Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 40901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Starlight
“SHE’S ESCAPING!”
Those are two words I do not want to hear mere minutes after unveiling my most prized captive. It barely bears believing, but I run outside to see that not only has Katya taken flight, but my idiot guards have taken aim with their bows and arrows, weapons they have been instructed to use only in times of attack. I should have known they would default to them at the first available opportunity. Guns are humdrum in these parts, but bows and arrows, well, they’re cool.
What is absolutely not cool is the way they are pointed at Katya’s winged form, and what is even less cool is the fact that… FWIP FWIP FWIP They are loosing the arrows at her.
“Stop! You flamin’ fools! Stop now!”
I run toward them as they unleash what I am sure is not their first volley of angel steel arrows. They are intended to be a last resort, and not to be used against our prisoners, but the last resort of a good man is the first of a dull brute.
“STOP! What the hell are you doing?”
“The prisoner is attempting an escape!” One of the guards shouts the words at me as if I cannot see that she has shed her chains and taken to the skies. There is no way she could have done that herself. She must have tricked them into removing them for her. Clever girl.
“The prisoner is worth more than any of your worthless, foolish lives. Stop shooting immediately.”
The lead guard, I wish I knew his name, is red in the face with bluster and bravado. No man is so proud of himself as a fool making his biggest mistake yet. “She’ll get away, sir. We know how much trouble you went to in order to capture her.”
“Yes. And to keep her alive. Does the header on your security pass say Dead Angel Storage?”
“Uh, no sir.”
“No. It doesn’t. Because this is not a facility for Dead Angel Storage. This is a prison for live angels. If you put an arrow through the fucking angel, she’s not going to live long, is she?”
“Sorry, sir. It’s just, she’s escaping.”
Actually she’s not escaping. They’ve hit her several times. In a sky made black with arrows that must have been an inevitability. I see her elegant female form stretched out, wings wide. I see her set against the sun, ever so briefly close to the heavens from which she came.
Something hot and wet falls on my face. Another spot hits the ground in front of my boots. At first, I mistake it for rain, but then a spot lands on my hand. It is red and it gleams with power. Within seconds, the yard is spattered with blood. Her essence is raining from the sky. With every beat of her wings it is spread across our prison, a corrupted yet divine rain.
They’ve hit her. More than once. They’ve made her bleed. I look up and watch as her wings falter, then crumple. As soon as her wings draw inward, she starts to fall in a tight spiral, tumbling out of control toward the earth. I am watching the most precious thing in all the universe be destroyed within minutes of making her mine. I took her from her life. I made her my possession. And I’ve managed to destroy her within less than an hour of letting her out of her cage. If I don’t act now, it will all be over.
These idiot guards are about to see another act of supernatural power. I utter the words of summoning, and my spurs flash with fire. My steed, Deimos, leaps between my thighs, rising from the earth itself, shadows becoming powerful equine flesh in a moment.
“What the fuck!” The exclamation comes from the throats of more than one man. Deimos is not of this world. He is a creature of the kind we are supposed to defend against here. My guards were righteous and allegedly good-hearted, but after today, they are tainted and damned.
Deimos does not need to be told what to do. He knows my will, and he lunges upward, his hooves beating at the air as we race into the sky at an ephemeral gallop. Clearly, Deimos is no normal horse. He is a manifestation of, well, perhaps not the divine, but that which exists beyond the boundaries of the mundane. It is with his power that I am able to catch Katie before she hits the ground. I reach out from his back and catch her mid-spiral, taking the impact of her weight with a grunt and a burst of feathers that accompanies the dissolution of her divine wings.
“Katie!” I say her name sharply, trying to get her to open her eyes, but they remain closed. Her face is frozen in an expression of repose as she lies in my arms, bloodied, bleeding, broken. In this shattered moment, she’s heartbreakingly beautiful. She makes me feel the most tender of emotions, and the most violent of impulses toward the idiots who shot her down like she was nothing more than a stray bird.