by A. K. Koonce
And I know I will do all I can to take him down.
“I gave you everything.” His eyes flare, and for a moment, I catch a glimpse of the demon beneath the facade of Professor Shade—of Lucian Morningstar. It makes me feel the first shimmers of fear. “Your mother would have killed you, and it was I who cut you out of her womb.”
I fight against the urge to close my eyes at those words. As an orphan, I’d always known that I was unwanted, but to hear it confirmed still did something to my insides, still made my gut lurch painfully.
“You never loved her. You used her.” I spit out the words, and they taste vile on my tongue. “And then she died.”
“Do you know how many children of mine the angels killed?” He takes a menacing step forward just as I take one back. The demons behind me growl and snap at the hem of my flowing dress. I still. “Hundreds. Thousands of my hell spawn dead because of their prejudice. So I decided to create the perfect offspring. The one they would least expect, because who could suspect you were ever my daughter with angel blood flowing through your veins?” He steps forward again and this time, he’s close enough to touch, to run his thumb down my cheek. I wonder if he can hear the ragged intake of my breaths. “I needed you, Izara. I needed you to live to help me open this portal.”
A tear trickles down my cheek, and he catches it with the pad of his thumb. To hear him speak of me like some sick, twisted experiment. He used my mother and discarded her to make me. To make the perfect weapon.
And that’s what I should be; it’s what I set out to be when I accepted the power of hell into my soul and let my Prod consume me entirely. I should kill him, but I can feel my Prod’s heart, I can feel my heart breaking.
In the grand scheme of things, this shouldn’t feel like a betrayal, but it fucking does. And even with this new power in my veins, I’m not sure I’m strong enough anymore.
But I have to be.
“You made me for the sole purpose of destruction.” His eyes shine at my words. “It’s time I fulfill that purpose.”
I let my Prod explode. I wipe out the demons closest to us, and the stench of burning flesh assaults my nostrils. It’s an all-consuming rage of power that pushes out… out… It does nothing to harm my father.
He absorbs it all. The flames lick up his body, pulling him into the fire with me, but he stares, and I swear there’s wicked delight in his expression.
When I rein the fire back in, I know there might be nothing I can use against him. I did all this for the power to destroy him, and it’s not fucking working.
He smiles. “My turn.”
And he blasts me backwards.
I cry out as I skid across the ground, tucking my wings between my shoulder blades to avoid harming them before I fall. The wind is knocked straight from my chest, and I gasp, struggling for air. Another blast hits me, and every nerve ending in my body flares in pain until I’m convulsing on the ground. I can’t take it. The pain is too much.
My eyes blink open, and I can’t focus on anything but the sky above me and the golden, glittering dust that begins to rain down. Is this what death feels like? It’s painful as fuck. I can’t seem to inhale, can’t seem to move beyond the twitching of my limbs.
More sparks rain down around me. I know the final blow is coming. I can feel it, even if I can’t hear it. All noise seems to have drowned away in an instant. The dust picks up, and it looks magical. It swirls and swirls around me. My father’s growls are background noise as the dust circles around my body, and I feel myself being lifted.
Everything slams into me at once. Taste, sound, sight. The coppery hint of blood is prominent in my mouth. My vision clears, and the cacophonous noise of shouts and growls slams through my senses.
My wings are gone, and yet my body is being lifted, higher and higher, by a tornado of magical faerie dust. I flail my limbs, jerking my head from side to side, and catch sight of a jeans-wearing pixie. Enormous inky eyes stare at me, and a thin-lipped smile turns up mischievously just before it vanishes before my eyes.
The dust swallows me in a cloud and suddenly, everything around me fades as I’m transported elsewhere.
My feet land gently on the ground, and I look around. My father and his ilk are gone. I’m in that blackened forest, with dust shimmering around the darkness. One by one, blue-skinned pixies blink into sight and stare at me with eerie eyes.
