Blood Redemption (Angel's Edge #3) (7 page)

Asheroth’s hold on me migrated from neck to forearms to waist. His hands were cool through my clothing. I could feel the barely-constrained strength there in the delicate way he held me as if I was blown glass that might snap in his hands. My mad Fallen angel was being careful. “I want you to take things more seriously,” he practically snarled at me. “I want you to think before you act. I want you here, and not in the Twilight Kingdom.”

I couldn’t be sure because he was Asheroth, but I thought I saw a measure of concern as well as madness in his diamond-bright eyes.

“That’s what we all want,” Ethan soothed, coming to stand by my right side. “There’s no reason to frighten Caspia.”

That got his attention, and to imbue him with a fresh reserve of sanity. He set me down carefully and stepped backward, still giving me a stern, disapproving stare. Ethan stood right behind me, his presence a solid comfort against my back. Jack maneuvered himself so that he stood behind me, but to the side. His skin shone with the same blue that now ran across mine and Ethan’s. But Asheroth’s skin was still pale stone.

“Wait a minute,” I said slowly. “How did you find us here in the Dreamtime? I thought only Jack…”

“Your Jack should be more careful with his portals,” Asheroth scoffed, sparing my Azalene counterpart an icy glare. “Caspia, you truly have no idea how much you’ve complicated things.” Asheroth’s speech was slow and halting, sounding tired instead of angry now. “This goes beyond you running away―straight into the arms of the enemy.” He turned a weary gaze to Ethan. “How much does she know?”

I was sick of the way Asheroth treated me like a helpless and unreasonable being. “
She
doesn’t know very much,” I snapped. “Ethan had just gotten to the word ‘war’ when you showed up. I think that would be a great place to pick back up, don’t you?” I stood with one hand on my hip, not caring that I still wore Belial’s silvery nightgown. “And how can we possibly be at war already when I’ve only been gone for one day, maybe part of another?” I tried to remember how long I’d spent in Belial’s room, unconscious. I had no concrete idea, I realized with some horror. What if it had been longer than that? I was just opening my mouth to ask when Jack stepped in.

“Time moves slower in the Twilight Kingdom,” Jack said, looking sad as he did so. “A single day there means several have passed here. You’ve been gone longer than you think.”

It took me a minute to digest this disturbing piece of news.

Before I could ask, Asheroth said, “A week.” He put a crisp staccato emphasis on both syllables.

“A week,” I repeated dully.

“In Belial’s corner of the Dark Realms, that amounts to roughly three days,” Jack said quietly from behind me. I stood in silence, trying, and failing, to process it all. At least now I knew I’d spent nearly a day unconscious in a demon’s room. I knew that every day I spent there took me farther and farther away from Ethan. But I swallowed my unease.

Finally, after a very pregnant pause, I said, “How can this be possible? Even after a week… who would want to move against us now? I thought the threat had been dealt with. Just who are we at war with?”

“With the Light,” Asheroth answered after a long silence. “They’ve sent Hunters.”

Beside me, Ethan hissed. Jack actually reached for a weapon, only to come away empty handed. None of us were armed in the Dreamtime.

Even though Jack had mentioned them when we encountered them in the ether, I still didn’t know exactly what Hunters were, or why the Light was something to be afraid of. “And this is bad because…”

“They are the un-Fallen,” Ethan supplied grimly. “The advance guard of the Realms of Light. They have hunted Nephilim in the past, and we can only assume they are here to do it again.”

Dread washed across the pit of my stomach. “Logan!” I said, suddenly terrified for my brother’s safety, and angry with myself as well. My brother’s newly manifested Nephilim gifts could easily make him a target. “Is he all right?” I demanded.

“Your brother is safe behind the wards of Blackwood Lodge,” Asheroth said without inflection. “He won’t be easy to detect among all those people. And his gifts were such a late development. No one knows about them but us. He is as safe as we can make him.”

“We’ve seen the Hunters in the ether,” Jack said, looking to me for confirmation.

I nodded wordlessly, remembering shapes in the mist. “They’ve infiltrated the Dreamtime at the very least.”

Ethan swore under his breath. “They’re closer than we thought, then.”

“I thought all of this was supposed to end when I turned myself over to Belial,” I murmured, rubbing my temples with my thumbs. All this new information and the surprises of the evening were combining into a killer headache. None of this was supposed to be happening. I had made the great sacrifice, and that was supposed to be it. I should never have thought things would be that simple. “Tell me about these Hunters,” I asked instead. “Tell me what they’re doing to my town.”

