Page 16 of Wings of Darkness (Daughter of the Seven Circles #2)

Chapter

Twelv e

LUCILLE

A grin spread across my face as I stared at the familiar moonlit field of flowers, the soft breeze playing with the tips of my hair and rustling my coat.

“Sweetheart, how did you end up in Hell?” Aspen’s voice broke the serenity, and my smile widened.

Before I answered, I tilted my head to the night sky and imagined the one thing I continued to miss from Earth. A second later, twinkling specks of silver sprang from nowhere and gave life to the darkness. I giggled, the sound filling the quiet.

Turning away from the sparkling sky, I found Aspen standing beneath the oak tree.

I walked through the field, my fingers trailing over blooms, and startled when my winter clothing melted away—replaced by a form-fitting green dress.

The bodice dug into my ribs and pushed up my small breasts, making them look larger than they were.

Aspen even changed my hairstyle, unweaving it from its braid to let it spill around my face.

Was this what he found attractive?

I much preferred pants over long skirts that snagged on every blade of grass and tangled around my legs.

“This is… different,” I remarked, meeting him beneath the tree.

Shadows and moonlight slashed across his leathers, giving him a striking, almost otherworldly appearance.

He stood still, watching me as if waiting for something.

The weight of his gaze and lack of explanation made my smile falter.

He lifted a hand, brushing my cheek softly, but his lips were pursed, his brows furrowed.

“Are you going to answer me, sweetheart?”

“That’s where the general took me when I was dying. To my father.”

Aspen’s frown deepened, his eyes searching mine for more. “Lilith always said Hell was locked. No one can enter or escape.”

“Well, for some reason, it opened that night.”

His fingers twitched against my skin as he mulled over my words. “Why? No one has been able to—for what? Nine, ten years?”

I shook my head, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. “I don’t know.”

But he had a point. What made that night different? And how did the king know Hell would open—unless he’d been gambling with my life again?

Aspen gripped my shoulders. “Regardless, you’re not safe there, Lucille. You need to find a way out.”

Safe? The word dug under my skin, sharp and irritating.

My thoughts spiraled back to my homes on Earth, to the moments that still left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I remembered crying when I had to leave my friends.

I remembered fighting with my mom just to get a taste of life outside the house—begging to see humans, to breathe air that didn’t feel so…

oppressive. The constant arguments. The suffocating isolation.

Always wanting more freedom, more connection, more anything—but the walls closing in around me.

I’d been safe for half my life—protected from anything that could hurt me. I didn’t know how to live, to fight for what I wanted, to push to be more than I was. I’d been weak, and now I was stuck trying to fix it.

“What has being safe ever gotten me?” I shot back, my voice clipped.

“The air in your lungs.” He shook my shoulders, his voice rising. “Your life!”

I scoffed. “I lived in a comfortable prison, Aspen. That wasn’t a life.”

He flung his hands into the air. “So what? You’re going to flounder about in Hell for the foreseeable future, and I’ll just have to wait and see if you’re still alive every time I fall asleep?”

“Flounder about? Is that how you see me?” The words stung more than I expected. “Is that why you imagined me in this suffocating gown?”

Only an innocent damsel would wear this.

But could I blame him? He’d had to rescue me so many times, and I still barely knew this world—even with my memories back.

“I can’t protect you in Hell if I can’t get to you,” he pleaded.

The flicker of vulnerability caught me off guard, making my chest tighten. I took his hands and peeked at his wrist, relieved to still see them bare of those vile runes. But for how long?

“What about you, Aspen?”

He hesitated. “What about me?”

“Who’s protecting you while you’re back with Lilith?”

He pursed his lips into a thin line and glanced toward the arches, confirming my assumptions. The tension in his shoulders spoke louder than words.

In our last dream-walk, he’d said he searched our library . Aspen had been raised in the Tenebrous Kingdom. So it was safe to assume the only library he’d claim as his own was the one he grew up with—which meant he’d returned to her.

“I’ve got it handled,” he insisted. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about getting out.”

I let out a frustrated sigh and pressed my hand against his cheek, coaxing his gaze back to mine. “Of course I’ll try to find a way out. But I need you to be honest with me. You’re not alone in this.”

His eyes flickered with something unreadable before he dropped his gaze. “I’ll be okay. Just find a way out.”

“I will. And then I’m going to rescue you and kill Michael.”