I’m surrounded on all sides and turn full circle until a tall fallen angel appears before me.
The breath whooshes from my lungs. “Azazel.”
He winks and reaches for my hand. “You okay, Princess?”
I have no words to reply to that. Am I okay? I’m not sure. I’m in too much shock. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to be waiting for a reply. He turns to a pixie, and it chatters excitedly, making noises like a squeaking mouse and ringing bells.
Azazel nods at it like he understands every fucking word. “Thanks, Derfman.” He holds his hand out, and the pixie high fives him.
Seriously, what the fuck?
Azazel turns back to me, a wide grin on his face. “So, Lucy is pretty pissed, but that’s normal. Still, I don’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity when he decides to unleash his wrath. Let’s get you to your friends, shall we?”
His wings fold across his back, and I just can’t hold my silence any longer.
“You’re not evil?”
He winces like I’ve slapped him. “I hate that term. One is never innately good or innately evil. What does ‘evil’ even mean? The term is different for everyone. If you mean am I on Lucy’s side, no, I’m not. He tries to assert dominance because he was the first fallen angel, but as far as I see it, he can fuck himself with a dildo. I like you, Izara, and we have to go. Now.”
He says it all in such a rush that at first my mind only processes the words dominance, fuck, and dildo, and the hysteria bubbles up in the form of laughter before my mind captures all of that.
I take a breath and allow him to tug me toward him. I’m enveloped in the scent of burning cinnamon and leather and smoke. His wings wrap around my body, and I feel a tingling sense of magic overwhelm me.
Finally, he steps away with a smirk and I turn to find Saint leaning over Syko’s prone form. My angel is covered in what looks to be dark mud, while Malek leans against a wall with his arms wrapped around his knees. He hadn’t bothered to throw his clothes on in those moments when he’d grabbed Syko’s bleeding body to bring him here. For me. Now he’s wearing rumpled clothing that looks too tight for his muscular frame.
The sight of them is enough to nearly bring me to my knees, a choking sob clawing from my throat as all the emotion I’ve kept suppressed unleashes in an explosion of tears.
Azazel’s hand grazes along my lower back. “You’re home now,” he whispers. “So don’t cry.”
Nine
Saint
He’s fading. Right before my very eyes this strong, resilient man is slipping away.
My shaking fingers slide through his white hair once more as I cradle his head in my lap. “Izara loved you first, you know?” I tell him. Just another mindless fact I keep feeding him to distract him as well as myself. “If you’d had the balls to go for it, she probably wouldn’t have wasted her time with the rest of us.”
A snorting, sad laugh follows that fact, and I glance at Malek, who’s sitting against the wall, his big arms thrown over his bent knees. He’s put jeans and a shirt back on, but they’re crumpled and messy looking. Exhaustion clings to him. I can see it. Even as he bites back his quiet laughter.
The pup can laugh all he likes, but I fully believe it. Syko, he loves fiercely. And anyone would be a fucking idiot not to let him.
Another hard shiver wracks him, and I just feel so fucking helpless. Without thought, I pull my shirt over my head and lay it across his bloody body.
It’s a sweet gesture, sure. But it isn’t enough to save his life.
Nothing is.
My teeth clench hard against the dryness of my
throat. A feeling clouds my chest and throat, but I force the shitty emotions down and shove out the first words I can think of.
“I was fucking stunned when you kissed me back,” I blurt out with those pent-up emotions strangling my damn words. “I thought I’d kiss you and you’d kick my ass, but at least I’d know what you taste like. But you didn’t. You kissed me back,” I whisper.
I wasted all that fucking time bullshitting conversations with him. With him and with Phoenix. With Izzy. With every fucking person in my life.
Just wasted moments.
All of it.
“I love you,” I whisper so quietly that the wind steals the words away for itself. So I say it again and again and again.
It’s a promise. A vow. A fucking oath of my feelings that I never once had the nerve to share.
A scuffing of shoes against concrete interrupts my chant of confessions.
