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Chapter One
The Prison
Evangeline
“Wake up.”
A deep, velvety voice filled me with warmth and love, but a mist covered him. I ached for a glimpse of his face.
“Two halves…” I struggled to open my eyes as my words drifted off in my dream.
“Wake up, Little Dove.”
A tall striking-looking man with dark hair past his shoulders appeared in the haze—and then a blast of white light blinded me.
I gasped for air and shook out of my delirium. Groaning, I sat upright on hard-packed dirt layered with straw and blinked until the flickering torches hung by the metal bars and rocky walls of my prison came into focus.
Shit! I recalled my body swaying as if the floor had tilted, and then the world had turned dark.
How long had I been in this cell?
Day or night? Impossible to tell with no windows.
My head pounded like a beating drum, and the stench of urine and feces turned my stomach. I gagged, holding in the urge to vomit, and pain surged up my chest.
Something warm trickled down my hip. As I lowered my hand, the heavy weight of clanking shackles stopped me short.
Metallic gray cuffs made out of hematite crystal—an iron-based mineral that suppresses angel energy—hung on my wrists.
Damn these chains.
With a trembling hand, I dabbed at the wetness to gauge the depth of the gash under my rib cage. Thick, golden blood oozed through my skintight white uniform, between my fingers, and dripped onto the hay.
The wound was deeper than I’d thought.
Even though the cut had begun to heal, the restraints around my wrists and ankles would slow my recovery time.
I tuned my senses to listen for any clue about my whereabouts. Absolute silence.
Don’t give up. Friends are coming. Unless they were captured too. But we wouldn’t have all been captured, right?
A soft breeze stroked my face and caressed my long, gilded hair, but the brief comfort was shattered by the sound of a slap upon flesh. Soft whimpers came from the prisoners beyond the pitted brick walls.
“No…please.” A man’s desperate voice echoed. “I’ll give you coins. Please don’t touch me.”
The captive was probably a hybrid offspring of a human and a lesser angel or low-class demon, or merely a mortal. Either way, he would be assaulted and killed.
Guilt pierced through my soul. There was nothing I could do to help him. Again, damn these hematite crystal cuffs.
Heavy footsteps thudded along the dark corridor. The feathers along my spine gathered in a tight bundle, ruffled involuntarily in warning of demons nearby.
I pushed up to my feet, my knees wobbling as I retreated to the wall. It would protect my back, and no way would these soldiers see me on the ground like a groveling pig.
I widened my stance, holding the chains like a weapon, and slowly unfurled my wings through the back slits of my suit. It felt so good to loosen my muscles until pain radiated from the wound.
I swiped a finger on the dried splatters—crimson human blood and black demon blood—on my uniform.
Similar stains dotted my alabaster and golden feathers. How many had I killed before they had captured me?
