Page 2 of Commanding Flame and Shield
Enjoying yourself?
Yes, thanks for asking.I winked at him.
Aren’s mental voice was as crystal clear to me as his physically embodied one, and was always the most predominant sound among the constant bedlam around us. My anchor in the chaos.
He grinned back at me now, then shot an intimidating smile at the cashier, who was eyeing him, before returning to his mock perusals.
Oh, for fuck’s sake,Lana griped.Can the two of you stay focused for half an hour?
No.Why would we do that?Aren smirked without moving his eyes from the drab clothing in front of him.
There wasn’t an item in the store any of us would wear of our own accord, even without the constraint of sizes. Most of us were lanky and tall, save for Aren. Aren was a mountain of a man, his muscles wrapped over bones like stone chiseled by a master sculptor. Spectacular, even for our kind. His pieces were almost always made specifically for him.
His angled features and eternally stubbled jaw were the first things I’d seen when I woke up after my ascension, disoriented and petrified. He was my sire, the one who’d first sensed me out there alone and came to free me.
Just as I would be to this mysterious, green-eyed man, Lord willing.
I’m hungry.Lana whined internally.It’s been days since we’ve had even a scrap of food.Let’s get up and go.
At this, there was unanimous agreement. Nobody had picked up the scent of a fresh trail, not even Fae. The one we had followed vanished on the sidewalk outside, and the lingering fragrance of our quarry’s skin on the worn books in this shop wasdaysold. He didn’t seem to have stayed long, either. The books and piano were the only pieces that had noticed him; everything else had remained oblivious to the man who’d come searching for something on these dusty shelves.
Another dead end.
Slowly, led by Ansel and Lana, we made our way for the doors.
Well, most of us. Alec lingered with his arms wrapped around Fae's waist, resting a chin on her shoulder as they studied the old relics.
Finally, most of us reunited with our partner before exiting hand in hand, like genuine couples would, Aren ducking to fit under the doorway.
Useless. This entire escapade was useless. We were no closer to locating the missing soul, and my patience was growing thin as the storm brewed beneath our feet.
We needed him. Them.Allof them, to ascend. And we needed thatnow.
Outside, the alley reeked of booze and piss, and I wrinkled my nose.
Foul creatures, humans. Disrespectful. Ungrateful. Slaves to their own fall. Half the time, it felt a waste to dedicate our lives to stewarding after the beings, so determined to damn themselves.
We were stones in the riverbed, unmoving, unchanging. Stuck, as time passed us by. Too damned for Heaven, too perfect for Hell...and so we sat here in purgatory, doing our best to look after the self-sabotaging beings. To usher them toward the potential He saw in them.
I shook my head, cursing the fruitless use of time that was this calling.
Aren’s lips turned up in amusement at my thoughts. Lana shot me a sideways glare, though she couldn’t bring herself to argue. But Alec, ever mankind’s defender, ground his teeth together, and I could feel his eyes on my back without needing to read him.
That’s what happens when you eavesdrop. You hear shit you don’t want to,I shot at them internally, drawing the chuckle that had been brimming on Aren’s breath.
I knew as well as they did; we didn’t have a choice but to listen. It was what it was. Still, despite all our years together, it was annoying.
Without further delay, we formed our circle, backs to one another, each sensing both this world and the next. Fingers intertwined at our sides, our minds connected to ensure we would make the jump safely. When we were all satisfied with the energy field before us, we closed our eyes, and then in the space of a breath, and with a familiar twist and swell of energy, we left just as quickly as we’d come.
Grayshell’s forever blinding light assaulted my eyes, and I blinked away the tears that sprang up every time we came home. A faint glimmer of voices lingered in the air, like a distant echo of the choir, hauntingly beautiful. The dazzling white walls seemed to ring with the vibrations, more sound than a solid surface.
The seemingly infinite vertical stretch of windows, blinding stone walls and airy, white floor bounced the omnipresent sunlight onto every object in the hall. Its stretching, weathered, dark wood tables were empty today, our party evidently the first to return.
I closed my eyes and sensed for trouble, but it seemed all was well with our brothers and sisters. The breath escaped my lungs in a whoosh, hand massaging my neck as though I could ease the air back in. Chest heaving, pulse hammering against my skull, I resigned to the agonizing reality that we were too tired to return, but too frustrated to rest. God blessed us with protection today, everyone home in one piece...but that was all we had come home with. Nothing new. Just another shard of a vision, like shattered glass, where an image should be. No blood. No answers. No leads. Not even a name. Tomorrow would mark our thirdmonthtrying to track this one evasive soul.
Failure was not an option. Not this time. While logic couldn’t justify the way my throat was closing, or the slick sweat on my palms, something buried deep within was intrinsically screaming that I couldn’t survive the permanence of that loss. Not again.
With a frustrated, booted kick, I overturned one of the long tables, so it flipped and hit the ground with a deafening clatter. A growl rose from my throat as my panic grew.