“This,” Asheroth said with barely constrained rage. His white eyes snapped fire and he threw his arms wide to indicate the entire square. “The Light knows Belial is building an army of Nephilim descendants, and they know he will use this army to challenge them. They know about these Shadows of yours, and just how much of a threat you are. Therefore they are building an army of their own, and they will use it to crush this town and anything else that stands between them and Belial.”

“But our town is warded against such possibilities,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “I don’t understand why it should affect the square like this. Where have all the businesses gone? Why is the fountain shut down?”

With his shoulders drawn back and his eyes sparking fire, Asheroth looked like he was ready to explode. “What would you do if you were one of our Darker residents here in Whitfield, and one of the most powerful forces of Light imaginable suddenly started building an army right next door? It would make you a little panicky at the very least. In the last week, we’ve had several residents from the Darker side of town pack up and leave. Not all are going quietly, though. The town council is deadlocked as incidents of violence against innocents are on the rise. And the fountain?” He sneered. “Someone spray painted, ‘Fear the Light’ on it and smashed the pumping mechanism to bits. No one knows how long it will take to fix.”

The cold march of dread once again settled in my stomach. My town was in danger, and there was nothing I could do to help because I was trapped in the Dark Realms with Belial.

Before I could ask the question out loud, Jack turned to me. “I hate to break this up, I really do, but we’re running out of time. I can’t hold all of us here for much longer.”

Ethan nodded and pulled me close once more. Asheroth merely glared at us and turned his back. I thought I caught a glimpse of Darkness shimmering where his wings sometimes were.

Ethan’s arms encircled my waist, pulling me close to him. Everything else faded away until there was nothing left for me but
Ethan
. Being this close to his scent, his skin, his kind ,light eyes made me long to bury my head in his shoulder and forget everything I knew about the world. In his arms there was no Belial, no Twilight Kingdom full of desperate, tormented Nephilim. There was only the two of us.

But I couldn’t repress the final, burning question for very long, however tempting it would be to forget about everything but the two of us. I pressed my forehead against his chest and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me? About Belial?”

He sighed heavily and pulled me closer until I was flush against his chest. “I wasn’t sure it was him at first,” he said. The thrum of his heart beat against my ear. “I had no idea how obsessed he’d become, so it was easy to put it out of my mind. And then, when I knew it was him, I hoped you wouldn’t have to find out.” He pulled back just enough to look at me. His gentle fingers brushed hair from my face. “Please believe me. I never thought you would have to encounter him.”

“And I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for my own stupidity,” I said, walking my fingers to the center of his back, where I rubbed very small circles across the surface of his skin. It was true; I was culpable too. We both could have been more honest with each other. I only hoped this one mistake didn’t prove fatal.

Then Jack took my arm, trying to pull me away.

I buried my face in Ethan’s chest and clung to him. “Shh,” he whispered into my hair. “I’ll see you again soon. Promise me.” Then he kissed me, his lips soft, but urgent. My fingers dug into his hips as I kissed him back.

“Of course,” I said, crying now. “But it’ll be longer for you than me…”

“Shh.” He let me go.

My arms had never seemed emptier than they did at that moment. I let Jack take my hand. The last I saw of Whitfield before the ether consumed us was a mournful looking Ethan and Asheroth’s angry back. That and the fountain, standing in the middle of the square like nothing more than a lump of concrete and broken things.

What an apt metaphor for the wreckage that was my life.

awoke to find Jack staring me in the face.

His fingers laced through mine, and one leg was thrown across me. The smooth black suede of his uniform rubbed against me through the thin material of my nightgown. I was suddenly aware of his scent: spicy-sweet and slightly musky like fresh oranges and male.

I jerked my hand from his and rolled to the edge of the bed. “What the hell are you still doing here?” I asked, shielding myself with a hastily snatched pillow.

“I have to be touching you to take you with me into the Dreamtime,” he said, somewhat defensively.

“Well, we aren’t in the Dreamtime anymore.” I thought about the truths he’d held back like Hunters and Belial’s existence, and decided I wasn’t quite ready to forgive him yet, let alone trust him. “And that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here now.”

“Calm down,” he said. “You make it sound so sordid.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it
is
sordid.” I paced backward into a set of red velvet curtains, rich and reassuring against my back. “And I’d very much like you to leave now.”

He rolled lazily off the bed, grinning, and approached me slowly. “Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he said as he advanced. He leaned against the wall and stroked the crimson curtain between forefinger and thumb. “I’m here to be your ally. I don’t know what I have to do to prove that to you.”