Cheers erupted from the crowd.

“The day after will be twice as brutal,” he warned. Groans sounded in response. I couldn’t smother the smile that spread across my face.

“You are dismissed. Return to your bunks. Rest. You have earned it.”

A round of applause rippled through the crowd, and then, streams of soldiers passed us, heading to their respective parts of the fortress.

“I for one am exhausted,” Kiira sighed, nearly leaning on Rapp for assistance as we ventured inside. Quite the change from before. And the way he looked down at her…

Rokath slipped his arm over my shoulders, drawing my attention away from the two of them. He planted a kiss on my temple, and I leaned into it, seeking his comfort. Each step forward was a challenge, and my arms ached from merely swinging as we walked. “I never, ever thought I would willingly ask this but…will you carry me up the stairs?”

I batted my long lashes up at him, hoping the gesture would melt his hard exterior. A laugh rumbled in his chest. “And here I thought you hated me again.”

“Oh, that still stands. You’ll have to win me over again,” I quipped.

Without warning, he swooped me into his arms, stealing a gasp from my throat. “I will spend every day for the rest of our lives winning you over, Assyria. It is what I should have done initially.”

Warmth bloomed around my heart, and I reached for his beard, giving it a stroke before rubbing his jaw. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see you two like this,” Kiira sighed, popping our bubble of peace. We’d reached the split that led to our tower and the adjacent one where Kiira’s rooms waited. Double the number of sentries waited, to my shock. Everyone had been dismissed for the night after participating, and yet these males still chose to protect us.

“Goodnight, Kiira,” Rokath huffed, annoyance threading his tone.

Rapp chuckled, leading Kiira in the opposite direction and greeting the guards and thanking them for being at their posts. Rokath carried me up the winding stairs toward our chamber at the top. Even the jostling against his chest made me hurt.

By the time we reached our rooms, my eyelids were heavier than bronze, almost impossible to keep open. Yet Rokath didn’t take me to bed. Instead, he carried me into the bathing chamber, turned the taps to the tub, and stripped me. I let him treat me like a pet, bathing me, washing my hair, and drying me off.

By the time we finally sank between the sheets, all it took for me to fall into a deep slumber was my mate pulling me onto his broad chest and laying my ear against the heart that beat only for me.

OceanofPDF.com

36

Adrenaline rushed through my veins as I raced through the desert. Head on a swivel, I searched for my mate. Yet this wasn’t a game of chase, like we’d enjoyed time and time again. No, icy fear shattered through me. White feathers lined the ground, growing thicker as they swallowed the sand, until I was kicking up clouds of them behind me. They followed me of their own accord, almost in a taunt.

“Assyria!” I shouted, my voice disappearing immediately, as if they absorbed it so my words couldn’t reach my mate.

Not again. Please, not again. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill her this time. Leave me with only her bones to grieve over.

I tugged on our bond, begging it to show me where she was. It was so faint, so weak. “Assyria!” I shouted again, this time down our mental connection.

I received no response. No quip, no teasing words. Just utter, heartbreaking, silence.

Dots appeared on the horizon ahead, and I wasted no time putting on a burst of speed. Yet my limbs were heavy, leaden, like I was underwater and attempting to run. “Come on,” I gritted out, pumping them harder.

What felt like an eternity later, the ebony hair of my mate came into view. She knelt in the middle of a bed of white feathers, while her black membranous wings hung limply on either side of her. Her head dragged down, obscuring her devious burgundy eyes.

“Assyria!” I called out to her, hoping she’d look at me. She didn’t acknowledge my presence. I pressed on, closing the distance quicker now. Yet as I skidded to a stop, I noticed the silver sword resting across her lap.

“Where did you get that?” I asked her.

She finally lifted her head, revealing eyes of an icy blue. The wrong color. Too late, I realized I’d been tricked. I leaped backward, but a dozen more Angels appeared at my back, wrestling me to the ground. With a roar, I flung them off, only for the sight of my mate, my real mate, to halt me.

Her arms bound above her head, the rope tied to a thick bough, she looked at me with anguish so intense it stole my breath. She’d been stripped of everything, leaving her entire body bare. A gag held her silent, though the tears streaming down her face spoke volumes.

On either side of her, male Angels stood, one with a dagger to her throat, another pressed into her ribs.

“What do you want?” I croaked, falling to my knees.

One of them laughed. “You to watch while we destroy you both.” Another male stepped forward, unfastening his pants.

A scream unlike any I’d ever heard tore from my mate’s throat as he opened her legs. “No!” I roared, leaping for her, not caring about the consequences…

“Rokath,” Assyria pleaded, and I jolted awake. My chest heaved as I took in my surroundings. My mate gripped my shoulders like she’d been shaking me, and a thick sweat coated my skin. The bed beneath me too was soaked.

“Assyria,” I breathed, crushing her against my thundering heart. I’d never been more grateful to be at the academy than I was in that moment. I kissed her head, held her so tightly she protested.

“You’re smothering me,” she wheezed, barely audible, and with a hint of loathing, I released her so she could breathe.

Still, I buried my nose in her hair, inhaling her garden-like scent, reminding myself that she was here, she was in my arms, and that the Angels didn’t have her. “Fuck, Assyria, I love you so much.” My voice was cracked, strained. She wriggled her arms out and wrapped them around me, climbing on top of me fully.

“Nightmare?” she murmured.

I nodded, unable to speak for the vastness of my need for her.

“Want to talk about it?” she pressed on.

“Not really.” It was the only way to banish it so that it would never return. So that it would never become my reality.

My breathing had slowed, evening out as her love and comfort poured into me. Telling her what I saw would only amplify my emotions again. The utter shock I’d felt when I realized the female kneeling on the ground wasn’t her. The utter terror when I’d discovered the real her strung up like an animal. And with no outlet for them other than the soldiers we were training to fight those fucking insects…

An idea suddenly dawned on me, and I kicked myself for not thinking of it sooner. “I want to train with your magic again today,” I announced, mind working. “How would you feel about becoming me?”

I loosened my grip on her so she could look up at me. “You mean like impersonating you?”

“Aye,” I replied. “I am someone most of the Angels try to avoid, save for the foolish ones with too much bravado. What if, in a dire situation, you could become me and confuse them? Leave them questioning which way they should go?”

Her eyes brightened and excitement dripped down our bond. I fucking loved that she didn’t temper her emotions with me anymore. It helped me understand my mate on a deeper level, one that others would never be able to access. And right then, I knew she wouldn’t refuse.