A Temptation of Angels Read Free

and she had nothing else to trust save those instructions.
    Grasping the necklace in her free hand, Helen waved it in the dark. There was no light, only a chilling cold that spread from her palm, up her arm, and to the outer reaches of her body, quelling even the heat from the quickly enclosing fire. Still, it was not the heat alone that was her enemy. The smoke stung her eyes and throat, and a series of hacking coughs burst too loudly into the small space around her. It was when she recovered her wits a moment later that she thought she could make out the floorboards beneath her feet and perhaps even the wall in front of her. Squinting into the darkness, she wondered if it was herimagination. If perhaps she was simply becoming used to the dark. But no, the room
was
becoming lighter, and when her eyes followed the light to its source, she understood why.
    She had been holding it wrong. The pendant glowed from the translucent crystal held inside her fist. Once she flipped it around, holding it by the metal crown, the other end glowed like a tiny beacon, an eerie green light illuminating the wall in front of her and the ones to her right and left. Now she could see the smoke filling the room. It dipped and swirled in the light. She scooted away from the wall at her back, gagging and choking as the smoke filled her lungs and knowing the space behind her was the only hope for the stairs Mother had promised.
    At first, it seemed only a wall—a solid span of timber that had sheltered her back as she listened to the footsteps of the man stalking her from within the bedchamber. But when she followed it with her eyes to the place where it should meet the other wall, she realized it didn’t quite connect. Crawling toward the gap while clutching her bag in one hand and her pendant in the other was neither easy nor quiet, but she had long since given up remaining silent, despite her mother’s warning. If the creaking and crackling of the fire were any indication, her scuffling across the floor of the hidden room was the very least of her concerns.
    It took only seconds to reach the break in the wooden wall. The gap was larger than she first thought, and she leaned forward, peering around to the blackness on the other side.
    The stairs were just as Mother said they would be. They descended in a tightly packed spiral into utter darkness below, but the burning in Helen’s eyes and lungs was a reminder that she had no choice. Mother had said they would come and they had. She had said the stairs would be here and they were. She had said Helen would escape—and she would.
    She hesitated at the top of the stairs as the groaning of the house grew stronger, the smoke thicker. She saw the fear in her mother’s eyes in the moment before they had been separated. Helen retched, her lungs burning, even as the resolve to return for her parents solidified.
    Leaving her mother and father to this dark fate was impossible.
    She started back for the door to her hiding place but stopped short when her mother’s voice echoed through her mind.
    “You will get out of here alive… Otherwise, it’s all for nothing.”
    Something fell with a crash somewhere below, and the floorboards quaked under Helen’s feet. She didn’t know what was happening or why, but one thing was certain: Her parents wanted her out of the house alive, and they had been willingto sacrifice their own lives to see it done. If she went back now and was killed, her mother would be right: It would have been for nothing.
    She would find Darius and Griffin and enlist their help. Then, she would come back for her parents.
    Looping the valise’s handle over her shoulder, Helen scooted back to the stair, holding the pendant in front of her to illuminate the way. She wasted only seconds fumbling for a handrail before realizing that it was futile. There wasn’t one. The stairs were placed right up against the walls of the house. They would have to be her guide.
    Wherever they led, it was