Fearless (22 page)

My eyes bug out as I take a peek. ‘
He's
not here?'

‘Not any more.'

‘I thought you were an angel from Avena who led a rebellion against the High King. And when no compromise satisfied either side, you took your followers and anointed yourself king of a new world. You're not supposed to look like
that
thing with the …' I outline the curved horns with my hands in the air. ‘How did it happen?'

‘Not overnight.'

‘Do you like it more?'

‘I'm comfortable in either form, but the beast has more power.'

‘Is that what it's all about for you? Power?'

He breathes in my scent as if he were the beast again, testing the air for prey. I shudder from head to toe. He wraps a blanket around me. ‘There is nothing else as satisfying.'

‘You only think that because you haven't felt the strength of love.'

He takes an age to answer, his eyes remaining on me,
studying my face. ‘I will control all the kingdoms with the power of the beast.'

‘Including Earth?'

He nods.

‘Without love, a part of your life will always be m
issin
g. I wouldn't swap anything for the love my mum and dad gave me, or my best friend. Or for that matter, even my horse.'

‘Ah, but that's where you come into it, Princess. You will provide me with the love of a family.'

Before I realise what he's doing, his arms are around me and he's lifting me to the bed, where he sits beside me, our legs hanging over the same side. He readjusts the blanket around my shoulders, straightening a curl hanging down the side of my face. It springs back. He does it again, watching with a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

He goes to do it again, but this time he uses his knuckle to trace the outline of my face and my skin blisters from the heat of his touch.

I jerk my head to the side.

He grips my chin, bringing my face back, and we eye each other. Maintaining his firm grip, he traces my bottom lip with his thumbnail.

I yank his arm down, hissing at him, ‘Don't touch me, Luca.'

With abruptness that is more in line with the Luca I know, he gets up. ‘Well, we'll see about that.' He points to the wall behind him. ‘In there you will find everything you need. There are two doors, one to your bathroom and one to your wardrobe.'

‘But I'm not moving in. You said three days.'

‘I know what I said.'

‘What's going on, Luca? Is Mela all right? I want to see her.'

‘It's not punishment if she gets time out with friends,' he says. ‘You will see her when she completes her sixty hours.'

‘I want assurance that I'm not a prisoner in your apartment.'

‘In three days I will give you a choice to stay or return to your room. If you stay, I will inform the guards you are free to go and come as you please, as long as you remain inside the palace.'

I don't like the sound of this. What is he offering exactly?

I get up, tossing the blanket on to the bed. ‘Let me get this straight. You're giving me a choice to either stay here with you and have access to the palace, or return to my apartment and continue being a prisoner in isolation?'

‘Correct.'

Some choice!

But he's such a consummate liar I don't know what to believe. Even when I look into his eyes to read his soul, there's no light, no flame, just blackness like dark matter, like a black hole.

He leaves and I take a bath to mull over my choices, escape always my first priority. Without the secret passageways, it's going to be harder. But when Mela completes her punishment and we're back in my rooms, I will ask for her help, though not in a way that will bring her to Luca's attention again. Mela knows the palace, the city, the outer provinces, the demons' habitat, maybe even secret caves and
underground safe houses, information I will need to know.

After my bath, I wind a towel around me and step into the wardrobe Luca said was mine.
Oh, wow, there are so many clothes!

And not just
any
clothes. I pull out a hanger here and there and haute couture dresses fall into my arms. On the other side hang designer jeans, cheeky burlesque skirts and outfits in blends of casual, gothic and steampunk styles. Along the rear wall are jackets and coats. A corset bustle coat in emerald green catches my eye. It's adorable. I can't resist dropping the towel, slipping into it and twirling in front of the mirror.

‘Breakfast is ready.'

Oh-ho
. I turn slowly at the sound of Luca's voice. He's standing in the doorway, his light brown hair wet and slicked back against his scalp, his vivid eyes as green as ever. ‘I take it you like the clothes, or is it just coats you have a penchant for?'

I refrain from touching my cheeks to see if they're burning. I know they are! I could fry an egg on my forehead! ‘How long have you been – uh … ?'

‘Watching you is fast becoming one of my favourite pastimes.'

I mumble incoherent syllables under my breath.

He laughs.

I push him outwards, closing the door in his face, and quickly rummage through drawers looking for underwear. Next I tug on a pair of jeans in a red-wine colour with a fitted black leather jacket that I zip up all the way to my neck and try not to think what animal died for it. Finally I
step into a pair of lace-up ankle boots in cream I admired earlier on one of the shelves. Everything fits perfectly.

We eat breakfast in the dining room. And soon after that I go and stand at the living-room window and try to figure out how long it would take me to run to the city's border from here.

‘Plotting your escape?'

I jump at the sound of his silken voice at my ear. ‘Do you have to do that?'

At his confused expression I explain, ‘Creep up on me.'

‘You've been living in the human world for too long.'

‘You would know. You put me there.'

He walks to the front entrance doors and stops. ‘I'll return before nightfall.'

‘You're going out?'

‘Would you like me to stay?'

‘No!' I practically scream the word. ‘What am I supposed to do all day?'

‘Take a look around. I'm sure you'll find something to amuse yourself until I return.'

After he's gone, I change my leather jacket for a black coat, count to sixty, and yank open both front doors.

Two Throne guards turn on silent feet and block my exit. Behind them, another two swing silently into position so that the entire width of the double-door frame is covered. I lean on the jamb and groan. ‘I just want to go the kitchens and bring back some milk to make a cup of hot chocolate,' I explain, leaving out the part where I don't trust their king and what I'm really going to do is find Mela and make sure she's all right.

‘Apologies, my lady,' the Throne opposite me says. ‘We're under strict orders.'

‘I'm going to the kitchen. You can come with me, or move out of my way.'

