Angel's Heart: Daughters of Elysium Book Four, page 11
What in Darkness’ name?” “You don’t like him. You don’t even know him. He’s not someone you can trust.” And I didn’t need Alexei using her memory issues to manipulate her. Which was undoubtedly why he hadn’t told Freya about her earlier.
Except that I was having trouble figuring out what the point would be. Or how he would have known she was having memory problems to manipulate her with.
“Benedict—” Drift began, in that excessively soothing tone she used when she thought I was being unreasonable.
I cut her off. “He’s my cousin. Even if you had your memories, I’d still know him better. You didn’t know anyone in Dragon but me. So whatever you think you’re feeling, you’re not.”
That grin on Alexei’s face finally died. He cocked his head at Drift. “What’s going on, kid?”
I didn’t give her a chance to answer, just shoved her toward the door. “Go wait outside.”
The defiance in her eyes was so much the Drift I remembered that it lit a different fire than the angry one already burning in me. She didn’t move.
“Now,” I ordered.
She tilted her head and gave me a look that said she would do what I wanted, but I was going to pay for it later. Then she turned and walked out.
Alexei watched her go, his confusion turning into something else as his gaze zeroed in on her back. On the skin visible through the slits in the shirt she wore—my shirt—and the scars that marred it.
“Where are her wings?” he asked, his voice low.
“The Elders tore them off her.”
“They did what?”
“Apparently no one has wings in the mortal realm, so she couldn’t have them either. They also tore out so much with her Heartstone that she’s only just starting to remember her life here.”
Alexei blanched, but I didn’t care about the act he was putting on. He didn’t care about Drift.
“Whatever game you think you’re playing with her? Don’t.” I leaned in, the heat off my body begging to lick into true flames. “She’s mine. Don’t touch her, don’t talk to her, don’t threaten her. Don’t even look at her.”
Alexei snorted. “Am I supposed to look at the air above her head when she’s in my presence?”
“Yes,” I growled. “The ground beneath her feet would also be acceptable.”
He studied me for a moment in silence, looking for something. Then he nodded, as if he’d found it. “You can’t bring her back to Dragon.”
I lifted one eyebrow at him, my fingers lengthening into talons. “You presume to tell me what I can do, cousin? If you want to test my authority, I’d be delighted to take the challenge.”
The sonofabitch rolled his eyes. “I’m not challenging your authority. I don’t want your authority. That’s the entire reason I’m here, telling you not to bring her back. Our beloved aunt has ordered Logan to kill our little Icarii.”
29
Drift
I’d just stalked outside when every window in the castle’s foyer shattered outward, Dragon fire following it. Apparently Alexei had made Benedict lose his temper. I had the sense that Alexei was very good at making Benedict lose his temper, and that maybe he was good at it because I’d helped him.
I didn’t have any concrete memories to go with that belief, just the feeling that it was true. The same way I didn’t really remember Alexei, but I remembered something.
A flash of an image, a moment in time of him making me laugh. Enough to make me feel safe. Not the kind of all-encompassing safety I felt with Benedict, but a different kind, like a brother might make me feel.
Not that either of them were making me feel safe right now. More like infuriated. I didn’t like being sent outside, but I’d also known there wasn’t any point in arguing with Benedict. If he didn’t want me somewhere, he’d pick me up and toss me outside. And my pride—a thing I was only just beginning to remember I had—wouldn’t allow for myself being physically thrown out of a building.
The two Icarii guarding the castle doors took five steps from it—no doubt to get away from the heat radiating off the stone—but otherwise didn’t do anything. I was really confused about what the point of the guards was, if Dragon fire erupting from within the castle’s foyer didn’t spur them into any sort of action.
Were they just ceremonial?
Their glances shifted to me, to the space above my shoulders where the arches of my wings should be, and that awful pity filled their gazes. It had my hackles rising, my frustration hitting a fever pitch.
I didn’t want to be pitied, because pity implied I was helpless, and useless, and that’s what I’d been in the mortal realm. I hadn’t come to this place to be that here, too.
I straightened my shoulders and glared at them. “What?” I snapped. “Something you’d like to comment on?”
They stiffened, and their expressions went carefully blank. The castle doors flung open and Benedict stormed out, Alexei a foot behind him.
Benedict’s irises had gone pure red. He was glowing with Dragon fire, and he was on a collision course straight for me. His wings sprouted from his back, black and leathery like a demon’s, and he scooped me up and shot us both into the sky.
Alexei followed at a distance, far enough back he wouldn’t be able to overhear anything that was said. Not that Benedict was saying anything. So I didn’t say anything either. At least, not until I realized we weren’t flying toward Dragon.
The black cliffs of their territory were distinctive enough it was easy to see we were flying left of them. And left of them was…Icarii.
Fear I didn’t understand curled through me. “Where are you taking us?”
No answer.
“Benedict, where are we going?” I shoved back against the immovable mass of him and got precisely nowhere. He didn’t budge physically, nor did he talk.
And then we were diving, his wings tucked, the ground plummeting towards us until his wings flared wide, pulling us up just before we reached the ground.
