Ruled by Steel (The Ascension Series #3)

by S. M. Reine

  That seemed to be all the motivation he needed. He stepped into the circle of the angel’s arms, and his mother quickly followed. She was whispering prayers as she hugged her son tightly.

  He smiled at her. He hoped that it looked benevolent, rather than condescending—Abel had told him that he had “a douchebag’s smile,” whatever that was supposed to mean, and it had been bothering him ever since.

  “I will not drop you,” Nash said.

  The boy said, “I trust you.”

  With a thrust of his wings, Nash carried them into the smoky air.

  The mortals weighed as little to him as the sword. Lifting them required insignificant effort. Given many more angels, a lot of cooperation, and much more time, they could have carried all of the humans to the evacuation points—but Nash had yet to find any of his brethren willing to speak with humans, much less transport them.

  He was but a single man. He could only do so much.

  As he cradled the boy and his mother in his arms, he hoped that so much would be enough.

  Nashriel swept through the air above the evacuation point. The fissure between Earth and Hell was a bleeding gash as far as he could see in either direction—which, granted, was not very far at all—and it had split Coos Bay in twain. The rift was still growing. It had been only a few feet wide at first, perhaps as wide as one of Nashriel’s wings, but now it had grown to devour entire blocks.

  The north side of town was a ruin. That was where the emerging demons had struck on their southward march. Giant footprints were scorched into the pavement where gibborim had tread, and buildings had been crushed by a low-flying kibbeth. The south side was in better condition, and that was where they had built the evacuation station for humans coming from northern California. The cargo ships carrying thousands of humans toward the refuges of China and Russia were dim shapes disappearing into the murky night.

  It was as peaceful as any night had been since the Breaking. It was a name the mortal news networks had given the event that opened North America to Hell. Catchy name—Nashriel had heard a few angels call it that despite their best efforts to avoid anything that stunk of mortal handiwork. The official name, as far as angels were concerned, was the Second War.

  For it to be so quiet on Earth, it must have also been quiet in Dis. The fissure burned dimly. Nashriel didn’t see any new demons emerging, nor did he see any troops moving through Modoc National Forest as he skimmed overhead.

  There would be more fights elsewhere on the continent, but his brethren would be attending to it, as would the human Union. He had slaughtered twenty brutes and a hundred fiends that day alone.

  Nash was beyond physical exhaustion. Angels were not easily fatigued, but his soul was tired.

  His wings churned the smoke behind him as he soared across the country, heading toward the East Coast. From high above, with utility outages in most towns, the land looked uninhabited. The vast deserts of the West were dark. The plains only had light from transcontinental rail trying to take humans to either coast, where they could be safely removed from the battleground. Nash could easily imagine that it was the First War again.

  The fighting hadn’t been in the Americas then—it had been in the Fertile Crescent, the seat of human life, where city-states had only begun to take root. But it had been just as smoky and dark. The stink of demons had filled the air as richly.

  With the beat of his wings and the blur of ethereal magic, it took minutes to cross from West Coast to East. The damage to civilization was not as severe here, not yet. Manhattan shined like a morning star in the gloom. The radiating lines of freeways and smaller cities and suburbs were dim, patchy, broken, but life went on. Mandatory evacuation had only gone into effect for the West.

  He didn’t go to New York. He steered south and west, following the line of the Appalachian Mountains to the places where trees grew thickest. There were acres upon acres of hostile land here, isolated from civilization by steep valleys and towering cliffs. Places where men could lose themselves.

  Or an entire pack of werewolves.

  Nash soared over Northgate. The buildings nearest the fissure were blackened by smoke. He remembered Poppy’s Diner being silver-walled and glistening, like a tin jewelry box, but it was so sooty now that it didn’t shine. All of the leaves that remained on the tree branches were shriveled and brown. Ash covered the streets. Even the statue of Bain Marshall was no longer its previously striking shade of white; it was scorched at the bottom, as if flames had been licking its feet.

