Winged Passion, page 17
part #3 of Heaven's Heart Series
I am going to die.
“No!” Trick’s shout made her fight harder.
The knife slammed home and she was thrown to the side.
What?
Where?
No pain...
Trick collapsed next to her, the dagger protruding obscenely from his chest. His hand clenched over the hilt.
“Trick!”
She was released from her magical bonds and darted forward, cupping his head. Her hands fluttered over his wound, as she tried to work out what to do to save him.
It looked like a heart strike.
Throat clogged, she demanded, “Trick. Why?”
Blood seeped from his lips, and he grinned weakly at her. “Only get...stabbed...by me.”
Blood was pooling, sticky, around the dagger. It was a Cushiel—an angel-killer—and deadly to the majority of demon species.
Tears trickled down her cheeks. “No. No, no, no.”
“Barely hurts.” He coughed, and blood sprayed the air.
She lowered her forehead to his. “You’re dying.”
He met her gaze with his. “Worth it.”
“No, I’m not.”
He touched her cheek. “So beautiful.”
“Teleport out of here. Get help.” But his face was growing pale, dark blood bubbling between his lips.
She ripped a healing spell from her pack and poured the liquid directly on the wound. Trick’s back arched, and a scream tore through the room. If anything, he looked worse.
There is no cure for a Cushiel.
No, she wouldn’t accept that.
He had to get better.
He would.
Trick reached out, clasping her wrist in a weak grip. “Get. Away. Save. Self.” A moment later, his hand dropped to the ground as he exhaled, the sound rattling deep in his lungs.
Then he was still.
Her fingers scrabbled at his neck, but there was nothing. No pulse.
He was gone.
“No!” The scream tore from her. She ripped the dagger from his chest, and pressed down desperately on the wound, willing it to heal.
It didn’t work. He didn’t move.
The bright vitality that embodied Trick had gone.
“Trick!” The scream came from the earpiece.
If I press harder—
“How touching.” Lucifer clapped.
Her head whipped up to stare at the first of the fallen.
“Your lover boy is dead. No one steals from me.” Lucifer grinned, revealing fangs. His almost-white irises glowed. “You’re next.”
Tears ran down her cheeks. A ripping, searing pain like she’d never experienced clawed through her. Worse than losing her wings. Worse than Paschar’s betrayal.
Trick had given his life for her.
Her.
No one she knew would have done that. Not even her parents.
She looked down at Trick. I could have loved him.
Skies, she had loved him. At least a little bit.
And that little spark would have grown, would have flourished.
With a raw scream, she threw herself over his body, and slammed into Lucifer. Blades out, she dug them into his belly, over and over.
He fought her, fast and furious, but rage like she had never known suffused her, making her stronger, faster than ever.
With a furious kick, she sent him flying through the glass wall. In a shower of shards, Lucifer hit the ground below, his skull cracking in a bloody spray on the mosaic tiles.
She jumped out after him.
They fought, her cheekbone shattering from his blow, his arm snapping in two from hers. She slammed her blade home in his blackened heart, and it paralyzed him for a bare second. It was all she needed.
Anger fueling her, she sawed through his neck with her other knife. Blood sprayed her in the face, the eyes, her mouth, and it dropped from her hair. Seraphina just bared her teeth and kept cutting through muscle, through tendon, and through the beginning of bone.
Lucifer’s hands clawed at her, leaving deep gashes down her arms.
She was almost through his vertebrae when he vanished.
“No!” she yelled, the sound raw and primal.
Spinning around, she searched for him, only to draw up short.
Lucifer hadn’t vanished. She had.
She was in a square room, the walls painted a dull gray, the floor even duller, although the ceiling was white. Fluorescent light spread unevenly over the room, and there was no furniture.
In one corner, stood a shadowed man. Hope surged within her, until she realized he was taller than Trick, stockier.
Trick is dead.
Fury rose in her. “Where am I?”
The man strode into the light.
Laird. Baal. Lucifer’s Great Duke.
“You betrayed us!” She launched herself at him, only to be grabbed from behind.
“No, he retrieved you.” The person holding her was shaking her. “He teleported you out of there!”
She glared over her shoulder, and some of the fight bled from her. “Sylvester?”
“The one and only.” His blue eyes were dull, his face worn.
“Where’s Trick? Where’s Lucifer? Where am I?” She broke from his hold.
“Trick was gone when I got there. I left Lucifer where he was. You’re in my panic room,” Laird answered.
Seraphina stalked toward him. “Trick was gone? Where?”
“I don’t know,” Baal replied.
She threw her dagger so hard it embedded in the concrete wall. “I need to find him.”
“He’s dead. We saw him die.” Sylvester’s voice turned gravelly. “I felt it.”
Laird placed his hands on her shoulders. “You need to calm down, you need to think.”
“You stopped me from killing Lucifer!” Faster than a blink, she was behind the god.
Sylvester stepped toward her. “Woah! Did you just teleport?”
“What? No. I can’t.”
“I think you just did.”
