Page 84 of Commanding Flame and Shield
“I wouldn’t—”
“A good 'ol boy like you. Of course you would. For her. For an innocent. Don't play villain, August, you're too obvious for that.” He fiddled with his case, popping it open and closed with muffled clicks. “Besides, if you convince her to let you back in, and break her heart, I'm going to have to—”
"Fucking take him out!!” Brody bellowed right as Alec roared.
“Go baby go!!”
Ansel turned a glare my direction, the threat was obvious. I snorted. “I have no intention of hurting her, Ansel."
“You better have no intentions shy of worshipping the ground she walks on," Aren growled, sitting down with two plates piled high with food. One was stacked in fruit and cheeses, the other in what looked like fancy sausages. He held them out, and I swiped a link and took a bite. My confusion at the flavor and texture must have been obvious because Aren chuckled. “Plant-based, for Fae. But I'm still not so sure about ‘em.”
“What about you, Rookie? Great Commander aside, should we be sure about you?” Ansel's question drew four sets of eyes off the field and onto my face, and I sucked down a breath. In all our days running and training, I'd only learned a bit about Ansel. In all his lives, he'd been a soldier—dealing pain and death his specialty—and in every single incarnation…helovedLana. It was his harsh eyes, fixed on my face and hard as stone, that I stared down as the question settled between us.
THIRTY-FOUR
PIZZA
ALVARA
August’s training was advancing his skillsets at his ever-impressive pace, but not one of his teachers had been able to throw him into another trigger. No amount of stress, or strain, exhaustion, or pain, seemed to pull those distant memories back to the surface. It seemed that whatever had been hidden in the recess of his consciousness had been expertly concealed, buried below inconsequential moments, and flashes of his existences. Whoever had bound him—whomever had boundus—it had been done with expert precision. The very idea of a being with power of that magnitude made the muscles in my back bristle, and hair stand on end.
I had mastered many things in my centuries of clairvoyance and could even alter brief moments of a mortal memory. But to erase animmortalmind entirely of its existence…My soul didn’t like dancing with the thought that a being that gifted existed at all, let alone the reality that August could have been their unwilling victim.
Not evenmygifts could reach into memories bound by divinity. While I couldn't see what was in the reading, no matter how many visions I cast, I could see with certainty that it would not alter August's future. He still ended up at the battlefield. August had asked me one morning, as I unceremoniously delivered two wide-eyed callings before Aren and Saraya, why a reading wasn't the answer to all of this. And if I was honest, only a small part of the decision was based in our knowing that I couldn't break through an archangel binding. But when it came down to it, my workload, combined with training August, and all the new souls had me beyond exhausted. Never in all my years, or Aren’s, had we had so many callings to pull to Grayshell, or so many rescues of souls and mortals alike. More and more Earthside families needed our protection, taking the form of both wardings, and me as their personal celestial guardian. I was spending more time with my feet on soil than iridescent cobblestones for the first time in centuries. Beyond our missions, Aren had me meditating, keeping my inner eye open to my visions any moment I could spare to sit down and breathe…
ReadingThe Great Commander—a soul I was bound to in at least one past life, our memories sewn into the very depths of us by some greater power…It would be like making sense of a myriad of patchwork that needed to be intimately unraveled, gingerly plucking out the false threads to reveal the true ones. A nightmare of woven clues and false positives to scrutinize slowly, over what would inevitably be days, but could take weeks with the depth of the history.IfI was even powerful enough to dissect them at all. As it was, I scarcely had time for the food Aren kept demanding I consume, or the sleep he insisted be prioritized, much less sitting for a week studying a soul of such unspeakable complexity.
And yet, as I unlaced my combat boots with slowly healing fingers, I found myself wondering if we should have shelved everything else and prioritized him. Prioritized replenishing my strength and taking a deep dive into the past with August. As if in answer, Aren summoned me to fetch yet another soul awakening Earthside. He, Lana, and Ansel were up to their elbows—literally—in demon guts after another healer had been attacked. We were drastically short in trackers and readers. With a sigh, I re-laced my shoes, rose on aching legs, and left yet again to retrieve our newest brother.
As our little team returned again, and again, and again, with new souls in tow and all parties uninjured, August seemed to grasp how unique he had been from the start. The callings were coming in unprecedented, colossal waves, somehow arriving two, three, four at a time, reinforcing our theory that whatever was on the horizon was going to require God-sized miracles to get through. Miracles like a twelve ascension day that had the team spread thin, and the demonic strikes on our healers demanding we call in reinforcements. New York was falling prey to a series of attacks, and we could no longer justify turning a cheek to the ring with Senator Jones at the center.
My visions had nearly gone dry—like hitting the bottom of a well in drought. Whatever was coming…it would require all these hands on deck. And yet, August remained our training priority. Our focus, at least in the arena.
August rarely allowed his eyes to stray from the courtyard path in front of us, chin parallel to the ground and shoulders back, arms loose at his sides as they pumped with the motion. He’d been intensely focused over the last few weeks, on bettering himself and becoming what we needed him to be. The effort showed in the rippling muscles down his back, his chiseled abs growing into defined ovals, and the steady growth creeping into his arms and legs.
Being Grayshell bound for so long could make for a weary mind and soul, so it was with that in mind that I finally spoke as we slowed to a walk. Sweat dripped down every inch of my skin, pooling between my breasts and sliding down my back. With relief, I realized he was also drenched.
“We’ve sent a few sentinels to New York to investigate the politician and missing healers. And a few have been in and out of Ivy Springs to monitor the crawler situation. Make sure it doesn’t turn into anything...worse.”
He nodded appreciatively as he gulped down air. “Any good intel?” He panted the question.
“Not much from Ivy Springs. It seems calmer...now that you’re not there to be hunted...New York. New York is a shit show.”
He grinned that beautiful, crooked smile, emerald eyes sparking. “Isn’t it always?”
“You’ve got me there.” I blew out a long breath.
With a slow drag of his arm, August wiped the sweat from his brow and chuckled. “So, what do we have on this guy?”
“He’s been on the list for a while. Suspected of everything. Affiliations with the mob, sex trafficking. Policies are barbaric. But his eyes went physically dark a few months ago, and his power grabs are only getting worse. The sentinels who’ve gotten closest say they can smell the energy on him. Demonic, certainly. But supposedly his vibrations aren’t possessed, as much as influenced. We’ll see.”
He gave me an approving nod. “Why is it always politicians?”
“Power. That’s really all it is. Demons want power. Politicians have it. Simple as that.”
“Are they all—”
“Oh, God, no. There are genuine leaders, too.”
