Fear made me freeze. I couldn’t breathe. “P-p-please,” I managed to whisper. “Please let me go.” My shaking hand reached between us and settled on his bare wrist.
A strange expression crossed his face. He jerked away from me as if I’d burned him and stepped backward.
“Talk. Now,” he bit out. He rubbed his wrist, giving me a suspicious look as if I’d tried to poison him.
I gasped for breath, my whole body shaking. Sagging against the tree, my eyes rolled back. Pretend you’re in a forest talking with Eve, my mind suggested. Pretend a frightening seraph isn’t really standing here.
“That’s all I know,” I got out between gasps. “What Lilith told me. She cares about him.”
“What Lilith revealed about our weakness must remain a secret,” Azrael warned, the unspoken threat hovering in the air around us. Azrael would do whatever it took to keep those secrets hidden. Of that I had no doubt. “He should have healed by now. A few humans should be no match for him,” Azrael mused.
“Yes, that’s what Lilith said!” I nodded encouragingly. “So what is the plan? What are you going to do?”
He cut me a dark look. “This is what we are going to do.”
“We?” I repeated in disbelief. “Oh, no, I don’t think so. I’m nothing like you.” I gestured up and down his body. “I can’t help someone like you.”
“Yes, you will,” he growled, reaching out as if to grab my arm. Right before he touched me, he jerked back. “You’re going to show me how to get into this place and where these worms are so I can destroy them.”
I sucked in a breath. “Oh. I—I don’t think?—”
His glare silenced me.
Misery and fear swirled in my stomach.“Very well.”
Twenty-Three
Lilith
Just a little bit further. A little… It fell, pinching my finger. I grunted in pain, pulling my hand away from the hinges.
How long has it been? Surely it was near midday. Silence was due back with more water.
My stomach rumbled loudly. I put a hand over my belly, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. No, I ordered myself. You will not cry again. No more crying allowed. Castiel could be dead—no, no. Don’t even think it.
A day ago I was terrified of accepting Castiel’s mate bond. Such a privileged problem to have.
Maybe he’s escaped and gone back to Mirkwold, a little voice suggested. Maybe he’s already left you.
If so, would that be my fault? I hadn’t responded well to his declaration. Four gods, I hadn’t even told him how I was falling in love with him. You pushed him away. Why would he stay, especially after how you and other humans have treated him?
Rejecting his bond had been my method of pushing him away before he could realize his mistake in bonding himself to me. And now it might be too late…panic filled my lungs, drowning me. What if I had been wrong? What if we could’ve loved one another for centuries, his feelings never turning to resentment and neglect—and I’d ruined it?
My vision blurred and the room spun around me. What if he was dying, right now, unaware that underneath the fear I’d shown him was a love so vast I hadn’t plumbed the depths of it yet? How could I live with myself if he died, thinking he was unloved?
A door creaked open far down the corridor outside.
I froze, holding my breath to hear better.
One set of feet tiptoed along the edge, light and reminding me of Silence. The other…I almost didn’t hear it. Just the faint swish of feathers against wood.
My heart lifted. Castiel! He was free and he was coming for me! I scurried to my feet and brushed the hair back from my face. I loved that Castiel didn’t care if I looked beautiful all the time, but a girl did have a little pride.
“Lilith?” Silence’s voice trembled outside the door.
“Yes! I’m here!” I pressed my hands against the rough wooden door. “Is he here? Castiel? Is that you?”
“Is that Lilith?” a rough, unfamiliar voice jarred hope right out of me.
