by J. L. Myers
“Stop.” Cyrus snapped before Darius could smash the rock into the chains. He shook his head, fighting to speak as that recurring sensation of healing flesh spread over him like a blanket of pins. “And what the hell are you muttering about?” The stinging intensified, his flesh and muscles growing slowly, stretching ever so slightly and fighting with the grime and soot that stuck to his bloody bones and remains. “There is no escaping this place. Not anymore. There is only running until we are caught. And I am a liability.”
He tried to move his leg, but it refused to shift. The shin was cracked through, a sharp spear of bone protruding from one of the few patches of intact skin that stretched from his kneecap to his ankle.
“I would only get you captured too.” And Darius was no use to him if he was in the same broken state Cyrus was. At least with him free out there and in hiding, there was hope for…something.
“But there is a way to escape.” Darius forfeited the rock and actually smiled, that hard look on his face morphing with secrecy as his brows jogged. He turned away quickly, bending over one canine and then the other to yank their floppy heads to the side. The crunching of bones saw the beasts fall still once more before Darius returned. His smile hadn’t faded. “The woman, his lover, her wings have grown back. Her feathers too. Not white, not black, but somewhere in-between.”
Cyrus smiled for the first time since his capture and imprisonment. The stretching of his split lips cracked them open even further, but the rush of fresh blood down his chin didn’t dampen the expression. “Then we have a plan.” He smirked at the incapacitated hounds, seeing a use for the canines that would benefit him for the first time. “Her feathers are our escape.”
Darius stood tall, biting his thumb gently with his teeth before flicking the closest elongated fang. His smile was infectious. “Tell me where to find her.”
Chapter Seven
When Gabriel was safely back inside their private chamber, Lucifer found himself stalking across the barren land with purpose. He was so filled with fury and fear that he could not control the fire within. With each stabbing step, orange and red flames burst from Lucifer’s bare feet and hands, dousing every other second as he tried to rein in his control. He’d lost the chance to punish Darius for what he had done to Gabriel. Lost the chance to tear his flesh from his bones, to strip him of his muscles that gave him the ability to move, and to individually snap every one of his bones, starting from his fingers and toes and graduating to his arms, legs, ribs, spine, and ending with his smirking face.
Lucifer roared as he bypassed the outskirts of the city that was ever growing. He wasn’t entering that place with its scurrying victims and lurking deformed hellions. Already his men dominated the streets, seeking the hybrids who had escaped. He wasn’t heading to the mines that the ‘lucky’ ones worked in night and day to unearth precious metals, rocks, jewels and minerals from either. His footsteps quickened, racing for the top by taking a winding pathway that graduated to steep steps up the adjacent mountain to his towering castle. Not for the first time, he wished he had his wings back. Flying up to this height would be so much faster. More impressive too. But unlike Gabriel, his wings—charred by God’s own power—had never grown back.
Crows swarmed overhead, cawing loudly as they lifted and released one of the new Hellions from their clutches. The red-eyed half-breed fell from the swirling black and red sky. He plummeted as the crows soared away into the distance, disappearing behind the tall walls of the maze with a landing crunch and scream that cut off fast.
Screams and shrieks grew louder as Lucifer reached the crest. The sounds of running, falling, thumping, and gurgling raised the hairs across his nape. Lucifer’s breath quickened while his blood raced at what he imaged the blind and newly delivered hybrids were enduring. Endless curves and bends—until they reached the dead ends of the smooth, inescapable, towering walls where one of his hellhounds would corner and pounce from behind as they wailed. His anticipation and his disgust in all he had set in motion were a double-edged sword. Knowing these creatures paid for their vicious acts against Gabriel every day of their lives in Hell brought him a sense of justice, of paid revenge. Yet his disgust in being responsible, in relishing these heinous acts was overwhelming. In the beginning, when he’d been a being of light and love, he had never imagined he could become what he now was. He had never dreamed he’d be a monster. But that was exactly what he was. Despite what he wanted to believe, and despite what Gabriel proclaimed to see in him, he knew it was true.
