“Izara!” Azazel’s voice cuts through my distracted eyes. I turn. His hair snaps viciously against the wind, and he’s looking at me with sadness and pride in his expression.
“Take care of yourself, yeah?” He squeezes my shoulder, and I realize what’s happening.
All of hell is going back to hell.
Even him.
I grasp for his forearms as if that’s enough to keep him here, but the vortex begins pulling him away from me.
“It’s okay,” he reassures. “We’ll see each other again. I promise. In the meantime, please take this.” His hand slips into the pocket of my jeans. He winks. “Something to remember me by. Don’t look at it until the portal closes, though.”
I don’t want to let him go. A lump catches in my throat, but the tears are whipped away by the wind.
“It’s time to let go.”
I can’t.
I can’t.
But I do.
And then Azazel is gone, too.
We watch it happen within a matter of minutes. When all of hell is finally gone, a sense of relief and extreme heaviness presses against my chest.
They’re gone.
It’s over now.
The devil is dead.
Twenty-Three
Izara
My shoes kick at the rubble left in the aftermath of the battle. Broken bits of statues and body parts are strewn around everywhere, and it makes me sick to look at it all.
This was my doing. The banishment of hell had been on my lips the whole time, but I couldn’t have uttered it before. Not with my father still alive. I knew it wouldn’t matter how many times I banished him back to hell; he’d always find a way to come back.
Their deaths were on my conscience.
“Wipe that look off your face,” Phoenix growls, slipping his hand into mine so our palms kiss. “It’s not your fucking fault.”
His words should lift the heavy weight off my shoulders, but they don’t. “It is, though.”
My men are all surrounding me, and I know it’ll be like this for quite some time. They won’t leave me alone, and I honestly don’t want them to. I need them now more than I’ve ever needed anyone in my life.
“You have to forgive yourself, mi corazón. If it hadn’t been you, Shade would have chosen somebody else.”
He had a point. If someone wanted to do bad, they’d always find the fucking way to do it.
But still…
“Syko’s wings…” He’ll never fly again, neversoaragain, and if I can forgive myself for everything else, that is one thing I’ll never be able to.
Syko presses up against my other side and slips his fingers into my palm. “I won’t lie; life will be hard for a bit.” There’s a note of longing in his voice that slips away. “But my wings don’t define me. I still have magic. I’m still nephilim.”
I know his words are meant to reassure me, and for a second, they do, but it’ll be a long time before I can forgive myself for everything that happened. I kick at a rock and look up.