  The quietude of the town was the eeriest part of all. Northgate had been a cozy town. Everyone walked from house to house to visit, walked to church, walked to get a piece of Poppy’s pie. The streets had only been empty in the late evening after darkness fell and everyone moved inside.

  Now, all of the streets were empty. There were no humans or demons.

  For now.

  The fissure was widening. He couldn’t see it happening—it was too slow for that. But the last time he had been there, it had been only a few feet wide. Now it was wide enough that a car could have fallen through lengthwise. And its end no longer stopped at the statue. It had advanced two entire blocks.

  The fissure was moving, slowly but surely, toward the sanctuary.

  Toward Summer.

  Nashriel felt the moment he entered the wards protecting the werewolf sanctuary. Had he been an intruder, it would have been like hitting an electrified wall; instead, it greeted him like sinking into a warm bath. He folded his wings back and descended into the trees. It required deft navigation to slip through the forest, between the craggy rocks, and land at the mouth of the valley where Summer’s pack concealed themselves.

  He took care to draw his energy deep within himself, dimming his wings until they didn’t shine at all. If he went in blazing, he would kill all of the generators. The sanctuary would have no power, no light, no satellite access—all things that would make the group very unhappy indeed.

  It was easier to walk into the valley than fly into it anyway. He went down the road at a brisk clip, wings folded neatly behind him.

  The worst of the smoke hadn’t touched this part of the forest. Recent rains had scrubbed the air clean. Nash could actually see starlight, a sliver of a waxing moon. He smelled wet soil and moss.

  Saturday nights at the sanctuary used to be lively enough that he could hear the pack partying from the top of the valley. But a solemn hush had fallen over the sanctuary. A waterfall emerged from the darkness, roaring softly in the quiet night, as if it were in mourning, too. He could hear the crunch of gravel under his feet as he walked.

  Lanterns were lit along the street that formed the center of the sanctuary, giving the cottages an orange glow. The pack sat at picnic tables around the square. Dinner had already been served and eaten; empty platters sat at each table, waiting to be cleaned up. It was strange to see the wolves so sedated without their usual carousing. Crystal was in a corner by herself instead of trying to engage everyone in drinking games. Katja was with Trevin and Pyper, playing a card game. Nobody was smiling.

  Nash didn’t see the Alphas. He also didn’t see Summer.

  Trevin greeted him with a nod when he approached the table. “How’s it going?” he asked, eyes fixed upon the sword at Nash’s hip.

  “As well as can be expected,” Nash said. He didn’t share the body count with the wolves whenever he could avoid it. They might be awed by the idea of killing twenty brutes, but they would also despair at the realization that twenty deaths were nothing in the face of what else was coming.

  Katja lifted her plate. She had a sweet roll and some green beans. Werewolves only ate meat, but she wasn’t a werewolf anymore—she was the first to ever be “cured” of the condition. The pack had still readily adopted her as one of their own, since there was nowhere else for her to go. Nobody else would know how to help her through the things she had experienced.

  “I’ve got some leftovers. Want them?” she asked with a tremulous voice.
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  Nash made himself smile again. The same smile that he had given the mother and her son at the site of his last battle. “I appreciate your kindness, but must decline.”

  She nodded and ducked her head, like she couldn’t look at him.

  Most of them were like that. Most of the werewolves had been reverential toward Nash since the Lincoln Marshall incident, when a Northgate deputy had attempted to kill them. Nash had taken a shot to the chest to save a pack member. That silver bullet had all but elevated him to sainthood.

  “Summer’s in the greenhouses,” Pyper said, placing a queen on the table.

  Nash felt his eyes widen. “At this time of night?”

  Assenting mumbles came from around the table.

  “Thank you,” he said, and he left the pack to their quiet pursuits.

  One thing that Nash had learned from the wars, First and Second alike, was that silence was not something to be desired. Silence seldom indicated peace. It was merely the absence of another noise—screams in the wake of battle, or the laughter that should have filled the night.

