Page 7 of Wings of Darkness (Daughter of the Seven Circles #2)

I gazed up into piercing golden eyes, falling into the alluring molten depths.

They held me captive with their intensity, as though they could see straight through me, tugging at something deep in my chest. I couldn’t name the sensation—only that it felt unsettling and magnetic, drawing me in despite the sharp edge of his demeanor.

Warmth smoldered there too, a quiet heat that contrasted with the coldness in his gaze, and I found myself wanting to explore it.

“Are you done trying to show off in your weakened state?” the general growled.

His harsh words snapped me out of my captivation.

I wasn’t sure why I’d been so absorbed in him.

He never smiled, his personality remained as dour as a storm cloud, and he seemed to have some vendetta against me I couldn’t figure out.

“Only if you’re done being an a—” I stopped myself.

His lips tightened. He knew what I was about to say—it wasn’t hard to figure out. His golden eyes taunted me with their unnerving color, and I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to look away.

Instead, I focused on the disdain flattening his lips. Not that it was any better. The sight made me almost as angry as the strange pull I’d felt before. There was only one male I wanted to affect me, and it wasn’t the one staring at me like I was a pebble in his boot.

But I reminded myself I needed him.

No matter how much his expression, captivating eyes, or blunt words pissed me off, I needed him to save Aspen.

General Ronen lightened his hold as if he were about to let me fall down the stairs, but instead, he scooped me up and plopped me on Rune. She wagged her tail happily.

He stood there for a moment, like he expected a thanks or an apology. I didn’t want to, but I had to make him like me.

“Thank you,” I said, putting effort into sounding genuine.

He scoffed and turned.

I glared daggers at his back, flexing my fingers in Rune’s fur. We continued down the stairs after him and through a couple more halls. Rune stopped when we arrived at a wooden door with a frosted handle.

The general knocked thrice in quick succession.

The frosted handle thawed, and we entered a sitting room larger than mine.

While mine featured shades of red and white, this one matched my bedroom—all dark reds and black.

A crackling fire blazed in the back, next to two iced-over windows and a circle of comfortable seating. But no one was here.

“And she’s riding your Soulhound, why, General?”

I jerked to my left, finding the king coming from a different room. Behind him, my mom rested on a bed.

“Mom?” I leaped off Rune. “Mom!” My feet hit the ground hard, and I stumbled, falling to my knees. Dammit !

Before I could crawl through the door, the king picked me up and deposited me on a loveseat beside the fire.

“Why is she still sleeping? What did you do to her?”

“You know I hate that tone of yours, daughter.” He said daughter like it was both a term of endearment and an insult.

“Sounds like a personal problem. Are you going to answer me, Father ?” Did he honestly think I cared what he did or didn’t like while my mother lay in the other room, pale and still?

I stood, and ice covered my shoes, holding me in place.

“Let me go,” I seethed, staring at the male who somehow made my birth possible.

His white-blond, wavy hair sat a little wild on his head, like he’d just woke up.

But by the suit gracing his form, that wasn’t the case.

He might be like Oliver, a stress scrubber.

The bags under his double-ringed eyes sure spoke of some kind of stress.

“Your mother is unwell. She needs rest.”

Did he think that’d placate me?

I jerked my legs, hoping to rip free, then almost smacked myself for thinking I was some helpless little girl again.

I dove into my core to find where my Glory resided, but every time I reached for it and asked it to break the ice, my Infernus answered and created more.

At least my purple flames protected my skin from the cold, but it wasn’t what I wanted.

I wrenched against his hold, frustrated.

Oliver came up beside me, flipping a dagger and staring at the king with flaming emeralds. “Let her go.”

The king raised a blond brow. “Are you threatening me, Nephilim?”

He shrugged. “Just a friendly suggestion. ”

“I’d put that knife away and sit before you find yourself encased in ice.” The king smiled. “Just a friendly suggestion.”

Oliver sheathed his knife and sat beside me, but the fire didn’t leave his eyes.

“What did you do to my mother?”

The king turned his attention back to me. “I did nothing to her. She arrived unconscious. What did you and that Archangel do to her?”

“Michael gave her one bag of Nerium poisoning, but that shouldn’t keep her unconscious,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

“This isn’t from Nerium poisoning. General Ronen could’ve helped with that. This is something else.”

Was that how the general had calmed me earlier?

“Then what?”

“You tell me. What did Michael say to you? What happened before you were rescued?”

“Besides shackling me to a table, threatening to eradicate me from the world, and slicing me up every time I so much as whimpered—nothing too unusual. For him.”

Can’t believe Aspen let him walk away.

The tension in the room thickened. No one seemed to want to speak after that. But they’d rescued me. They saw the wounds and scars. Nothing I said should’ve come as a surprise.

Rune trotted over to me, wrapped her jaw around the thick ice covering my shoe, and shattered it. She did the same to the other, then sat before me and faced the king. Her tail stood still, her head lowered in challenge .

He gazed at Rune, raising an inquiring brow. “Troubles controlling your Soulhound, General?”

“Ten years with a disrupted connection has taken a toll.”

Disrupted connection?

“Or living without obedience and roaming Elora and Earth at her own will. I expect you to remedy that.”

Earth, huh?

Could that big wolf I saw in the woods have been her?

I looked back at the general and found a flat expression as he stared at the menacing king. After a tense second, he nodded. “As you wish.”

“Tell me what else happened. Every detail from your life.”

Peeking back at the door where my mother rested, I wondered if I could scramble there fast enough.

“If you tell me everything I want to know, I'll let you see her.”

I curled my hands into fists at how he said let , as if I needed his permission.

But I turned back to him, and instead of spewing insults and curses, I told him about our life—telling the general and Oliver in the process.

