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

Chapter

Two

RONEN

Q uiet eased through the castle, the staff and few souls privileged to live here settling in for the night. I padded down the crimson carpet toward my room. The color resembled fresh blood under the silver moonlight streaming through the floor-length windows lining the hall.

The color followed me everywhere—in every corridor of Hell’s castle, in the uniform that covered my military, in the wounds they carried or earned. In every crevice of my hands and the tendrils of my shadows.

Blood followed me.

My room remained my only reprieve from the potent, ever-present stain—and the library .

The chair beside my favorite shelves called to me now, urging me to turn back, to ease the tension coiling tighter with every step toward my room.

I had to pass hers to reach mine. And for once, I didn’t want my shadows pounding at my body to escape.

A soft click sounded ahead. I stopped, knowing exactly what was about to happen.

The scrawny Nephilim stepped out of his room and tiptoed toward Lucille’s.

I clenched my jaw and let the oblivious male sneak a couple more steps. Then released a shadow and tripped him. He fell ungracefully to the floor.

“I told you to stay in your room.”

He peeked through his unmanageable hair, grinning sheepishly. “Did you? I don’t recall.”

His grin and green eyes made my stomach lurch. He reminded me of someone from my past.

He stood, inching toward her door.

“She needs to heal,” I warned.

The Nephilim crossed his arms. “Does she? Huh. The slices down her limbs and her unconscious state must’ve slipped my mind.”

My shadows whipped around me in threat. If he didn’t share those oddly familiar features with the male who saved my life, I would’ve released them. Let them rough him up a bit. Instead, I passed by him, leashing my shadows before they slipped beneath her door.

“Get back in your room.”

“Yes, Sir. ”

A door opened and shut behind me, sounding closer than it should’ve.

I guaranteed he went into her room, and I didn’t have enough energy to go drag him out. Or, more likely, I didn’t want to set foot in there.

I entered my sitting area and sighed in relief. It was empty. I walked over to the wall of weapons by my fireplace, removed my Soul Swords and daggers from my person, and placed them back on the runed wall. Raising my last dagger, I paused.

Sinking into the chair next to my fire, I twisted the handle of Tsal-mawet in my palms. This dagger could change my life—if only we had my feather. Lucifer would want to know I’d found the blade that sawed off his wings and created the world we now live in.

Hell.

The place the council claimed they wanted me. But they were lies. Etan would’ve kept me as his slave for all eternity. Fortunately, I escaped, and now I had a home in Hell’s first circle: Redemption.

It used to be the least gruesome circle of the seven—until twenty years ago, when the gates closed and Hell began to devolve.

The Seven Circles stopped recycling souls, making them overcrowded and allowing dangerous souls to pop into circles they weren’t allowed in.

And now… now everything was fucked, making my job as a general harder than it’d ever been.

I fingered the deadly blade, unable to resist the magnetic pull of the cold, lethal edge.

Its power hummed against my fingers as if calling out to be used.

But Tsal-mawet wasn’t meant to be wielded by the hands of men or angels.

It was the Weaver’s to use—to create and destroy.

And it certainly wasn’t meant for torture.

My muscles tensed, urging me to find the Archangel that tore apart her flesh. My vision darkened as a wisp seeped from my hand, wrapping around the hilt of the humming metal. I wanted to destroy him. I wanted to make every blood vessel in his body burst and savor his screams as I filleted?—

I hissed, cutting myself on one of the dagger’s sharp quillons.

For fuck’s sake.

Every time I so much as thought about her lying there, bloody and dying, unending cold rage seized my thoughts. All I could think about was revenge on everyone involved in her torture.

Lucille’s torture.

My second problem.

Arms wrapped around me from behind, startling me from my thoughts.

“Are you going to play with your dagger all night or come to your bed and play with me instead?” Moira asked, pressing her soft lips to my ear.

Seven Hells, my shadows didn’t sense her? Was I that distracted?