Sylvester and Laird glanced meaningfully at each other. Laird cleared his throat. “Do you feel stronger? Faster? More powerful?”
“What I feel is anger.”
Trick had given his life for her. It was the least of the emotions she felt.
“Try to teleport,” Laird said.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.” He paused. “Wait. Hold my hand when you do it.”
A calloused palm closed around her blood-soaked wrist. She focused on the first place she could think of.
A heartbeat…and Seraphina and Laird were standing on Raze’s manicured lawn, the great columned entry of his mansion before them.
“Nice place,” the god said.
She turned to him. “I need to find Trick.”
“Finding people is difficult. People, they change from day to day, minute to minute. Unless you know everything about them, it can be hard to teleport directly to them.”
“So I’ll find a way to locate him first.”
“Not without a token, you won’t.”
“A what?”
“If Trick is carrying a static object, something that won’t change, that you know inside and out, then you’ll be able to find him. That’s why teleport-capable demons give each other jewelry when they bond or mate.”
“Like an anchor?”
“Yes.”
Trick had her feather.
“I can trace him.” She met Laird’s eyes, radiating pure determination. “I am going after his body, no matter what. He deserves a proper burial.”
And who knew, she might be able to bring him back from the grave.
I am not worth dying for.
“Well then, by all means, let me tag along for the ride.”
They vanished.
Chapter 34
Seraphina!
Was she okay? Had she survived?
Wait. He was dead.
Then why do I hurt? Trick’s body was one giant bruise. His back ached most of all.
But didn’t he get stabbed in the heart?
And here I thought death was meant to be peaceful.
He sat up and opened his eyes. He was surrounded by white, fluffy and soft mist, like he was inside a cloud. Wisps of air floated around his legs and feet, but it didn’t feel like anything. It wasn’t even cool.
Am I in Heaven?
He hoped Seraphina had escaped, that he’d bought her enough time to flee Lucifer.
“You.” The word was spat out like a curse.
Uriel was to his left, the angel’s jet-black skin glinting in the soft sunlight. Michael stood by his side, his white eyes cold and hard, a sword in his hand. Heaven’s enforcer.
This isn’t good.
When Trick died, he always figured his soul would stop by Hades on its way out the door.
“You couldn’t have stayed where you were. Down with all the other rejects in Hell. You had to come back.” Uriel snarled the words, his face contorted with rage and disgust.
Come back?
He turned to look over his shoulder, saw a fall of white interwoven with rose-gold filaments.
My wings. They’re back.
Power flooded him, healing his wounds, his aches.
My abilities. Before he’d fallen, Trick had been a healer.
Raising a shaking hand to touch the softness, he startled at the sensations that burned through him. Trick had never thought to see his wings again—Hell, he’d written off ever returning to Heaven. It’s why he’d drunk Hades’ blood, why he’d become one of the few true fallen angels out there. Why he’d started the guild, started a new life. Hidden his true nature among a host of demons, so that only Hades, Lucifer and Satan knew his true identity in the Hell-realms.
Seraphina might think she’s fallen, but until she drinks the blood of a death god—or Lucifer— she’s merely a wingless angel.
Wasn’t it hilarious that the archangels never bothered to clarify that distinction?
Fuck, how he hated the assholes.
Trick struggled to his feet, his balance thrown off by wings he hadn’t had in over a millennium.
“I will cut them off now. Save having to do it later.” Michael stepped forward.
“Leave him alone!” From out of nowhere, Seraphina darted between Trick and the archangels, her face, hands, and hair splattered in blood.
She was utterly magnificent.
Chin raised, eyes flashing fire, she made his blood pound, and his newly repaired heart race.
“Seraphina?” Uriel’s gaze widened. “What are you doing here? Leave at once!”
“Don’t you touch him.” Then she screamed mentally, the word indecipherable, but deafening his mind nonetheless.
The two archangels flinched.
She just threw herself in front of two archangels for me.
Archangels he knew she feared.
I think I love her.
He’d made her his heir, knowing it would boost her abilities if he died, but he was in awe of how strong she had become. To make archangels wince...
Uriel raised a hand, as if to strike Seraphina, but froze, his arm suspended in midair.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Baal.
The god must have teleported with Seraphina, his power a golden inferno around him.
A former deposed god, in Heaven.
Oh, how the other angels would scream at the blasphemy.
Trick grinned.
But Baal wasn’t the last entity to put in an appearance. The archangel Gabriel arrived in a burst of power, dark hair hanging low over his forehead, his eyes a brilliant violet, wings threaded with thick veins of gold.
To see Gabriel was rare; as Heaven’s spymaster, he tended to keep under the radar.
“Seraphina,” he said.
The archangel’s eyes took in the fallen angel, something almost tender gracing his expression, before his gaze hardened when he spotted Trick.
“What is going on here?” Gabriel turned to Michael and Uriel. “Why do you have a sword out?”
Michael’s eyes flashed. “Precaution.”
“He was going to cut my new wings off,” Trick offered.
Michael growled.
