The Chronicles of Fire and Ice (The Legend of the Archangel Book 1) (16 page)

“
How do you harvest the tears from the Archangel?” asked the boy.

“
That information is not for you to know. Your job is just to coat the tips. Okay?” Lakyn told him, patting his shoulder, before heading towards the stairs. He was coming up, she realised. She needed to do something, and fast. So she ran towards the closest office. She pinned herself to the wall and waited. She heard his footsteps against the metal grate and thought he had gone past. She peeled herself off the wall and peered out and was met with ice blue eyes and a smirk.

“
Perfect,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her, she froze and went along with it, hoping to get somewhere, but all she felt was a sharp prick in her neck.

“
Lakyn, what…” she began, but then the world fell away from her.

“
Scarlett, hold on,” he told her. She sighed

“
Dyston, I knew you’d find me,” she muttered groggily. She opened her eyes and put her hand on his face.

“
I promise I’ll get you out.”

“
Out? What do you mean? I’m here with you, I’m safe.”

“
You’re only safe in this dream. Out there, you’re not.”

“
Dream? This can’t be a dream, you’re real,” she said as she pulled him close. They were on a bed in a blurry room, and they were the only ones whose features were clear.

“
I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“
It’s okay, I forgive you.” And then he kissed her deeply. And his kiss sucked away the rest of the world, so they were the only ones left in existence. Her hands found his buttons and slowly undid them. He didn’t stop her, so she kept going. She felt his hands on her arms. They slid up and over her shoulders and down her bare back, she realised she was wearing nothing but a backless hospital gown. She felt his fingers on the ties and they loosened. She tugged his shirt off and her fingers found his hair. She tangled them in his dark locks, and then slid them down over his lean back. He moaned with pleasure and pulled her closer to him, so that they were now in a sitting position. Scarlett wrapped her legs around his waist and the gown fell off her shoulders. He took her in, every glorious inch of her.

“
I love you,” he told her.

“
I love you, too,” she gasped and kissed him again. If this were a dream, it was the best one yet, and she never wanted to wake up. She reached for his jeans button and unzipped his fly. He grinned and let her fall back on the bed. He kissed her again and allowed her to slip his jeans down with her toes. Scarlett forgot her indiscretion with Lakyn and replaced the memory with this one. This would be her first time. She pulled his hips closer. Just as they were about to connect, he sat up.

“
Dys, what’s wrong?”

“
He’s coming.”
And then the dream cleared like fog, and she found herself strapped to a metal table in the centre of a white room.

“
Welcome back” said Lakyn. “You must have been having a good dream,” he smirked.

Scarlett
’s cheeks flushed. “It’s none of your business.” She tried to move her hands, but they were covered in tubes and cords, and small mechanical beeps were coming from a machine somewhere. She gazed around. They were in a clinical room. She looked at the tubes coming out of her wrists. They were the dark red colour of her blood.

“
What is this? Why are you taking my blood?”

“
Shh, relax, Scarlett. This is for a good cause,” said a woman in scrubs. Scarlett could only see her pale yellow eyes.

“
Unless you are taking it to help save someone, you have no permission to take my blood!”

“
We need your blood to help all the other angels,” Lakyn told her. Scarlett could tell he was trying to be serious, but she could see straight through his facade.

“
Liar. Dyston knows, so you better let me go,” Scarlett stated.

Lakyn laughed.
“My brother cannot enter the Realm anymore.”

Scarlett froze.
Realm
. They were in the angel equivalent to Purgatory. There was no escaping this time. And she didn’t have the strength to make another Angel protection ward. And Dyston couldn’t save her. She was stuck here. She was certain that this room and these faces would be the last thing she would ever see.

“
All right, Scarlett, now I need you to cry.”

Cry?
They were taking her tears, as well?
She wasn’t going to let them. She squeezed her eyelids shut.

“
She’s going to resist,” said the woman with the yellow eyes.

“
Here, I’ll try,” said Lakyn. He leaned close. Scarlett could tell because she felt his breath on her face and smelt the pungent odour of cigarettes that always accompanied him.

