Page 30
She shifted, a subtle, almost imperceptible motion, and with it came that ever-enchanting, ever-haunting scent, a delicate blend of rosewater intermingled with the bitter tang of ash. But beneath it, something else lingered—a faint, cloying sweetness like crushed violets and old copper. It was the scent I’d smelled on the rooftop. It clung to her skin even now, a subtle, poisonous undercurrent to her own fire.
Cassia didn’t wait for me to open the car door this time. Not that I’d expected her to. She stepped out onto the wet stone drive of her Romanian fortress as if she also owned the storm brewing overhead. Her crimson gown trailed behind her like spilled blood, a defiant slash against the gray gloom. The wind, raw and smelling of rain and old earth, caught her hair, which was loose from the pins she’d discarded.
I followed slower. Always slower. Always a step behind.
She was already halfway up the crumbling stone steps that led to the fortress’s massive entrance. The ancient ground was slick from the persistent drizzle, moss covered and treacherous. She moved with a dangerous grace, a predator returning to its lair.
“You’re not even going to say or ask anything?” I called out after her, my voice rougher than I had intended.
She didn’t turn, didn’t break stride. “What do you want me to ask, Guardian?” Her voice was sharp, laced with a familiar, weary disdain. “Your permission to enter my own home?”
I caught up to her in three long strides, the rain lashing at my back and soaking through the heavy wool of my coat. My own carefully constructed composure was fraying, the threads of duty and desire tangling into an unbearable knot. “What are you planning to do, Cassia?”
In front of us, the massive iron-bound door to her home was scarred, the ancient wood weathered to near ruin, yet it stood unyielding—as defiant as the woman before me.
“You clearly have something in mind already. Probably something that involves walking into heaven knows what in Prague. Alone.”
She pushed the heavy door open with a grunt, the sound echoing in the entryway’s stillness. Stepping inside, she finally turned, her eyes, those captivating brown pools, unimpressed. “Aldric,” she called out, her voice resonating through the ancient space, “I need a train ticket. First departure for Prague tomorrow.”
I stared at her incredulously. The sheer audacity of it. After everything. “You need a train ticket?”
She met my gaze with an unreadable flicker in their depths. “Yes, Remiel. For travel. Mortals tend to do it. So do some of us who are less inclined to sprout wings at inconvenient moments.”
“I can fly us there in a fraction of the time,” I said, offering a reluctant extension of a duty I no longer fully understood.
“No. Absolutely not.”
A muscle twitched in my jaw. “Why? What’s wrong with my arms? Or is it the wings you object to now?”
“They’re attached to an ego.” She turned away from me, her silhouette already disappearing deeper into the fortress. “And an overdeveloped sense of righteousness I find particularly grating.”
I followed her inside, my boots quiet on the dark water-streaked stone floor. The fortress swallowed us, the air thick with the scent of dust, old magic, and centuries of unspoken memories. We passed through long, echoing corridors lined with cracked, faded portraits of forgotten ancestors and tapestries that whispered forgotten stories in the drafts.
“You didn’t seem to mind my arms or my wings the last time our paths crossed,” I murmured, the words out before I could stop them. The memory of that night, of her touch, was a constant burning ember beneath my skin.
“Last time,” she said, her sharp voice drifting back to me, “I wasn’t thinking clearly. A mistake I don’t intend to repeat.”
“And now you’re thinking so clearly?” My voice rose despite my efforts to control it. “You’re thinking so clearly that you’re planning to walk into whatever fresh hell Valden has cooked up alone?”
She halted before a heavy oak door, battered but unyielding. Framed by the doorway, she turned to face me, her eyes glittering dangerously in the flickering torchlight. “You’re not invited, Remiel,” she said, her voice soft.
“Too late.” I stepped closer, the space between us shrinking and crackling with unspoken tension. “I’m already here.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to come with me.” Her voice sharpened. “You don’t get to stalk me through cities, watch me, dance with me, and tell me what to do.”
I took another step forward. My body thrummed with reckless energy. “You kissed me. You wanted me, Cassia.”
“And that,” she hissed, her eyes blazing, “was a very long time ago and a mistake. A moment of weakness. One, I assure you, I deeply regret.”
My hands, of their own accord, twisted into fists at my sides, the celestial power within me coiling tight. “Then order me away,” I bit out, my voice low. “Command me to go, and I will. But don’t stand there and pretend this burning is a battle I fight alone.”
She spun around then, her movement a blur of crimson silk and golden hair. “It’s not about craving you, Remiel,” she spat, her voice trembling. “It’s the unbearable, suffocating uncertainty of what you even mean to me anymore. If you ever meant anything at all beyond forbidden pleasure.”
My throat constricted, every breath a struggle, as the chasm between us, the one forged by centuries of betrayal and misunderstandings, thundered open.
“You dare question what I am to you?” Closing the gap, I breathed until our bodies were pressed tightly together. “Since before you fell from the heavens, your spark has ignited me. I am the fool who has defied every celestial order, every sacred vow, to trail your elusive shadow through burning nights and desolate days. I am the one who still dreams of the taste of your skin, the fire in your touch, only to wake and curse the merciless heavens for forever drawing me back into your irresistible orbit.”
Her lips parted, a silent gasp.
