The scrawny Nephilim stepped out of his room and tiptoed toward Lucille’s.
I clenched my jaw and let the oblivious male sneak a couple more steps. Then released a shadow and tripped him. He fell ungracefully to the floor.
“I told you to stay in your room.”
He peeked through his unmanageable hair, grinning sheepishly. “Did you? I don’t recall.”
His grin and green eyes made my stomach lurch. He reminded me of someone from my past.
He stood, inching toward her door.
“She needs to heal,” I warned.
The Nephilim crossed his arms. “Does she? Huh. The slices down her limbs and her unconscious state must’ve slipped my mind.”
My shadows whipped around me in threat. If he didn’t share those oddly familiar features with the male who saved my life, I would’ve released them. Let them rough him up a bit. Instead, I passed by him, leashing my shadows before they slipped beneath her door.
“Get back in your room.”
“Yes, Sir.”
A door opened and shut behind me, sounding closer than it should’ve.
I guaranteed he went into her room, and I didn’t have enough energy to go drag him out. Or, more likely, I didn’t want to set foot in there.
I entered my sitting area and sighed in relief. It was empty. I walked over to the wall of weapons by my fireplace, removed my Soul Swords and daggers from my person, and placed them back on the runed wall. Raising my last dagger, I paused.
Sinking into the chair next to my fire, I twisted the handle of Tsal-mawet in my palms. This dagger could change my life—if only we had my feather. Lucifer would want to know I’d found the blade that sawed off his wings and created the world we now live in.
Hell.
The place the council claimed they wanted me. But they were lies. Etan would’ve kept me as his slave for all eternity. Fortunately, I escaped, and now I had a home in Hell’s first circle: Redemption.
It used to be the least gruesome circle of the seven—until twenty years ago, when the gates closed and Hell began to devolve. The Seven Circles stopped recycling souls, making them overcrowded and allowing dangerous souls to pop into circles they weren’t allowed in. And now… now everything was fucked, making my job as a general harder than it’d ever been.
I fingered the deadly blade, unable to resist the magnetic pull of the cold, lethal edge. Its power hummed against my fingers as if calling out to be used. But Tsal-mawet wasn’t meant to be wielded by the hands of men or angels. It was the Weaver’s to use—to create and destroy. And it certainly wasn’t meant for torture.
Mymuscles tensed, urging me to find the Archangel that tore apart her flesh. My vision darkened as a wisp seeped from my hand, wrapping around the hilt of the humming metal. I wanted to destroy him. I wanted to make every blood vessel in his body burst and savor his screams as I filleted?—
I hissed, cutting myself on one of the dagger’s sharp quillons.
For fuck’s sake.
Every time I so much as thought about her lying there, bloody and dying, unending cold rage seized my thoughts. All I could think about was revenge on everyone involved in her torture.
Lucille’s torture.
My second problem.
Arms wrapped around me from behind, startling me from my thoughts.
“Are you going to play with your dagger all night or come to your bed and play with me instead?” Moira asked, pressing her soft lips to my ear.
Seven Hells, my shadows didn’t sense her? Was I that distracted?
She slowly slid her naked arms down my chest. My muscles pushed at the thick material of my uniform like my shadows pushed at my body to escape—and go to… her. Not the female attempting to unbuckle my cuirass. The female down the hall.
The writhing wisps living inside me were both a part of me and an entity all their own. They craved the female like they craved the blood of our victims. They craved her, and I desired to havenothingto do with her.
