“Hex?” I ask, needing to know he’s still breathing.
“Strapped down. He’s healing, but it’s going to be slow and painful. Talon is watching him,” Viktor reports.
I nod, relief washing over me.
“Sister Mary Joan sensed us. A mortal nun sensed our presence and caught us off guard,” Silas cuts in.
“How?” I frown. It’s unheard of. There have always been stories that holy places are protected, but our code would never permit us to bring harm to them, so we stay away.
“Because she isn’t fucking mortal,” Cain says, cutting across him.
Viktor slaps one of his old tomes onto the tableand flips it open, jabbing a finger at the page. “An angel.”
“Pfft,” I scoff. “Angels don’t exist.”
No one speaks. Their silence is so loud it makes my eyes widen.
“Angels are real?” I question.
“Why is that so hard to believe when we exist?” Cain counters. “Us, Anathema, and fuck knows what else.”
I blink, letting the information sink in.
Viktor points to the illustration in his book. “It was believed angels walked among humans. They were there to guide them through their earliest days.” He turns the page, pointing to another image. “They weren’t supposed to stay. Stories say some refused to return.”
I drag my hands through my hair. “So what, there’s a pissed-off god up there watching his angels defy him?” I ask, disbelief thick in my tone. When you’ve lived as long and as brutally as I have, becoming a monster doesn’t exactly leave you filled with faith in the almighty.
“No.” Cain shakes his head. “These angels aren’t the ones from religion. ‘Angel’ is just the name they were given. They’re guardians. Protectors. No one knows why they were put here, or why some chose tostay. Fuck, no one has seen one in over a thousand years.”
“Right, so these angels are real. They’ve been in hiding. Why? And what does any of that have to do with Evelynn?” I press. None of it makes sense.
“Sister Mary Joan wouldn’t tell us,” Silas says. “She simply said she was never protected from you. She was protected for you.”
“Protected for you?” I repeat, possessiveness rising to the surface.
The corner of Silas’s mouth curves slightly, seeing right through me. “For you. She thought I was you.”
My world tilts. I knew from the moment I saw her that something was different. The desire to have her. To possess her. To claim her as mine.
“How? What?” I ask, utterly bewildered.
“She handed us a small book,” Viktor says, placing something no bigger than the palm of my hand on the table. “The nun… she was older than humanly possible. We were out on the grounds, and she came to us. Sensed us.”
“I need a drink,” I mutter, rubbing my temples.
“What Cain is saying is right. This isn’t just Anathema hunting vampires. They’ve been hunting us—more specifically—you,” Viktor says, his gaze pinningme.
He continues, his voice cracking with desperation. “The myths, the legends, they’re all wrong. They don’t just hunt our kind. They’ve been… deleting us as they search. Searching for you. Like scratching names off a list until they find the one they want.” He shakes his head, as if he still can’t wrap his mind around it. “I don’t know why, and I don’t know what any of this has to do with Evelynn, but I scanned the first few pages of this book. I can’t read it, but on the third page is a picture of you.”
Viktor carefully turns the thin, delicate pages and rotates the book to face me.
I stare at it, and it takes everything in me not to stumble back.
“Impossible,” I breathe.
I drag out a chair and sit before my legs can betray me.
“Nothing is impossible, brother,” Cain says quietly.
