Page 33 of Wings of Darkness (Daughter of the Seven Circles #2)

Chapter

Twenty

LUCILLE

“ I hate you,” Oliver whined, zipping up the collar of his coat and throwing up his hood, which continued to fall in the wind.

“I know.”

“I hate you.”

“Oliver! Shut up! I got it the last forty times you said it!” I panted. “Suck it up. We’ve only run half of the way so far.”

He groaned. “Ran-walked.”

Ugh. “I know!”

Change didn’t happen in the blink of an eye. I didn’t expect to be able to run the entire ten miles after barely managing five. So of course we ran and we walked through the negative-degree weather to achieve our goal.

Or at least I did—and I hadn’t even gone to bed, not counting the nap in the library.

After deciding to wake Oliver from sleep to train, he half-assed his run behind me, kicking every stick and pebble along the way.

I should’ve left his grumpy ass in bed, but he needed this as much as I did.

Every minute counted, and if one of us could rank and gain the general’s favor, we’d be halfway to rescuing Aspen and Oliver’s sister.

And if we didn’t rank… well, there was always befriending the general. The thought almost made me laugh out loud, but I had no air in my lungs for that.

“We could’ve at least waited until there was no freeze-your-face-off wind chill. And not in the middle of the fucking night!” Oliver’s complaints were on a never-ending rotation, sandwiched between the I hate yous, the you’re crazys, and the I’m not carrying your passed-out ass up that hill again.

“This is our new reality. Every day, every night. So get used to it, and take it like Rune is.”

She ran next to us with an ease I both envied and adored, her tongue lolling out.

“Rune was created for Hell! I was not!”

Strangling him sounded tempting. I was about to rip into him when a mischievous smile graced his face. He hadn’t smiled once since we got out here, and now he was?

“Oliver,” I warned. “Don’t you dare?—”

He luscelered away.

“Cheater!” I yelled.

Exhaustion tugged at my eyelids, tempting me to lusceler after him, but I couldn’t .

For one, I’d probably would pass out if I did, running on the little energy I had left.

For another, I needed to accomplish this.

The groaning trees and their shadowed depths might’ve unsettled me, but it didn’t matter.

This was Hell, yes, but I had Rune—and my powers, as a last resort, if things went wrong.

I wasn’t stopping. Ten miles. No shortcuts. Even if I had to crawl.

By the time I reached the bottom of the hill with two miles to go, my run had turned into a hobbled shuffle, and dawn crept upon us.

Rune pressed close, like she thought I’d collapse, and though it sounded like it with my ragged breaths, I didn’t stop.

About halfway up the hill, I stumbled, almost going down.

Rune whimpered, her illuminated eyes twisting to me.

The general was watching.

I put on a burst of speed, my vision clouding with dots and ice, but I refused to collapse in front of him with only one more mile to go.

I pushed, giving everything I had to that last stretch, ignoring the agony.

When I reached the arena door, I couldn’t summon enough energy to smile.

My vision blurred, and my knees buckled just as the door swung open.

Strong arms caught me and slowly lowered me to the threshold.

“Dammit, Lucy, I thought you’d follow me,” Oliver said, his voice laced with concern, and sounding farther away than expected.

“I can’t—lusceler—without passing out—cheater.” My words came out in broken gasps as I rested my head against his sternum, blinking to clear my vision.

“So running until your fucking body collapses is the next best thing, Hellion?”

I stiffened. That wasn’t Oliver’s voice .

Slowly, I tilted my head back—and there he was. The general. Holding me in his arms.

I found myself kneeling between his legs, my hands resting on his solid thighs, his hands securing me in place.

His expression was impassive, but his gaze burned with something darker. I swallowed, my throat tight, and quickly averted my eyes. My heart raced, and I shot a pointed glare at Oliver, who stood frozen behind us.

“You took too long,” Oliver said, grimacing. “So I had him check on you through Rune.”

I fought the urge to shake my head. He could’ve luscelered back to meet us if he was so concerned. I didn’t like the idea of the general seeing me struggle—or worse, giving him more proof of my ineptitude.

I lowered my head, pretending to catch my breath, when really, I was hiding. Giving myself one fleeting second to bask in this accomplishment before the general could ruin it.

Six whole miles of straight running. It wasn’t the full ten. But it was progress.

I smiled. Hopefully, by the end of the week, I could reach eight.

“You didn’t have to stay,” I said as my breath finally evened out and I dropped the smile. I pressed against the general’s hold to stand, but he resisted.