“
Scarlett, is there anything you want me to tell Dyston for you, because you won’t be going back to him.” Scarlett opened her eyes and stared at him.

“
Come on, you must have something you want to say to him. Don’t you love him?”

Her eyes began to sting. No! She had to hold them back
. She just had to. She wouldn’t be the one to ruin the world. Just one drop of her salty tears could kill many souls.

“
This is going to kill him. Oh, how I’m really going to enjoy seeing him suffer. He’s so weak, my brother,” chuckled Lakyn. “Or maybe I’ll bring him in here and make him watch me torture you. Then I’ll pluck out each of his feathers one by one.”

“
You evil son of a bitch!” screamed Scarlett. She wasn’t strong enough. He put her under again and stole from her the most powerful weapon in the universe.

Fight

Scarlett moved in and out of unconsciousness, her vision wavered and her hearing lulled like she was floating on the ocean. Up and down, in and out. In between waves, she picked out a few words from the conversation being had around her.

“
I have the tears.” There was a pause, and then the same voice spoke again, it was female.

“
I have some blood.”

Scarlett blinked and saw a blurred image, a whi
te figure moving about the room. Was she still in the lab?

“
There’s a problem,” said the woman, a little clearer this time, “she keeps replenishing it.”

The next thing Scarlett heard was a muffled male voice
. It sounded like he was shouting.

“
Drain her!” he said, sounding outraged. The male voice seemed familiar, but Scarlett was too weak and too drugged to recognize him. No! She cried, but the word didn’t escape her mind. She was stuck inside her own body, and she felt a desperate need to fight, to be free. She couldn’t die here, not here, not alone, not without Dyston. She had to see him one more time, even if it were in a dream.

She f
elt heat. It engulfed her body. She wanted to scream, but she realised she wasn’t in pain. It was her body that was causing the heat. It was her Trait! She clenched her fists and concentrated on the warmth, the energy it seemed to give her. It revitalised her. Her wrists felt freer. There was less tension there. Then she looked down and saw that no binds held her, so she lifted her arms, but was met with resistance. She felt hands wrap around her wrists. They tugged her arms back down. Then she felt another prick, a sudden sharp pain that faded into nothingness. Sleep followed soon after.

“
Scarlett?”
a voice echoed in the dark corners of her mind. It was coming closer.
“Scarlett.”
She recognized it immediately. She smiled and opened her eyes. Her vision was no longer blurred, and she could see his face as clear as day.

“
Dys, you came back.”

“
I never left.”

“
He’s gone, you can stay now.”
She snuggled into his chest. His body was warm and as familiar as her own. The scent of vanilla and rain flooded her nose. She inhaled and sighed.

“
I wish I could get you out of there,”
he told her.

“
I wish you could too. I’m trying, I’m holding on like you told me to do.”

“
Good. You’re stronger than you know. There is no one else in the universe that is as strong as you.”

“
Sometimes I hate being a burden,”
she sighed. Dyston suddenly gripped her chin in his hand and turned her face towards his.

“
Don’t ever say that. You are not a burden. Not to me and not to anyone.”

“
But sometimes I feel like killing myself just to end this. I’m the reason we’re even in this mess.”
Scarlett said. His eyes turned stormy, which made Scarlett shudder. It scared her.

“
Do not talk like that, you hear? Promise me you won’t ever think like that again.”
He hugged her tight, his embrace desperate.
“It is not your fault.”

“
I promise,”
she whispered. And then he kissed her. First feather-light, and then it grew hungry and needy. She was the first to break it.

“
How’s everyone? Emer, Kat, Josh, Jacob?”

“
They’re good. They miss you, especially Kat.”
He chuckled.

“
I’m sorry for just leaving like that.”

“
No, you’re not.”

“
Okay. I’m not.”

“
If Lakyn brings the world down, you and I still have each other at the end of the day,”
he told her, stroking her hair.

“
Hey, the world is so much bigger than just you and I. I love you, but we have to help.”

“
Okay. We’ll help without you running off again.”

“
Promise,”
she told him. Dyston traced kisses along her jaw line.

“
Because I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
He kissed her again, and this time her face became transparent.

