by Anne Hope
Regan grabbed Ben’s hand and swiftly turned toward the only exit, adrenaline shooting through her veins. “We have to get as far away from this place as possible.”
Marcus seized her by the shoulders, immobilizing her, his expression grim. “It’s too late. They’re here.”
Only then did she sense them, two conflicting energies just beyond the cave door, steadily approaching. Fighting an onslaught of panic, she pulled Ben closer. She reached for Marcus, ensured she had a firm hold on him as well, and attempted to fold space. Nothing happened.
She released their hands, defeated. “I don’t understand. Why can’t I teleport?”
Marcus pulled away from her, his gaze scanning the cave as though searching for something—a cloak or a shield that could potentially interfere with her powers. A glint of understanding came into his eyes, and he went to examine the walls. “The bastard’s thought of everything.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He didn’t pick this cave randomly,” he explained. “See these colorful specks embedded in the stone?”
Regan studied the clay-colored walls, for the first time noticing the sparkling fragments trapped within them. The words Ben had uttered when he’d awakened from his nightmare echoed through her mind.
A cave with jewels in the walls.
She had no clue what these stones were, but she knew one thing. This was the place. The place Ben had seen in his dream. The place where he had predicted he would die.
“It’s heliolite,” Marcus told her, unaware of the slow slide of dread spreading through her, “more commonly known as the Oregon sunstone. These rocks contain traces of copper. Just how much depends on their color.” He pointed to a pale golden speck. “Yellow stones have the smallest concentration.” His hand moved toward a cluster of emerald-colored gems. “The green ones have significantly more.”
Regan noted that most of the sunstones were a deep scarlet. She was afraid to ask, but she did so anyway. “And red?”
“Red stones have the strongest concentration of copper, twice as much as the green ones.” He met her gaze, his features as hard as the rocks he described. “There isn’t enough copper in these walls to harm us, but you can forget about folding space. Our only option is to fight our way out of here.”
Defiance swelled in her breast. Ben wouldn’t die here tonight. Not if she could help it. She bent over and retrieved the ruby-hilted dagger at her feet. The blade caught the pulsing light, shimmering with a liquid glow. There was something magical and powerful about this weapon. Something powerful enough to kill an angel.
“Fine by me. I’m through being strung along.” Handing Marcus his trench knife, she inhaled a bolstering breath and braced herself for battle. “It’s time to show this angel of divine intervention exactly who he’s up against.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Kyros’s anticipation got the better of him, and he made a run for the cave Micah had indicated. He could already feel himself weakening, the water sapping his strength. He needed to replenish his energy, and soon.
Eager to get out of the rain and claim his prize, he propelled himself through the entrance…and found himself staring down the length of a gold blade, secured in the hand of Marcus’s trusted sidekick, Regan.
The woman pinned him with a murderous glare. “Not another step.”
He stopped, his glance flitting from her to Marcus, who promptly unsheathed his broadsword and aimed it at Kyros’s chest. Behind his old enemy, a young boy cowered, glowing brighter than the odd blue flames radiating throughout the cave.
Kyros turned on Micah, who now stood at the entrance, his large body blocking the only way out. “This was all an elaborate setup,” he accused. “A trap.”
Micah didn’t attempt to deny it.
Kyros spat at the angel’s feet. He’d been a fool. A blind fool who’d allowed his greed for power to drown out the warning common sense had kept screeching in his head. He’d known from the moment he’d met Micah that the angel couldn’t be trusted, but time and time again he’d ignored his instincts. Everyone kept betraying him—first Marcus, then Diane and now Micah.
But Kyros wasn’t completely without defenses. The time had come for him to pull the ace from his sleeve. “Guards!” The command reverberated off the cave walls, a hollow chime that rang with desperation.
He waited until his echo died down, but his troops didn’t appear. “Guards,” he called again, reaching for the sword at his waist.
Micah approached him, his expression void of shock or surprise. The angel either had an impressive poker face or he’d known all along that Kyros’s army followed. “I hate being the bearer of bad news, but your troops have been detained.”