My eyes are damp when I look up at the fae with long blonde hair and ashes staining her smooth features. She tilts her head this way and that, then she lowers with a gracefulness that only her kind has.
When she reaches one of her long, slender hands out, my body tenses, and I instinctively pull Syko closer against me.
She halts.
In the gentlest tone, she says, “Trust me.”
Fae can be cruel. I’ve known this woman for a long time and know so little about her, but I know her kind. I also know the kind of people my sister attracts.
Malicious teasing and taunting is usually all they know.
But I desperately want to trust her.
For Syko’s sake.
My shoulders lower and my hands spread wide as I reveal Syko’s trembling and bloody body to her.
He’ll be a corpse by daybreak.
I swallow hard at that thought and force it to never enter my mind again.
Her pale hands skim against his battered wings. The jutting, broken bones are bent at harsh angles. The feathers are tattered and wrenched away, revealing slick muscle beneath. It’s a nasty sight. But Sasha doesn’t flinch away from any of it. She takes her time soothing each bloody part, and as her hands move, strange debris is left in their wake. It’s dry particles, but she goes right back over her work, and water drips from her fingertips like she’s feeding soil.
And I think she is. She diligently coats his wounds in a thick, mud-like substance. It has the scent of herbs, but I can’t say what kind. It smells like mother nature has kissed his wounds in an intoxicating gift of life.
“There,” Sasha whispers.
Malek’s dark eyebrows rise, and I just stare at her like a fucking idiot.
“Did you—did you heal him?” I ask quietly.
Her long hair shifts back and forth as she shakes her head at me.
“No. I can’t heal him. But I stopped the bleeding. He’s lost a lot of blood, and I can’t take away his pain, but… I think he’ll live.” She backs away slowly, her fingers slipping around the door handle. “I’m going to wait for Heaven now. She’ll need a clean path when she gets back.”
“I’ll come with you.” Malek takes one step, but she lifts her hand to him.
“No, wait here. Izara needs to be watched. You’ll know if she needs you.”
“And until then I just…”
“Wait,” she whispers. “I don’t think she’s ready to face all of you. Not yet. Just… give her time.”
The advice is the shitty equivalent of give her space. Fortunately, I can’t even listen to the logical little fairy.
Because she helped Syko. And that’s all I fucking care about in this moment.
My fingers stroke along the hard lines of his arms, and I hold him a little closer.
His beautiful wings will never fly again.
The pain will last for years after this.
But he’ll live.
And that’s all that matters.
Ten
Izara
I take a single, wobbling step forward, and my knees almost buckle. It’s only then that they notice me. Malek, the wolf that he is, perks up and jumps to his feet. He’s running to me and pulling me into his arms before I can blink.
His warmth and his strength wrap all around me.
It’s like he knows just how hard it is for me to remain upright. How can I, with the sight of Syko so still on a rooftop and a puddle of blood beneath him?
I gently place my palms against Malek’s chest and lightly push back from him. I need to see him, no matter how hard, no matter how much my heart is breaking, no matter the guilt racing through every nerve in my body. I caused this. If I hadn’t—
I halt my thoughts as I step toward them and drop to my knees beside Syko. His eyes are closed, the paleness of his lashes curving against an even paler face. I try not to think about how he looks like he has one foot through death’s door, because to think about death brings an even greater possibility of summoning it.
If Syko dies, I… I’ll never be able to forgive myself.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, tasting the salt of my tears on my lips. My fingers tremble as they sweep across his cold face. He doesn’t even stir.
Saint sits shirtless and watching me with big blue eyes that shine with unshed emotions.
My shoulders shake as sobs silently tear through me. Then I feel hands on my shoulders, and Saint is pulling me close. I can feel wariness in the set of his body, but still he holds me as I cry over Syko.