The ground in Icarii. Already, winged shapes were darting towards us from the red cliffs in the distance, flocking to see who had intruded on their territory.
“Stay here until I come for you,” Benedict said, turning away.
“No.” I lunged after him. “You can’t leave me here. You promised.” My throat was tightening. “You promised I’d always have a place with you.”
He turned back, cupping my face in his hands. “I’m not breaking that promise. But Dragon isn’t safe for you right now. I will rectify that issue, and then I will come for you. Until then, this is the safest place for you.”
If this was the safest place for me, then why was everything in me screaming that he was the safest place for me? Why was panic freezing me in place while I struggled desperately to remember a thing I was suddenly certain I needed to tell him.
But my mouth wouldn’t open and he took my silence for agreement. He stepped across the border, out of Icarii, and I finally managed to move. But I managed it too late.
Icarii landed all around me, none more forcefully than the man who did so directly in my path, cutting off any hope I had of reaching Benedict before he took to the skies. I stared up at a face that was the masculine version of my own, framed by my same black hair, the same blue eyes. His wings stretched out to either side, feathers the exact shade of blue I’d colored hundreds of times when I’d drawn my own wings.
Cruel or kind, a small voice whispered in my mind. He can either be cruel, or kind, and you never know which one you’ll get.
I knew which one I had right now, the same way I knew what I’d needed to tell Benedict. The one thing I’d never told him, or Alexei, because I’d been too afraid.
Icarii wasn’t safe for me—was the farthest thing from safe for me. And I was staring at the reason why. My older brother, Zephyr, who’d been the reason I’d had a torn wing the day I fell into Dragon territory and met Benedict. The reason I used to sleep wrapped so deeply in Dreams that no one, not even my parents, could find me.
The reason I’d learned, long before I was cast into the mortal realm, that I had no control over my own life.
A harsh smile graced Zephyr’s lips. “Hello, little sister.” His eyes raked over the empty air behind me. “Looks like the pretty princess lost her wings.”
He grabbed my arm and jerked me forward. “Guess I’ll have to fly you to your tower. If you’re lucky, I won’t drop you.”
His hand closed over two of the straps on the back of my shirt and then his wings were beating, hauling us up, and two thin pieces of leather were the only thing standing between me and a fall to my death.
30
Benedict
I didn’t like leaving Drift in Icarii. No, that wasn’t right. I absolutely hated leaving Drift in Icarii.
But I needed her somewhere safe while I dealt with what Alexei had told me. Either he was lying—and I honestly hoped that was the case, though I didn’t know what he sought to gain by it—or my aunt had finally lost the last shred of sanity she possessed.
I landed in my destroyed room, a surge of anger hitting as I surveyed the mess. If Drift hadn't remembered how to Dream, if Alexei hadn't overlooked it when that Dream slipped...
My cousin landed behind me, that cocksure grin on his face. "You needed to redecorate anyway."
"You saying you did me a favor?" I growled.
“More than one. Be grateful Freya thinks I'm so well-trained I don't need a leash.”
About that... "You don't honestly believe I'm stupid enough to trust you, do you?"
Alexei snorted. “I think you're stubborn enough not to."
I crowded him, getting in his face. "You've been Freya’s since the beginning."
“I’ve been smart enough to pretend to be hers since the beginning. Unlike you, who chose to piss her off every five seconds so she had no choice but to make you her heir in the hopes of you speedily getting yourself killed.”
“I’m still here," I pointed out.
"Yeah, bloody miracle, that.”
"It isn't a miracle.” I let everything I was rise to the surface, every iota of power, the rage and strength of the Dragon I kept leashed. “It's the fact that I can destroy anyone. Any time, any place. If you push me, you will regret it. I had thought you would understand that by now."
Alexei, naturally, still wasn't concerned. “Oh, I understand it perfectly. You're the one who doesn't seem to understand that I'm on your side. You think it's been all roses and daisies for me? Do you have any idea how hard I have to work to look so dumb?
“Sweet, idiotic Alexei who always has a smile on his face and can't use big words properly in a sentence? It's fucking exhausting."
I stared into his eyes, willing the green depths to reveal if he was telling the truth. If he could be trusted. I'd always liked Alexei, against both my will and my better judgment, which made me all the more loath to trust him now.
“You picked a convenient time to let me know you're suddenly on my side."
“I picked a strategic time. You think Freya wouldn't have made my life a thousand times more difficult if she thought I didn't hate your guts? But that doesn't matter anymore."
I folded my arms across my chest. “It doesn't?"
"Not now that you're finally going to take Dragon from her. I would have been fine with you putting Beryl on the throne, but she had to go off and play High Queen of Faerie instead. But Drift’s here now, so—”
“So what? "I interrupted.
He arched an eyebrow. "You think I don't know that girl's your Hoard?"
"I don't know what you're—”
He cut me off with a snort and started ticking things off on his fingers. "You were possessively obsessive about her since you met. It was in your eyes the day we found her and you told me to leave. It was in the way you hid all that time she spent here, rearranging the patrols and thinking no one noticed.”
