Thunder boomed outside so hard the building shook. The windows rattled. The floor cracked beneath the shard.
Then silence.
Total, ringing, deafening silence.
The shard lay on the floor as if nothing had happened. That small, jagged piece of stone, just sitting there. All of that power contained in something I could close my fist around. No wonder Angelo and Costin wanted it. It possessed the power of the Archangel Michael's sword — the greatest weapon in heaven's arsenal.
The room had returned to normal. No scorch marks. No cracked floor. No evidence that anything divine had just ripped through all of us.
No lightning flashed outside.
No thunder roared.
But I had a feeling the Archangel Michael knew we'd used his power.
I just hoped we didn't pay for it later.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Selena
Rose released a shaking breath. “You can let go. It’s done.”
I looked up at Rocco. Sweat ran down his temples, his jaw clenched tight. I reached for his jacket and pulled it open with trembling fingers. I had to see it. Had to know he was protected. That he was safe.
An image of Excalibur was tattooed over his heart. It glowed faintly, pulsing with a light that seemed to breathe, as if something ancient and powerful lived just beneath his skin.
I pressed my shaking palm over it. Warm. Alive. His heart thundered against my hand.
“You see?” I whispered. “You have to have faith. Demons will never enter you again.”
His jaw tightened. “But is that true?”
“Do you really think I would wield an inferior weapon, vampire?”
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It didn’t belong to anyone in the circle.
I dropped my hand and stepped to the side, looking past Rocco, and my breath died in my throat.
He was here. The Archangel Michael.
He stood at the far end of the room as if he’d always been there, as if the walls had built themselves around him. Tall — impossibly tall — with long dark hair that flowed past his shoulders like a river of ink. His white wings were unfurled behind him, filling the space wall to wall, each feather luminous, edged in gold. Excalibur hung at his side, gripped loosely in one hand, its blade glowing with the same light now branded over Rocco’s heart.
He wore leather pants and boots, and nothing about him looked merciful.
He did not look happy.
Rocco stepped in front of me as if to protect me.
Michael flickered his gaze over us. “You should have asked permission to utilize the power ofLapis Umbrae.”
Rocco squared his shoulders. “It was my faul?—“
“Silence.” One word. It hit the room like a hammer on an anvil. Michael walked toward us, each step deliberate, unhurried, the kind of walk that said he had never once in his existence needed to rush.
Rocco shifted, putting himself between Michael and me. I slipped around him and stood at his side. I wasn’t a wilting flower. We were one. Equals.
The Archangel’s gaze dropped to the shard on the floor. He bent and picked it up, turning it between his fingers the way a man might examine a coin he’d lost centuries ago. Then he looked at us.
