Rokath had explicitly forbidden me from sharing specific plans with them. Again, we couldn’t trust them; they were our enemies. They’d likely feed us false information to ensure our failure.

And if we failed, the Angels could use Banand again to wipe us out.

I said nothing as I paced the length of the room, trying to get accustomed to the feel of another’s body over mine. My magic was more like an outer shell than anything, though I still saw through her eyes and spoke through her mouth. It was an odd sensation, really, though after spending a month in Vagach’s skin, I hardly noticed it anymore.

Satisfied, I switched to Araquiel’s clothing and pulled her form around me. “Do you have any army specific greetings?” I asked while studying all of their faces for a sign of deception.

Esha said no at the same time Araquiel said yes. I arched an eyebrow and turned my attention to the female I was impersonating. “You are a Padisa, yes?”

She nodded. “Lower ranked soldiers greet their superiors with a hand over their heart and a dipped head. They use the words, ‘Goddess save you,’ at the same time.”

I practiced the movement and the words.

“It is blasphemy that she speaks to the Goddess!” Esha snapped, fingers curling around the bars. Her shackles clanked against them as she shook them.

I rolled my eyes and ignored her. “Anything else?” I asked Faeya and Araquiel.

“If you see Banand, tell him a flame waits behind a wall of glass,” Araquiel stated in the common tongue.

I had to clench my teeth to prevent my mouth from falling open. Ice skittered down my spine as she continued to hold my gaze—her gaze. Was Araquiel truly a Sensor? Because it felt to me like she might be a Seer.

If she knew Banand, and knew him well enough to have a specific, albeit cryptic, message to pass along, then she must have had close contact with him. Which meant, I needed to use her form to get to him.

But how could she have possibly guessed what our plans were?

I needed to talk to Rokath.

Dropping my magic, I changed back into my leathers. “I’ll ensure the guards bring you food,” I told them as I secured the ties around the tent again, bathing us in darkness. Then, I hurriedly stuffed everything back into my bag. The mirror went last, securely tucked against the flat side so it wouldn’t break.

“We’ll see if the Fates favor you,” Araquiel said before sinking back into the position she’d been in when I first arrived. If she knew she unnerved me, she didn’t display any sign.

My blood pounded in my veins as I departed, Araquiel’s cold turquoise eyes searing into my mind. What did she know? And why wasn’t she afraid? Something was off with her, with the situation, and the worry knotted my stomach.

In a blink, I slipped through the curtain and into the map room.

“Araquiel knows Banand,” I blurted out. Thankfully, only Rapp, Trol, and my mate were present.

Rokath looked up from his stack of papers, brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“She told me, ‘if we see Banand to tell him a flame waits behind a wall of glass,’” I repeated, hands twisting in the strap of my bag.

“What does that even mean?” Rapp asked aloud, thumbing the ring in his lip.

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but what if she could tell us more about his location in the camp?”

“What if it’s a trap?” Rokath shot back. “What if she is playing on your sympathies and guessing at our strategy?”

“I don’t have sympathy for Angels,” I snapped, fingers tightening over the leather.

“You have sympathy for other females,” Rokath said, the hard edge to his voice gone. I opened my mouth to protest, but slammed it shut.

He was right about that, even if I hated admitting it to myself.

“Fine. But what if she is sincere? What if we could save lives, more than just Banand and Zurronar?” I sighed, bracing my hands on a chair and leaning into it for support.

“She has a point, Rokath,” Rapp said. Trol, rightly, remained silent during the exchange. From what I’d seen, Trol was more of the follow orders type, whereas Rapp pushed back on Rokath with more force.

Rokath tossed his papers casually on the table in front of him. “We’ll get her alone and see if she’ll talk. If she does have anything to say, it certainly won’t be in front of the other two. That spitter is a true sycophant.”

Esha, I had to agree, was never going to be swayed to offer anything without force. She’d called me a whore plenty of times and sneered at Rokath more than once with false bravado.

“When?” I asked.

Rokath glanced at the clock beside the pitcher of water. “After we make a sacrifice,” he growled, rising. Rapp and Trol did too. “If the Fates have chosen to weave a path where Araquiel does intend to offer us insight, then we must thank them for it beforehand.”

Shrugging off my pack, I left it in an empty chair and followed my mate into the sunlight.

OceanofPDF.com

11

Nine males stood before me, prepared for our imminent departure. Assyria, on my right, dressed in Araquiel’s white armor, shifted her weight ever so slightly. Sunlight barely slipped through the sharp peaks of the Skala Mountains in the distance as we waited for the final member of our assault team: Rapp.

As if I’d thought him into existence, he emerged from the camp, his long legs carrying him swiftly to our group. With a slight dip of his chin, he relayed that everything was ready for us to initiate the rescue mission.

Araquiel, to my shock, had offered us the exact location of the tent where the Angel’s prisoners were held. Yet when I pressed her, trying to bend and break her into revealing her true intentions, she snapped her mouth shut. No amount of prodding or threats opened it again. The sharpness in her gaze pricked my back long after I’d locked her in the cage with the other two again.

I still didn’t trust her. Even if our scouts had surmised that exact zone after their mission to determine possible locations where Banand and Zurronar were being held.

A cold knot of dread coiled in my gut as Rapp joined me on my left, his bow slung over his torso. A quiver brimming with arrows waited too, stuffed so tightly I hoped that he’d be able to pull them out without losing them all in the process.

I glanced down at Assyria, a war raging inside me. One side of me was proud—of her tenacity, of her relentless drive to master Angelic, of her growing control of her magic. On the other was the possessive beast that couldn’t lose her again.

Not because I wouldn’t sacrifice fifty thousand more soldiers for her. Fuck, the whole army could be decimated so long as I had her.

She was my reason for everything now; without her, I had no motivation to protect the rest of the Demons. I’d want the Reaper to claim me just so I could be with Assyria again, either in our next lives or the ones after. Because there was no doubt in my mind that I’d always find her. Our souls called to one another like horns blown across the battlefield.

My mate looked up at me through dark lashes. The remnants of daylight glinted in her eyes, highlighting the mosaic of burgundy.

“Everything will be okay, Rokath. I’ll be fine. Besides, if something bad happens, you’ll put a dent into their forces trying to get to me.”

She had such an incredible way of soothing these new emotions that smashed their way out of the cage I’d kept them in. And calling me out when my feral, protective instincts got the better of me.

“I’d burn the fucking world to get to you, little imposter. If an Angel so much as blinks at you wrong, I will slit their throat and rejoice in the blood we spill for the Fates.”

The corner of her mouth twitched up. She never shirked from my darkness. In fact, she embraced it more and more with each passing day. Our shared trauma certainly opened up a wicked side of her, one that I wanted to see more of.