Page 30 of Wings of Lies (Daughter of the Seven Circles #1)

Chapter

Nineteen

BLOODHOUND AND RUNE

R une sent me a feeling of panic. I tuned into her sight.

I don’t know how she managed it, but the female had escaped.

Stop her, Rune.

Rune stepped out from the shadows, and the female froze, scared.

I didn’t blame her since Rune resembled a Hellhound.

The female recently got attacked by them, which we didn’t know until after the fact.

It was the price we paid for sending Rune out on missions like this as young as she was.

She got distracted easily, slept too much, and had a difficult time listening to commands if it didn’t suit her whims. But we had no choice.

Understanding the female’s fear, Rune sat. The female paused, then raised her hands and took a step.

Don’t let her get past you, Rune. Distract her until the pet notices her absence.

“I just want to pass. Let me pass,” the female pleaded .

Rune walked over to her. The female squeezed her eyes shut and acted like Rune was about to eat her. Bothered by her fear, Rune licked her and whimpered.

“Does that mean you like me beastie? Or are you tasting the goods before sucking out my blood?” the female asked.

From the unusually strong emotions I received from Rune, she more than liked the female. Rune whimpered for more pets. The moment her hand brushed against Rune’s shadow fur, I felt the hum of her contentment until Rune sensed another presence in the woods.

She let out a vicious growl, scaring the female, and turned. She pulled at my power through our connection and attacked the luscelering figure. Blue flames flashed, and she yelped as it singed her shadow fur.

That’s the pet! Stand down, Rune.

But she didn’t listen, and the female got away.

Rune! Let him get the female before it’s too late, or he kills you!

She dodged a flaming punch, got hit by another, and then finally listened to me and ran away.

You’re lucky you can’t come home, pup. Observe only and stay hidden unless I say otherwise, I seethed.

Aspen’s hands dug into my shoulders. The width of a hand scarcely fit between us.

I stared at his leather-covered chest, heaving up and down, trying not to feel like my life was ending.

I thought it’d be okay if they caught me again. I would despise it but be okay with it because escaping was nearly impossible. I went into the forest, convinced of that. But knowing something and experiencing it was entirely different .

Stupid, utterly traitorous tears pooled in my narrowed eyes. I didn’t lift my head. I didn’t give him anything but my stiffness and silence.

His hands dropped towards my face, hesitating a breath from my cheeks. His warmth breached the tiny gap separating his skin from mine. I swallowed, unsure of what he planned to do, when his calloused fingers brushed away my escaping tear. Tingles followed the trail of his soft, gentle touch.

“How’d you do it?” he whispered, fingers lingering on my face

What?

I snapped my head up, hating the way his touches confused the pain and bitterness poisoning my mind. “How’d I do what?”

Sweat instantly slicked my palms. Blue eyes and plush pink lips were mere inches away.

Too close. Way too close. I tried to take a step back, but he grabbed my waist. The heat of his hands seared through my leather jacket.

But it was nothing compared to the heat that flushed my body as he glanced at my lips for longer than I liked.

“How’d you get so far without either of us knowing?”

I scrunched up my face, unsure of what he was talking about. “I walked. Quietly.”

He shook his head, staring at me like he was trying to figure me out. “It wouldn’t have mattered how quiet you walked or if you were invisible. Brock can sense intention. Sense emotion. He can hear the difference between a nervous heartbeat and a calm one. But we didn’t sense a thing from you.”

So that was what Hana had meant by sense. Pissed at the invasion by the worst man in Elora, I opened my mouth to rage when an unbidden thought entered my mind .

This really was my only chance. Because now they knew I could somehow sneak past Brock’s power, they would start chaining me to trees, that or never leave my side.

Holy hell, this was it.

My chest cracked in half as my tears fell in streams.

I met Aspen’s tight eyes and begged. “Let me go. Please, just let me go.”

He stared at me, fingers digging into my waist and chin erupting in that weird red glow. “I won’t.”

I went further and clutched his face. I needed him to see me as a person, not a thing. I needed him to have a conscience. “Please, Aspen.”

The red glow stuttered.

Pain flashed through his eyes, and for one unbelievable moment, his forehead dropped to mine as his hands came up, sending distracting vibrations into my cheeks.

He squeezed his eyes shut as the red glow vanished.

“I never wanted you to come here,” he said, sounding broken.

“Why did you have to come here, Lucille?”

The rough ache in his voice and his confusing words paused my tears. What did that mean?

The way he spoke sounded like he knew me. But he didn’t. “What mind games are you playing?” I said, jerking out of his tender hold.

In the next second, he lifted his bowed head, and the scar beneath his chin glowed with a blood-red hue. His agonized expression changed right as his arms wrapped around my waist and picked me up. He luscelered us through the forest, back to camp, and against the side of the carriage.

My heart stopped. My breathing stopped. My thoughts fled .

Every inch of his body pressed against mine—leather to leather, knee to knee, chest to chest, and it would’ve been hip to hip, but his belt of daggers separated that connection.

I couldn’t even breathe out a relieved sigh with his muscles entrapping my small form and shocking me with the heat of his body.

“Remember what I said if you ran, Lucille?” he whispered.

His hand slid around my neck, making it tingle at the contact.

“Did you want me to catch you? Punish you? Is that what you wanted when you created your mindless escape plan?” He went from cold to broken to filled with vindictive arrogance so fast my brain was trying to catch back up.

With my heart beating out of control, his body heat consuming mine, I had to take a second to gather myself.