She slowly slid her naked arms down my chest. My muscles pushed at the thick material of my uniform like my shadows pushed at my body to escape—and go to… her. Not the female attempting to unbuckle my cuirass. The female down the hall.

The writhing wisps living inside me were both a part of me and an entity all their own. They craved the female like they craved the blood of our victims. They craved her, and I desired to have nothing to do with her.

I didn’t want a romantic relationship. I didn’t want a cordistella. I didn’t want another fucking bond. The fact that I had one—and my shadows acted against me—posed a serious problem.

“Ronen,” Moira begged, kissing down the stubble on my jaw. “Come to bed.”

“I need to see the king.” I shrugged her off and stood.

“Are you sure?” She drew out her words, each sound dripping with sex.

If I turned around, she’d be completely naked.

I rebuckled my cuirass. “Yes.”

“Do you want me to join you?”

I could hear her disappointment. She didn’t want to join me. She wanted me to stay and sink my cock into her. My shadows revolted at the mere thought.

“No. I’ll be back later. Sleep.”

Then I left, sheathing Tsal-mawet at my side and refusing to lay eyes on her beseeching baby blues or supple naked body.

I yanked my door open and strode into the hall. At the end of the corridor, my shadows jerked beneath my skin and eclipsed my eyes, begging to pool out of me and turn right.

I was sick and tired of this. The king should’ve kept her on his level of the castle.

He could protect her just as well. I needed more space from her, not less—but I couldn’t very well tell him that.

In fact, I couldn’t tell him anything about our bond.

If he knew, it could jeopardize our arrangement.

Not that I intended to claim her as my cordistella.

After going down three levels to the ground floor, I approached his hall. At his door, I raised my fist but hesitated, grazing my thumb over the dagger. Did he need to know? Nothing could change without my feather.

The frozen door handle melted. “Enter, General Ronen,” he called out.

I slid my arm in front of the dagger and mentally berated myself for hesitating when he could sense me. Then I walked in.

“Lucifer.” I nodded. That was as much as I’d bow to him. He may have given me a title and a place to stay, but he also knew what I was to him—or what I was supposed to be.

He nodded back. The same old song and dance we played with each other.

Since he asked me to come in, I knew he needed something from me.

“Yes?” I prompted.

He stood from his desk and turned to face the fire at his back. “Lucille needs training. She’s weak and inexperienced.”

I shoved my infuriating wisps deep inside my core, unwilling to deal with their temperamental bullshit. He was right. Yet for some reason, they saw his words as a slight, even when they were facts.

Well, not frail. Small and malnourished. But she still had muscle on her bones.

“And you want me to train her?”

No one ever wanted me to train them. My Dreads didn’t even want to go through the drills I put them through, and they were my elite squadron.

“She will be placed in the Infernos.”

“Lucifer,” I protested.

He turned around and raised a brow. “I want her trained, Ronen.”

I refrained from cracking my thumbs in my fist, squeezing them instead.

“The Infernos are third from our elite squadron. She wouldn’t last a day.

” He knew that. His eyes twitched and illuminated.

He was about to veto me. “They won’t tolerate her.

You know how hard they’ve worked to reach the third squadron.

You can’t place her there like it’s nothing. ”

He considered me, then nodded. “Fine. The Tormentors Squadron.”

“Your daughter doesn’t have the necessary skills to be in any squadron but the Bowels.”

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed, and the room dropped in temperature. “She doesn’t have the luxury to start at the bottom. The Redemption Circle is becoming more dangerous each week. I want her in the Tormentors. If she has to train every second of every day to progress faster, then so be it.”

“They will prey on her weakness—especially if they know who she is.”

“They will not know who she is.”

“Why?”

He gave me a measured look. “You haven’t figured it out yet, have you?”

What was that supposed to mean?

“Have you sensed her power?”

I’ve tasted it in her blood, but he’d be less than pleased to hear that, so I nodded .

“She’s my daughter. The first offspring of Hell. There’s no telling all the power she contains. I learned of some when you bridged our minds together. Based on what she said and what I’ve seen, I believe Saraqael is her mother.”