No one had noticed. Except him, apparently. And he wasn't done talking.
"Do you think anyone failed to notice how ballistic you went when she got banished? You beat the shit out of anyone who looked at you wrong for the next year."
"Is there a point to any of this?”
“Yeah. I knew you wouldn't depose Freya until Drift came back, given the conditions for male leadership in this territory. But Drift is back, so do it."
The obnoxious thing about all of this? I actually believed him. He was just mistaken on one crucial point. "I can't."
“What do you mean you can’t?”
"Drift doesn't remember me. Not really. She can't make the decision she'd need to make for me to take Dragon."
“She doesn't need to make a decision. Girl's in love with you. She always has been."
I shook my head. “She doesn't know what she is. And before you argue with me, you didn't see her life in the mortal realm. You didn't see what it was like for her there. I won't put her in a similar position here.”
I wouldn't tell her that her only choice was to accept what I had to offer, or watch me give it to someone else. I wouldn't give it to someone else. Couldn't.
"I'll find another way to deal with Freya. One that doesn't involve Drift in any capacity.”
Alexei studied me. “She really can't remember anything?"
"It's coming back in pieces. Should come back fully once her Heartstone is fully reabsorbed. But right now? No, she really doesn't remember."
He blew out a breath, “Alright then. What's your alternate plan for Freya?”
I grimaced. “You aren't going to like it."
“Just spit it out.”
So I did. Judging by the cursing that followed, I'd been right. He didn't like it.
31
Drift
I'd never been afraid of heights. Even after the damage in the mortal realm, when I'd jumped from that rooftop, I hadn't been afraid. I'd just known not to jump again.
Nor had I been afraid earlier, flying with Benedict. I'd known he would never drop me, never let me fall.
But I was afraid now. Zephyr had the idlest of grips on the straps that made the back of my shirt. The leather was strong and I didn't think it would break, but the shirt was large on me, and I had the absurd notion that one wrong move—one fast dip of Zephyr's wings or twist of his fingers—and I would come tumbling out of the shirt.
And I didn't know if he would bother to catch me.
My wings. I wanted my wings. But I didn't have them. So for the first time in my life, I closed my eyes against the view below, as Zephyr flew us toward a row of red cliffs.
Then his hand released me and I was falling, my eyes snapping open as I landed roughly on a railless cliffside balcony. I hit my knees and skidded, my newly-Dreamed jeans ripping, harsh rock biting into my skin. My hands flew out to brace myself, and I felt the skin of my palms tear.
I rested there for a moment, on my hands and knees, gulping in air and trying to get my bearings.
The harsh tap of boots approached and then Zephyr was in front of me, having landed easily once freed of my weight.
I had such mixed feelings about him—about my brother. One of the roots of my Heartstone sank fully back into my body, and I was overwhelmed with those mixed emotions.
Zephyr was this—the cruel, petty man standing before me now who had carried me as if he might let me fall. He was the boy who'd ripped one of my wings when we were children, and I'd flown into Dragon to get away from him.
But he was also the boy who'd stayed awake with me after I'd had my first nightmare, one so vivid I had Dreamed it into existence. He was the boy who'd taught me how to fly and told me stories.
But he was never both at the same time. He was ever always the cruelty or the kindness, and no appealing to past experiences or memories could ever turn him from the one to the other.
And I had the cruelty now. He sneered down at me, like I was something so far beneath his notice that he couldn't believe he was having to deal with me.
I was so tired of people looking at me like that.
“Get up.”
A frisson of rebellion crept up my spine, and I wanted to stay right where I was. But another root from my Heartstone burrowed into my chest—as if I needed the memories of my past in order to survive, so my Heartstone was doing its best to hasten the process of giving them to me—and I remembered it was a rebellious feeling much like this one that had led Zephyr to damage my wing all those years ago.
Made me remember that I might be a Dreamer—might even be a strong Dreamer, if Benedict was right—but Zephyr was a master of nightmares. They coiled around him now, a darkness that was only ever gone on those occasions when he was kind, rather than cruel.
So I ignored the part of me that wanted to remain on the ground to piss him off, and I stood.
“Are you happy to be home, sister?”
I swallowed, unsure of what to say. So as I had learned to do so well in the mortal realm, I didn't say anything at all.
"Because I am not happy to have you here. Nor, it seems, is your Dragon prince. You do have such a talent for irritating men.”
Something twisted in my gut. Benedict had said he’d be back for me—but would he really?
Zephyr continued. “It's that mixture of pathetic subservience and willful brattiness. It’s insufferable.”
One of the guards behind him shifted, as if uncomfortable. But they didn't say anything.
Zephyr stepped forward, whispering in my ear so the words wouldn't carry. "Our parents aren't here to protect you anymore, baby sister. I am lord of Icarii now. It is a throne that will never be yours.
“You should have stayed in the mortal realm. Barring that, you should have stayed in Dragon. Because your life here will not be pleasant. If it lasts long at all."
He stepped back and motioned to the other Icarii. “We’re leaving.”
The guard who had looked uncomfortable earlier hesitated now.