“I did,” he said, his voice tight. Shadowy whisps swirled within his gold irises, giving away his displeasure.

My palms turned clammy against the rough leather of his thighs, heat from his skin seeping through the fabric. His gaze burned through me, consuming. The world around us fell away. All I could smell, hear, and feel was him.

Surrounded by his delicious, spicy, balsam scent, it became harder to tear myself away from the overwhelming need to know him. To unravel the thoughts that hid behind those molten depths. To see the male beneath the general’s mask—to know all of him.

It wasn’t about getting under his skin for Aspen’s sake. It was something deeper.

His eyes called to me in a way nothing else ever had. They pushed Aspen—and the unrelenting need to get to him—to the furthest reaches of my mind.

I leaned forward, holding my breath, not sure what I was about to do. His arms and legs tensed, startling me back to reality.

Heavenly Hell!

I jerked back, rubbing my hands against my pants, desperate to shake off the feel of his warmth. “I’m fine,” I insisted, shoving at his hold.

Finally, he released me. But when I struggled to stand, his shadows wrapped around my legs, lending their strength, while Rune pressed against my side, steadying me.

The general stood, his body rigid and mask firmly in place. “You sure fucking look fine,” he said, voice mocking. “Do you honestly expect to be able to run another ten miles in an hour?”

My muscles and lungs screamed no, every fiber begging for rest. But the urgency that had momentarily faded in the general’s arms—the same burning need that only grew stronger with each day I went without Aspen—flared back to life.

I lifted my chin. “I’ll do whatever it takes. ”

Something flashed in his expression. Begrudging respect? Pride? Surprise? I couldn’t tell. And before I could make sense of it, it was swiftly buried beneath a layer of anger.

“Go to your rooms and rest.”

“What? But?—”

“This isn’t a negotiation, Hellion. Go. Lucifer has requested extra time with you. I’ll let your squad leader know you won’t be training today.”

“No.” I understood we missed my power training lesson, but I didn’t want it to cut into my time with the Tormentors. “I have to?—”

The general stepped closer and removed his shadows from my legs, cutting off my protest. I slumped into Rune, shaking too much to hold myself up. His shadows whipped around him chaotically before swarming back to me.

“Bed. Now.”

I opened my mouth.

“Nephilim,” he snapped. “Help her to bed and make sure Sam comes up to check on her.”

Oliver hurried to my side and wrapped his arm around my waist. The general watched us in silence as Oliver and Rune led me out of the empty arena, the heavy echo of our footsteps filling the quiet hallway as we entered the castle.

I gritted my teeth, understanding I needed rest, but having no patience for it. Frustration simmered beneath my skin, and I wanted to go back and lay into the general.

“This isn’t a joke, you know,” I snapped. “You can’t lusceler when it’s too hard to run. Did you happen to forget that the only way into Lilith’s kingdom is with Ember Manacles? Manacles that suppress our powers, Oliver. What will you do then?”

“The ten miles just stressed me out. I’m not good in the cold, Luce, and you woke me up in the middle of the night. To run. ”

I scoffed. “So if it’s too cold or in the middle of the night, you’ll leave your sister to what? Suffer at the hands of Lilith until it’s a balmy seventy degrees and just after lunch?”

Oliver let go of me, forcing most of my weight onto Rune.

“And what about you?” he said, his emerald eyes flashing with fire. “Are you going to push yourself until there’s nothing left of you?”

“I’m getting stronger!”

He shook his head. “You look really strong right now, Lucille.” He jabbed a finger toward me, each word sharper than the last. “If you didn’t have me or Rune, you would’ve been dead from hypothermia at the bottom of that hill.

How many times have you pushed yourself to the point of passing out?

Today was the first day without me, and you didn’t even make it through the door.

Anyone else would’ve left you out there to suffer or die. You can only push yourself so far.”

I couldn’t believe I was hearing this.

“We need the general’s favor if we have any chance of helping Aspen or Melanie! The only way we do that is if we rank!”

“Yeah, fine. But you need a healthy stopping point.”

No. There was no stopping. Not until Aspen was beside me.

“What I need is for you to take this seriously and stop complaining. It’s no wonder you haven’t rescued your sister in ninety-five years. ”

Oliver jolted as though I had struck him, the hurt snuffing out the flames in his eyes.

“Rune can help you to bed. You can find someone else to carry your unconscious body up the hill,” he said, turning away.

I reached out, my voice catching. “Wait. Oli!”

He shrugged off my hold, walking away without a backward glance.