“He’s not dead.” Saint’s voice holds the trembling hint of a threat. Like if anyone dares to contradict him, he’ll tear through the gates of heaven himself somehow to bring our nephilim back from whoever dares try to take him. “He’ll live.”
“He has to.” My tears splash against Syko’s cheeks. “If you die, you’ll take a part of me, too. Do you hear me?” A part of me hopes these words can be a tether between the worlds of life and death. That the threat will be enough to tie him here, to me, to us.
I wonder if I even have the right to say such things when I’m the reason he’s here in the first place. I wonder if he even knows, if he believed in me the whole time or if he’d lost faith the moment he saw me take my father’s hand and sit down on that throne?
All I know is that he can’t leave without knowing why I did what I did.
“He showed me a world I didn’t know existed. A world where I was in control and where those I loved wouldn’t die. I believed in him at first. I thought he really just wanted to help me control my Prod.” I reach for Syko’s fingers, but they’re stiff and cold beneath my grip. “I didn’t know just how wrong he was until he suggested bringing hell to the real world.”
“For a moment his offer was tempting, I won’t deny it. But I tried to picture demons like Osmodeus here and I couldn’t… Then he kept insisting, and he told me I was his daughter and I…” I break off, taking in a shuddering breath. “And I knew what a monster he was, and I imagined what he did to my mother, and I knew he wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted. So I accepted his offer because I knew the only way to end him was to become as powerful as him, so I had to trick you so he would believe I was on his side. I didn’t think this would happen.”
“What did you think would happen?” Malek cuts through gently, yet sarcastically. I wonder if he’ll ever forgive me for what I’ve done. For not trusting him. I’m his mate, and I couldn't trust him to protect me; for a wolf, there is no greater offense. “That he’d open a hell portal and we’d all be fine?”
His words twist the knife through my aching wounds even further. I hang my head in shame, and my voice is small, weak. “I didn’t know what would happen. All I knew was that I needed to kill him.”
Malek scoffs, a choked sound. “And how well did that go? Judging by the fact that there are demons still circling the night sky, I’d say not well at all.”
I tear my gaze away from Syko long enough to turn and glare at him. “I fucked up! Is that what you want to hear me say? I wasn’t strong enough to kill my father like I thought I’d be. I fu
cked up, and now everyone is paying the price, and Syko is lying here with his wings fucking shredded. I know what I’ve done, so don’t stand there and lecture me, because I swear to shit, there is nothing you could ever say to make me feel worse than I already do.”
Malek’s golden-brown eyes are full of sorrow and pain. There’s a well of hurt there that immediately softens and becomes something close to understanding. He sighs, a tremble passing through his muscular body. “So how are we taking that fucker down?” he asks.
I shake my head. “First Syko needs to be healed. We can’t leave him like this.”
“There is no remedy I can create that will help him. Unless you know someone with healing powers…”
Healing powers.
Fuck.
Why didn’t I think of it before?
“Aza—” I cut the words off mid-turn. I’d been so wrapped up in Syko, in them, that I hadn’t noticed that there was no more glowing pixie dust around me.
Azazel is gone.
Eleven
Phoenix
The darkness is our greatest enemy. Because it leaves us alone with ourselves. I sit there on the cold ground with my hands thrown over my knees as I stare into the dense nothingness. And I think about every fucking wrong I’ve ever done.
The screams and cries of a hellacious war just on the other side of this wall play like soft background music to my cruel thoughts.
They’re all going to die out there.
And I’m going to die in here.
Alone.
Oddly, I just wish Izara was asleep right now. I keep trying to meet her, because if in our dreams is the last place I’ll see her, then I’ll take that false moment and make the very fucking most of it.
But I can’t. Her mind isn’t at rest, and I can’t break into her thoughts no matter how hard I try.
My eyes close once more, and my thoughts steal away from me. They carry my consciousness, scurrying around above the headmistress’s monument. Over the slashing chaos of clawing demons and screaming students. And it soars right to a host who seems to be searching me out as much as I’m searching him out.
