Chapter Twenty-Seven

Nadya

“Hurry.” Skaal ushered me down the steps and across the short space of yard to the archway leading back into the halls of the fortress.

Just as we nearly made it, Vladek’s soldiers barreled out, the guy who knew Skaal at the back gate leading them. “Stop, Skaal! Hand her over.”

“This way!” Carowyn stood twenty yards away in an opening between the scaffolding bleachers, waving us over.

Skaal grabbed my hand and we ran. Right as we reached her, Dommiel zipped from between the bleachers, sprinting straight past us with serrated knives in both hands. No. His mechanical hand was an actual long black-steel blade, shaped like a Bowie knife—a sloping curve on one side and jagged teeth on the other. Not having time to wonder at that, I kept pace with Skaal before he pulled me to a stop.

A band of demon guards surrounded us from the front. Skaal went at them with a wicked-thin blade that looked more like an oversize icepick than a dagger. He cut the throats of two demons at once, black blood spraying the air. Carowyn grunted while kicking out and sweeping one to the ground before firing a handgun aimed at her opponent’s head. The green ether fire flashed right before his skull exploded.

I backed away between the shelter of the scaffolding toward the arena. The crowds behind me roared and cheered at the ongoing bout between Uriel and Vladek. As much as I wanted to peer over my shoulder to see what was happening, I kept focused on the threat in front me, sliding the dagger Carowyn had given me from the sheath at my hip.

“Ahh!” Carowyn screamed when an attacker cut across her back with a long swing of a sword.

Dommiel was there, gripping the guy by the throat while plunging his hand-blade into the demon’s chest five times in and out in quick succession. I gasped at the quick and efficient brutality.

Someone grabbed my arm. I yelped and turned, plunging my dagger into my attacker’s chest, then I froze at the open-mouthed shock on my sister’s face. I looked down where my hand still gripped the hilt, the blood pouring out of her the darkest shade of purple. She was more demon than human now.

“Lisabette.” I shook my head. “Why?”

Why did you sell your soul? Why did you betray me? Why did you hurt the archangel I loved more than anything in this world?

Lightning flashed across the sky in splintered light, a torrent kicking up the gray clouds overhead. My sister laughed, blood gurgling from her mouth, the burn scar stretching tight.

“It would have to be you, Schwester.” She staggered out of my arms and gripped the hilt slick with her own blood. “I suppose that’s what I deserved.” She fell to her knees. “I suppose that’s how it ought to be.”

“Why? Why did you do it?”

Her eyes rolled white before she focused on me. “You don’t get it, do you?”

I shook my head.

“You were always the good girl, the golden one. I could never live up to you.”

“What are you talking about?” Lisabette had always been bold and beautiful, and me the timid, shy one.

“Grandmother loved you best, because you were her golden one.” She reached up and trailed her fingers through strands of my hair.

“Lisabette. You chose this life. That wasn’t my fault.”

She gulped hard, blood seeping from the corner of her mouth. “I did.” She grinned maniacally. “And it was worth every…sinful…moment.”

No matter what she’d done to me or to Uriel, I couldn’t stop my nature. I fell down to my knees and helped her fall to her back. My heart splintered, knowing the evil my sister had done but also unable to divorce myself from my last kin. I hated her and I loved her all at the same time.

“Tell Master, tell—”

“No, Lisabette!” I yelled, barely able to hear myself over the raucous crowd in the arena, the battle taking place behind me, and the oncoming storm rumbling above us. “Your last words won’t be about him. Not him.”

She sneered and shook her head at me. “He owns me, Nadya. Just like he owns you.”

“The hell he does,” I gritted out.

Her gaze shifted to the stormy sky. “Best run, baby sister. He has great plans for you. Plans you won’t enjoy.”

A trickle of dread poured down my spine like glacial water. “Lisabette?”

