And that isn’t safe for anyone.
“I’ll go,” Syko whispers, turning away from the sight of his sister for the first time. Phoenix immediately nods, and I can’t help but look across the flickering hellfire to take her in.
My chest squeezes tight at the thought of both of them leaving. I hate the thought of them down there among all of that.
Phoenix’s big hand brushes over my bicep. He tightens his hold there in a warm and reassuring way until I look at his deep green eyes.
He’s relentless, just like Izzy. Except his power is contained.
I can’t be so sure about Izzy’s power in this moment.
If we stay and do nothing, eventually someone will need to keepussafe from that power.
Two
Izara
Chaos is a word I didn’t fully comprehend until now. Neither was the sadistic sense of love that came with it.
The wilder, primitive, and savage part of me that I’ve fully embraced loves the violence. Relishes it. As the veil ripped open and the creatures of hell poured through, the men I love were thrown away from me, lost in the fray of hell on earth. But it wasn’t them I worried about. I didn’t even think of them.
How could I when my attention was snatched by the rift between worlds?
It’s a beautiful thing, and if I had my paints, I would portray it in all its vivacious violence. Creatures tear over each other like lions fighting and clawing over a scrap of bone. The air around the academy literally looks like it’s made of thin curtained fabric and has been ripped from top to bottom.
Fire licks through until it’s all consuming, raging across the forestation of black trees and dead earth.
Burn, I will it.
Burn.
I sit straight-backed on my throne, and I’ve never felt more at home than I do here. With this power thrumming through my veins like cold and hot rivers of fire warring against each other for dominance. My angel and hell blood demanding to take over.
My fingers flick across the armrest of my throne leisurely as I take in the chaos around me with joy.
Once upon a time, I would have thought it was my reckless Prod feeling joy. Not anymore. We are one now, she and I. My father had been right about embracing her; it gives me complete and utter control, coursing through my body.
I feel the power inside me, not like something foreign, not like something to be feared, but something to be relished. Something to embrace and to wield like it deserves.
The blood inside my body is holy and damned, and I’ve never felt more the sinner than I do now.
My wings snap closed at my back.
Watching the spectacle before me is like watching a play fall to tatters. Like watching darts pierce balloons filled with paint so it splatters in angry bursts across a canvas. Beside me, my half-brother, the Messenger of Chaos, laughs as two hellhounds drag the body of a Prod out into the clearing and rip through his chest.
I sigh and turn away from the sight.
My father watches the scene as well. He doesn’t laugh, though. He doesn’t seem to be at all like my vicious gargoyle of a brother. He’s more controlled, humming with quiet energy and delight. His posture is almost careless as he leans forward, elbows against his knees.
Looking at him now, in his elegant all-black suit, his profile chiseled, I wouldn’t peg him for a king. But the smoking obsidian crown on his brow that licks bits of fire tells me otherwise.
The King of Hell is my father.
The devil does wear Prada after all.
As if he feels my stare, he slowly turns and blinks at me with his bicolored eyes. One black, one as golden as the fire that threads through the veins of my wings.
He smiles at me, and he’s so handsome, I stare. All my life I’ve looked for bits of myself in others—in looks, if not in manners—and I’ve finally found it. I can see my eyes reflected in his own, and I know they’re a mirror of one another. I should have seen it before. His hair, the angle of his jaw…