Comprehension robbed Kyros of his last vestige of hope. “The scuffle in the woods.”
The angel smiled, satisfied. “Not the wildlife seeking shelter, but your troops crossing swords with a most formidable enemy.”
Kyros took a cautionary step back, muttered a virulent oath. “The Watchers.”
Deep in the valley, a vicious battle raged. The Kleptopsychs had taken the Watchers by surprise, and that had cost them several good men. Curtains of rain fell to cloud Jace’s vision, fusing his clothing to his skin and freezing him solid. Weakness clawed at his limbs as he fought, desperate to prevent the loss of any more Watchers tonight.
Lia wielded a sword beside him, her back pressed to his, her body shaking from the cold. If anything happened to her…
He tried to focus his thoughts, to ensnare his enemy’s mind, but the rain ran interference. He was too weak, too damn cold.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Cal bury his sword in a Kleptopsych. Black smoke curled around them, as did a compelling white light—the remains of an undigested soul. The creature Jace battled called the soul to him, absorbed it and grew stronger.
Jace released a colorful curse, his voice muffled by the storm.
His adversary gained the upper hand, sending Jace nose-diving into the soggy ground and leaving Lia’s back exposed. The Kleptopsych lurched toward her. Jace screamed out a warning, and she pivoted around just in time to deflect the blow.
Springing to his feet, Jace resumed the fight, unsure how much angel’s blood he had left on his blade. At the rate the rain was falling, all their swords would be washed clean in a matter of minutes.
Almost in answer to his thoughts, the rain ceased abruptly. A strange blue hue filled the night, as though they were at the brink of dawn and the sun would momentarily scale the mountains to reclaim its position amidst the clouds.
With a guttural cry, Jace ran his opponent through.
When the battle finally ended, only he, Lia, Cal and three of the eight Watchers they’d brought along with them still stood. The Kleptopsychs had all perished, each in turn finding an eternal resting place in the wet, hungry earth.
Jace yanked Lia hard against him, pressing her to his chest, relieved she hadn’t fallen with the others. His greatest fear was that he’d lose her to battle someday. But this was the life she’d chosen. The life they’d both chosen.
Cal walked up to them, his face streaked with dirt, his clothing torn and muddy. Weariness deepened the lines around his mouth and eyes. Here was a man who’d spent at least five millennia at war, and in that moment he looked it. “There’s no time to dispose of the bodies.” His voice rang flat. “We need to keep moving.”
Regan surveyed the man standing guard at the cave door. She’d seen him before on a sun-dappled highway, moments before she’d folded space and taken Marcus and Ben with her. She’d only gotten a quick glimpse of him, but she’d recognize his aristocratic features anywhere.
So she hadn’t been hallucinating after all. Micah had been there, and instinct told her he’d had something to do with her epiphany that day. In his roundabout way, the angel had saved them. But Regan still didn’t fully trust him.
“I’m guessing you’re the famous Micah,” she said, her weapon still trained on Kyros. “N
ice to finally meet you.”
If the angel noted the sarcasm in her voice, he didn’t let on. He was transfixed, his gaze riveted to the blade she held. “Where did you get that dagger?”
“This little gem?” She indicated the knife in question with a flick of her wrist. “From the angel I just killed.”
Wrong thing to say. Kyros’s eyes flickered with interest, seconds before he unsheathed his sword and swung it at her. Regan ducked, and the blade sliced the air over her head. Marcus charged Kyros, his weapon poised and ready for the kill, but the Kleptopsych moved out of the way, and Marcus’s broadsword struck stone instead.
Kyros swung again, and this time his blade connected with Regan’s dagger, sending it cartwheeling through the air.
Micah raised his hand, and a bright light expanded through the cave. The dagger began to float toward him, displaying an unearthly phosphorescence. Before it could reach the angel, Kyros leaped through the air and caught the gold dagger in midflight. Almost simultaneously, he gripped Ben by the collar and pulled the boy to him.