“
What’s happening?”
she asked frantically.

“
Someone’s interfering with this dream, trying to send you another one.”

“
Who?”

“
I don’t know, just let them. I’ll talk to you again soon,”
he said, blinking in and out of focus like a mirage.

“
Dys, don’t go.”
She tried desperately to hold onto him, but it was too late, he was gone. And in his place stood Lakyn, but he wasn’t in this room. He was in the factory.

“
Are they the tears?” asked his young apprentice. “Wow, they sparkle.”

“
They do have a shimmery appearance,” said Lakyn, as he inserted the tear vial into a slot at the top of the machine. It was a small clamp above a large vat.

“
Are the arrow heads ready, Aaron?”

“
Yes. All five thousand of them.”

“
Excellent, coating starts tomorrow. Now, for the blood.”

“
What are you going to do with the blood, Sir?” asked Aaron.

“
I’m going to send it away for testing so we can see exactly what Archangel blood can do,” Lakyn grinned.

A
nd then the dream faded, and Scarlett was left lying on a metal slab in the white room again.

The door
swooshed open and in walked the woman with the yellow eyes.

“
What’s happening now?” Scarlett asked.

“
We just need to do a few more tests.”

“
I think you’ve done enough tests,” said Scarlett, kicking out when the woman was close enough, her foot connecting with the woman’s stomach, causing her to stumble back.

“
Stop fighting, Scarlett,” said another voice, another female. Scarlett recognised her as Ariel.

“
Let me go, I’m not a lab rat.”

“
No, you’re a unique specimen, and that’s why we want you to stay here with us.”

That was it. That
was the whole purpose of being brought here. She knew Ariel had ulterior motives, but Scarlett refused to become a lab experiment.

“
I’d rather die,” said Scarlett, throwing a ball of flame towards Ariel’s face, singeing her. Ariel screamed.

“
Then die, you will,” growled Ariel. She stood up straight after recovering slightly from being burned and grabbed a syringe off a nearby table. Scarlett saw skin peeling away from her face where she had burnt her. She could see the bone. It made her feel nauseous. Then Ariel plunged the syringe full of bright green liquid into Scarlett’s arm. She stopped fighting.

Wack! A snowbal
l hit Dyston square in the face. It caught him off guard and he fell back into the soft snow. Another assaulted him in the chest.

“
Hey, you shouldn’t kick someone while they’re down,” he chuckled.

“
Sorry, do you surrender?” Scarlett asked him, appearing from behind the tree that had acted as her fort.

“
Yes, yes, I surrender,” he said as he put his arms up.

“
Good.” She ran over and flopped down in the snow beside him. “So when did you first know that you had to look after me?” she asked as she gazed at him. Dyston looked so deadly, dark, and beautiful against the white powder. She reached out and touched her fingertips to his. They were perfect snow angels.

“
When I was eighteen, I began having dreams.”

“
Who sent them to you?”

“
I still don’t know.”

“
Were they dreams like mine?”

“
Yeah, a flash of colour here, a smell there, and not always at night.”

“
That’s more intense than what you sent me.”

“
That’s because I’m not a very powerful angel. I think these dreams were sent to me by an angel much higher up.”

“
Like an Archangel?” Scarlett asked, getting up on her elbow.

“
Yeah, could be. I’ve been beginning to put the pieces together.”

“
You mean to say, that more has happened than just the dreams?”

“
Yeah. I’ve received numerous mysterious notes and items, and no one has claimed giving them to me. So, who else could they be from?”

“
Maybe you have a secret admirer,” Scarlett teased, shoving him playfully.

“
Yeah, right,” he replied, leaning over to kiss her. Scarlett giggled. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back so passionately that she felt they would melt the snow. After a few seconds, she released him.

“
We better get back,” he said. She got to her feet with Dyston’s help, and together, they brushed the snow off their coats.

“
Yeah, before your secret admirer comes looking for you,” Scarlett teased.

“
Ha ha!” He shoved her playfully and took flight. Scarlett followed him. She felt his wing tips graze hers, so she felt comforted at the fact that he was right beside her.

B
lack and gold—a perfect match.