I left out the parts with Aspen but described how Michael used to hit us and take a blade to my back one day every year.

Oliver grabbed my hand, squeezing it as ice crackled and the king’s eyes glowed. Rune’s fur whipped more aggressively. They only grew more tense as I gave more details of my capture.

“To protect her, I made a three-way deal with Michael.” I yanked on the collar of my sweatshirt and showed the king my rune. “I told him I’d tell him my maker if he’d swear not to touch her again.”

The king pursed his lips. “What exactly am I supposed to be seeing right now? ”

I pointed at it. “It’s right here. The rune. Don’t you see it?”

“What does this rune look like?” he asked suspiciously, his eyes glowing and the ground slowly frosting over.

Apprehension crept in, and Rune tensed beside me.

“It’s two elongated triangles with lines crossing through them and some dots.”

The king stood, more ice crawling along the floor and ceiling. “Are the dots at the triangle’s base or the point?”

I swallowed but held my spine beneath his intimidating stare. “The base.”

“It’s a Wrath Rune!”

My rune heated at his words, and his gaze shot to it like he finally saw it. A fierce wind shattered the ice across the floor. Before the shards could touch me, Oliver tackled me off the couch, and a torrent of shadows erupted, forming an impenetrable cocoon.

Glass shattered. Metal pinged. The fire hissed. Ice pelted everything outside our shield.

“Oliver,” I wheezed. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he mumbled into my neck. “Are you?”

“I’m having a hard time breathing. Can you get off?”

“Rune’s on top of us.”

I groaned. “Rune, we can’t breathe.”

A weight lifted, and I took in a lungful of air, rolling out from under Oliver.

The chaos softened, and we waited in the darkness.

“You can release them from your shadows now, Bloodhound. I’m under control,” the king called .

The shadows stayed, brushing against my exposed skin like they were checking for damage.

“General Ronen!” the king snapped.

Light filtered through as the shadows wisped away. Oliver winked and sat up. Rune bombarded my face with licks, only stopping when the general snapped. She immediately pulled back and stood sentinel by my side while I took stock of the slushy sitting area.

The couches and chairs were shredded and dripping with water. Debris, ice chips, and puddles decorated every surface—except the king’s chair and the circle of carpet we lay on.

I peeked back at the general over the destroyed loveseat. His golden eyes flickered, his face expressionless. Minor cuts marked his body. Red splotches seeped into his once-gorgeous white shirt, now shredded to bits.

Why didn’t he protect himself during whatever the hell just happened?

“You let that Archangel put a Wrath Rune on the three of you?” the king spat.

I bit my tongue, dropping my gaze from the general and turning back to the king.

“Let?” I sat up on the carpet. “I was chained to a table, bleeding out, and thought if there was a chance a deal could save my mother, then I’d sacrifice myself so he wouldn’t touch her ever again!

” I shouted. “I thought it was a rune for a binding agreement!”

The king stared at me, something close to reluctant respect entering his icy eyes.

He nodded at my shoulder. “No, a rune for a binding agreement has the dots at the points. When the dots are at the bottom, it destabilizes the rune and turns it into that.” His tone softened slightly.

“A Wrath Rune.” The rune heated again. “A specialized rune that’s invisible unless you speak its name—which is why we never suspected it was the cause of your mother’s coma. ”

Dread cooled the irritation warming my cheeks. “This is the cause of her coma?”

“Wrath Runes were designed to force energy from one person to another, but that’s during a two-way bind.

You said it was a three-way bind, with Michael as the lead, which changes the dynamic entirely.

Michael either intended to steal your energy or transfer it to Saraqael, but it didn’t work out the way he intended because you’re awake.

That means, as Saraqael sleeps, she’s stealing your essence to stay alive.

She won’t wake unless she takes it all?—”

“I need to die for my mother to live?” I whispered, horrified, staring at the door that blocked my view of her. I’d sworn I knew what rune Michael was placing on us. “Is that what needs to happen?”

Did he want me to die for her? Was this the sacrifice part of the prophecy?

I wasn’t insulted. I had such low expectations for father figures—what was one more who’d rather see me dead than alive? At least this one carried possessive love in his unique, double-ringed eyes—for her, even after all these years.

I was nothing but a daughter he’d just learned about, one he forced to jump into a poisonous river without knowing if I’d survive. If I hadn’t been his blood, I would’ve died. He gambled with my life. What was to stop him from doing it again?

As if reading my mind, he raised a brow and said, “I wouldn’t have had my general rescue you if I wanted you to die. There’s another way.”

“Then what? How do we save her? ”

“Michael needs to die,” General Ronen said, stepping around the side of the loveseat and positioning himself next to Rune—and far too close to me.

“You can say that again,” Oliver muttered.

I couldn’t agree more. But we were stuck here for another year—one whole year—until the gates opened, and I had to save not only Aspen but also my mom. Again.

Michael ruined our lives. He needed to die.

The thought of killing someone should’ve made me question my sanity.

But part of me had no aversion to killing—a remorseless, dark part.

The itches scattering across my skin and the music tickling my inner ear at the mere thought of what Michael had done made me crave his blood.

Did this part of me stem from Hell? From the king’s blood running through my veins?

“Michael’s the head of the binding. Kill him, and the runes will release you both,” the king confirmed.

“Then we need to get out of here and find him.”

“No,” the king said. “You need to train.”

“What?”

He stepped closer, a cunning look glinting in his eyes. “You and the Nephilim will be placed in Hell’s military, where we’ll beat that human weakness out of your body and mind. And when you’re not suffering with your squadron, you’ll be in the library studying—or with me, training your powers.”

I met his unflinching gaze with one of my own. “And if I refuse?”

“Then you won’t survive.”