Zachias’s voice and his mop of orange hair coming around the impenetrable side wall of the smooth cured lava maze snapped Lucifer out of his mind. “Then keep looking.”
The two guards who appeared behind Zachias rushed off, their faces diverting from Lucifer the moment they saw him and their feet pumping faster as they escaped down the steps.
Zachias saw Lucifer too and pulled up short. His hands came together, palms rubbing and fingers tight around his knuckles as he ventured forward. “The new prisoners, we have tracked down twelve and they are all secured in the maze as you ordered.”
Fresh screams and happy barks rang out from the maze that spanned from a forest of dead trees to a steep drop off over the mountain’s edge. The sound of feet pelting the compacted dirt thumped beyond the closest wall.
Lucifer couldn’t recall exactly how many he had spewed from his body into Hell today. His focus had been on Darius, the only one of them he had to be sure was caught and made redundant. The only one capable of banding against him and threatening not only his position but the one thing that mattered to him in all this darkness and pain. And yet, the darting of Zachias’s eyes, the continued movement from his joined hands, and the almost invisible tremor of his legs below the leather that hung down from his chest armor in strips were damning signs. Lucifer snarled, “Where in this Hell is Darius?”
“I—” Zachias shook his head, keeping his hands joined as the look on his face turned pleading. “We will find him.”
“You have not yet!”
Lucifer stalked forward, and despite the fear in Zachias’s red eyes, the guard did not cower as he was clutched by his neck. The flames Lucifer had struggled to control on his trek up the mountain burst forth, searing the soldier’s skin. The man still didn’t utter for him to stop or for leniency. Instead, he shook his head. “I…I was…set…to…”
Talking was almost impossible with the choke hold Lucifer had on him. His hand released even though he longed to squeeze harder and burn brighter, and he shoved his loyal guard back. He grated through clenched teeth, “Speak. Fast.”
Not even moving to cover the raw and bleeding flesh that bubbled over his throat, Zachias’s Adam’s apple bobbed with rushed speech. “We have a team on task to scour every corner of Hell. We swept the cells as you ordered and the others are preparing to set off on foot as soon as the city is clear—”
“The moment he realizes Cyrus’s location, that is the first place he’ll go,” Lucifer said, cutting the soldier off. “Are you certain the cells were clear?” He spun away from Zachias, staring out over the valley to the hole in the adjacent mountain. There were no soldiers storming up or down the chiseled steps in the side of the mountain to or from the prison entry. In fact, only two guards were visible, loitering outside the huge mouth of the cave. They both looked perplexed, peering down the dark hole then turning to shrug—because the guards they were sent to relieve were nowhere in sight. Dread collected like a tide of lava in Lucifer’s belly. “Something is wrong—”
A sudden torpedo of black slammed into Lucifer, cutting off his ability to hear Zachias rant on. In his furious need to find Darius, he had missed the flash that cut open the dark sky as the Angel of Death appeared. Falling to his back now, the fleeting pulse of light that fled the sky was all he saw of the archangel before his sight went black.
But Lucifer refused to ease into the damning torture.
Darius was still out there—a threat to the only thing that matt
ered to him.
With a guttural cry, Lucifer willed his chest to crack open like the shell of a nut. Insidious darkness spewed up like an erupting spring, falling back down to the ashy ground in a puddle.
Breathing hard, Lucifer slammed his gory ribs shut and rolled to his side. Silver-black blood streamed out as he levered up on one hand, but he ignored the blood loss that made his head airy as four figures rose up out of the black puddle, coalescing to make his fears a reality.
Four guards.
Two were the ones on rotation for the prison entry.
The other two manned the last entry to Cyrus’s place of imprisonment.
And now they were dead.
