Whatever the fuck this place was.
She straightened then turned to me, her hands clasped in front of her waist. She stared for several seconds, regarding me with an absorbent gaze, taking in my features. She was in black jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt, dressed the way the rest of the men were. The longer she looked at me, the colder her stare became, her mouth even pressing together in a distinctive frown. Without asking me a single question or even hearing my voice, she’d decided she hated me.
Loathed me.
“You aren’t in white.”
I glanced down at my clothes, seeing the denim jeans and the long-sleeved purple sweater I’d been wearing when I was taken. There had also been a scarf, but that had disappeared. I had just been relieved to see I was still clothed when I woke up, that someone hadn’t touched me without my consent.
Her anger intensified. “Change.”
I looked at her again, my skin prickling at the command.
She took a step closer to me, her eyes fierce. “Discard your earthly form and embrace your ethereal truth.”
Total nutjob.
“You don’t need to hide your identity here. We know exactly who you are.” Her voice lowered, and not once in this standoff did she blink. As if she’d put numbing medication in her eyes, she didn’t need to close her eyes to fight the dryness. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid?” I knew I should hold my tongue because I was at the mercy of this situation and it wasn’t smart to provoke anyone or anything, but her statement was absolutely ludicrous. “You’ve taken me from my home and locked me up in here—”
“Your home is heaven—which you left willingly.”
P-S-Y-C-H-O.
“And you aren’t locked in here. The door is unlocked—always.”
I hadn’t even checked. My head turned to the door, the slab of wood that no longer confined me to this place. Did Beatrice know the door was unlocked? “Then I can just leave?”
“Yes.”
What was I missing? “So, I can just…head back to where I came from?”
“Theoretically.”
There was a catch here. I just didn’t know what it was.
“Your immortality allows you to do things the rest of us can’t. None of us can leave—and survive.”
Yep…there was a catch.
“Put on your wings.” She moved to the divide in the room that led to Beatrice’s. Her hand slipped inside the wall, and she pulled two solid pieces of wood toward the middle and locked the door in place. She slipped the key into her pocket then turned back to me.
“Why?” I continued to grip the book in my hands so I could knock her out if she came too close.
“Because an angel needs her wings.”
“Bitch, I’m not an angel. I’m just a person that you kidnapped.”
That stiff expression never relaxed, her fingers interlocking firmly, her skin stretching because she gripped herself so tightly. “Don’t make me retrieve them. You won’t like what they will do to you. It hurts us all to hurt an angel…but sometimes, we must.”
“Who’s them?”
She stepped closer to me, her shoulders back and her head held high, like she was some kind of royalty in this godforsaken place. “The Malevolent.”
I pictured the men with the cattle skulls on their heads, faceless beings that did the grunt work for the man who grinned at me. They weren’t figments of my imagination, but real nightmares that crawled out of the darkness underneath your bed and grabbed you by the ankle. These monsters were real. Their slowness and their silence disturbed me. They didn’t seem to be from this world—and that terrified me. The threat was enough to quiet my fight.
She seemed to realize that. “He’s ready to see you.”
Now my heart pounded harder, the sound of drums in my ears, the weakness emerging in both of my hands. Flashbacks hit me all at once, his face across the street, standing right up against the window with that smile. His eyes reflected the stage lights as he stood in the middle of the auditorium, his evil presence silencing the protests of the people in the neighboring seats. “Who’s he?” I asked the question without needing the answer. His face was permanently ingrained in my mind, and even if I’d never been taken, he would still be the star of my nightmares.
She stared down at me for a long time, her lips pressing harder together until they were just a thin line on her face. “Your demon.” Her body was so rigid it didn’t seem like she needed to take a breath, like she was a living statue that had no bodily necessities. “Forneus.”
3
Constance
The cold hit me in the face the second I stepped outside and into the elements.
It was dark, moonlight shining down through the branches of the trees overhead. Stars blanketed the sky, so visible and brilliant that I had to be hundreds of miles away from Paris. The only sounds I could distinguish were the crackling flames from the fires lit throughout the area.
Small wooden buildings were spaced out throughout the clearing, small cabins nestled in the privacy of the forest. A slight breeze moved through my hair and kept it behind my shoulders. The fabric of my white dress was light and soft to the touch, made of high-quality cashmere. It was tight around my waist and flared out toward the bottom, and the same happened with the sleeves. I was barefoot, and there had been no shoes in my closet. The fabric of the dress dragged behind me as I took the steps down to the earth at the bottom. My feet immediately felt the coldness of the ground.
The dress was light—but the wings were heavy.
They stretched out far behind me, rising above my height and then curving back down again. They were made of a combination of silk and goose feathers, so intricate that they had to have been made by hand. It wasn’t a cheap Halloween costume that you bought at a party store to go trick-or-treating. This was the real deal.
The woman led the way, her hands clamped together as she glided across the earth.
It was a lot to take in at once.
In the center of the clearing was a large stone statue of a woman dressed the same way I was, with the wings on her back, with her head held high in grace. Beneath her were demons, all reaching their hands up to touch her. They were disfigured monsters with claws and tails, all depicted as pained and vicious creatures. There was a circle of torches around it to illuminate it as the centerpiece of this place.
Goose bumps formed on my arms as we drew near and saw the details up close. The angel was clearly revered—and the monsters wanted her. I stopped on the path to stare even though I wished I’d never seen it in the first place. The demons were different sizes, some small like a child, while others could perch on her shoulder.
The woman stopped when she realized I was no longer behind her—even though she didn’t turn around to look at me. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” She turned her head slightly, her cheek partially visible.
I turned back to her, my eyes incredulous. “That’s an interesting way to describe it…”
We continued through the clearing and reached a cobblestone path. There was too much to take in all at once, and there was no sign to give me any indication of where I was. I was just…nowhere. My eyes turned to scan the darkness, and that was when I noticed them.