Rogue: Book 4 (Hellfire series), page 21
“So basically, any major event you can think about—angelic, demonic, or human, you can be sure the Unknown are involved.”
Lyx tried to ease her hold on Juan. The poor demon would sport more than one bruise. Her heart working too hard, she did her best not to look down.
“Almost,” he said. “We just reached the mountain range. Le Morond is not far off.”
She nodded, taking a deep breath. “What do they do to influence events?”
Juan laughed. “What don’t they do? They poison kings and stable boys when needed. They whisper ideas in a willing ear and steal a map, only to have it appear in another throne room. They entice a warlord to father a bastard child that threatens his succession.” His voice turned grave. “They kill the angels serving another archangel, so his powers weaken and their master can topple him. They give brothers a reason to turn on one of their own.”
Lyx didn’t know what it felt like to have siblings, but the depth of the betrayal shook her nonetheless. To be near-immortal meant some things mattered less. Time passed differently. Death wasn’t usually final.
But the bonds of family, friendship, and love lasted many human lifetimes. They were seared into their souls and shaped the world they lived in.
To lose one’s brothers…
To have those brothers betray him… No wonder Lucifer had made it his purpose to unite demonkind against the archangels.
She wondered if Rogue had done any of the things Juan had mentioned. If she’d killed innocent stable boys or turned one brother against another.
She wondered how scarred the soul of…of her soulmate was. How deep the female’s regret ran.
“We’re going to land here and continue on foot,” Juan told her.
Lyx tightened her hold on his torso, squeezing her eyes shut. Landing was the most terrifying part of all. Her stomach swooped when Juan descended, only settling once her feet were safely on the ground.
Pine trees stretched tall above them. The scent of their needles turned the cold air spicy.
“Everything alright?” Erisi asked.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to being carried,” Lyx said, stretching her stiff joints, “but Juan was wonderful company.”
Erisi smiled at the scout before turning back to Lyx. “We’re only a few miles west of Le Morond. The other scouts didn’t find any of Raphael’s angels in this part of the woods, but we need to be careful.”
“I’ll behave,” Lyx promised. “How do we get closer?”
“Can I convince you to stay here at a safe distance, while the elites and scouts do their thing?”
Lyx just looked at Erisi. Her friend sighed. “Fine. We’ll head there on foot. We lay low until we spot Rogue or get news from the scouts. Promise me, Lyx.”
“I promise. I won’t jeopardize her safety.” If Raphael’s scouts found them, the archangel would know something was wrong. It wouldn’t be too big of a jump to pin the blame on the Unknown who’d just returned.
They stayed silent on their trek down the mountain slope. By the time they crossed the valley and hiked up a side trail on the least steep part of Le Morond, it was terror more than exhaustion that shortened Lyx’s breath. Occasionally, an angel flew overhead while they hid in the underbrush or behind a rocky outcrop. They moved slowly, only once the scouts confirmed the woods ahead were clear of angels.
Raphael was real here. He was close and dangerous.
And he held Rogue’s life in his hand.
Lyx kept staring at the pale cliffs that rose from the woods. Within the stone lay Raphael’s base. She looked for her angel, for the spirals, squares, or arrows that would tell her Rogue was still alive.
“It takes time to extract information,” Erisi assured her in a whisper.
Lyx tried not to imagine how Rogue would be passing that time. Tortured. Punished.
So, she kept staring at the rocks while her nails dug into her palms and her muscles ached with tension. Finally, they settled for the night in a thicker part of the woods beneath a rocky overhang.
“You can’t go closer,” Juan told her. “The elites won’t either unless we need to extract the angel. Trust us. If she gets out, we’ll find her.”
Lyx’s gut churned. Her mind was restless, and her limbs shaky.
What if she didn’t get out?
What if she needed their help, locked inside this palace of rocks?
She forced herself to settle against the rocky wall of their hiding spot. Erisi sat down next to her and wordlessly took her hand, tangling their fingers. Her touch soothed the raging storm inside Lyx somewhat.
