Taunting laughs.
Marks carved into my flesh.
Cracking whips. The scars along my back itched, blood rushing through my ears. I counted my breaths in and out, in and out…
Pictured Mila.
Mila, alive and healthy. My heart rate slowed. Mila, breath against my neck and hands in my hair. My throat loosened. Mila’s scars and the way she overcame every damn obstacle so fiercely.
“The girl sleeps often,” a silken voice said behind me.
I spun as the kettle started to boil. “Who the fuck are you?” I asked, accusation thick in my tone.
This was no Angel. Moonlight hair cascaded around her frame, a flowing white gown clinging to her curves and slicing low between her breasts. It barely covered any of her skin as she sauntered forward on bare feet, pitch black eyes studying me. Chills pricked my skin, nerves sending my heart pounding.
“She sleeps?” she repeated. A finger stacked with gem-crusted rings traced the silver chain belt around her waist.
I swallowed, trying not to flinch at the links building that chain and how the delicate loops clinked together with each step.
“Whoareyou?” I repeated.
Her gaze roamed over my harried appearance and rumpled clothing. She could have been a warrior—no wings beat at her back nor did pointed ears peek from beneath her hair—but therewas something about her that barked in warning. An unsettling aura that raised every alarm in my mind.
“Rozelyn, for short,” she answered, as if I should have any fucking clue what that meant.
“And where did you come from, Rozelyn?” I asked, bracing my hands on the counter, one within easy reach of Lucidius’s dagger tucked down the waistband of my pants.
With the elaborate onyx handle, it didn’t fit comfortably down my boot, so I had to find other methods of concealment. I’d tried to ask Ophelia why she thought all of the weapons save training ones were gone, but she’d insisted it wasn’t important.
Echnid’s likely having the Angels mend them after years of wear, she’d said.
It doesn’t mean anything, she’d insisted.
And the one that had truly set me on edge:Perhaps Echnid has more of a point than we’d considered.
“Her exhaustion is curious, don’t you think?” Rozelyn asked, pulling me back to the present threat. She tilted her head in a way that I thought was supposed to be alluring.
“Not really,” I deadpanned. “She’s put under a lot of pressure in training.” The sleep didn’t seem odd. If anything, it was the weird, distant looks and how she couldn’t seem to communicate her full thoughts about Echnid that worried me.
Without answering, Rozelyn assessed me again. Her lips curled into a smile, and with a dramatic exhale, she hummed. “Pity.”
Didn’t sound like she thought Ophelia’s pain was a pity at all.
She took another sauntering step closer.
“Will you tell me why you’re here now?” I tried to soften my voice enough to be welcoming. Just to get her to fucking answer.
That smile remained on her lips. “My friends and I have been brought here. To help build a future for the god.”
“Build a future?” What in the Angels’ fuck did that mean?
But she didn’t offer an explanation. Rozelyn’s hungry gaze tracked over me once more, and for a sickening moment, I felt like she wanted me to be that future. Then, she turned and floated toward the door, barely there silk dress slithering against the stone in her wake.
As she rounded the corner, the chill that had coated my skin went with her. I stared after her for long, tense minutes, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. And as I waited, all I could think of was how that shock of white hair had swayed down her back and how it reminded me so much of someone else’s, though more void of color where Mila’s was as warm as sunlight.
I fell back against the counter, rubbing my temples. Maybe it was lack of sleep and worry driving me crazy. That woman was only an illusion of my tired brain. It was possible, but the gut-tightening nerves her presence had wrought said otherwise.
I took a deep breath, counting on the inhale and exhale as Mila had taught me. I kept up the pattern until the thoughts calmed and the kettle whistled shrilly, then I rolled my shoulders back and prepared the tea, setting everything on the tray.