‘My lady, I
cannot
allow you to leave the royal apartment.'

I spin round and slam the door shut. But something in the way the guard emphasised the word ‘cannot' tugs at me and I open the door again. Just as before, two soldiers turn to face me, a second pair soundlessly following. I look up at the guard who spoke before. ‘What would the king do to you if I slipped past?'

Looking surprised, the four guards share looks with each other. The Throne opposite me says, ‘He would have us executed in the square for inadequately protecting Skade's future queen, my lady.'

I stare back at him with my mouth dropping open. Would Luca really murder these four angelic beings because I managed to outsmart them? Clearly they're his best soldiers, or they wouldn't be guarding his apartment in the first place. ‘Well then, soldiers, you'd better get on with your job.'

‘Yes, my lady.'

As I start to close the door, one of the soldiers at the rear, the one Mela introduced to me as Lhiam, says softly, ‘Thank you, my lady.'

I nod, feeling sick to my stomach.

Inside the living room, I pour myself a glass of water from a crystal decanter, drain it in one go and stroll through Luca's apartment. He has more rooms than my entire house on Earth, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking wide
areas of the city, including the factories, the mountains, the cliffs, the shimmering gates and the hot glowing area where earlier Mela had shown me where the demons have burrowed out underground caves.

When I open an inconspicuous white door at the end of a hallway, I can't help a slow grin forming at the sight of a fully outfitted gymnasium. I race back to ‘my' wardrobe in Luca's bedroom to change into something more suitable and train for the next three hours. I work on building my fitness because I'm going to need to be physically fit, but I devote more time on strengthening my powers. By session's end I stop only because I need sustenance.

I train again in the afternoon, practising moving heavy objects with just my will, which is turning out to be one of my more honed powers. I imagine the objects are soldiers coming at me and wonder if my power extends to moving living beings. I have a way to go yet before I can make my escape, but every improvement brings me one step closer to being free of Luca.

Even if I have to live alone in a cave for a hundred years, I'll do it gladly if it means one day I'll get to Avena and I will see Nathaneal again. By then he might have moved on, and while it grows next to impossible to breathe if I so much as think about him being with someone else, I swear that whatever it costs me, I won't ruin it for him.

The idea of Nathaneal moving on without me is torture. I find a sparsely furnished sitting room on the east side of the apartment with a single window that looks out at the cliffs where Nathaneal and his team rested, the day they brought Mum and Dad home to Earth.

Staring out the window, a flash of reflected light catches my eye and I follow it back to a metallic door. It's copper, if I'm not mistaken. Intrigued, since none of the other doors is copper, I turn its gold handle. Finding it unlocked, I walk through.

Oh, wow!

The room is circular and three storeys high, with a spiral staircase leading to the second and third levels, with wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling shelving, and balconies all the way round, giving access to thousands of books.

I spend ages trawling through ancient texts, diagrams and manuscripts, bound and unbound, written in languages I can't read or don't recognise. I thumb through numerous volumes before finding one written by a Seraphim angel named Lucian, dating back to the beginning of Skade's occupancy. I settle into a comfortable lounge chair, fold my legs up and pull the book on to my lap.

As I begin turning pages I soon see that the historian Lucian is really Luca. His calligraphy in black ink is old school and quite beautiful. Though not written in English, it's easy enough to figure out what I'm reading. The sketches on almost every page help a great deal. It's the history of Skade's settlement, starting with Prince Lucian's official claim of ownership; his rounding up of the natives, the demons who lived here already; and the establishment of his provinces, cities and regional areas. Then, in a separate section, he records births, deaths and marriages.

I read for hours.

The sun has long set when Luca finds me asleep in the armchair, the heavy ancient book across my lap. I stir as he
slides it from my hands.

‘Have you been here all day?' he asks.

‘Uh …' I give myself a quick mental shake, remembering the hours of training I did, and simply shrug.

‘Did you eat something?'

‘A little.'

‘At least you found something to keep yourself amused in my absence.' He offers me his hand. I ignore it, getting up on my own to make sure he keeps his distance. ‘Whatever questions you might have, Ebony, from now on you have no need to seek the answers in a book.'

‘I like reading. Anyway, what do you mean, “from now on”?'

He just smiles with his lips pressed together. My patience snaps. ‘What do you mean, Luca? What have you done?'

‘I've cancelled judgments for the next few nights.'

I take a step back, then stop. I have nowhere to run. Whatever happens, it's time to stand my ground and, if I have to, fight like the Seraph I am and always will be.

Still, putting on a brave face doesn't stop a stutter e
scapin
g when I ask, ‘Why would you d-do that?'

He steps closer, his eyes fixed on mine, only breaking contact to lean down and whisper in his silken voice against my ear, ‘Really, Princess, do you need to ask? There is a beautiful angel in my bed. Where else would I be?'

A shiver, as cold as the winds blowing across Earth's Antarctic Peninsula, spreads out from my spine to every cell in my body.

25

Jordan

Gabe walks me deeper into the woods and starts putting me back in the
lamorak
. ‘I'm sorry I brought you here for nothing, Jordan.'

‘Well, it doesn't have to be, you know.'

His eyes meet mine. ‘I don't like to cross my brother.'

‘Are you sure, Gabe, cos you do it all the time?'

‘I'm the eldest,' he declares, a sudden distant look in his eyes.
Has he forgotten I'm standing right in front of him?
‘
I
should have been the Sentinels' choice. It should be
my
name inscribed on an ancient rock announcing
my
royal destiny.'

Prince Gabriel is jealous of his little brother. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Gabe hated Thane from the day he was born. That was the same day the Sentinels passed on the High King's announcement of how special the infant was, how one day he would marry a Soul Reader and the two would become king and queen of their own realm.