His head shot up, eyes flashing with blue fire. “That archangel I found mutilating you?”

Images of Michael slicing me surged into my mind. I curled my hands into fists, digging them into my palms, grounding myself to push the rising panic away.

“Yes,” I forced out. “He put my mom into a coma. The only way she wakes is if we kill him.”

I didn’t mention the other part, the darker truth—how my mother was eating my energy. Or how she could wake if I died. I didn’t want to admit my mistake and give him more proof of my floundering.

Something shifted in the air—an unsettling ripple of shadow near the tree line. I frowned at the wispy blur, but Aspen’s voice pulled me back.

“I’ll figure out where Michael is,” he said. “But promise me you’ll keep dream-walking to me so I know you’re okay. And if you find a way out, come to me. We can kill him together.”

His strength and resolute tone steadied me. This was the Aspen I was falling for—not the one who said I was floundering, but the one who wanted me next to him when we killed Michael.

I stepped closer, pressing my body against his, and he responded instantly, bringing his mouth down to mine. Our breaths mingled, and the world narrowed to the two of us.

Aspen moved, pinning me gently against the tree and removing the space between us. A soft moan escaped my lips, and our slow, tingling kiss deepened, growing hotter. I felt him harden against my stomach, sending heat pooling low in my belly. He groaned when my hand grazed him over his leathers.

I smiled against his mouth.

He dropped to his knees, running his hands up my legs and bunching my skirts. “Do you know the best part about dresses, sweetheart?” he challenged. His fingers trailed higher, nearing my throbbing core. “The ease with which I can touch you. ”

I gasped, throwing my head back as his fingertips slid against my center. Before he reached my clit, a sudden rush of noise broke through the moment—and his face blurred.

“Dream-walk to me again soon!” Aspen’s voice reverberated through my mind as everything went dark.

“Wake up!” someone shouted, shaking my shoulders with a bruising grip.

“Quiet down. There are other patients here, you know.”

“Leave us. You healed her. Now she needs to answer my questions.”

I opened my eyes to the general standing over me, the shadow of his body blocking the ambient light streaming through the high, vaulted windows. The warmth from my fresh clothes and the blankets covering me slowly leached away under the cold wrath in the general’s face.

“What—” I moved my arms to push myself off the cot and found them restrained by wispy black shadows. “What the hell is going on?”

Oliver lay on a cot beside me with his eyes closed. I jerked on my restraints. “Oliver?”

He didn’t stir.

“Oliver!” I shouted. When he didn’t respond, I whipped my head back to the one holding me captive. “Is he okay?”

The general stared at me, something vicious writhing in his cold gaze.

“Is he? ”

He crossed his arms. “Tell me if you’re working for Lilith, and I’ll let you know if your other precious boyfriend will live, sweetheart ,” he spat.

“Will live?” I demanded.

What happened after I passed out?

“Are you a traitor?”

“How can I be a traitor when I’m not part of anything?” I yanked against my restraints, and for a moment, the scenery changed, and I was begging for my life as Michael cut me open.

“You’re working for Lilith,” he accused, tightening the wisps around my wrists.

Why was he bringing up Lil— And then I figured it out. That had to be what the dark, wispy shadows were, like when he sent a ball of them into Aspen’s back and knocked him unconscious in the butcher’s basement. Somehow, the general who knew absolutely nothing had snooped in my dream-walk.

What else could those shadows do?

My skin flushed, and my vision kept flipping between past and present—between rage and embarrassment over what he’d witnessed.

My hands trembled in their restraints, my heartbeat thundering in my chest. I needed him to release me.

I needed him to release me now . Heavenly Hell, I was about to hyperventilate.

“Let me go.”

“Tell me what I want to know.”

I couldn’t think. The knife sliding down my thigh, making a squelching noise as my flesh split, invaded my senses. Blood pounded in my ears, and my breath became uneven .

“You were there. You saw how Michael used me as his personal knife sharpener,” I seethed between breaths, trying to stay strong and keep the panic at bay. Hopefully, he thought my uneven breathing was from rage and not the undeniable images and sounds of my torture flashing through my mind.

Black swallowed the gold in his eyes. “Yes.”

“It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation. For someone who saw what torture I endured while bound and immobile, it takes a real small male to restrain me—not even a couple of weeks later.”

Instantly, his shadows released me, but his cold expression never changed.