TEN
Blaise
Please, work.
I can’t live without you.
Lilith’s voice echoed back into my head. I’d read her thoughts when she was trying to bring me back to life. My fingertips traced my chest where her tears had soaked my skin.
She brought me back from the clutches of death, but she was taken because of her angel powers awakening. I swallowed thickly and blinked away the tears as I stared at the wall. The blood of the damned pulsed through it, illuminating with each beat.
The more I stared at the steady surge of the wall, the angrier I became. “Bloody hell, Lilith. You said you couldn’t live without me, but I’m the one who can’t live without you!”
My fist plowed into the flesh-like wall, and scalding blood poured over my arm, making my skin sizzle. The wall closed around my arm as I pulled it out and drove it back through, again and again. Hot blood seared my skin, and I gave no time for healing as I punched it over and over again.
“Why did we let her get taken?”
Punch.
“Why did we let our guard down?”
Punch.
“Why the fuck didn’t we protect her?”
The force of my punch stopped short, and I blinked, huffing a ragged breath as the pain caught up to me.
Kai was standing in front of me with a frown on his face as he held my fist in his palm. I hissed in pain as my skin grew back over the exposed bone.
Holy fuck that hurts.
“Fucking hell, Kai. When did you get here?”
“I came in when you were beating the fuck out of the wall. You realize these walls are alive and carry the blood of the damned right? Probably not your best bet to punch through it,” he said dryly.
We stared at each other as his calmness washed over me, and my anger faded slightly. Once my bone was covered by the muscle and tendons and my skin started to heal over, Kai let go.
“I fucking hate this,” I muttered, walking over to the bed and sitting down. I’d been spending more time in our room lately because every fucking day that passed, we still hadn’t found anything about Lilith. No matter what fucking records we read and no matter who we fucking talked to. We always came up empty.
“I do too.” Kai sat down beside me. “I’m trying to hold it together for everyone, but it bloody kills me.”
I glanced at him. His eyes had bags, and his complexion was paler than usual. None of us had been able to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. “I know how you feel, mate.”
“It’s been an entire week since Gabriel took her,” he said with desperation and heartache lacing his words. “We haven’t heard anything…”
“I know.” My throat tightened.
I’d been running through all kinds of scenarios in my head, and all of them made me sick with anger. How could we—how could I have let him fucking take her? My lip trembled, and I scrubbed a hand over my mouth.
I hated that she was with Gabriel, and I didn’t understand why her father wouldn’t step in. He was the King of Hell in the southern domain. He had the power to get her back. If only we hadn’t accepted the blood oath. But even if we hadn’t, we still wouldn’t have been able to find transport to Heaven. When we did, if we couldn’t go, Aziel and Titan would.
“We finally fucking found something!” Brann said as he and Oren came into the room.
Kai and I jumped up and met them by the portal.
“Uh, what the fuck happened to you?” Oren glanced from the wall that had closed up to the blood soaking into the clay floor to my bloodied arm that had almost finished healing.
“Do you know where she is?” I asked.
