And I know I will do all I can to take him down.
“I gave youeverything.” 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 havekilledyou, 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 feelmyheart 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.
