An Angel's Crusade (An Angel's Wings Sequel)

Chapter One: Caesar

Iris

The walk to the White Angel troops' leader felt like the longest walk I had ever made. A smaller and more skittish soldier joined the first soldier and they escorted Asher, Alex and me across the battlefield scattered with the bodies of Dark Angels. Not a single body with white wings lay dead.

Anymore.

A dark pit forms in my stomach and I feel like vomiting.

A hand grabs mine and Asher entwines his fingers through mine. I look up at him and he gives me an encouraging smile, but I spot a hint of sadness in his eyes.

He's remembering him too.

Leo.

The boy who won't grow old.

I wipe my eyes before the tears can show themselves and I take a deep breath.

"Are you okay?" Alex asks beside me. He looks at me the way he always does, but there's something missing. I just don't know what it is.

I nod. "Yeah, I'm just tired."

His blue eyes tell me he knows I'm lying, but he nods anyways.

The soldiers march us through the army of White Angels. Their curious eyes stare at us, or maybe just‒

"They're staring at you," Alex says.

The army parts like the red sea for us, but I don't feel like much of a Moses.

Finally, we hit the line of trees where the forest starts again.

The escorting soldiers stop and turn to us, but they only look at me. "He will only see you, Miss Cooper," the one on the left says. I take in his espresso colored hair and his dark brown eyes.

I narrow my eyes, but then replay all the events that have happened in the past few hours, and I meet my glare to his eyes. "You've been looking for me. I know because you said you were glad you found me, meaning you were looking for me." The soldiers remain silent. "You can tell your leader that he can have fun trying to find me again if he doesn't let my friends come with me."

Espresso looks at his companion, who shifts uncomfortably. He motions the other White Angel to go to the woods. He nods quickly and practically runs away.

Espresso and I hold a steady stare until the other soldier comes running back. He whispers something into Espresso's ear and then steps back into the shadow of the bigger White Angel.

"One may accompany Miss Cooper," Espresso says expressionlessly.

I shake my head. "No, that's not acceptable. They both go, or I don't."

Espresso doesn't budge. "I wish you would reconsider, Miss Cooper."

I open my mouth to say that I won't, but Asher interrupts me. "It's fine, Iris. You and Alex go." I turn to him in shock. "It's fine." He squeezes my hand and I know he trusts me. He lets go and before walking away, he shoots a look to Alex who seems to understand, giving a nod in return.

I feel less confident when Asher leaves, but I hold my ground as Espresso stares at me again.

"Okay, let's go now," Alex says. If I didn't know him, I wouldn't have noticed the slight uneasiness in his voice. He's just as nervous as I am now.

"One more condition," Espresso says.

"What?" I ask starting to get annoyed.

"You cannot bring your weapons. You can leave them here and once you return, you may have them back."

I grab my sword hilt and narrow my eyes at Espresso. Is this all a trap? Once we give them our swords, are they going to kill us?

Noticing my hesitation, Espresso smirks. "If we wanted you dead, Miss Cooper, we would've let the Dark Angels do it."

That did not reassure me.

"Iris, it's fine. They aren't here to hurt us," Alex says in confidence. I watch as he takes his baldric off and drops it to the ground.

I stride to him. "We don't know them, Alex," I whisper. "How do you know we can trust them?"

"Because they don't know us, and they don't know if they can trust us. We're the same. We would do the same thing if we were them."

That still doesn't fully convince me, but I trust Alex. So I reluctantly unclip my baldric and throw it next to Alex's.

I glare at Espresso, who looks pleased, and wait for him.

"He will see you now. Follow me." He turns to the other White Angel soldier. "Make sure Miss Cooper's and Mr. Storm's swords are cleaned and sharpened."

My stomach churns again as he grabs our baldrics and jogs off.

"Come." Espresso starts walking into the woods, and with uncertain glances exchanged with Alex, we follow him.

***

The walk was only about three minutes, but it felt so much longer. The whole way Alex and I were paranoidly aware of our surroundings, and even more when we stopped.

"Wait here," Espresso says and walks further into the woods.

I turn to Alex. "I don't like this." He nods. "I don't like this at all."

"We don't need to like it. If we did, we'd be idiots. We just need to be ready for anything."

I frown. "I was ready. When I had my sword. But we're defenseless now."

"We might not have weapons, but we're not defenseless." He moves his hand to his pocket and I see something reflect light to my eyes. "Asher's got our backs." He texted Asher.

I nod and smile. Alex always has a plan.

The sound of footsteps on the forest floor brings my attention back to where Espresso walked away. Now, he's coming back slowly, only he isn't alone.

With him is a man in his late thirties with graying dirty blonde hair. He wears a red and white flannel shirt and simple jeans. He has no weapon and nothing about him makes me want to fly away, but then again, neither would Owen if he hadn't driven a sword through Leo's stomach.

I wince at the nightmare.

Appearances don't mean anything, actions do. But the thing about actions is that you don't know until it happens, and by then, it's already too late.

I look at Alex, who at first glance looks relaxed, but I see his jaw is clenched and he's slightly tensed.

"Miss Cooper," the man says smiling. His voice is soft and kind. I didn't notice before, but as he gets closer, I see that he man has a s slight limp as if an old injury never fully healed. His dull brown eyes flick to Alex. "Mr. Storm. It's great to meet you both." He comes to a stop a few feet in front of us.

I quickly make calculations in my head. If he pulled anything, there would be enough space between us for me to react and enough for Alex to maybe take him out. By that time, our backup would step in and we're be able to fly out before they knew what had happened.

Though if he threw anything‒

"Who are you?" Alex asks, breaking my day-dream.

"Forgive me, I'm being rude." The man smiles again, this one directed at me, and it's as if Alex disappeared as he says," My name is Caesar."