A muscle jumps in his granite jaw. “I don’t give a flying fuck about them. Your safety is my only concern.”
“Well, I do. You can go if you want, but I’m staying,” I retort as I throw off my high-heeled sandals.
Kaiden sucks on his teeth. “Fine,” he snaps, popping off.
Shit. I didn’t think he would actually leave.
I whirl toward a slack-jawed Noah. Kaiden’s disappearance must have rattled him. “Call this in to the Order.”
He levels me with a stony glare.
“Seriously? Can you push your fucking ego aside until we make it out?” I bark.
He puffs out a breath through flared nostrils but nods, fishing out his phone from his suit jacket. I almost jump out of my skin when Kaiden materializes back, holding a few of the weapons I already packed. I take the whip and sword from his outstretched hand. Then, surprisingly, he throws my spare sword to Noah. He catches it in mid-air while giving Grayson a quick rundown of the situation.
It takes me a few seconds to remember that demons, Elite or not, shouldn’t be able to touch blessed weapons. I shove this information in a corner of my mind to pull out later.
“What did Grayson say?” I ask Noah.
“Thirty minutes,” he responds.
“All right. We just need to hold the demons back until thehellseekers get here.”
Kaiden flicks his gaze to Malik. “Can you shut down the portal?”
“I don’t know. I would need to get close to it.”
“Then we’ll clear a path for you,” I say. Sheathing back the daggers, I tilt my chin in Sam’s direction. “We need to find your car first.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you’re leaving.”
She huffs. “No, I’m not. I’m staying to help.”
“In a demon fight? Are you crazy?”
“I can hold my own. I’m a witch, remember?” She punctuates her words by waving a hand when two voidstalkers rush at us, all snapping teeth and gaping maws. A huge Venus flytrap sprouts from the ground. It swallows them whole. “See?”
“Okay. But don’t you dare leave my side,” I grit out. We don’t have time to argue, and Sam’s as stubborn as a mule. “Let’s—”
Souldrakes—too many to count—fly at us at warp speed from all available exits.
Fuck.
“Kaiden!” Malik bellows.
Kaiden hesitates for exactly two heartbeats, then declares “On it.”
The ground starts shaking again. Clouds roll in. Burnished gold floods Kaiden’s crimson irises while his black-as-night scleras turn white. Obsidian wings explode from his back. He launches into the sky with swift flaps to meet the spiked, vulture-like demons. When he lifts his hands, bolts of blinding light strike down in a downpour over the horde. The souldrakes screech as they burst into blueish, almost transparent flames that are too bright to watch.
Is thatillum?
I’m equally as dumbstruck as Noah and Sam while gawkingat the unfolding scene. Given the color of his blood and how the national park looked in the aftermath of the umbra attack, I should have expected this, but it seemed impossible an Elite demon could wield divine light. It’s unheard of. IknewI saw his wings that night he saved me, but the excruciating pain had me thinking it was nothing more than a hallucination. He must have angel blood. There’s no other explanation.
The outside wall of the mansion collapses under Kaiden’s power. A thick plume of dust joins the blanket of ashes akin to sooty snow flurries that start falling from the sky. If I thought hellfire was destructive, theillumis that times infinity. It pulverizes the crimson-winged creatures in milliseconds.
Fuck me. He’s spectacular.
