Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Lilith
Just a little bit further. A little… It fell, pinching my finger. I grunted in pain, pulling my hand away from the hinges.
How long has it been? Surely it was near midday. Silence was due back with more water.
My stomach rumbled loudly. I put a hand over my belly, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. No, I ordered myself. You will not cry again. No more crying allowed. Castiel could be dead—no, no. Don’t even think it.
A day ago I was terrified of accepting Castiel’s mate bond. Such a privileged problem to have.
Maybe he’s escaped and gone back to Mirkwold, a little voice suggested. Maybe he’s already left you.
If so, would that be my fault? I hadn’t responded well to his declaration. Four gods, I hadn’t even told him how I was falling in love with him. You pushed him away. Why would he stay, especially after how you and other humans have treated him?
Rejecting his bond had been my method of pushing him away before he could realize his mistake in bonding himself to me.
And now it might be too late…panic filled my lungs, drowning me.
What if I had been wrong? What if we could’ve loved one another for centuries, his feelings never turning to resentment and neglect—and I’d ruined it?
My vision blurred and the room spun around me. What if he was dying, right now, unaware that underneath the fear I’d shown him was a love so vast I hadn’t plumbed the depths of it yet? How could I live with myself if he died, thinking he was unloved?
A door creaked open far down the corridor outside.
I froze, holding my breath to hear better.
One set of feet tiptoed along the edge, light and reminding me of Silence. The other…I almost didn’t hear it. Just the faint swish of feathers against wood.
My heart lifted. Castiel! He was free and he was coming for me! I scurried to my feet and brushed the hair back from my face. I loved that Castiel didn’t care if I looked beautiful all the time, but a girl did have a little pride.
“Lilith?” Silence’s voice trembled outside the door.
“Yes! I’m here!” I pressed my hands against the rough wooden door. “Is he here? Castiel? Is that you?”
“Is that Lilith?” a rough, unfamiliar voice jarred hope right out of me.
“Yes,” Silence answered. “She’s locked inside. Can you get her out?”
“Who is that?” My heart pounded. “If it’s not Castiel, who are you?”
The seraph on the other side grunted.
“This is Azrael,” Silence answered. “He’s a friend of Castiel’s. He came to check on him. He’s going to help.”
Hope again flickered in my chest. “You will? Please, promise me you’ll get him out. He must be hurt badly if he hasn’t broken free already.”
A swoosh came from the other side of the door, the sound of feathers. He inhaled, then snorted in disgust. “You’ve been with Castiel. I can smell him on you. Stale but still present.”
Shock rippled through me. Castiel had told me about their keen senses, but this was beyond my understanding.
“I tried to save him,” I said.
“More than that.”
My face flamed as I realized what he meant. Seraphim could smell the afterscent of sex? Embarrassing. “It’s not like that,” I stammered. “We both—we are happy. He said I’m his mate.”
“Another one,” he muttered after a heavy pause. “What is this madness?”
I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to tell him Castiel was the only thing that mattered. It was laughable—or had been laughable—to think mere men could direct a seraph on puppet strings. Make him preach what they wanted, trot him out in public to grow their numbers, everything.
Except they learned how to hurt him.
Tears pricked at my eyes. “Why isn’t he free already? How badly is he hurt?” I asked, forcing my voice to remain calm.
Azrael sighed, and his wings shifted, the only audible sign of his agitation. “His ayim will heal him eventually. But drinking poison…it will take several days.”
“It’s been over a day now,” I said, trying not to panic. “And he’s nowhere to be seen.”
“If he was mated to another seraph and had completed the bond, his ayim would have extra strength.” Azrael let the silence grow after those words, sharp and accusatory.
I swallowed. I hadn’t completed the bond with him. But then, I wasn’t a seraph. I didn’t have ayim. Still—had I made his chances of healing worse? Could I have helped him by bonding to him?
All my concerns about him leaving me—or worse, wishing he’d left me—seemed so distant and ludicrous now. I didn’t know if he’d survive the night.
“He will survive, won’t he?” Silence asked, as if reading my mind.
Azrael shifted his weight, making the floor beneath him creak. “It depends on what they’re doing to him now. And why they’re doing it. If he hasn’t broken free yet, he’s likely cut off from sunlight.”
“We have to find him now,” I urged.
“I’ll get him out of this mess,” Azrael finally declared, then stepped away.
“Wait!” I called, touching the door and swallowing my tears. “Wait, where are you going?”