Lucifer’s heart jumped up into his throat, choking off his ability to breathe. Together, he knew what would happen if Darius found and freed Cyrus. Their combined knowledge and malevolent tendencies left no uncertainty. He knew where they would go. There was only one potential way out of Hell—and he had left her alone. “Gabriel.”
Lucifer was running as fast as his legs could carry him before he even realized he’d moved. Running from the maze of screams and torment. Running for his life—because if he didn’t get to her in time, if they killed her…he’d be dead inside too. Lost. Broken.
He couldn’t live without her. Not again.
Lucifer whistled for his crows, needing them to fly him straight across the canyon to his chamber window. But only the faintest sound echoed in the distance. His pets were too far away, scouring the ashy terrain for the one that got away.
But Darius wasn’t out there, fleeing to save his skin.
“Dear God.”
Lucifer’s feet pelted harder, leaping down four steps at a time. He would never make it. But he had to.
Chapter Eight
Gabriel paced inside Lucifer’s private chamber, her legs aching from her forceful steps. With her arms crossed over her chest and her hands clutching her biceps, she could barely keep the shakes from her entire body. Lucifer had left. He had all but flown her up here, shoved her inside, and then kissed her forehead before escaping through the doors. The doors that as she went to rush after him had become impenetrable as flames speared up from the track in the ground that circled the entire room.
She was trapped.
And Lucifer was weak.
He would never admit it. No, of course not. He was a strong immortal man. A leader. He could never show weakness in plain sight of the Hellions any more than he could under the watchful eyes of his very own soldiers. Even now as she stared through the flaming bars that blocked the window siding their enormous, round bed, she saw him in all his strength. From this far away, his presence as he climbed the stairs snaking up the opposing mountain should have been diminished. Yet the fire that sparked from his feet and hands, not to mention his eyes as he sent fleeting looks her way, was anything but weak. He was enraged. Filled with fury—because of her. Because the being who had intended to use and kill her, who deformed her body by taking her wings, was here in Hell.
Gabriel forced herself to turn from the view as Lucifer reached the flattened mountaintop and his leading guard appeared. There was always danger in Hell. Always. A new arrival did not change the threat they faced every day. And she was better, healed fully from her ordeal above. Gabriel’s gray wings were now long enough to brush over the ground, and she curled them closer around her body, trying to calm her worry for what might happen and how it would affect Lucifer. Keeping that darkness from his eyes was becoming increasingly harder. Every day after every new arrival and every bout of handed-out torture, she fought to bring the light back to his gaze. She fought to save his soul.
Now he was out there, right after being broken open over her lap.
That darkness had been swimming in his irises, coiling ever darker and thicker.
She turned back to the window opening, and her hand shot up over her mouth. Not to cover the wafting smells that blew in from the putrid city below. Unfortunately, those scents of spilled blood and rotting flesh had almost become normal to her, expected and tolerated. No. It was not her sense of smell that now had her heart racing as if ready to sprout wings of its own and take flight. It was her sight. Lucifer had Zachias by the throat. Even from this distance, the flames dancing out from his choking hold were visible. The darkness… “Come back, Lucifer. Come back to me—”
A sudden burn across Gabriel’s pale skin stole her breath and made her heart gallop faster. The creak and thud that followed had Gabriel turning on the balls of her feet to the sounds. The larger of her two hellhounds at her side growled while Zallina outside the entry scratched and whimpered. Beyond the table, where Lucifer spent hours writing and sketching a perfect likeness of her face, a door had swung open.
One she never even knew had existed right before this very moment.
The flames that served to block any entry—or exit—from this circular chamber no longer reached the speared ceiling. Hissing and squealing sounds heightened as she registered the massive lump on the ground that blocked the searing fire. A hellhound. Not the loyal Zax at her side who crept closer with his head forward and low, but one of the others Lucifer commanded.
With the smell of burning hair and flesh overtaking that of decomposition, Gabriel reacted without thinking. Rushing past the pillar and table, she slid down to her knees, arms outstretched to pull the animal free of the fire that would soon spear searing holes through its body.
