“Now tell us how you came to be on our land.” Abaddon’s barked-out command is spoken when Hannah-consort asks, “So what’s your name?”
A baby’s distant cry quickly takes her attention.
“Sorry,” Hannah says cheerfully. “That’s our baby, Raven. She must have woken up from her nap. She’ll be fussy if I don’t get in there and nurse her.” Hannah slips through the door at the opposite end of the room to attend to baby Raven.
The woman stares after her, gaze slightly askew, as if this is the most bewildering turn of events since she awoke in the castle.
But of course it is. She’s come to, surrounded by monsters. Abaddon is demanding answers, but we are the true anomaly here.
So again, I step forward. “I am sorry for my rude brother,” I say. “He is afraid of. . . outsiders. He worries for the safety of his baby daughter, you understand. There are always threats from the woods.”
The blonde woman’s bright blue eyes flick to me and then away, but for once, they are not full of terror. Maybe I am getting through to her. “Threats,” she echoes. Then her eyes slice back in my direction. “Let me go.”
“Go where?” Abaddon demands. “Where did you come from?”
“Away from here!” she shouts at him, her hand reaching down to her thighs. When she realizes her blades are no longer there, frustration flashes across her face. “And give me my weapons back.”
To my shock, Abaddon says, “Of course you are free to go. I will show you to the door.”
“You can’t let my consort go!” Remus objects, stepping out of the shadows. “She is fated for me.”
“You don’t believe in fate,” I growl. “Now get out of the way. As our eldest brother said, she is free to go.”
“Oh, so now that you agree with him, it’seldest brother says so?” Remus mocks. “Five minutes ago, you were ready to tear his head off.”
I advance on my childish, selfish brother, and his tail raises behind him, wings flaring out as if he is readying for a fight.
“Stop it, all of you,” Abaddon shouts. “Female human, follow me. I’ll show you the way out.”
She nods hurriedly, glancing between Remus and me, then moving quickly after Abaddon as he gestures to the door that leads towards the exit.
I follow them to ensure Abaddon leads her to the true door instead of the dungeon for interrogation and to protect her flank from Remus. It is always a mistake to underestimate Remus. And considering Abaddon’s sudden willingness to let her go, I cannot say I trust either of my brother’s motives.
Why I suddenly feel so protective of this small human, I cannot say. But I will not see any more harm come to her.
As we near the door, I become alarmed as another thought strikes me. “She does not have enough coverings.”
Since Hannah-consort gave birth to her daughter, she has become susceptible to the cold again. The temperatures hereare quite uncomfortable—even deadly—for weak human bodies. She was only given brief immunity to the cold because of the pregnancy and the hybrid baby inside her.
“I’m sure wherever she is going is close enough,” Abaddon says in the low, dangerous tone he sometimes adopts, “that it will not be a problem. She arrived here in perfect condition, after all.”
Understanding dawns. He is not setting her free out of the goodness of his heart. Which, if he has any, is quite limited, and generally only extends to his wife and baby daughter.
No, he intends to track this woman back to where she came from. Of course. He believes our angel adversary is involved in her sudden appearance.
It might not be a bad plan. If one is strictly mercenary and also doesn’t care if she freezes to death.
Because if the angel is watching, as Romulus’s scryings continue to show, will they be so easily fooled? I doubt it. They will see us coming if we try to follow her back to their nest.
Easier to let the bait freeze to death. If indeed sheissome sort of bait and not just a very, very lost traveler.
“Go get one of Hannah-consort’s thickest coats,” I rumble, stepping between him and the woman. “Hand-coverings too. Or she does not go. She will not be safe in the cold.”
The sideways slits of Abaddon’s lion’s eyes narrow, but he must sense my stubbornness on the subject because he huffs in annoyance, then turns to search for the objects I’ve demanded.
I shake my head in frustration at this farce that we are letting her go. What my foolish brother does not want to admit is that while this castle has been frozen in time, the world has moved on. Sped up.
From what Romulus told me when he traveled with Hannah-consort to a modern city, the humans have become quite ingenious during our two-hundred years locked in the dungeon.
