Suddenly, a flash of light and a massive swell of scorchingheat slammed into him, knocking him into a pillar twenty feet away.Jeddascreamed as she careened off another pillar and into a wall with a sickeningcrunch.Another blast hit Razr beforehe could recover.Fire seared his skin, and the stench of singed hair filled his nostrils.Everymuscle screamed in agony at the cellular level from the impact of the energywave.
Only Shrike would have been capable of using thatparticular fallenangel weapon, and with Razr’s power boundby angels, he couldn’t fight it.He needed Jedda.
He reached out with his mind for the power of the Enochgem...But there wasn’t so much as a spark.
Groaning, he rolled to his feet as Darlah swung a sword soclose to his head that he felt the gentle kiss of the blade passing next to hisear.Sweeping his legs out, he caught her at the knees, bringing her down in aclumsy sprawl.But she was quick, and she was on her feet before he made ithalfway to Jedda, who hadn’t moved since the initial blast.Blood and gemstonesformed in a puddle around her, expanding with alarming speed.
Be okay.Please be okay––
Something hit him from behind, knocking him to his kneeswith the force of the blow and the intensity of the pain.Warm blood splasheddown his back and hips, and holy fucking shit, he might have lost an organ ortwo as well.As he hit the floor, realization clobbered him as hard as the blowhad.
He’d taken a strike from a halberd, its sharp, foot-longhead buried deep between his shoulder blades.
His ears rang, and he wasn’t sure which was louder: hispounding pulse or Shrike’s maniacal laughter.He was going to die like this.And so was Jedda, if he couldn’t rouse her to consciousness.
Desperately, he dragged himself toward her, the halberd’sheavy pole-handle scraping the floor and sending fresh rounds of agony clawingthrough him with every inch of progress he made.
Almost there...almost there...
“Jedda,” he rasped.Her eyes opened, dazed and lacking thebrilliance he loved to see.“I need your power, baby.You can do it.”
All around her, the ice-blue glow of the gem’s powerflickered to life.But “flickered” was the key word.Her power was fluctuating,weak, and they were in some serious trouble.
Jedda wasn’t afraid of dying.Especially not if dyingmeant Razr could return to Heaven and would no longer suffer the horrifictorture he’d been subjected to for years.
But dying for any other reason was bullshit, and the sightof him trying to drag himself to her, a weapon impaled in his back, miseryetched on his handsome face...it made her angry and heartbroken and dammit, herwill to live was stronger than this.
Even as her mind rallied, her body failed.Gemstones formedall around her, large ones, powerful ones.She wasn’t just bleeding; her organswere failing.
A smile twisted Shrike’s lips as he threw out his hand, anda sizzling strike of lightning hit Razr in the neck.He tried to scream, butthe only thing that came from his ruined throat was smoke.
“No,” she croaked.“No!”
Gritting her teeth, she found one last surge of energy.Onelast chance to end this.With a shout of agony, she lunged at Razr, slidingthrough her own slippery blood.Somehow, her hand found his, her fingersclosing around the glowing gemstone in his ring.
It was enough.As if she’d plugged them into an electricalsocket, they both lit up with an ice-blue aura of energy.
“Stop them!”Darlah shouted.
Frantic, Razr’s bitch of an ex reached for the nearestweapon, a dart, and hurled it at Jedda.But,just likein the mines, her body sensed danger and her skin hardened into a diamondshield.
The dart bounced harmlessly to the floor.
Oh, thatnecrocrotchskankhad to die.And if Jedda survived this, she was going to giveSuzanne a huge high-five for turning Jedda on tosuch aperfect term.
Shrike produced a ball of fire at his fingertips, but hewasn’t fast enough.Razr, energized by the gem connection he shared with Jedda,triggered an atomic shockwave of death in an expanding circular wave.Theentire building shook, and a chorus of screams filled the air.Blood and bodyparts rained down in a gruesome tempest of obliteration, and when it was over,nothing was left standing.
Not even thenecrocrotchskank.
Pain throbbed through every cell, but it was the exquisitepain of regeneration, and Jedda welcomed it.Groaning, she swept her armthrough the gemstones on the floor, absorbing them back into her body toaccelerate the process.
“Razr?”Weakly, she lifted her head, expecting to see himpicking up his own pieces.
Instead, she saw him lying in a pool of blood, his eyes openand glazed with pain.Sure, the halberd impaled in his back probably hadsomething to do with that, but worse, so did the fact that his damnedAzdaiglyph was lit up.
“Fucking angels.”Emotion choked her, leaving her voicecompletely wrecked.“How can they do this to you?How?”
Tears streamed down her face, and the gems that formed fromthem clinked on the floor, creating a heart-wrenching score for what had turnedout to be both a victory and a defeat.She’d survived, they’dbothsurvived, but Razr’s life hadn’t changed.