I stilled. What he said wasn’t possible. Angels were created—never born.

“I don’t understand.”

He scoffed. “Neither do I. But if my daughter is telling the truth, then she is no Nephilim, and I somehow got Saraqael pregnant the last time she was here.”

I remembered that day and still didn’t know what to think about it.

“Do you think she planned it all?” I asked, thinking back to the odd way Saraqael acted, and the ice storm that shattered the windows when she stormed out of Hell and never returned.

Lucifer’s eyes were glazed, most likely reliving the worst night of his life—when Saraqael chose Michael over him. “I don’t know. That’s why I need her to wake up.”

Even with my power to manipulate the bodies and minds of others, I couldn’t wake Saraqael. That was almost as surprising as the fact that Lucifer allowed me to taste her blood in the first place.

“What about the fem—Lucille? Can she tell you anything?” Her name curled around my tongue in a sweet caress. I grimaced, hating that I liked it.

“She’s been in and out of consciousness this last week. But, knowing Saraqael, I doubt she knows much. I need Saraqael. ”

By the look on his face, he more than needed her. He yearned for her, obsessed over her, and would do absolutely anything for her—even after she stormed off and chose another.

That wouldn’t be me. It was bad enough having to watch Lucifer pine for Saraqael.

No, I’d never allow someone to have that hold over me again. Moira satisfied me enough. She had low expectations for our situation and never pushed for more. We were both happy with the way things were. So the whirling darkness coiling inside me better enjoy disappointment.

“Give Lucille a couple more days to heal, then introduce her to her new life with your Tormentors.”

“You’re sure you want her with the fourth squadron?” Anyone else who dared to question the King of Hell would’ve suffocated on ice.

“Train her hard, make her suffer, but keep her alive. I don’t care how you do it, but she needs to be ready. There’ll be a reckoning in Hell for what’s been done.”

His ominous words stirred the shadows beneath my skin.

“What kind of reckoning?”

“The kind that will restore Hell to what it once was.”

I slid my hand behind my back as I felt the whisper of my shadows tickle my palms. Lucifer was hiding something, and they didn’t like that it had any relation to the female.

“I’ll debrief you on her cover story in a few days. No one in Hell can know who she is. If someone tells the Council of Righteousness, those heavenly bastards will demand retribution. ”

Lucifer glared at the wedding band around his finger, connecting him to the Mother of Demons.

After Saraqael left him and Hell changed, he finally believed the council of Seraphim he’d once been part of had become venal.

He should’ve come to that conclusion years ago, when I mentioned their immoral practices.

But he chose not to believe or trust me.

After all, I was a Dark Seraphim. My powers tortured and controlled.

And yet, this Council of Righteousness created me.

When the only being in existence who should be able to create angels was the Weaver and his dagger, which hid behind my arm.

But Lucifer provided me refuge, so I didn’t question him.

Why he chose not to believe Saraqael, I had no idea.

“Add the Nephilim too.”

I raised a brow. “The Nephilim?”

“She might as well have one friend watching her back. Put him with the Tormentors too.”

Moira was going to roast my balls for this new development. I’d be going over her head to place two weak, tiny, unseasoned—not even warriors—in her squadron.

Seven Hells.

I sucked up my griping words and accepted my orders.

An unnerving smile graced his face as he dismissed me. One I recognized—and hated.

“Good luck.”

I walked to his door.

“Oh, Ronen.”

My hand paused on the door handle while my arm pressed firmly into the sheath hiding the Weaver’s dagger .

“Yes?”

“Was there something you needed?”

Now was my chance. I could tell him we had one of the two items we needed for the Unmaking Ceremony.

“Just wanted to report we found no sightings of the Damned today.”

The words just popped out. They were the truth, but they weren’t the ones I should’ve said.

He nodded and waved me away.

The dagger burned a hole in my arm as I made my way back to my rooms.

Why didn’t I tell him?