“I’ll give you this, my friend. You’ve chosen the bravest of angels as your mate.”
Tears burned behind Lyx’s eyes when she nodded. “The counterbalance to my fear.”
Erisi’s fingers tensed around hers. “Is that what you think?”
Lyx looked at her friend. “For the longest time, all I was was fear. She takes it away. When I fly with her, I’m not afraid. When I got lost in a crowd with her, I wasn’t afraid. Without her…” She gestured at herself. “Without her, I’m scared. I am nothing but fear.”
“Lyx…” Erisi’s voice brimmed with pain. “You dragged us all to Lucifer. You stood up to him when all he wanted was to satisfy his millennia-old wrath. You convinced Arren, me, and a dozen of Lucifer’s demons to fight for you and Rogue.”
“And I’m terrified. I’ve been terrified the whole time.”
“Don’t make me spout that overused line about what bravery truly is, Lyx. Because you own it in spades. You are strength and bravery personified. How can someone who has only known betrayal and cruelty find it in her soul to trust an angel of all beings? Who else is strong enough to love someone you’re supposed to loathe when it’s so much easier to give in to the fear and give up on something so hard?”
Lyx couldn’t breathe. Her throat felt too tight, her ribs spanning her straining lungs painfully. “I-I’m scared, Erisi,” she whispered. “I don’t know how…what to do.”
Erisi scooted closer, bringing their joined hands close to her chest. “You’re doing it. You’re here, as close to her as you can be. You’re right here for her. Tomorrow morning, we’ll find an outlook. We wait. We…” Erisi took a deep breath. “We trust her. Because I think she might be as strong as you are. She’ll come back to you.”
The tears dripped down Lyx’s jaw. She let them fall, an offering to any gods who would listen.
Come back to me, Rogue.
Chapter 49
Lyx
“There!” Finally, Lyx caught sight of a movement low on the mountain. In the first light of day, she could see blood covering the being that was crawling out of a tiny opening in the rock. It had to be her. It had to be.
Her heart ached at the sight. She turned to Erisi and the elite next to her. “That’s her! Please…please get her. Help her,” she whispered.
The warrior nodded, disappearing into the forest. Lyx stared intently at Rogue. She watched her angel draw an arrow on the rocky surface, the lines dark crimson. Her stomach turned at the message and the medium Rogue was using to convey it.
Her angel was using her blood to tell Lucifer Raphael wanted to attack Dera Rawal.
Another arrow followed. More angels? A bigger attack?
Another arrow.
“Fuck,” Erisi whispered, conveying Lyx’s thoughts. Whatever it meant, it was bad.
Rogue dropped out of sight. Lyx stopped breathing, her eyes fixed on the spot where the female had been moments before.
Erisi grabbed her hand. “They are getting her. Look!”
The elites were running toward the cliffs, weaving through the trees. They were still too far from Rogue though. If the angels found her first…if they saw the symbols…
The blood splattered on the cliffs had her ache. So much blood. Rogue’s blood.
“Come,” Erisi whispered. “We need to be ready to leave once they’ve got her.”
Lyx tore her eyes away from the arrows and scrambled up, following Erisi through the underbrush to their makeshift camp. Juan, already in demonic form, looked as grim as she felt.
“Ready?” he asked her.
She shook her head, but when he spread his scaled arms, she went into his hold willingly.
“As soon as the other scouts appear above us, we leave,” he told her. “The elites will carry the a–Rogue. We will regroup some distance away from here to check if we are being followed and what state she is in.”
His words left her more nauseous. What state she is in…
Fate, we should have run. We should have–
Juan’s arms tightened around her. “Here we go.”
As they shot into the sky, Lyx watched the other scouts fly past. Erisi stayed by their side, her ice-blue wings the only thing Lyx focused on as she tried to breathe.
Please be ok. Please be ok.
She couldn’t see the elite who carried Rogue. Maybe they were further ahead.
Please be ok.
The moment they landed in a fir groove, she scrambled toward the massive male who held Rogue. She was barely visible in his hold, only her slack arm dangling in sight. Her unmoving form was covered with a cape. “Is she...”