A crash of light filled the sky, casting my sister ghastly white, her eyes glassy with death. Even though she’d sold me into slavery for a life of luxury and sin and had done harm to my dear Uriel, I still couldn’t send her into the afterlife with hatred on my heart. She’d be paying well enough for all she’d done.

“Goodbye,” I whispered, pressing a farewell kiss to her forehead, the wind whipping my hair around my face.

“There she is!”

I gasped and lurched to my feet. Five of Vladek’s men had broken away from the circle around Carowyn, Skaal, and Dommiel, coming straight for me.

Best run, baby sister.

Ducking beneath the towering scaffolding, I ran and leaped between the rafter beams holding up the giant bleachers. The demons following weren’t as small and agile, falling farther and farther behind.

As I crossed out from under one bleacher onto the path, I plowed directly into a dark-haired, tattooed demon.

“Hey, baby, what’s your hurry?”

He was half drunk, a tankard in one hand, his arm around my waist. Right when the dawn of recognition skittered over his face, I pushed away with both hands, knocking him back, and ducked back under another bleacher.

“Sorry!”

“Hey, you’re Vladek’s girl!”

“Oh, no I’m not.”

I ducked around him and glanced over my shoulder, spotting Vladek’s men still far behind, not as fast as me. I smiled when a deafening sound stopped me in my tracks.

A screeching roar shattered the sky, rolling into another throaty growl of thunder. Gasps from the demons above me in the stands. Then screams. I came out of one set of scaffolding, peering between the sections toward the arena where Uriel and Vladek still fought.

Everyone was looking up. So I did, too. Then I smiled.

…

Uriel

My pent-up rage finally had an outlet, and it was fucking glorious. I swung Silversong again, clanging against Vladek’s sword and shoving him off. He twisted out of reach, but I still got a quick knick of his torso, then circled wide.

He touched the cut and looked at the black blood on his thumb, surprised that I actually got him. I laughed.

“You won’t be laughing long, fucker.”

I sobered quickly. “You won’t be, either,” I promised him.

The demonic horde clamored with insane noise, yelling for their king to do all kinds of heinous things to me. It only made me laugh. I just walked a predatory circle and smiled, when something else finally caught their attention. A booming roar broke across the sky. I didn’t need to look up to know it was my girl, Circe, breaching the demonic wards like cutting through paper.

“Didn’t know I took your brother’s spawn, did you?”

Vladek whirled, his chest heaving as he circled in the opposite direction. “Rook’s pet?”

“Seems she’s more devoted to me than she ever was to your brother.”

Another roar and a flare of dragon fire from the sky pulled his attention upward before he fiercely turned back to me. He caught a glimpse of what made my heart pump faster with determination, with actual joy—his imminent defeat.

Then his grating words punched me hard. “You think you have her?”

He wasn’t talking about Circe, and I knew it.

“She needs me.” He swung his sword with a twist of his wrist. “She craves me.” He laughed, his fangs flashing under the bolt of lightning that lit up the sky. “It’s the only reason she came back.” He licked his lips. “Because she wants me.”

“You dumb asshole.” I stopped moving, planting my feet apart. He stopped, too, and mirrored my position. “She came to watch me rip your fucking head off.”

“Tell yourself that if you want. I’ll ask her when I’m fucking her in my bed tonight.”

White-hot rage sliced through my gut, but I wouldn’t let him change reality with his filthy goddamn words. Deep breath in…and out. Then I looked up as screams from the bleachers erupted and demons started running.

“I’d rethink my plans if I were you.” He took the bait and followed my gaze up, seeing not only Circe but a legion of black-winged angels riding the storm behind her and pouring through the broken wards.

Raising my arms at my sides, I whispered, “Veni ad me.”

I summoned the old magic in a blink—the oldest—pooling my power from every corner of the heavens, then pointed a fist toward Vladek.

“And now you’re going to know what pain truly is.”

Then I punched a blast straight from my body, leaving me in a fireball of burning, scalding power.