Free Darkest Knight by Karen Duvall Page B

get Rafe on my side.
    I needed to show him where I’d seen this woman. It might jog his recollection of events. Even if he hadn’t seen her I felt certain his sharp angel senses had picked up her presence.
    Rafe followed me outside, but when I got close to the warded entrance to the property, he ran ahead of me and blocked my path.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.
    “Stopping you from leaving the safety of this home,” he said.
    “There’s nothing dangerous out there. I’ll prove it.” I stood very still, opening my senses to the wilderness. The graceful soaring of a hawk drew my attention upward and I scanned the skies for anything out of the ordinary. Too cold for insects, I heard no buzzing but detected the scraping of deer or elk antlers against a tree about a quarter mile away. Leafless branches of aspen trees rattled against each other in a mild winter breeze. A nearby brook bubbled beneath a thin crust of ice. The air smelled crisp and untainted by the stench of the black veil. There was no safer place on earth at that moment than this very spot.
    “Such a peaceful setting could change in a flash,” Rafe said, his voice low and calm. He appeared nothing like the fiery angel that had attacked Aydin in the early-morning darkness. He was as serene as the babbling brook that echoed in the distance. “It happened once and can happen again. I’m prepared for the deluge. Are you?”
    “More than you are,” I told him.
    He smirked at me. “Does that mean you’d kill your gargoyle if he attacked you again?”
    I gritted my teeth. “How many times do I have to tell you there was no attack, at least not by him. Let me show you where I saw the woman.” I shouldered past him and he grabbed my arm. I yanked away. “What are you going to do, ground me?”
    His jaw tightened and his eyes went cold. “As your guardian, it’s my duty to protect you.”
    “I know that.” I folded my arms. “But you can’t protect me by letting a murderer go free.”
    “I have no intention of letting him go free.”
    “You mean her. ” I stepped backward toward the boundary, my gaze glued to his stubborn face. “It wasn’t Aydin. Xenia saw the woman, too. Let’s both go look at the spot where we saw her. It might jog your memory.”
    “I can help.” Natalie trotted down the front steps toward us. “If the woman left something behind, I may be able to learn who or what she is.”
    My grandmother came out of the house behind her, but she didn’t venture beyond the porch. If her hearing was anything like mine, which I knew it was, she wouldn’t need to. I wondered why she didn’t protest Natalie’s offer to help. Maybe she was giving us enough rope to hang ourselves, or to hang someone else, depending on what we discovered. The knights weren’t children and she knew that. Must be some kind of test that I had every intention of passing.
    Rafe appeared slightly unhinged. “Natalie, it’s not safe for you or Chalice. Your guardian wouldn’t approve.”
    “Camael is my guide, not my boss,” Natalie told him in a steely tone that surprised me. “I listen to his suggestions, but I’m the judge of what I can and cannot do. If I need his help, I’ll let him know.”
    Rafe squinted at her. “You’ve been a knight longer than Chalice has. She still has much to learn.”
    Natalie shook her head. “Not about something like this. She’s encountered more dark forces than any of us, and I’d say she handled herself just fine. Wouldn’t you?”
    “Of course,” Rafe admitted. “But this is different. She was almost killed today.”
    “Rafe, I can count on both hands the number of times I’ve almost been killed,” I told him. “Today wasn’t all that different.” I jerked a quick look at my grandmother, who grinned before turning to go back inside the house.
    “Come on, Natalie,” I said, and led the way to the road. “I’ll show you where she was.”
    Natalie followed me, and Rafe trailed