If Syko dies, I… I’ll never be able to forgive myself.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, tasting the salt of my tears on my lips. My fingers tremble as they sweep across his cold face. He doesn’t even stir.
Saint sits shirtless and watching me with big blue eyes that shine with unshed emotions.
My shoulders shake as sobs silently tear through me. Then I feel hands on my shoulders, and Saint is pulling me close. I can feel wariness in the set of his body, but still he holds me as I cry over Syko.
“He’s not dead.” Saint’s voice holds the trembling hint of a threat. Like if anyone dares to contradict him, he’ll tear through the gates of heaven himself somehow to bring our nephilim back from whoever dares try to take him. “He’ll live.”
“He has to.” My tears splash against Syko’s cheeks. “If you die, you’ll take a part of me, too. Do you hear me?” A part of me hopes these words can be a tether between the worlds of life and death. That the threat will be enough to tie him here, to me, tous.
I wonder if I even have the right to say such things when I’m the reason he’s here in the first place. I wonder if he even knows, if he believed in me the whole time or if he’d lost faith the moment he saw me take my father’s hand and sit down on that throne?
All I know is that he can’t leave without knowing why I did what I did.
“He showed me a world I didn’t know existed. A world where I was in control and where those I loved wouldn’t die. I believed in him at first. I thought he really just wanted to help me control my Prod.” I reach for Syko’s fingers, but they’re stiff and cold beneath my grip. “I didn’t know just how wrong he was until he suggested bringing hell to the real world.”
“For a moment his offer was tempting, I won’t deny it. But I tried to picture demons like Osmodeus here and I couldn’t… Then he kept insisting, and he told me I was his daughter and I…” I break off, taking in a shuddering breath. “And I knew what a monster he was, and I imagined what he did to my mother, and I knew he wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted. So I accepted his offer because I knew the only way to end him was to become as powerful as him, so I had to trick you so he would believe I was on his side. I didn’t think this would happen.”
“What did you think would happen?” Malek cuts through gently, yet sarcastically. I wonder if he’ll ever forgive me for what I’ve done. For not trusting him. I’m his mate, and I couldn't trust him to protect me; for a wolf, there is no greater offense. “That he’d open a hell portal and we’d all be fine?”
His words twist the knife through my aching wounds even further. I hang my head in shame, and my voice is small, weak. “I didn’t knowwhatwould happen. All I knew was that I needed to kill him.”
Malek scoffs, a choked sound. “And how well did that go? Judging by the fact that there are demons still circling the night sky, I’d say not well at all.”
I tear my gaze away from Syko long enough to turn and glare at him. “I fucked up! Is that what you want to hear me say? I wasn’t strong enough to kill my father like I thought I’d be. Ifucked up,and now everyone is paying the price, and Syko is lying here with his wings fuckingshredded. I know what I’ve done, so don’t stand there and lecture me, because I swear to shit, there is nothing you could ever say to make me feel worse than I already do.”
Malek’s golden-brown eyes are full of sorrow and pain. There’s a well of hurt there that immediately softens and becomes something close to understanding. He sighs, a tremble passing through his muscular body. “So how are we taking that fucker down?” he asks.
I shake my head. “First Syko needs to be healed. We can’t leave him like this.”
“There is no remedy I can create that will help him. Unless you know someone with healing powers…”
Healing powers.
Fuck.
Why didn’t I think of it before?
“Aza—” I cut the words off mid-turn. I’d been so wrapped up in Syko, in them, that I hadn’t noticed that there was no more glowing pixie dust around me.
Azazel is gone.
Eleven
Phoenix
The darkness is our greatest enemy. Because it leaves us alone with ourselves. I sit there on the cold ground with my hands thrown over my knees as I stare into the dense nothingness. And I think about every fucking wrong I’ve ever done.
The screams and cries of a hellacious war just on the other side of this wall play like soft background music to my cruel thoughts.
They’re all going to die out there.
And I’m going to die in here.
Alone.
Oddly, I just wish Izara was asleep right now. I keep trying to meet her, because if in our dreams is the last place I’ll see her, then I’ll take that false moment and make the very fucking most of it.