  Silence was the sound of grieving.

  The greenhouses were the newest structures in the sanctuary. Nash considered them “structures” rather than “buildings” because they were very rudimentary—wooden pallets to lift them off the ground, some PVC piping as framework, plastic sheets to shelter the plants within. There hadn’t been time to build anything better. They had a pack to feed. Werewolves only ate meat, but they might need to learn to expand their tastes, since cows were much harder to nurture than tomatoes.

  Nash stuck his head into the first greenhouse to find it empty. The heavy, moist air smelled of ripe fruit. They had stolen mature plants from every nursery within a short drive. Summer had been put in charge of organizing the collection and initially balked at the idea of stealing, but changed her mind once she saw the riots in town. Staff had fled from their stores as desperate people swamped them. There had been no clerks to buy from.

  Fortunately, between a half-dozen werewolves and one determined angel, they had gotten a lot of plants. It looked like a leafy rainforest inside the first greenhouse.

  Nash let the flaps fall shut as he walked across the path to the other greenhouse.

  That was where he found her.

  Summer Gresham was sitting in the back of the structure on a folding chair. Her impossibly long legs were pulled to her chest, heels caught on the seat and chin resting on her knees. She was wearing cutoff shorts that revealed every inch of creamy brown flesh from hip to toe. A tank top hugged the curves of her waist and breasts.

  She smiled when she saw him. She always smiled when she saw Nash, even when more than twenty living creatures had died on his blade that day and he didn’t think that there was anything about him worth smiling about. Even now, in the warm darkness of the greenhouse, he could see that it lit up her face. Her silvery eyes were as bright as the moon.

  “You’re home,” she said, unfolding herself and standing. “You’re home.”

  And then she was on him, arms wrapped around his waist, her fragrant curls tickling his nose, her soft body pressed to his. Nash closed his eyes and inhaled her scent deeply.

  I’m home, he thought.

  Summer held him for a long time, and he didn’t try to stop her. Every time they reunited after a battle, it felt like their first embrace all over again. She drove the darkness out of the shadowy corners of his mind, burned away the images of the dead brutes and the bleeding boy.

  When she lifted her head, her hands still didn’t stray from him. They wandered over his chest to the hilt of his sword, fiddling with the lapels of his jacket.

  “I can’t believe you’re still wearing this,” Summer said, turning one of the buttons between her first finger and thumb. “You need armor.”

  “I don’t need armor if they can’t touch me,” Nash said.

  She snorted. “You’re not that good.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. It wasn’t out of reverence. Summer was as reverent toward him as she was toward anything, which was to say, not at all.

  He lifted her chin with a knuckle. “You’ve been crying,” he said softly, running a thumb over the damp track on her jaw.

  Summer swiped her cheek dry. “I think it’s the humidity.”

  He cupped her face in both hands and drank in the sight of her. He had thought that Summer was from Kemet the first time they met—the country now known as Egypt—because her features had the strength of pharaohs. If she had flaws, Nash was blind to them. Every inch of her was perfection, as he had verified with tongue and lips and fingers a hundred times over.

  Angels may have been designed by Eve to be beautiful, but Eve’s imagination could never have conceived of Summer’s perfection.

  “Tell me what’s bothering you,” Nash said. It was a command, but as kind a command as he could manage.

  She sniffled. Her brow creased as she gestured at the plants. “There’s nothing to tell. I think I’ve got the watering schedules all worked out for the greenhouses. I’ve been emailing with Gran, and she—she knows everything, you know? If it grows in a garden, she’s mastered it.”

  That was news. “You’ve contacted Gwyn?”

  “She made it to London with the other evacuees,” Summer said. “She and her partner are fine.”

  “I’m relieved.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said, dropping her head again to stare at a potted orange tree.

  His hands dropped to her shoulders, taking them in a firm grip.

