hug him washed over me in a desperate wave and I clenched my fists to stop myself from acting on it.
“Me neither,” Bastian added. “I’m not leaving you.”
“I’m staying too,” Javier said. “We’re a team. The last of the guard.”
My eyes heated and pricked. They meant it.
They’d stay but I couldn’t let them. “Yeah, we are a team, but the settlement is gone. All that’s left to protect now is our people.
They’re all that’s left of our home. You have to stay with them and make sure they get through the gates safely, and I have to go with Shem. ”
“Then we’ll do it,” Jamie said. “We’ll get them to the gates, but we’re coming back. If he wants you, he’ll have to take us too.”
I stared up at him, scanning his somber features for an element of doubt, anything to tell me he was unsure.
There was nothing.
He meant it.
He’d give up his chance at sanctuary to stay with me. They all would.
I spoke past the lump in my throat. “You guys…”
Bastian took my hand in his. “We’re fighters, Rue. Adrenaline is kinda our thing. The golden city would be awfully boring.”
“Besides, I’m kinda intrigued by them,” Javier said, picking up his pace to walk abreast of us. “They snarl and snap, but they haven’t hurt any of us.”
“Because they want Rue,” Jamie said.
“But why not just take her?” Javier said. “They didn’t need to make any kind of deal with us. They could have taken her and left us to die on that road.”
This was it! Exactly what had been subconsciously bugging me. “Spot on. It makes no sense.”
“Unless they’re not bad guys,” Javier said.
“Michael said not to trust them,” Jamie pointed out.
“And what do we know about him?” Javier asked. “Only what he’s told Rue. I mean, we know nothing about the celestials.”
Once again, he was right. It was a question that had always bugged me. It was why Bee being taken had felt wrong to me. The secrecy, the cloak and dagger, all of it made me suspicious. But it wasn’t as if Shem and his cronies were being any more transparent with us either.
Still, their actions spoke volumes.
“Are you saying the celestials are the bad guys?” Jamie asked Javier.
“I don’t know what I’m saying,” Javier said.
“Would Shem be taking us to the golden city if he thought it was dangerous for us?” Bastian asked.
Once again, Tumiel’s words filled my mind. Not just the words but his tone, soft and filled with sorrow… ”Spend time with them while you can… They’ll be gone soon enough.”
Foreboding tightened my scalp. “There’s too much we don’t know.” I looked ahead, catching the tip of Shem’s wings as they flared and snapped closed. “But I’m going to find out.” It was time to have a frank conversation with Shem and his crew.
The sun was dipping when a wail drifted up from behind me. The troop came to a halt and an urgent buzz drifted up the line.
A woman cried out. “Help him, please. Someone.”
The guys and I pushed through to the back of the line to find the woman kneeling on the ground with a child in her arms. It was the little boy who’d said he was too tired to walk earlier. He was pale and his lips were blue.
“He has asthma.” The woman choked on a sob. “He can’t breathe, and I don’t have his meds. I don’t—”
“Out of the way!” Shem shoved people aside and crouched beside the woman.
His huge frame made her seem tiny and fragile, made the child look like a toy. The mother didn’t flinch, didn’t rear away from him in fear.
Instead, she looked up at him with desperation and hope, tears streaming down her face. “Please help him.”
Shem gently pinched the boy’s chin, forcing his mouth open, and then laid a hand on his chest.
“Shem, what are you doing?” Sarq said. “You can’t save him, not without—”
Shem’s growl cut him off.
The world fell silent, every eye focused on the huge, winged beast with his talon-tipped hand covering the child’s torso.
Long seconds passed, and wait…Were the boy’s lips pinkening? Yes. Fuck, they were.
He sucked in a breath and another, his eyes fluttering open. “Mum?”
“Oh, Sammy. Oh, God. Oh, God.” The woman wept in relief.
Shem flinched and pulled away from the boy. His lip curled derisively. “God had nothing to do with this.”
He stood and staggered, but Sarq was there to grab hold of him, muttering low, angry words as he steadied him.
“He saved him,” Javier said softly. “How the fuck did he do that?”
“I don’t know, but it took it out of him,” Jamie said. “Did you see him stumble?”
Zaqiel joined us and looked down at the boy. “I will carry you the rest of the way.”
I expected the boy to shrink away from him, expected him to be unnerved by his rose-colored, leathery skin. But he nodded and held out his arms to him instead.
Zaqiel lifted him easily so that he was balanced on his hip, then held out his hand to the woman. She took it, gratitude shining in her misty eyes.
“Thank you.”
Zaqiel inclined his head.
Everyone went back to their places and the group began to move again, crisis over. Tumiel strode past, taking the lead. Where was Shem?
“He’s at the rear,” Bastian said, answering my unasked question. “He doesn’t look good.”
My chest tightened. “I’m gonna go check.”
Bastian gently gripped my elbow and frowned down at me. “He saved the kid. Decent thing to do, but we can’t afford to let our guards down completely.”
I nodded. “I’ve got this.”
But I couldn’t help but pick up the pace, eager to get to him, to make sure he was all right, and the fact that I was so worried about him worried the hell out of me.