His head cocks to the side. “What movie?”
Ugh. I can’t even right now.
“He’s right,” Malek says gently. “We learned that in class.”
“Fine.” I click my heels together while chanting the words. I don’t realize my eyes are closed until I finish and open them, expecting to find a big-eared devil buzzing around my face.
Instead, I see the chaos below. War, blood, fire, and death. And sneaking among the shadows of it all is Azazel.
He’s headed right this way.
Thirteen
Syko
I blink in and out of consciousness, pulling myself from the darkness and toward that single beacon of light—the voices of those I love desperately.
But I’m swimming in a pain so agonizing, it spreads through my whole body. Something is missing, an essential part of me, and I can feel its absence like the absence of a limb.
My wings…
The resonating crack still echoes in these nightmares of mine, as do the wet shredding sounds of flesh scraping from bone.
My fuckingwings.
As a nephilim, I have no great power threaded through the space in my veins. What I do have is my ability to soar the skies, and without it, I am nothing.
Nothing.
Because an angel without its wings is a fate worse than death.
My lashes are too heavy to open, but a symphony of words start to sway together around me. A word I don’t understand keeps being repeated.
As ale. Ass ale… Assssss…
My lashes flutter, and I faintly see someone above me. Someone who isn’t Saint.
“Hello, my angelic friend,” the stranger says in a melodious voice. “Seems I’m an expert at healing the beautifully damaged. But I’m afraid my work won't be as pretty as when I helped your friend Izara,” he whispers sadly.
My lips are dry when I go to ask him a question, but the words only circle my mind and die in my throat.
“It’ll only hurt a little, my friend.” Steady hands slide over the jagged ends of my wings. Pain sears through me at the gentle press of his hand against my wound.
Warmth slips from his palms and into my feathers, my skin, right down to my bones. It’s like fluid streaming rapidly through my veins and warming me right to the core. The heat becomes hotter and hotter, stinging with that fiery liquid crawling beneath my skin.
The terrible sound of cracking bones sliding back into place and skin mending with a feeling of flames against flesh haunts my mind.
My teeth grind hard, but honestly, the last few hours have been endless pain. And this is just a prickling of agony among a slashing of misery. I never make a sound.
“One tough nemph you’ve found, Izara,” the man says, and I open my eyes to his smiling face. “Feeling better?”
I blink a few times, and every single part of me hurts like shit.
But I look behind him to see Izara staring at me with big, terrified eyes.
And I’ll never give her reason to worry about me ever fucking again after tonight.
So I choke down how bad my muscles, arms, and back hurt. I swallow it all down against the unimaginable dryness of my throat.