“He’s mine now.” With a triumphant smile, Kyros pressed the deadly blade to Ben’s throat. “If any of you so much as twitch, I’ll cut him. I swear.”
Chapter Fifty
Ben made a sound so ripe with fear and agony that Regan nearly screamed with fury. With each deliberate compression of the boy’s Adam’s apple, she came a little more undone inside, and the soul she no longer possessed throbbed like a freshly carved wound.
She turned to Micah, expecting him to act, to do something to stop Kyros from slaughtering the child she’d come to love as though he’d sprung from her own womb. The angel stood frozen, his face an unreadable mask, hypnotized by the dagger’s liquid golden sheen.
Kyros dragged Ben toward the exit, keeping his back to the cave wall, his gaze never wavering from his enemies. “You promised me this soul,” he spat at Micah, “and I intend to have it.”
“Why not take it then, right now, directly from the source?” Micah challenged.
Kyros’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Do you think me a fool? I can see this boy’s essence is different. It cannot be ingested unless it’s broken first.” His expression grew feral. “Or released from its human shell with the help of a sharp blade.”
“Not with that blade,” Micah warned. “If you slit the boy’s throat with that particular weapon, you will not only kill him, but his life-force as well. Then your prize will be lost.”
Regan’s anxiety increased tenfold. With one flick of his wrist, Kyros would obliterate every trace of Ben—murdering both his body and his soul. Did he understand what he held in his possession? Did he realize he could kill three birds with one stone? What would happen if he did? She’d been about to reveal to Kyros that Ben’s essence would destroy him if he ingested it, but now she bit her tongue. The only thing that was keeping the Kleptopsych from slicing Ben’s throat was his twisted greed to possess the boy’s soul.
Kyros aimed the tip of the dagger at Micah, and Regan drew a shallow breath along with Ben. “Then perhaps I’ll use the blade on you instead.”
Micah’s expression remained cool and impassive. “You can certainly try.” Ice-hard hatred coated the angel’s voice, and Regan almost allowed herself to believe that maybe he wasn’t the enemy, after all.
“Let the boy go, Kyros,” Marcus rasped between clenched teeth. “Take me instead.”
Regan’s heart bucked in her chest. “Marcus, no.”
Marcus silenced her with a quelling look. “I know there’s something you desire even more than power,” he said to Kyros. “Revenge. Well, here I am.” He dropped his sword, and it clanged menacingly on the unfeeling stone floor. “Come and get me.”
Kyros’s expression darkened as caution warred with greed. “You think very highly of yourself. What makes you think I’d give up such a prized soul in favor of seeing the life leave your eyes?” Kyros studied Marcus like an entomologist dissecting a bug—with fascination and a trace of disgust.
“Because I’m one of the few you failed to control.”
The golden blade instantly returned to Ben’s throat, and the boy cried out in terror. Marcus visibly recoiled.
“I’m doing a fine job of it now.” A shrewd smile split Kyros’s face. “I see,” he whispered, and Regan cringed.
He knows.
Kyros had the rare gift of tapping into a Hybrid’s lost soul. He could see connections the rest of them were utterly blind to. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he’d just intuited the truth, and his next words confirmed it. “I think I’ve just found the mother lode. Your son’s soul may have escaped me,” he spat at Marcus, “but yours most certainly won’t.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” Marcus feigned ignorance.
“Really? Then let’s put my little theory to the test, shall we?”
Images suddenly exploded in Regan’s mind, and she gripped her head. They weren’t as vivid as they could’ve been—Kyros was weakened by the rain and the copper in the walls—so his attempt to use their souls against them wasn’t nearly as debilitating as she’d expected.
She ventured a glance in Marcus’s direction, realized the same memories flared within him. The past came to life, the love she and Marcus had shared swelling to fill every corner of her consciousness. She remembered what it had felt like to hold him, to belong to him body and soul, to know wholeness, completeness, only to have it ripped away from her. She felt the unforgiving hold of the noose around her neck, heard the familiar cadence of Marcus’s voice in the clamoring crowd, felt the sharp, stabbing pain as the ground was yanked from beneath her feet.