Seraphina spun around, and her eyes went wide, her expression stunned as she took in his wings. “You’re an angel?”
“I was. Am.”
She touched his wing with a bloody hand, gasping as she stained his new feathers. “Who were you?”
A moment later, the cloud shook, and another archangel appeared.
Great, why don’t we call it a party?
This newcomer was female, with hair a deep russet red, and eyes of dark brown. She was barely five feet tall, but her face was a female version of his own. Her voice was clipped and precise. “He was Cassiel.”
Nanael. His sister. He’d always called her Neemah; she had enjoyed it when he was a child, tolerated it when he was an adult.
Surprise and grief crossed Seraphina’s fine features at the revelation of his name.
Uriel spat. “The healer angel who helped demons.”
“You dare greet his return with swords?” Neemah demanded. “And why was I told of this event by Gabriel? Not by the two angels who met his arrival?”
“It is not your concern, Nanael,” Michael said, his grip tightening on his sword.
Neemah stomped her foot. “He is my brother.”
Trick’s legs wobbled, and he sank to the ground.
Seraphina collapsed next to him and he drew his wings around them both. And in doing so, he saw them, the flecks of yellow gold that had appeared in his feathers months before his fall.
Seraphina stared at them too, then at him. “You were about to ascend?”
He nodded, pressing his cheek to her blood-splattered hair. “Funny, how when Uriel found out I was going to be an archangel, I got my wings removed and was kicked out of Heaven. And that my side of the story was never heard.”
“Lies!” Uriel shouted.
Neemah stepped forward, her white gown flowing around her. “Is this true?”
Trick peeled his left wing away, revealed it to her. “They are exactly as they were the day before I fell.”
His sister ran a gentle finger over the fine gold filaments, then whirled to face Uriel. “You dared to cut the wings off an ascending angel?”
“He helped demons!”
“Where was your proof? You never revealed your source!” Neemah raged. “You barred me from the trial.”
“My brother,” Trick murmured. “My brother was the source.”
Seraphina’s hand went to her throat.
“Why would he lie? What had he to gain?” Michael asked.
A bell chimed, then Hades’ voice drawled, “What indeed?”
Trick turned at the sound of the god’s voice. There, in jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black leather jacket stood the god. His hair was out, and his lemon-colored eyes flashed. He bumped fists with Baal.
Two gods, and four archangels.
And one rebirth.
This was the stuff of legends.
Funny, how the only thing I care about is not being dead. And Seraphina being alive.
“This is not your realm,” Michael snapped. “You are not welcome here.”
“Strange. Uriel doesn’t seem to pay attention to that rule,” Hades rumbled.
“Uriel?” Neemah turned to the other archangel.
“It was nothing.” Uriel slashed his hand through the air.
“Your recent visit to my realm may have been pointless,” Hades said, “but still more lacking was your interview with Trick’s brother. Perhaps he can fill us in on some of the details you overlooked last time you talked to him.” The god clicked his fingers and suddenly Paschar was there, in the clouds with them.
The sniveling bastard.
At first, he didn’t see Trick or Seraphina. Instead, he preened in front of the four archangels. Trick came to his feet slowly, sweeping his wings behind his back.
“My lords, how may I be of service?” Paschar bowed low.
Michael stared at Hades. “You dare summon an angel?”
Trick’s brother turned and went pale at the sight of the Hell-lord. He pivoted back to the archangels. “My lords?”
Uriel rolled his eyes. “Repeat your testimony, Paschar. Did you find your brother healing a demon?”
“What is this about?” Paschar asked, confused. “Cassiel is already fallen.”
“Not anymore,” Hades grunted.
Paschar spun around, his face morphing into an expression of rage when he spotted Trick. He barely even noticed Seraphina. “What is he doing here? And with wings?”
“He won them back.”
“I thought you said he wouldn’t be given a way back in.” Paschar’s tone turned petulant.
“Every angel has a way to earn back their wings,” Gabriel’s voice swam through the group, cool and calm. “Cassiel’s was to commit the ultimate act of sacrifice.”
Paschar frowned. “What does that even mean?”
“I know it is something you would struggle to understand, brother,” Trick said.
“It means he gave up his life, his existence, without thought of the consequences,” Neemah glared. “He believed he would earn the final death through his actions, but acted anyway, to save the life of another.”
“And who deserved this great honor?” Paschar’s derision was clear.
Seraphina stepped forward. “I did.”
Paschar finally noticed the gore-coated fallen angel. He paled.
“Seraphina...you didn’t...you wouldn’t...” Paschar finally seemed to get hold of himself. “How could you betray me in such a way?”
“Betray you?” Seraphina was incredulous.
What?
They were lovers. Gabriel’s voice whispered in Trick’s mind. Paschar had proposed the day she lost her wings. He renounced her.
Trick stared at the archangel. Thank you.
You are welcome. The dark-haired spy-master turned a fond gaze on Seraphina. I always held a soft spot for her. I do not know what she saw in your brother.
Half-brother.
A cool mental chuckle reached him, belying Gabriel’s impassive face.
