His thoughts mimicked mine as I walked to the perimeter of the room and ran my eyes along every inch, looking for a slight crack. The walls were made of a rough stone and hid any discrepancies well because of it. My hands roamed, feeling for a thinner section or anything to give us a clue. I made it around two walls with no luck before my hands glided over a section that felt cooler. Hovering my hand around, I quickly found a small stream of air coming from a crack.
“Success,” I announced, smugness in my tone at having found it before him. “There’s something behind here. I just need to figure out how to open it.”
“Humble, I see,” he rumbled before heading toward me.
I couldn’t help but flash him a full-fledged smile as I pressed along the edge of the crack until a small rectangular section pushed in, popping the wall open just as he reached my side. “Truly, how could you have ever done this without me?” I questioned, winking at him in the process.
“So,sohumble,” he retorted, emphasizing his words with the perfect amount of sarcasm in return.
I shrugged before following him into the pristine room that now laid before us. “Hey, I’m not good at pretty much anything else in my life, so I’m going to soak up this win.”
That was a little sad when I thought about it, but still true.
He shot me an unamused look, his lips thinned and pressed together. I wilted under his heavy stare as he chided me, “Don’t talk about yourself like that. You have a lot to offer the world, Little Star.”
The sincerity and conviction in his words floored me, and I stood there in a stupor for a moment as he fussed through the white bookcases lining the large walls. Glass cases took up the central part of the room, drawing my focus to the items that lay atop the cushioned mats within.
“Are you going to tell me what we’re looking for so I can help?” I asked as my feet took me toward a multitude of jewels sparkling under the lights of the case. My eyes widened at the gems. Energy swirled within each of them, dancing around like it was trapped inside. A sound of surprise escaped me as a semi-transparent black one pulled my gaze over. A red energy pulsed within it, syncing up perfectly with my heart beat.
What the hell?
I pushed back, feeling uneasy at the unknown powers that lay within this room.
KIERAN
“It’s an old text and a dagger,” he finally answered in a gruff voice before he continued in a quiet mutter, “Where the fuck is it?”
A small smile curved my lips up. He sounded kind of adorable, all flustered like that. I continued to walk around the cases, determined to help find something, since heclearlywouldn’t find weapons on the bookshelf. I hummed softly to myself as our search continued.
Amidst the array of tools, my eyes honed in on one dagger. It was rather simplistic, yet beautiful, with a black leather hilt and pointed silver pieces stemming down from the crossguard to protect the wielder's hand. I felt mesmerized by it, and an intense longing to hold it in my palm overwhelmed me.
“I…I found the dagger, I think,” I softly announced, barely hanging onto the thread of sanity within me that prevented me from lifting the glass to grab it.
What the hell was going on with me? It felt like an invisible thread was tied between my heart and the weapon, telling me—no, convincing me—that it was mine.
With a shaky breath, I backed up as the dagger began to vibrate within the case. I blinked furiously as I bumped into Gabe’s chest with a thud, earning a grunt from him.
“Hey, what’s wro—” he began to ask but was silenced as the case exploded in our faces.
In a split second, his wings burst out and cocooned us from the shards of glass raining down. He wrapped his arms around my waist, spinning us around.
The sound of the glass crashing to the ground around us finally ceased just as alarms began to blare, startling us out of the safety of his wings. I stared at him with wide eyes, unsure of what to do, but when I saw his gaze pinned lower on my body, my brow pinched. Following his stare, I let out a yelp of surprise. “What the fuck!”
There, in my curled hand, was the dagger that had been in the glass case.
I stared at it with an open mouth, beyond confused as to how it had wound up in my hand before shoving it at Gabe. “Take it! We have to get out of here!”
I had so many questions, but self-preservation won out with the knowledge that the guards would be upon us in mere minutes, if not less.
He ignored me, darting back to the cases. “Not without the book! I can’t come back here again, and I need it. The dagger is useless without it!”
I spun to scream at him that none of it was worth it if he died but stopped as a golden glow came from the back corner of the room. I didn’t think, just reacted, running toward it with the dagger still in my hand. I hadn’t seen the golden ribbons of light before, so they had to be related.
“Over here!” I yelled at Gabe as my feet crunched over the scattered, broken glass in my path.
I yanked the book out and tossed it at his chest without even glancing at the cover. We needed to get the hell out of here. Apparently, he agreed because his boots skidded across the floor before he changed his trajectory to match mine.
He quickly caught up as I pumped my arms hard, making a beeline through this room and the decoy one before it. I glanced at him out of my peripheral vision, noticing the way he slowed down to keep pace with me.