  “I care,” Nash said simply. The other angels might not care about a single life, but he did. Gwyneth Gresham had raised Summer and her twin brother, Abram. She was as good as a mother to them, and they loved her. Anything that Summer loved, Nash did, too—even if Gwyn had threatened to shoot him a couple of times.

  Still, Summer didn’t look at him. “Yeah. Okay. I guess I missed dinner.”

  Nash pulled her against his chest again, and she melted against him, all soft curves and sighs.

  “You’re thinking of him,” he said.

  Her fingers curled in his shirt. “I’ve been thinking about him constantly.” Her voice broke on the last syllable. She began to tremble. “Even when I’m trying not to. I need to be strong for Rylie—she’s so much worse than I am, and she needs me to be strong for her. But I can’t get him out of my head. That’s…that’s why I’ve been hiding in here, and I’m not proud of it.”

  It had been only weeks since Summer’s uncle, Seth Wilder, had died in battle. He had been at the crux of the Breaking. Rylie was still too inconsolable to give a coherent account of how he had died, but she said that he had saved her. It was a good death. A noble death.

  The quality of a death didn’t make it better or worse. He was still gone from Summer’s life. From the pack’s life.

  Nash could say nothing to help Summer heal from the heartache of losing Seth. Words were inadequate. Meaningless. What she—and the entire pack—needed was time. But even if Nash couldn’t help her with words, he could remind her that she was still living and breathing and young.

  He drew away from her enough to shed the sword, dropping it on a row of cinderblocks supporting a shelf of herbs. Anywhere he was with Summer was no place for weapons.

  She stretched onto her toes and kissed him, clutching his shirt in both fists.

  “Don’t leave again,” she whispered against his lips. She tasted like salty tears.

  Nash couldn’t make that promise. He would leave again—as soon as she slept, he would leave. He needed to.

  He didn’t tell her that. That was the future, and they were in this moment.

  He spread his coat over the tarp and lowered Summer to it. She was pliant in his arms, utterly trusting, and she gazed up at him with tearful eyes that somehow only made her more beautiful.

  Nash didn’t speak as he touched her, showing her the love and regret that he couldn’t put into words. He removed her clothing and kissed the flesh it had covered, sheltering them
under the canopy of his wings as their bodies moved together.

  Even grief couldn’t dim Summer’s glow. She was the sun, the moon, and the stars in his arms. His entire universe.

  She was the reason that Nash would go back to war that night to kill a hundred more demons, and the reason that he would fight to survive.

  Summer was the reason that Nash would always come home.

  There were supposed to be seven stages of grief. Rylie couldn’t remember them all, but she thought that there was meant to be denial, and bargaining, and something about getting angry. She knew that it ended with acceptance. They had definitely discussed acceptance in her high school psychology class.

  It was all wrong. Rylie couldn’t experience denial over what she had seen happen to Seth. There was nobody to bargain with. If there were a God watching over her, then Seth never would have died in the first place. She lived in a hostile, miserable, unfriendly world that hated her, hated her family, wanted them to suffer. But she wasn’t angry about it, either. There was no room for anger. And she would definitely never accept what had happened to him.

  For weeks, she had felt like she was drowning. There was air somewhere above her but she couldn’t reach it. She was immersed deep in the black pit of the ocean, cold and hostile, with no light and no hope for survival. Yet she didn’t die. Damn it, she didn’t die, and that made it so much worse.

  Her bedroom had begun to take on a strange odor since she had started spending so much time in it. Rylie had started cleaning it every day, bleaching all of the surfaces, changing her sheets in the morning and washing them in the evening, but there was still this smell. It made her think of cemeteries. Grassy fields peppered with tombstones. Weeping angels of gray stone. Churches and a low mist and hollow silence, within and without. She wasn’t sure that the smell came from her—it certainly wasn’t something she had eaten, because she wasn’t eating much at all—and after a while, she started to wonder if she might just be imagining it.

  She was sinking, falling, unable to swim.