“Slipping in and out of consciousness,” the warrior said. Lyx tried to keep her tears at bay, caressing the bit of the female’s upper arm she could reach. She might not be able to see her angel properly, but the blood already pooling on the rock beneath the warrior’s feet terrified her.
“We need to move!” one of the scouts said. “Raphael will tear this mountain apart to find the angel.”
Rogue’s broken voice made Lyx’s tears spill. “H-he’ll kill me. I bro-broke the rules. It won’t be long before he-he realizes I know and told someone.”
“Know what?” Erisi asked, her voice kind.
“Raphael, Michael, a-and Gabriel are coming for Lucifer at Mount Roraima. I-if I can believe what was on his map. But he w-was gathering the Unknown and his warriors to leave at midday...it might well be true.”
Three archangels. Three.
The scouts looked at each other without saying a word. The smallest of them stepped forward. “I’ll be fastest on my own. I will alert Lucifer and Arren.”
Lyx felt numb. She kept staring at the blood dripping from her angel. When the warrior who carried Rogue shifted position, she caught a glimpse of Rogue’s split face and nearly dropped to her knees. The wound ran from her forehead to her chin. It was healing, but she could feel the pain her angel had suffered. Was still suffering.
A hand softly squeezed her shoulder. “Let me get you to Dera Rawal before I go to Roraima for the battle,” Erisi whispered.
“I-I n-need to report to Lucifer,” Rogue murmured,” but she…she’s right. You’ll be s-safer there.”
“No.” Lyx straightened, swiping at her tears. “I’m not leaving you. I didn’t let you do this on your own, and I sure as hell won’t leave you alone at Roraima.”
“Ohr-raia…” Rogue’s voice broke. Her body lost all tension and her arm dropped again.
The warrior shook his head when Lyx looked up at him.
Juan came to stand next to her. “We need to leave for Roraima. She’ll be safe there. We’ll be able to help her.”
Lyx swallowed the knot in her throat away. She stepped into the scout’s arms and found herself lifted. His powerful lunge, followed by the hard thrusts of the male’s leathery wings shook through her body. She squeezed her eyes shut and held on tight, her arms around Juan’s neck, her entire body shaking.
How foolish of her to assume they’d be safe once Rogue had returned from her mission. They were on the verge of a war between the most powerful angels and demons, and she and Rogue were smack in the middle of it.
She took a deep breath, her face shielded from the harsh wind as she turned toward Juan’s chest.
The entire flight she kept seeing Rogue’s blood pool on the rock. Her torn-up face. The way her arm had fallen when she’d slipped away.
How badly hurt did a near-immortal have to be to truly die?
How often had her angel died already?
Once they’d made it across the ocean, one of the unburdened elites flew ahead to alert everyone of their arrival. The sun burned on the golden fields at the foot of Mount Roraima. Lyx tried to ease her death grip. Almost there.
The moment they landed on the courtyard of the palace, the elite who held Rogue rushed inside. She heard him shouting at a few guards. “Get me a room and supplies. She keeps dying because of the blood loss.”
Terror slammed into Lyx. She tore from Juan’s hold and rushed after the elite. Her legs wobbled, and she nearly dropped to the ground. Erisi grabbed her upper arm and kept her standing. “He’s making sure she gets the care she needs, Lyx. I’ll get you to her.”
Erisi kept talking, her voice barely penetrating the fog Lyx was in. She could barely put one foot in front of the other, but she needed to get to Rogue’s side.
“—stem the blood loss. She’ll heal faster,“ Erisi said.
So much blood. Lyx kept seeing those damn arrows.
One of the other elites who’d joined them on the mission kept up with them. “He’s taking her to the guest rooms.”
“Why?” Lyx whispered. “I can’t help waiting for you all to stab her in the back because she’s an angel, but you’re...you’re helping her.”
“We know courage when we see it. She gave everything to warn us about the upcoming attack.” The elite smiled at her. “Besides, we’re all serving an angel here. He might be a fallen one, but believe me, his angelfire hurts like hell.”
