In the middle of diminishing the circle, my attention is called to the warrior creeping behind Seiji. Without thinking it through, I use the tiny gap between the soldiers hovering over me and shoot the warlock with my last bullet.
My lack of attention gives my opponents the perfect opportunity to gang up on me. I dodge the first attack, the sword only grazing my shoulder, but the one aimed at my thigh doesn’t miss. I swallow the blinding pain and use my sharp wakizashi to slice the hand that comes for me next.
I’m twisting limbs and breaking knees when Harvey runs to Grace and lowers her from the table before carving a safe path to the main door. Grace is in good shape, with only a few scratches on her shoulder. Harvey, on the other hand, has a deep gash on his forehead that’s bleeding, and a cut on his shoulder that’s halfway cauterized.
My desperate need to make sure he gets out unharmed gets the better of me, and I send my spare sword flying to one of the sneaky warriors closing in on him.
They successfully make it beside Seiji, who takes over keeping guard. His whips make it impossible to reach them without getting their flesh torn apart.
With Hazel and Grace covering the door, Harvey turns to help me. Shaking my head, I barely manage to speak in between unsteady breaths, “Angel first.”
From the corner of my eye, I see them make a safe passage for Angel to cross the room. We are in different corners and since he’s farther away from the gate, it makes sense to get him out before his path is blocked.
The constant slicing and getting stabbed starts taking its toll on me. I’m barely managing to hold myself up now. I struggle to pull my mini sword out of a skull when suddenly Angel breaks through the circle around me.
As much as I want to scream at him for not putting himself first and risking his safety for me, I’m too drained to protest. Limping behind him backwards, I cover our backs, not that I have to because the moment Angel is with me, Harvey and Hazel start raining bullets into the room.
A foot from the door, I relax thinking it’s over when a warrior leaps up from the floor and impales my shoulder with something sharp. I don’t hear anything over my friends screaming in horror and the warrior’s manic cackling.
All at once it hits me that without my Divine, if I die here, there’s no saving me. Shoving that fleeting dark thought out of my head, I watch Angel stab the warrior’s neck with an arrow, and the cackling stops.
Knowing the weapon could be laced with anything I take a deep breath before pulling it out abruptly.
I limp to the door with Angel covering my back, and as soon we are in the safe zone, Harvey and Hazel don’t hesitate to finish off anyone still breathing.
Standing at the entrance of a house splattered with blood and filled with dead bodies I remember promising Micah a blood ceremony for his death.This is so much better.
Crossing the room, Angel drags a half-dead warrior to our feet before Harvey steps in to hoist him over his shoulder. I don’t even ask what they want with the man and lean against the door frame— or what’s left of it.
Without wasting another breath, Angel strides to me, covered in blood from head to toe and swipes me off my feet. I hiss when the cut on my thigh stings and I gasp out, “I can walk.”
I don’t miss the pain on Angel’s face as he rests his cheek on my head, not caring that it’s splashed with blood. “Let me.Please.”
I scan everyone and almost whine about the differences between us. Seiji is nearly unscathed, not a single scratch on him. I’m seriously jealous of his whips because they create the perfect barrier around him, and because of how skilled he is, the few minor cuts he did have are already healed.
The few scratches on Hazel are quickly disappearing, too. Angel, on the other hand, has a gash on his head similar to Harvey, but not as bad. Other than that, he’s in perfect shape, too.
Why do I always have to look like I just crawled out of a bloody ditch?
A wave of dizziness hits me so I rest my head on Angel’s shoulder and wait for it to pass. When the heartbeat beneath my cheek picks up dangerously, I open my tired eyes to find my mate’s gaze fixed on my injuries.
“I’m okay, Angel, just tired. I promise.” I assure him, but I know he won’t believe me until he checks every inch of my bodywith his eyes and hands. For someone whose mate is covered in decade-old scars, Angel hates to see something as small as a mosquito bite on me.
The walk to our exit doesn’t take longer than a few minutes, and once again, we are standing by a similar cliff and preparing to leave this realm.
Seiji is the first to dive into our experimental exit route, andof course, he complains about no one having any regard for his precious young life. Harvey ushers Grace next and follows not two seconds behind her with the unconscious soldier on his shoulder.
Hazel jumped next, but only after making sure we weren’t followed. I can’t stop a whimper from escaping when Angel readjusts me in his arms to wrap my thighs around his waist. Holding my face in his hands he asks, “Trust me, sweetheart?”
There’s no hesitation this time. In the last five months, Angel has proved every day that he’s the one for me. There hasn’t been a single day he didn’t make me feel protected and loved.
“With everything in me.”
“Good, because I was going to ask you to jump with me, and it would’ve been really awkward if you said no.” Angel grins like a Cheshire cat before his lips brush against mine.
Taking my bottom lip into his mouth, Angel sucks lightly. He kisses me with a softness that weakens my knees more than they already are, and I have to stop myself from moving against his abdomen.
Walking us over to the edge, he whispers, “Close your eyes, baby.”
