I knew Shem and I had been playing this game for centuries, but hehatedYahweh and his followers. Our game was always just that, a game. I didn’t think he would willingly hand me over to an archangel. No matter how pissed he was with me for making him fuck that vile king.
The seraphim smiled, and chills sheeted through my body.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s coming anyway. He senses her presence. I can see him.”
‘Fuck this.’ Sköllsnarled into my mind, and before I could warn him not to, my guardian launched himself at the angel.
Art looked panicked and left the second Fenrir joined the fray. The demon vanished into the woods in what I assumed was an attempt to keep Shem from finding out what he had done.
The forest lent me its energy as I called magic to my fingertips, but even as I prepared to cast, I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
My people had been hanged, my sanctuaries burned, and I no longer had enough power to properly defend myself against an angel this ancient.
The angel lazily waved a hand, and my guardians stopped in their tracks. I screamed as he tore away their earthly forms and forced them back into the coin I had originally released them from.
In a fit of desperation and anguish, I fired a powerful blast of fire at the angel, but he shielded himself with two of his six wings. The stream of fire sputtered uselessly againsthim.
I was panting and panicked when he snapped his fingers. A golden noose snaked out of the grass and curled around my ankles.
“What the—” I tried to back away as the strange gold material sapped even more of my strength away from me.
“Yahweh has been waiting to add you to the graveyard for a long time, Hecate. I will be rewarded for your capture.”
The noose wound around my limbs, tying my wrists and my ankles together so tightly I dropped to the ground.
“I will fucking end you for this!” I spat, my mind still reeling with how quickly everything had happened.
The seraphim rolled his eyes and crouched before me, easily scooping me up into his arms.
“Now we just need to return Shemhazai to my collection, and everything will be as it should.”
The way he said Shem’s name made the blood drain from my face.
I was angry with him, sure, but whatever this angel was planning for him was not something I wished on the crafty chaos demon. Even he didn’t deserve whatever plan this sinister being had in store for him.
“Hec?”
Speak of the devil.
I thrashed against the seraphim’s chest in an attempt to get him to drop me, and my gaze collided with Shem’s green eyes as he melted through the wood.
“Shem! Run!” I screamed, and the seraphim laughed.
“Hec!” he barked in alarm, taking a step toward me until he realized who it was that held me.
The second his eyes took in the angel, he froze.
I’d known Shemhazai for thousands of years, and I’d never once seen him afraid.
“Shem, run! It’s a trap, Ar?— “
The seraphim slapped his hand over my mouth, and the rest of my words fell dead in his palm.
I watched Shem struggle with himself. He wanted to help me; I could see it on his face. But he was afraid of this angel, so much so that he was nowshaking.
Our eyes met, and I let him see that I wanted him to run. He couldn’t help me if he was frozen with terror. It would only get him snatched up, too.
More golden strings snaked through the grass toward him, and I screamed against the angel’s palm in warning.