They got to the corridor that accessed the guest rooms.
“What room did they put her in?” she said, her panic rising.
The elite gently took her arm and kept her moving. “Follow the noise. He’s not being very subtle about it.”
Lyx finally noticed someone bellowing and watched a demon rush into a room from the other side, holding fabrics.
She ran.
When she burst into the room, she found Rogue on a large bed, laid out on her stomach. Her clothes were torn away to reveal the damage. She was sliced open from neck to the bottom of her spine, the wound still gaping and bleeding profusely. More straight cuts and half-healed wounds covered the rest of her back, the grid of whip marks all too familiar from the last time Rogue had collapsed in her arms in Harappa. The entire bedding was crimson, and the demons surrounding her were covered in blood.
With a guttural sound ripping from her, she stumbled toward the bed, dropping to her knees to take Rogue’s hand in hers.
“Get me someone who can sew this shut. It’ll take too long to heal properly, and she keeps fucking dying on me,” someone shouted.
Lyx couldn’t see a thing. Tears streamed over her cheeks, blurring her vision.
Another demon arrived at the bed. “Hold her down.”
Rogue’s hand jerked in hers as an inhuman sound escaped her. Her fingers clenched hard around Lyx’s. Then her hand became a heavy, still thing.
“Fuck, she’s gone again. Keep closing her up. We need to bandage as much as we can.”
Lyx couldn’t breathe. She clung to the angel’s hand while it grew colder, pressing it to her wet cheek in an effort to keep it warm.
To keep her alive.
Deep inside her, something broke.
It took everything she had left to silence her scream, terrified she’d disrupt the demons who were trying to save her angel.
Yet another demon arrived at Rogue’s bedside. “I need her conscious and talking. Now,” she said.
Pure fury rose in Lyx. She couldn’t bear to let go of Rogue’s hand, so she stayed on her knees, but the arrogant demon would hear her. Lyx would make sure she would. “Get the fuck away from her!”
Sleek silver hair bound in a braid whipped around as the female turned to her. Silver so much brighter than the color of her own eyes met hers. “Remove her.”
“General,” the elite who’d carried Rogue said. “She’s the reason the angel turned on Raphael. It might not be wise—” He coughed when the general turned her eyes on him. “It might be better to have her here when she wakes to ensure the angel cooperates.”
“She’s the reason you will still be alive by nightfall,” Lyx said, fury seething in her voice. “She’s the reason Lucifer is aware of the Oracle’s betrayal and of the magnitude of the coming attack. Treat her with the fucking respect she deserves.”
The silver-eyed female leaned down. “I’m trying to keep us all alive, little demon. I’d do exactly the same if it were Lucifer on this damn bed. Get out of my way so I can do what I’m supposed to.”
Deflated, Lyx opened her mouth, then shut it when nothing came out before trying again. She could barely keep her tears at bay. “P-please be careful. She won’t stop d-dying.”
The female’s eyes softened a little. “We’re at war, little one. I’ll be as careful as I can be, but none of this will be pretty.” She turned to the other demons. “Get me another needle. I’ll start from the bottom.”
Lyx sagged against the bed. She held on to Rogue’s hand, her eyes closed and praying to gods she’d long lost faith in.
For Rogue, she’d have faith.
For Rogue, she’d fight the terror.
Chapter 50
Rogue
This was what hell must be like. Fire ravaged my body. My skin was crawling, itching, burning. I felt like someone had thrown me off Raphael’s mountain after slicing me up, and then did it all over again.
A different kind of warmth enclosed my hand. Lyx.
“Ohr—” My voice broke.
Her lips softly brushed my temple. A warm drop of water hit my forehead. “I’m right here,” she whispered.
“Move.” An unknown female voice, cold as ice.
“No.” Lyx with the fire of her rage. It settled something inside of me. She’d been fighting for me. She was still fighting. For me. “She’s in no shape to give you information.”
I wanted to smile, but my face didn’t obey. I remembered the lash tearing my face, the phantom echo of pain ricocheting inside me.
