I slowly come to my feet. Everything inside me aches and feels raw and broken, but still I take a staggering step toward my sister, taking in the sword in her hand.
My eyes narrow on it. “What the fuck is that?”
She holds it up by the hilt. It appears to be made of pure gold. “Daddy lent it to me. It’s a relic from the Citadel.”
“Yeah, he probably forgot to give me my relic. Bet it got lost in the mail or something.” I nod with a big eat-shit smile, but she simply looks into the distance.
Of course Daddy would lend his favorite child something as precious as an ancient vampire relic. The question is, why?
“And whereisDaddy dearest?”
Her lips press firmly together, and I know she’s warding off a chuckle. She flicks her hair again and gives a pointed look over my shoulder.
The breath catches in my throat. No. Slowly, I turn in time to see the gates to the academy shove open and the two of them storm through.
It’s like something out of a comedy, and the laughter that’s borderline hysteria escapes from my chest as soon as I see them.
My father is being led up the little crest of a hill on academy grounds, and leading him by sharp yanks of the ear is…?My mother.
Her cloth habit is dark in contrast to her stern, pale face, and from here, I can see she’s shouting at him. He opens his mouth and responds with his own equally stern expression, and she gives him a hard yank that has him shouting and nodding his head in agreement to whatever she just said.
And then more figures begin pouring through the gates, and I swear I’m fucking dreaming right now, because there’s no way in all the seven hells and heavens that this is fucking happening. There is no way that the Citadel in all its powerful force is coming through those gates alongside the nuns of the catholic church.
Or that my mother and father are suddenly leading them into the attack.
“Wh—” For once in my life, I am struck speechless.
“You told me to tell DaddyandMommy, so I did. Turns out, the church isn’t very happy about hell threatening the world, so they decided to intervene. Mom brought holy water. Daddyhatesholy water.”
Her words are punctuated by a demon hurtling toward their group. Water sloshes, and sizzling and dying gurgles begin to fill the air.
I wish the bitterness could enter my body for a split second. My father has always been disappointed in me, and when I asked for his help, he denied me. But he came, hecamebecause my mother asked it of him.
A demon lunges toward my mother, and my whole body tenses, but my father is suddenly there, ripping through the thing’s throat with his bare hands, killing it instantly. Then they turn toward each other, and I swear, a spark of passion lingers in the heated gaze between them.
Heaven’s next words echo my thoughts. “Love is fucking weird.”
Nineteen
Phoenix
“I still don’t understand any of this.” My arms cross against my chest, but I lower them almost immediately. Hell is loose, and I have to be ready for any possibility, for any fucking thing. “I don’t think you should trust that Azazel asshole.”
I can practically feel her eyes rolling as she stalks ahead of me. Her voice, when she replies, is soft yet firm. “I told you, he’s my uncle.”
“Blood uncle?” The words slip out, I can’t help it. It’s jealousy, I know it is. Seriously, feelings are the worst things to have. How can everyone else stand to have them?
“Well, he’s my father’s brother. If all angels are created by God, then I’d say, yes, he’s a blood uncle.” She stops, her booted feet crunching into the dead earth as she half-turns to smirk at me. “Are you still jealous?”
A growl rumbles out of my chest in violent vibrations. I shouldn’t be, but that angel and his fucking smirk and familiarity… I don’t like it, and I’m not sure if we can trust him at all. How can we trust anyone right now?
Especially that leather-wearing asshole, prancing around like he’s a gift from god or something.
Izara keeps walking. Her wings are tense at her back; she’s just as cautious as I am right now as we venture through the blackened woods. Everything is too quiet, and I know that the silence never brings anything good. There should be noise, even the smaller hellish creatures skittering around on the ground or through the trees.
There is nothing.
The woods here are clustered together in small patches, and we walk toward the larger forestation where Izara swears the Forest of Woe is. How she can know where anything is in this fucked-up jumble that is now a strange mixture of hell and the academy is beyond me. But she navigates through the maze of trees with expertise, pushing aside branches. They crack and fall to the ground.
