I sat up, carefully cradling her limp form on my lap. One side of her body was burned from her scalp to her toes. My hand shook as it hovered over her head and the small clumps of hair that remained. I looked over the burned parts of her body and the clothes that barely clung to her form, trying to find some way to touch her without causing her more damage. Her body was already healing, but I didn’t want to cause her more pain. I had done enough of that to last both of our lifetimes ten times over.
Isaiah strode toward us, Imogen still unconscious and cradled against his chest. “You okay?” he asked, his voice filled with concern.
“Yeah,” I answered, carefully slipping my arms under Dianna and pushing to my feet.
Isaiah squinted between the growing smoke and sunlight peeking through it, glancing toward the sky, and then at me.
“We can leave with them,” he said, and I knew he meant every word. “We can leave Samkiel where he is, get a jumpstart on finding a cure for Imogen, and find out what Nismera is truly doing. Fuck, maybe we can even find a loophole around this bond. We can go wherever we want and just disappear.”
We could. The offer was so tempting that a part of me ached to do just that. I glanced down at Dianna’s sleeping form, wishing with the entirety of my shriveled black heart that I could keep her. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Death’s whispered in my ear that I could. I could repeat the same mistakes I had made throughout our time together. I could lock her up, keep her to myself once more, build a barrier so strong that not even the King of Gods could enter. Who knows, maybe Milani would take him to Nismera to die by her hand.
My arms tightened around Dianna as I watched her breathe. Her eyes fluttered as she fought for consciousness, her skin slowly knitting. My heart screamed that this was not the same lost girl from the desert. This Dianna was not the one who had begged me for her sister’s life. She was not the one who, at one point, looked at me with affection, even if it was a pale imitation of how she looked at Samkiel.
No. Dianna was not mine.
“No,” I finally said, casting a glance back at Isaiah and opening a blazing portal in front of us. “We’re heading back.”
Isaiah nodded, accepting my decision and following me as always. Perhaps Death had truly changed me. I knew that at one time, the old me would have jumped at the possibility of claiming her. Would have offered Isaiah the same opportunity he gave me, but I knew then and there that not only had I died on that planet, but I hadn’t come back whole either. I adjusted Dianna in my arms, and she groaned from the jolt. With not even a second glance at the carnage behind us, we stepped through the portal, leaving the burning city to itself.
59
DIANNA
Iwoke up with a start.
“Samkiel!” I called, not instantly remembering why panic had clawed me from sleep, but then it all came rushing back to me. I fought my way free of the covers, tossing them aside to run my hands over my head and down my body. My clothes were still tattered, but my skin was whole, and my hair had grown back. I had healed from that damn blast. It was absolutely mortifying to be caught by flames when fire lived inside of me, but the way it had burned had felt more like refined raw energy.
Samkiel wasn’t with me, and I was no longer in Goldpass.
The reality slammed through the haze clouding my mind, and I lunged from the bed. Running out of the room, I sprinted down the stairs, following the sound of deep male voices. Hope spread through me. Maybe it had all been a nightmare. I pushed the doors of his study open, half expecting to see him there as if I hadn’t watched him get kidnapped.
“… all I could get,” Kaden was saying, but his words cut off when I walked in.
They all turned toward me. Cameron, Isaiah, and Reggie straightened from where they had been hovering over the desk, studying the papers spread out.
“You’re up,” Cameron said. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” I said. “We need—”
“We know,” Isaiah cut in. “What happened? How did he get taken?”
I rubbed my head. “Samkiel was fighting that weird guy, his ex’s brother. I don’t remember his name. I was in the air, knocking around the ships. Samkiel’s attention was split because he was ensuring that no debris landed on the city. Someone snuck up on him, and he went down. I saw it and landed, but the moment I did, I was hit with a damn electric whip. It was wrapped around me, and there was so much current in it that all of my muscles had seized. I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t get free. I remember Samkiel rushing toward me, but something hit him from behind. Some kind of beam, I don’t know what it was, but his whole body lit up, and then he froze … and just stopped.” My voice broke on the last word, and I swallowed down the grief and panic threatening to take me over.
Reggie nodded, but the others just watched me.
“What happened with you two?” I asked Kaden and Isaiah. “I lost track of you in the fighting.”
“Imogen is back, Dianna,” Cameron said before Kaden or Isaiah could say anything. “Isaiah helped.”
“Well, at least he did something useful,” I quipped, shooting Isaiah a hard glare.
Isaiah bared his teeth at me in a feral grin. “More than you. At least I brought her home. All you managed was to let Samkiel be kidnapped, and then you lost Vincent, Camilla, and the medallion.”
“Isaiah …” Kaden said, his tone careful.
“Shut the fuck up, Isaiah,” Cameron said. “I made sure Imogen was cleaned up, Dianna. She is resting as comfortable as she can be down in the cells with Nev and Logan.”
“Speaking of that, you have no right to keep me away from her. I want to see her,” Isaiah demanded.
