Chapter
Four
Lucille
Istumbled back, losing my footing. Before I could fall into the angels behind me, Ronen pulled me into his side. He shook, and it wasn’t from the cold blowing in from the hole in the sky.
A seed of rage, minute but powerful, seeped through the block he had on his emotions. It washed through me like liquid ice—cold and vicious. Distracting. It was the first time I felt him. His soothing essence backed the taste, as if I couldn’t receive his emotion without a part of him. Different from how I experienced Aspen’s emotions.
Ronen almost overpowered my grief and shock. I wanted to wrap his rage around me until it suffocated them entirely and ended the thoughts ofmy father’s rightandhow dare he.
“Tonight, we sacrifice a piece of ourselves and lay it at her feet,” Lucifer continued, as if he hadn’t just speared me with his words.
One by one, angels lined up. Some ripped feathers from their wings; others laid down weapons or personal items, and a select few crafted pieces of their power, displaying flowers and angel wings made from water and fire, laying them all at the base of the funerary dais.
When the angels started to thin near us, Ronen released me from his hold. “Do you want to go up there?”
By the sound of it, he didn’t.
“Everyone else is.”
“I don’t give a damn about anyone else. I asked you, Hellion.”
Did I want to see my mom’s body? No. I’d rather not solidify the notion she was dead. Living in a world where I could imagine she was still out there seemed better. But this was real. She was dead. I was at her funeral, and I needed to wake up and get that through my head.
I nodded, knowing I needed to move but couldn’t.
“I have nothing to give her.” No one told me I needed anything.
“Your presence alone is?—”
“Yes, you do,” Aspen said.
I whipped around, finding him next to MJ. He was the only one here wearing a dark suit without the embroidery or beads.
“Did you get that from my closet?” Alexei asked as Ronen snapped, “MJ!”
She tilted her chin up, crossing her arms over her pantsuit. “Get your head out of your ass, Ronen. You checked his mind. He’s clean. He should be here to witness Lucille and Saraqael’s sacrifice. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.”
Her words and knowing expression tipped me off that she knew. She knew about the Wrath Rune that had ripped out my mother’s energy, gave it to me, and killed her.
Either she pieced together all the events and made assumptions, or someone told her. At first, I thought Ronen might have. But by Aspen’s drawn understanding, I knew he had. I wasn’t surprised he figured it out. He knew Michael had put my mom in a coma. He’d saved me right after Michael carved the rune on my mom and me. Aspen probably had seen it.
I had a feeling that fact had a hand in his enormous guilt. Probably his self-hatred too. I wished that could have made me feel better. But my weak, little heart only ached for him.
Aspen reached into his pocket and withdrew the necklace my mother had given me.
“You still have it,” I breathed.
Ever so gently, he cupped my hand and placed the chain in my palm.
“Of course. It gave me peace when I couldn’t find it anywhere else.” The tingles his touch evoked intensified as he squeezed my hand and held me under the weight of his solemn gaze. “I hope tonight it can give you at least a whisper of the same.”
I clutched the necklace as if I could somehow feel a remnant of the power my mother used to put into it. But it was empty. No power. No feeling. Just a memory, like my mom. I pulled from Aspen’s grasp and turned. Ronen and Rune blocked my view of the dais, a silent question in his expression.
I dipped my head. My answer was a lie, but I’d never be ready to face her. This wasn’t something I could prepare for and be okay with. It just had to be done.
Ronen manifested his ebony wings and yanked out a feather. He knelt in front of the frosted stone, placing his offering next to the rest.
