“Hi, I’m Cadence,” I said with a smile.
He responded with total silence.
“I’m new here.”
He looked down at me like my very existence annoyed him. Friendly fellow.
“I was out on special assignment,” I continued. “I’ve brought something back for our guest from Storm Castle.”
‘Guest’ was pretty much the universal word for prisoner.
Beastman’s dark, beady eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“You know, our guest, Eva Doren,” I prompted him.
The suspicion drained from his eyes, replaced by…relief? That was certainly unexpected.
“You have the package?” Beastman asked me.
Package? What package? What the hell was Darkstorm planning to do to Eva? I did not like the sound of this package, whatever it was.
But I nodded like I knew exactly what he was talking about. “I have it.”
“It’s about time.” There was definite relief in his sigh. “She was driving me up the wall.”
What was in this package? I had a sinking suspicion it was a sedative. Or chains.
“She’s in the west building. Top floor,” Beastman told me.
I gave him a sharp nod, then headed for the metallic building he’d indicated. From the outside, it looked like a huge warehouse. Or a prison. Its red-orange paint job blended perfectly with the local scenery.
The building wasn’t a warehouse or a prison, however, I realized as I entered and found a gigantic airship filling most of the interior. It was a hangar. The ceiling panels looked like they slid apart to allow the ship to leave through the top. I mentally labeled the airship a potential getaway ride, then took the metal-grate staircase to the upper level.
A guard stood outside the door at the top of the stairs, his hand resting over his gun. His grip on his weapon tightened when he saw me.
“I have the package,” I told him, making good use of the info I’d gotten from Beastman.
That same relief spread across this guard’s face. He stepped aside, allowing me to enter.
I walked through the door to find a large room with bleak, rust-colored walls and no furniture. From the looks of it, it had once been an old factory, but it now served as a workshop and storage room. And, potentially, a place to interrogate prisoners.
“You’re not so haughty now, are you?” said a deep, mocking voice, ringing with power and arrogance. Darkstorm.
“Stop,” another voice pleaded, desperate. Eva.
I crept closer to the voices, masking my footfalls. This tin can of a building echoed horribly. Did Darkstorm relish in the resounding echoes of his victims’ screams? A shiver cut down my spine.
“I will stop when you tell me what I want to hear,” Darkstorm’s deep voice punched off the metal walls.
Eva let out a pained, choking noise. He was torturing her.
I moved in closer, keeping my body tucked behind an old wooden shipping crate, even as my head peeked out. I could hardly see. Darkstorm’s back was blocking my view. Eva’s soft sobs were almost lost beneath the thunderous roar of the dark angel’s voice. She was breaking under his torture. I had to get her out of here.
The question was how. Darkstorm was a powerful dark angel, and I was only a new angel. The smart thing to do would have been to wait for Damiel to get here, but Darkstorm was hurting my friend right now. I couldn’t just stand here and do nothing to help her.
I slunk around the wooden crate, preparing to attack Darkstorm from behind. I froze in horror at what I saw.
Eva wasn’t tied up. She lay naked on the table, Darkstorm’s head buried between her legs. As Eva moaned again, her eyes rolling back, her fingernails clawing frantically at the tabletop, I realized they were not moans of pain that I’d heard. They were moans of pleasure.
“I will ask you one more time,” Darkstorm growled. “Who do you love?”
“You,” she said, gasping for breath.
“Who do you belong to?”
“You,” Eva moaned. “I’m yours. All yours.”
“Yes.” Darkstorm looked down on her with a satisfied smirk. “You are.”
His pants dropped and he climbed on top of her. Locking her legs around his body, Eva moved under him, her moans growing louder as Darkstorm’s feral growls blended with hers.
I spun around and sprinted out of the room.
“Did you deliver the package?” the guard asked me as I ran out and swung the door shut behind me.
“They’re busy,” I said, not stopping. “I’ll come back later.”
I hurried down the stairs, reminding myself not to run as fast as my legs could move. Running would have attracted attention to myself. I had to keep calm. And, most especially, not throw up. That was important.
I needed some time to sort out this madness, but as I cut around the corner of the building, hands grabbed me and pushed me against the wall.
11
Traitors
I was about to swing a punch at my assailant when I saw that it was only Damiel.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, releasing his hold on me.
“We have a problem,” I said.
And then I recounted everything I’d witnessed in the room above the airship hangar.
“That is unexpected,” Damiel said when I’d finished my tale.
His face was hard, inscrutable. He’d put up his shields and closed off his emotions. I hated that I’d had to tell him his bride-to-be was having an affair with a rogue dark angel. And I hated that I was the one who’d reenforced his belief that he couldn’t trust anyone. I wanted to show him the good in everyone, that he could have connections. That he could trust people.
“I’m sorry.” I touched my hand to his arm.
He glanced down at my hand, then he met my eyes. “We have a job to do.”
“Damiel—”
“We came here to bag a rogue dark angel. Now we’ll be bagging a traitor as well.”
I winced.
His brows drew together. “What’s wrong?”
“I still can’t believe it,” I said. “There must be a mistake. Eva would never betray the Legion. This has to be a ploy. Maybe Nyx sent her on a mission to seduce Darkstorm to get information out of him, to help the Legion take him down and end his reign of terror.”
“I would have known about that.”
“Maybe Nyx kept it a secret,” I challenged. “She does that all the time.”
“Major Doren is a Dragon. Her place is at Storm Castle, helping to keep the world’s elemental magic in balance. Nyx would never have sent her away for so long. Her extended absence, being so far from the Elemental Plains, puts the whole world at risk. If Nyx were looking to infiltrate Darkstorm’s stronghold, she would have used another soldier.”
“Yes, Eva is a Dragon,” I replied. “And in making Eva the Sea Dragon, Nyx entrusted her with an enormous responsibility. The First Angel would not have done that if she didn’t trust her.”
“She wouldn’t be the first trusted soldier to betray the Legion,” Damiel said darkly.
He was thinking of his former friend, a fellow Legion soldier who had betrayed him. I didn’t need to be telepathic to read the pain in his eyes. Some wounds took years to heal—and some never did.