“How is it mindless when the risks are the same? I either die with you or escape and die on my own in the forest,” I said, pushing back my useless tears and drowning in a deadly sea of blue.

That same flash of pain blinked in and out of his eyes.

Once it left his expression, it was like I could still feel it.

I didn’t understand. Why was he in pain?

We didn’t know each other. I was a prisoner going to my death because of him.

He shouldn’t feel any pain from my words.

But more importantly, why could I feel it?

Sensing emotions wasn’t part of my powers, not that I knew of. Plus, why now, and why only him?

Focusing on the softly lit navy and purple ring and not the confusing emotions lurking in my battered chest, I interrupted whatever he was about to say.

“What does the blue ring mean? ”

One side of his plush lips tugged. A predatorial gleam sparked as he tightened his hand around my neck, uncomfortable but not suffocating.

He lowered his face to the side of my head. “Would you believe it if I said demon?”

The movement of his lips sent little flares of electricity into my ear and crawled down my spine. I shivered.

“No,” I said, not expecting that answer to come out of my mouth.

It was instinctual, with absolutely no evidence to back it.

He controlled my life. He held it in his dangerous hands and was about to give it over to be snuffed out.

I hated him, his tingles, his eyes, how worthless he found me.

He handed over multiple girls to be killed.

So my answer shouldn’t have been no. Yet it was.

When I opened my mouth to take it back, something tickled in my brain, holding me back.

He stared at me with an utter look of shock. I was pretty sure my expression mirrored his.

He recovered fast, lowering his head to the side of my face. “Stay the fuck out of the forest, sweetheart .” I flinched as air pushed into my lobe. “I have one job to do, and I won’t fail.”

Tilting my face up to his ear, I reached the pulse underneath his jaw—a vulnerable, throbbing spot that worked in my favor.

I still didn’t know if the tingles only tormented me, but if they didn’t—I smirked, brushing my lips to his neck, feeling his muscles tense.

“Go to hell ,” I whispered. The pounding of his heartbeat bounced against my lips and pebbled nipples before I leaned back.

For a minute, there was absolute silence as he stayed frozen, no comeback nor arrogant retorts, only a feathering in his jaw.

I had to admit I was pretty impressed with myself .

His hand came up from my neck and gripped my chin, stealing my attention with his touch. “So help me, Lucille. If you try to escape again, I will chain you to the carriage.”

“I could just melt…” I trailed off as Aspen stiffened, and my head throbbed. I forgot what I was about to say, and the throbbing quieted.

Weird.

Aspen took a step back, gazing at me with an odd expression. “Stay here. Stay safe,” he whispered so softly I wasn’t sure I heard him right. I was almost positive I didn’t.

The moment he dropped his hand, ceasing the tingles, a red light pulsed beneath his chin, and whatever pain I sensed from him vanished.

“Why does your chin glow red?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?”

Overcome by an urge to touch him, I brushed my thumb against his scratchy stubble and the raised mark. It sent a shock into the pad of my finger, making me jump. He latched onto my wrist, pulling my hand away.

“It’s a scar. I’ve always had it.”

“Scars don’t glow.”

Disbelief indented the lines of his forehead. He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it as he noticed Brock returning. Releasing my wrist, he considered me for a second more before limping away to the despicable fallen angel.

He was hurt, and a part of me fiercely didn’t like it.

I walked over to the stump Aspen vacated, staring at his cloaked back, and sat on the edge .

It looked and felt like a scar, but last I checked, light did not gleam from scars. Maybe he was a demon. But that thought seemed wrong. The cobalt ring didn’t signify demon. I swear it didn’t.

“Prince Aspen went hunting. If you want to eat, you need to set up camp,” Brock snapped.

It surprised me—not the snapping itself, but that it was all he did.

I attempted to escape. I figured he would have broken my next wrist. Unless Aspen didn’t tell him.

But he made it sound like he did when he explained Brock’s sensing abilities.

I kept my eyes on his boots, refusing to look at his disgusting face. “Good thing I don’t want to eat.”

“Too bad,” he pushed me off the stump. “I’ll shove squirrel down your throat if I have to.”

Only if I can shove a knife down yours.

My knees knocked into the hard ground. “Is squirrel the only damned animal you have to eat around here?”

“Unless you want to puke your guts up or hallucinate from eating something else, I’d keep your trap shut.”

I wished he’d take his own advice.

“Hurry up,” Brock threatened, striding away.

Torn between staying on the ground to see what he would do and following orders, I listened. I stood, refusing to brush off the grime digging into my palms and knees, and I set up camp for Brock .

Aspen returned later with four giant gray squirrels, skinned and ready to be cooked on a wooden spit.

We ate. Or they did. I nibbled every time Brock glanced up from his meal, not wanting his grimy fingers anywhere near me, and shredded the rest. It was hard to have an appetite when I lost my only chance at escape.

The sun sank. Our clearing turned multiple shades of orange .

After the show I put on, I laid my head on my stiff pad, gazing at Elora’s blue moon. Goosebumps pebbled my skin underneath my leathers despite the glowing fire I lay next to, but no matter how close I scooted to it, warmth never reached me.

Brock slept soundly to my left. The demons had yet to return, and Aspen—I shot him a glance. He sat on his stump, sharpening his knives and keeping watch.

Feeling my stare, he looked over. For a moment, as he held my gaze, not smiling, but not glaring either, something wiggled beneath my bitter hate. I shoved the feeling away by flipping over and closing my eyes.