Free LEMNISCATE by Jennifer Murgia Page B

had changed.
    Then I felt it. A strange electrical impulse split the air behind me, worming its way up my spine.
    Garreth?
    It was familiar, yet not.
    Different.
    Alluring . . . dark . . . dangerous.
    Then I knew.
    I closed my eyes against the wish I had been stifling for so long.
    Was it possible? A distinct flavor always seemed to float in the air when he was near, and it burned my tongue. It was deceptively sumptuous—the taste of darkness, of temptation; it immediately drew my eye to his tall, intimidating form.
    I turned, acknowledging the presence in the corner of my bedroom faintly concealed in a shadow. I knew his dark eyes were waiting. I could feel them searing their way into me.
    Reluctantly, I let my eyes roam, taking in more of the beautiful face that was silently assessing me, and knew that once I met his gaze, he would have me.
    The moon broke through the thin vapor of the night and pierced its pearly light into my room. Hadrian stepped into its path, the glow washing over him with an almost magical light.
    Clouds thickened and scattered, darkening and relighting his face, eerily playing with the scant four feet that distanced us from each other. I took a careful step forward, leery of the familiar shape that wasn’t disappearing with the taunting light of the moon or shifting into a lie. Tonight Hadrian was not an illusion. His shoulders were set and rigid, but his eyes were . . . almost tender.
    “How long have you been here?” I tried to control the shake in my voice.
    “Days.”
    Days?
I had felt it, the soft lingering of him creeping closer with each dream, each day that I spent away from Garreth. I couldn’t help pulling Hadrian closer to the brink of my reality.
    “I felt your mind.” Hadrian interrupted my thoughts, answering the why that lingered on my lips.
    “You felt . . . my mind?” I couldn’t let Hadrian know how long my emotional wall had been crumbling; that I had become weak, defenseless, letting thoughts of him, the “what-ifs,” seep out into the universe. That guiltily, I was waiting for this. I should have been more careful.
    He appraised me for a moment, his eyes studying my face.
    “I thought it was an illusion, the lucid dreaming that comes with being confined, shaming me into delirium. Hours turned into weeks, I truly believed I was going insane,” he chuckled deeply. “Then again, I’ve always been a little off, haven’t I?”
    An invisible pole held me up just then because I was still having trouble digesting the fact that I was face to face with Hadrian.
Hadrian.
The dark angel the other guardians had feared. The very one who had planned the corruption of the angels and the destruction of the humans left behind. The one responsible for the disappearance of my father, and most likely Claire’s accident. The one who had taken Garreth . . .
    And yet . . .
    I was truly convinced that somewhere buried deep inside him, his soul slumbered, waiting for the moment when the light would come through once again and awaken the guardian that only I seemed to believe he could be.
    He stood still in front of me.
    “Where were you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
    “You don’t want to know,” he answered huskily.
    “Try me.”
    “Hell.”
    The answer shook me. Images of fire and misery flashed before me. It’s not somewhere I’d want anyone to go.
    “How did you get out?”
    “Does it matter?” He was agitated now and I couldn’t help but take a couple steps back.
    “I . . . I was just wondering.” My pulse pounded heavily in my ears as I struggled to meet his eyes. I was the one who let go of his hand that night in the woods. The one who sent him into the darkness. Did I send him
there
? To hell?
    Hadrian cocked his head to one side, as if listening to the rumblings inside my head. “It was Mathur,” he said, as if meaning to put my guilt at ease.
    “Mathur?”
    It had never occurred to me to question Mathur’s responsibilities. The high-ranking