Kyros laughed. “Why, this boy’s essence is just a treasure trove of surprises.”
With a furious growl, Marcus hurled himself at a stunned Kyros. She’d never seen him move so fast. The dagger flew from Kyros’s grasp, and the Kleptopsych went scuttling backward. Ben collapsed on the mud-caked floor, terrified but unharmed.
Marcus shoved Kyros against the wall, his expression so ferocious Regan hardly recognized him. “You son of a bitch. Did you really think I’d let you harm her or the boy? You’ve already taken one child from me. I’ll be damned if I let you take another.” Kyros flailed wildly as Marcus tossed him to the ground, pinning him in place with the tip of the trench knife he drew from the scabbard at his waist.
Ben sobbed and scampered to his feet, making a run for the cave door just as the Watchers marched in. Jace caught him by the arm, and Ben’s breathing raged out of control.
A pained cry tore loose from the boy’s throat, and his head fell back. Light pulsed around him, so bright it hurt to look at him. Then Jace began to glow, too. He released his grip on Ben, stretching out his hands and staring down at himself. The glow didn’t abate. In fact, it gained momentum. Like a rapidly spreading contagion, it enveloped Lia, then Regan and Marcus. Given where they each stood, they formed a pulsing circle of light around Kyros.
Blinding radiance exploded from each of them, illuminating every corner of the cave and spearing into Kyros with laser-like precision. He didn’t even have a chance to scream before the light reduced him to ash.
Just as quickly as it had spread, the radiance retreated, gathering into a tight white sphere. The sphere hovered next to Micah’s head for a second or two, then floated through the air toward Regan, sinking into her abdomen, where it promptly extinguished itself and pitched the cave into darkness.
“Ben?” Panic soaked Regan’s voice. She searched the blackness for him, thankful for her ability to see in the dark, even as she feared what she’d find. The boy was nowhere in sight.
“It will be a while before you hear his voice again.” It was Micah who spoke.
Marcus sprinted across the cave, grabbed the angel by the lapels of his trench coat and shook him, hard. “What did you do with him?”
The concern that had pinched the angel’s features the second he’d caught sight of the dagger relented, replaced by smug satisfa
ction. “I simply delivered him home.”
Only then did Regan notice that the Watchers—all except for Jace, Lia and Cal—had disappeared as well. “What happened here?” Her failure to protect Ben tugged at her shoulders, an impossible weight that threatened to crush her. Tears welled in her eyes, coming from a place deep inside her. A place she’d never visited before.
“Benjamin’s energy collided with Jace’s.” Cal walked farther into the cave, picking up the discarded dagger and staring at it reverently. “Their souls were forged by the same archangel,” he explained. “The most powerful one of all.”
“Sataniel,” Micah added.
Regan’s body stiffened. “Sataniel? As in the ruler of hell?”
Jace, who was still bone-white from the experience he’d just had, approached her hesitantly. “It seems he wasn’t always the Prince of Darkness. The soul Lia and I share, along with Ben’s, are just two examples of his more notable creations.”
“There are four in all.” Micah walked up to Cal and took the dagger from his grasp, handling it with excessive care. The weapon vanished within his trench coat, and the angel breathed a sigh of relief. “One was trapped within Athanatos for thousands of years, only to be released last summer when it came in contact with its sister soul.”
So that was how Jace had managed to fry Athanatos. The same way he and Ben had just fried Kyros and several of the Watchers she’d once considered friends. Her heart folded painfully, her lungs contracting around the air she kept trying to force into them. So many senseless deaths, and Ben at the heart of it all.
Oh, Ben. Sweet, innocent Ben. I’m so sorry. Sorry I failed to keep my promise.
“Another dwells in Jace,” Micah continued, oblivious to her inner torment. “Ben’s—or should I say yours and Marcus’s—is also one of these sacred souls.”
