BREAKING SHADOWS (Shadows Book 1)

Chapter 22

The wings were nailed to the wall with short metal pegs. Blood, dark-red and black, coated them, matting the feathers until they twisted into ruffled clumps. They were still attached to the bones that joined them to their human-like bodies, poised like skeletal hands. I kept thinking about when I'd found Rafe wounded in the garden. Had he been in this hell-hole the whole time and managed to escape? I could have vomited thinking about him locked in one of those cells.

Electricity broke the atmosphere.

"What the fuck are those?"

I whirled towards the voice; Rafe stood behind us, eyes locked on the wings. Some were the same colour as his, an ominous grey but others were different. Golds, whites and creams.

"Rafe."

Before I could draw breath, Leda rushed ahead and pushed me back with a dull thud to my chest. The pain was soon forgotten when she produced a living flame in her hand. My only thought was to protect Rafe.

"Leda no!"

Rafe's nostrils flared and his wings spanned either side of him. His eyes narrowed dangerously "I dare you, witch."

"No-one's daring anyone." I moved between them and reached out a hand to Leda's drawing her flames in a gush of water. "Rafe is with me. He's my friend."

Leda took a few steps back shaking water droplets from her hand. Her face was stricken. Horror blazed from her one good eye and she trembled where she stood. "You cannot be friends with him."

"I've had the lecture, thank you." Rafe visibly winced at that. "Rafe is a friend, there is nothing to fear from him."

"You have nothing to fear from me, do not speak for others." He shot Leda a menacing glare.

"Enough," I scolded him and it was enough to see the tension drain from him. Not completely, but his wings retracted and his shoulder line relaxed.

Leda snorted. "A witch and an angel friends? Do not let Nova find out."

"Why does she collect the wings?"

"It's not the wings she's after. They're just trophies, reminders of her victories over the angels." Leda waved a hand in the direction of the gruesome wall.

"Hearts," Rafe interjected grimly. "It's the hearts she wants."

I looked between angel and witch. "What do you mean?"

"She's a grandmother, the same age as Rebecca Archer and yet she walks around in the skin of someone in their mid-twenties."

"I've never seen her. So the hearts give her youth?"

"Three hearts a month just about does it. If she goes longer than a month without consuming the heart of an angel, she ages about fifty years. Although I don't know how much longer she can keep it up, the angels are already suspicious." Leda's eyes dropped to Rafe's chest.

"She eats them?" My stomach turned. "I thought that was just a story."

Leda nodded. "She eats them after the ritual is performed to remove it from the body."

And she wants the angel's heart.

"That's quite enough of that," Rafe said. "Riley doesn't need to know the details."

"I suppose. You are looking a little green already."

"Did you know about this?" I asked Rafe.

"The angels have been aware for some time that someone had been taking angels, but the practice itself? It has been known for centuries. It's one of the reasons angels fear witches. They know too much about our weaknesses."