“Are you leaving?” Silence hurried after him. “I thought you were going to break down the door. You look strong enough for it.”
Frustration burned my body. “Hey!” I shouted, slamming the flat of my hands against the door. “Get me out of here! I need to see him! I can help.”
“You said you’d help us,” Silence murmured insistently, her footsteps hurried.
“No. I said I’d help Castiel. I don’t deal with humans.” His voice was cold and hard, as if Silence was his mortal enemy.
The door opened and shut.
Quiet echoed around us, ringing in my ears.
“I’m sorry, Lilith.” Silence tripped back over to the door separating us. “I really tried. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” I growled through clenched teeth. Oh, when I got out of here people would pay. First the elders. Then Mrs. Dalton. And then this Azrael person. I was tired of being set aside, propped away, only seen as a pretty decoration. I would make everyone pay for this.
“What do you want me to do?” Silence asked.
I closed my eyes, beating my forehead against the door and trying to think. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Can you follow him? Make sure Azrael doesn’t do anything stupid? He sounds ready to murder everyone.”
“You should see his face,” Silence whispered. “He’s frightening. His sword is nearly as long as I am tall.”
I believed her. It was easy for me to forget exactly what this warrior race was because Castiel was always so kind and gentle. But they were deadly, powerful beings from another world and I shouldn’t forget it.
My thoughts turned to Castiel. The last I’d seen him he was telling me to flee, to protect myself. Tears clogged my throat.
Fuck, no. No crying.
“I’ll do what I can,” Silence promised. Then she, too, left me. And I sat alone in the dark, hoping everything would be well.
Castiel
Pain racked my body. I couldn’t see out of one eye. Had the eyeball been eaten away, or was it just a burned nerve?
My fingers twitched, sending agony shooting up my arm. Gritting my teeth, I turned my head to survey the rest of the room.
The two elders had left an hour ago, leaving me alone and sitting in a pool of saltwater.
Yesterday I’d been grateful for wearing my trousers, as that blocked the worst of the splash.
But now they were soaked, keeping the burning liquid pressed against my legs.
Skies and stars, it burned. It burned more than fire, more than anything I’d imagined.
The only thing that eclipsed it was my smoldering rage.
“If we can’t get answers out of him, maybe we should bring the girl down?” Elder Tome’s words echoed in my inflamed ears.
You’re already a dead man walking, I’d promised silently. But if you touch a hair on her head I’ll castrate you before I kill you.
My ayim was still slow, making my blood viscous and clotted. But I was healing. Taking a breath—and finally, finally I didn’t feel searing pain when air slid down my throat anymore—I tested my bonds. Now the worst of my injuries were my wings and legs, where the saltwater still pooled.
Fuck, this was going to hurt.
Lilith mattered. Getting to her, making sure they weren’t frightening her—that was worth any pain.
I gritted my teeth and yanked. The metal shackles were so tight they had protected my wrists from saltwater Tomes had splashed on me over the last day and a half. But the tightness also chafed. The metal whined under the tension. I braced myself and pulled again, straining under the pressure.
The weakest link broke, and my hands fell to the dirt at my wings. I was free of the wooden post.
Now the hard part.
I blocked the pain from my mind, thinking of Lilith and only Lilith.
My cirra, my Lily.
I staggered up the stairs and slammed the door open, chest heaving, skin burned, gait unsteady. My sword was tucked under the bed in my room, but I didn’t need it. My hands would be more than enough.
The light blinded me, and I raised my hand to shield my eyes.
“What are you doing?” The voice was high-pitched with fear, coming from my left.
I rounded on him and found one of the young men who had dragged me into this cellar. “You,” I growled, and grabbed his head.
“Help!” he screamed.
I snapped his neck, red filling what little vision I had. The remaining skin on my fingers tingled, as if most of the nerves were dead.
He slumped in his chair, then toppled lifeless to the ground. A knife slipped free of his pocket, and I soundlessly laughed. What fools. That wasn’t how you stored a knife. I bent down, violent glee blocking out the pain of movement, and swiped it up.
Footsteps tumbled down stone stairs behind me. “What in the four gods is going—”
I whirled, catching sight of Tomes. The fucking weasel who tossed buckets of saltwater on me. He paled, clutching at the banister.
“You—you aren’t supposed to—”
I smiled, not caring how much it hurt to do so. “Surprise, ground-crawler.” I threw the knife.