It was as if time slowed.
I took in the scene, and I was so distraught and furious that, for a moment, I couldn’t move.
His wings.
Raziel had cut off both of his wings. They lay in soft, bloody heaps of ebony feathers next to him. He was alive, but barely. Raziel had one foot on his chest and what I immediately recognized as an Aetherium blade pointed directly at his throat.
“Gabriel?” My voice was small, soft.
He coughed out a mouthful of black blood and winced, one of his eyes swollen shut from a blow he’d sustained before I’d arrived.
“Baby… get out ofhere.Run,Shemhazai.”
I was vibrating; my hellcats were creeping forward, mewling softly as they reached for the man who owned my heart.
Raziel looked at me, and I felt the full force of his gaze for the first time in millennia.
I buckled beneath it, my knees suddenly wanting to give out in terror.
But… he had a knife to Gabe’s throat.
Nothing mattered more than that.
The strange, cold calmness spread, and slowly, I raised my gaze to meet his.
The coldness that had taken over my body changed to a low, deepburn.
How fucking dare he touch him?!
Gabriel wasMINE.
I hissed, and as I met those horrible eyes dead on, I no longer saw the angel that had abused me.
I saw a dead man who had hurt the demon I loved far more than I feared my abuser.
“Release him.Now,” I ordered in a tone I had never used on Raziel before.
Raz smiled at me and shrugged.
“As you wish,” he said, and before I could react, he shoved the Aetherium blade directly into Gabe’s chest.
“No!”I shouted. Blood exploded from the wound, spilling over Gabriel’s chest in thick, black streaks. Gabe moaned in agony and slumped back against the ground.
Our bond flickered between us… then it went dark, and Iscreamed.
Raziel laughed. He kicked Gabe’s body before turning to face me.
“You’ve always needed to learn the hard way, Shemhazai. If you had just returned to me when I called, he would still be alive.”
My mind was reeling.
Emotions I couldn’t process or understand raged through my mind, and I was suddenly tearing at my hair.
Anger, grief, fear, devastation, sorrow…
No, no, no!This couldn’t be happening! He’d fuckingpromisedhe wouldn’t leave me!
He couldn’t be dead… He fuckingpromised!
