Angel Academy

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Aurora's POV:

 I ran as silently as I could down various darkened corridors, the quiet crunching of small stones that had fallen from the broken walls being the only noise that reached the still air. 

"Wait" whispered Shade as he grabbed onto my arm. 

I instantly stopped moving and pressed myself up against the wall to remain unseen as the deafening scraping of a heavy door echoed around the room. Upon hearing footsteps, we edged carefully back the way we came to conceal ourselves behind a tall but skinny beam, having to stand extremely close to each other in order to stay hidden.

The seemingly booming footsteps grew closer making my heartbeat quicken to an unnatural pace. Out of instinct, I closed my hand around the dagger that Orpheus had given me so I was prepared to fight and looked up at Shade who shook his head disapprovingly at me. As much as I wanted to sprint around the corner and take the guard by surprise, I decided to put my trust in him so I remained still and waited in anticipation as the footsteps continued to grow louder. 

Just before my patience caved, the footsteps stopped... filling the room with a sickening silence. I wondered whether the guard was going to spoil our plan by staying in the room, or whether it was going to find us and alert the others of our presence, either way, our plan for an element of surprise was swiftly slipping away. 

I looked up at Shade who was leaning towards the edge of the pillar, he peered around the side of it before he pulled his head back to meet my gaze. 

"Get ready" he mouthed silently as he grabbed ahold of one of his own daggers. 

We were just about to jump into the open when the footsteps started again... but this time they were at a much quicker pace and appeared to fade away, the guard was leaving. 

"Let's just go" I voiced upon seeing Shade's confused expression. 

We wasted no more time and ran stealthily down a few more corridors until we reached a dead end and a thin case of stairs, we descended down them swiftly without question and continued to run aimlessly through the castle. 

"In here!" exclaimed a hoarse voice. 

We both skidded to a stop and approached the door which led to the source of the voice. 

"I know that you're not one of the guards, he has called them all back to him... please... help me" croaked the voice raspily.

Shade looked at me for confirmation so I nodded my head and pushed open the door since I figured that the person inside was a prisoner that could have some information on Chase's location. 

I walked cautiously into the dark room with Shade walking close beside me. With the little light that we had provided by opening the door, I could see that the source of the voice was a male. He was chained up against the wall in a standing position and had various cuts and scratches over his pale skin. I also noticed that he had scraggily coal black hair and painfilled golden eyes that seemed to stare straight through me. His slightly aged face and gloomy eyes allowed me to see that he was a man that had given up hope long ago. 

"The candle" he groaned moving his head to gesture to the far corner of the room "use its light" he finished. 

Shade moved across the room and held his hands over the candle, slowly bending the flames to his will. He directed his newly formed chain of fire to flow in a continuous circle above our heads as we approached the man before us. 

The man stared at Shade as if he had seen a ghost, never taking his eyes from him, as creepy as this was, I chose not to question him since it gave me a chance to try and figure out who and what he is. Upon a clearer inspection, I noticed that the man was heavily chained to the wall by his arms, legs, torso, feet and neck. He even had wolfsbane tangled within his chains which revealed that he was at least part werewolf.