Page 25 of Wings of Lies (Daughter of the Seven Circles #1)

Chapter

Seventeen

“ I f you don’t do it, darling, then I will,” a sickly sweet feminine voice said.

Burgundy manicured nails, overlaid with a purple haze, pointed in front of me at a beautiful girl backed by a wall of ancient pillars.

She was young, maybe seventeen, with dark freckled skin and copper hair.

Eyes of piercing amber stared at me while silent lines of water slid down her cheeks, dripping off her chin to the rusty stone.

I didn’t recognize her.

“Please,” she said, voice cracking, shifting her attention behind me.

My head shook back and forth, shifting the purple haze.

I couldn’t stop the movement of my head or control it.

Which meant I was invading the body of a past version of myself, reliving a memory.

But I couldn’t tell how old I was. My gaze never strayed down to my torso.

It stayed on the tragic bronzed beauty I couldn’t remember .

Tears pooled in my eyes as I nearly broke my jaw clenching it so hard, further confusing me. A great wall separated me from fully connecting to my emotions and this moment. That was a new development.

“I will not ask again. If you do not lift your hand, I will do it for you. And you do not want that,” a voice said behind me, sounding like caramelized sugar over razor blades.

Out of everything in this dream, the ancient courtyard, the ominous black sky, the curvy sobbing girl, that voice was the only thing I recognized.

The alluring, dark sound was hard to forget.

It was the woman with sinuous curves and dark features who was in my last dream-walk.

I remembered everything from that dream-walk and the one before of the stranger and my erupting powers.

But the rest were fragmented pieces of my amulet, someone after me and my mom, and a deadly conversation about my dream-walking powers.

If that man who spoke of my powers was right, then there were two aspects of my dream-walking abilities: one where I relived memories and the other where I gave memories the power to change.

But did that mean I changed just the memory, or was it bigger than that?

He also said something about time and jumping dreams.

The last dream-walk wasn’t my memory. I wasn’t born yet.

Whose dream did I jump into, and could I find my mom this way?

A sharp cry pulled me from my renewed hope. Regret wrinkled the forehead of the girl in front of me, and sorrow twisted her lips. If I could climb the wall separating the connection between my thoughts and emotions, I bet I would better understand the water threatening to overtake my eyes.

“It’s okay,” she said, crying harder. “It’s okay. ”

From my tears, it wasn’t okay.

Rusty brown stained the rock beneath the girl’s leathered shoes, only in that spot. Against my will, my fists trembled as they attempted to rise, lifting a couple of inches before falling back to my side. I released more soundless tears, so unlike the sobs that burst from the curvy, freckled girl.

“It’s okay.” She nodded like she believed it. “Don’t let her win.”

A sense of apprehension hit me as she tried to keep the wobble from her legs. Something terrible was about to happen, and I officially wanted to leave this puppeteering dream.

“But I always win,” the woman behind me stated.

The sobs that overtook the girl changed abruptly to ear-piercing screams. Her limbs stretched wide, pulled by invisible strings.

Dark red smoke manifested around her spread-eagle body, lifting her into the sky until she was the size of my hand.

At a certain height, the young girl stopped screaming.

The wisps of red undulated and changed shape, holding her in place.

“Please,” I begged, my voice a faint and broken whisper I didn’t recognize.

It wasn’t my voice, and this wasn’t my body.

“You’ve made your choice, love,” she sighed. Her breath brushed the back of my neck. “I told you time and time again. If this is what I need to do to acquire your obedience. So be it.” The rolling red smoke that surrounded the girl vanished.

“No,” I shouted, jerking forward as if I’d catch her but stopping short as the same power that held the girl wrapped around my wrists.

My eyes narrowed on it. Flames jolted from my skin, burning away the red smoke chaining me in place.

But each time I burned it away, a next tendril would take its place.

I used more of my power, dragging my bloody knees against the stone, draining myself to reach the girl with copper hair plummeting to her death.

I fought to cover more ground, stretching out desperately until my fingertips grazed her copper hair just as she slammed into the unforgiving ground. Bones broke, flesh tore, and her blood sprayed into my face.

The force fighting against me released. I crawled toward the heap of green cloth. Her orange hair glistened, soaked through with blood. Brushing back the strands that covered her face, the air in my lungs stilled. Her amber eyes were dull, unseeing.