A man stepped over the hellhound like it was a bridge, and Gabriel scrambled sideways in shock that had her falling onto her backside as she hit the edge of the table. Her new wings throbbed from the impact of her slight weight, still so new and sensitive since their regrowth. And then she saw him. A towering figure draped in bloody war clothes and a smirk that sent a chill across her hot skin. A sharp dagger glinted in his hand, reflecting all the flames that surrounded them. “Now look at what we have here, angel.” He said the word as if it were akin to filth, and the deadly look on his face matched his intent.
“Darius,” Gabriel gasped and scrambled back, her wings under her stopping her hands and feet from gaining purchase on the glossy ground. Her quietly stalking hellhound leaped from his place along the wall. Zax sank his teeth into Darius’s arm, his back legs making him as tall as the hybrid threat. Darius snarled like a beast, his red eyes leaving her—to drive his dagger into Zax’s ribcage. Once. Twice—
“Stop!”
A third weapon-wielding punch came despite her cry, and her pet’s jaw loosened. Barking and thumps grew louder from Zallina outside the door. And then Darius spun, launching Zax out the closest window.
“Zax!” Gabriel screamed as his howl concluded with a shattering crunch. She twisted and planted her hands on the ground, pushing up and ready to run—
Darius grabbed Gabriel’s long hair and tugged her back. She slammed into his chest and his arm snaked around her. The dagger tip pierced the underside of her jaw as he caught and squeezed one of her wrists tight enough to splinter bone. “Uh-uh-uh. Not this time. You are not getting away from me that easily. Not when you have exactly what I need.”
Gabriel didn’t dare ask what he needed from her. She already knew the answer. Her wings. Her ability to travel from one place to the next in the blink of an eye. “It will never work.” Despite how jittery her insides were, her voice was strong and unwavering. Her eyes darted, looking for something to defend herself with. Zallina was outside the main door—the only door she’d known about—growling and scratching to get in. With the guards out trying to hunt down Darius and the newcomers, there was no one out there to let her inside. Which she was glad at. With the fire blocking the way, Gabriel had no doubt Zallina would leap through the blaze and go up in a ball of flames just to try to get to her. To help her. Poor Zax. The agony of compacting on the jagged rise below the sheer drop off—she prayed he was alive.
Seeing how close they were to the lava pit was a thing of fear and opportunity—if only she were as fireproof as her fitted robe. “I am ch
anged. Tainted. Only a pure feather can get you out of this Hell.”
Darius snarled in her ear from behind, his breath hot and rank as it fanned over her cheek. “You better hope that is not true, because if it is, you are of no use to me. Short of flying me out of this pit yourself, I will have no choice but to kill you. To take the one thing Lucifer cannot function without—and then I will kill him too. Now move. You are coming with me.”
Darius tugged her toward the secret door and the dark tunnel beyond. Gabriel didn’t have a plan, she didn’t know how she was going to get out of this alive. But she had to try.
Curling her had over his that pressed to her chest, Gabriel shoved up, driving the dagger through the underside of her jaw. The pain was epic, but it was still nowhere near the agony of having her wings cut from her back—or the agony of being run through by the man she loved.
Darius startled at the self-mutilation, tugging the weapon free as Gabriel spun in his loosening arm. Throwing her hands into his chest, he tripped on the head of the burning hellhound and Gabriel darted, swiping a black drinking glass off the table. She slid to the ground, using the glass to scoop up bubbling lava from the pool. Warmth spread across her palm and she spun—
A hand caught her ankle, the bone splintering at the punishing hold that jerked her off her knees. Twisting mid-fall, she landed sideways, belting the air from her lungs and cracking her head on the edge of the lava pit. The glass hit the ground, but it didn’t shatter as lava sprayed out. Yanked backward, Gabriel rolled to her back, feet kicking to get free—until the dagger plunged into her thigh. She cried out, instinctively curling her knees up to her chest and tearing the skirt of her robe open.