An anvil of power struck the wall that separated me from my emotions, turning it into dust. Agony flooded my mind, stabbing my chest and piercing my soul.

I brushed the wavy strands further from her face, smearing blood and tears, bowing my head against her forehead as a sob crawled up my throat.

“Nalini,” I cried.

No. Not me. Aspen.

Before I could think about the implications, pressure, unlike anything I’d ever known, filled me—and so much blinding anger.

Fury intertwined with all-consuming agony.

They pulled at something molten writhing inside me.

The pressure swelled. With one last look at the stunning face, feeling a shattering in my soul, I whipped back my head and raged to the skies.

Ungodly heat barreled to the surface of my skin.

Bright light erupted, shaking the ground before a dark red cloud snuffed it out.

“You will obey me.”

“Hey Lucille, time to wake up.” A gentle hand pressed into my shoulder. I jolted, looking around. Hope and agony tightened my throat.

Was that real? Did I just witness that girl’s death through Aspen’s eyes? And how did I dream-walk to his memory? I needed to figure out how to control this power.

“Lucille? Are you okay?” She touched my shoulder again.

I glanced over to a head of frizzy red graying hair, freezing.

She actually was short and green. I didn’t hallucinate it. She was a foot taller than the bed. Her white shirt hung to her knees, covering loose pants rolled up to her scaly ankles.

My eyebrows scrunched. The scales weren’t there last night, or maybe they were.

“The blood loss had you addled. You passed out, but the serum should be taking effect. Although it will take time to remove the toxins of their saliva completely.” she said, assuming the expression on my face was about my state. I was thankful she couldn’t read my thoughts.

“What are you?” I asked, staring at the red surrounding her yellow-slitted pupils.

She smiled, nodding down to my torso. “May I?”

I slid the covers off my body. Someone clothed me in loose blue pants and a white t-shirt. Hana, I hoped. My cheeks started to heat at the memory of my exposed breasts.

She lifted my shirt, peeled back the gauze pads, and surveyed the stitches.

They were still bleeding slightly and very red, but by her nod of approval, that was okay.

Moving to my legs, she pulled up the loose pants and had me turn.

“I’m a half-breed. Part human and part serpent demon.

” She talked as she took something out of her pocket, lightly dabbing the sticky substance on my cuts.

“Hence the scales and the eyes,” she said with a soft laugh.

I didn’t know what to say to that. First angels and angel half-breeds, now demons and demon-half breeds?

Imagining a human and a demon together was horrifying.

If this was what Hana looked like, what did her parents look like?

Did humans willingly want to breed with demons?

I bit my cheeks hard, attempting to school my features before she found the horror on my face.

Her gloved fingers slid over my stitches with the sweet-smelling substance. A safer question popped out of my mouth, “Why are you applying honey to my cuts?”

She dabbed a little more before wrapping my legs with gauze. “It’s to prevent infection. Angel or demon, quick healing or not, you can still get an infection.”

“Isn’t there something better to use?”

Pale green lips revealed a flash of sharp teeth. My Glory prickled at the sight.

“You’ll come to find Elora is nothing like your Earth.

We healers don’t have the same medicines and machinery.

We don’t even have electricity. Plants, herbs, skills, and magic are our resources.

And if we are lucky, sometimes we can get human medicine.

But can you really see someone like me going to a hospital and asking for antibiotic ointment? ”

I couldn’t see a lot of things, or unsee, as I watched her forked tongue flick out and again wondered about her parents. “No.”

“You don’t have to be scared.” Her tongue flicked out once more. It was such a small thing, and yet I couldn’t control my out-of-control heart and painful skin. Please don’t erupt.

“I can sense it. It’s a useful skill when you’re a healer. ”

Her words were meant to console me, but her razor teeth and slitted eyes kept capturing my attention.

She carefully tugged my pant legs down and had me sit back. “We aren’t all bad. Many, yes. But not all.”

Smooth scales touched the top of my hand, patting me. Her black-tipped fingernails grazed my knuckles. I stared at them as my vortex of panic stole the last of my minuscule restraint.

My hands erupted when she pulled back, only catching the tip of the white flames. She hissed.

“Heavenly shit! I’m so sorry! Oh my gosh!” And like a complete and utter idiot, I waved them around to put them out like it’d actually work this time.