“You know nothing.” He stalked forward, and I saw Roth sit up in his human form. Sulien pushed off the wall.
“You forgot to add ‘Jon Snow’ at the end of that statement.”
He halted, head cocked. “What?”
I swung, aiming for the largest part of him. My grace could and would kill him. I would end this, because it was my duty.
Gabriel grabbed my right arm just above my elbow and twisted. The crack was so sudden, so shocking, that there was a brief second where I felt nothing. And then I screamed. The red-hot shock of pain fried my senses. I lost my grace. The sword collapsed in on itself as I tried to breathe through the pain.
His foot connected with my shin, snapping the bone there, and I couldn’t even scream as I hit the ground on one knee, couldn’t even breathe around the fire that seemed to engulf my entire leg. He gripped me by the scruff of my neck and lifted me. I clutched at his arm with my good hand and kicked out as I saw Sulien grab Roth.
It happened in a matter of heartbeats. Seconds. Brutal, unending seconds when I realized I couldn’t defeat an archangel. This was never a battle I could win, and in the distant part of my mind that functioned above the pain, I wondered if my father had known that and sent me out for the slaughter.
Roth would die.
So would Cayman.
I’d be taken, and the world as we knew it would end, and maybe my father and God didn’t care about what would happen. Their attempts to save humankind were half-assed if they’d thought I could do this, and maybe...maybe God had washed His proverbial hands of the whole mess.
If not, how did they think I could defeat an archangel?
Gabriel slammed me into the ground with the force of a fall from a building.
Bones shattered everywhere.
Legs.
Arms.
Ribs.
I saw something white jutting from my leg as my vision winked in and out. Pain came in a flash of bright light. A thousand nerves tried to fire all at once, attempting to send communications from my brain to my arms and legs, to my pelvis and ribs and spine. My body jerked as something went loose inside. I couldn’t move my legs. The terror that poured through me filled my veins with icy slush. I struggled to get air into my lungs, but they felt wrong, as if they couldn’t inflate.
“I need you alive, at least for a little while longer,” he said.
Sure didn’t feel like he needed that. “Is it because you find me...endearing and lovable?” I rasped words that sounded off, as if half the letters couldn’t be pronounced.
Gabriel knelt beside me, his cruelly beautiful face blurring in and out. “More like I need your blood hot when it flows. I told you I could make this easy and peaceful. I would’ve let you have your heart’s desire. You would’ve enjoyed what time you had left, but you chose this fate. To suffer. So stupidly human.”
Blood spewed from my mouth as I coughed and my breath wheezed. “You...talk a lot.”
“I was the voice of God.” Gabriel’s hand folded over my throat. Air immediately cut off. He lifted me, my feet dangling several feet above the ground and my body loose like a pile of rags. “The messenger of His Faith and Glory, but I am now the Harbinger, and I will usher in a new era. Retribution will be pain with the cleansing power of blood, and as Heaven crumbles into itself, those who remain will have a new God.”
“She’s right. You do talk too much.”
Gabriel turned toward the source of the voice. I managed to turn my head only half an inch, if that, but enough that I could see Roth.
“And you know what?” Roth said, standing without Sulien. His arm hung oddly, but he was standing. “You sound an awful lot like someone I know. Does this sound familiar? ‘I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.’”
“Do not compare me to him,” Gabriel growled.
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Roth replied. “It would be an insult to the Shining One.”
Several things happened at once. Gabriel let out a roar that shook the world as he threw out his arm. Something must’ve left his hand, because I heard Roth grunt and hit the ground, laughing—he was laughing. Gabriel’s sneer faded.
“Idiot,” gasped Roth. “Egotistical idiot. I hope it eases you to know that you were right.”
“You will be here for the death of your son.”
My gasp at the sound of Zayne’s voice was swallowed in Gabriel’s shout as he turned again.
Zayne stood behind Gabriel, his arm around Sulien’s neck as the Trueborn struggled, his grace flaring from his right arm, forming a spear that could kill Zayne even if he hadn’t been weakened. A different kind of fear crowded me.
But Zayne was fast, so incredibly fast as he gripped the side of the Trueborn’s head and twisted.
Gabriel screamed, his rage thundering through the cavern like an earthquake as Zayne dropped the Trueborn and then shot forward, slamming into the archangel, breaking Gabriel’s hold on my throat. I started to fall, but Zayne caught me. The burst of pain from his embrace threatened to drag me under, and I must have blacked out, because the next thing I knew I was lying on my back and Zayne was rising in front of me, his wings stretched out on either side of him.
And I saw him.
Numerous nicks and grooves scarred his back, and his wings didn’t look right. One hung at an odd angle, and below the left wing, there was a deep cut, exposing bone and tissue. That wound was...
Oh God.
How had that happened to him? How had he been wounded? He just got here. He just...
Summoning everything I had left in me, I managed to shift onto my side. I sat up, but pain screamed through my body. My cheek smacked onto the ground. I managed to lift my chin, seeking Roth. He had to get Zayne out of here. Had to get him away from Gabriel. I yelled for the demon prince, but only a croak came out. Something was wrong with my throat.
“You will not live to regret that,” Gabriel warned.
“I’m going to rip you limb from limb,” Zayne snarled. “And then I will burn your body right next to his.”
“I was waiting for this moment.” Gabriel’s tone was smug—too smug. Warnings went off. “I knew you’d come.”
There was a gasping sound, and Zayne took a step back, his wings lifting and then falling. Roth shouted.
“Do you now know why Trueborns and their Protectors are forbidden to be together?” Gabriel’s voice was a whisper that carried in the wind that began to pick up inside the chamber. “Love clouds judgment. It is a weakness that can be exploited.”
I tried to see what was happening, but I could no longer lift my head.
“Bitterness and hate will fester and grow inside her, just as it did with Sulien and with those who came before her. She will gladly spill her own blood against a God that could be so cruel.” Gabriel’s voice was everywhere, inside and out, vibrating in my broken ribs. “You took my son, but you have given me a daughter in return.”
There was a ripple of golden heated light, and then silence.
“Zayne,” Roth called out. “My man...”
I saw Zayne’s legs crumple and fold. He went down on his knees, his back to me. I tried to say his name. His hand moved to his front, to his chest. He grunted as his body jerked.
A dagger fell to the ground.
My dagger.
Then he, too, fell.
Zayne landed next to me, on his back and broken wing. Why would he fall like that? I didn’t understand what was happening, why Roth was suddenly there beside Zayne. The demon was shouting for someone—for Cayman and then Layla, trying to hold Zayne down, but Zayne pushed Roth off and rolled onto his side facing me.
I saw his chest—I saw the wound over his heart and the blood that gushed with every heartbeat.
“No,” I whispered, a great horror sinking its claws into me. “Zayne...”
“It’s okay,” he said, and blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.
I tried to lift my arm, and all I managed was a twitch that made it feel like I’d been run over by a dump truck. Panic rose like a cyclone as I tried to reach for him again. Suddenly, Roth was behind me. He scooped me up and laid me down so I was right next to Zayne. “You can’t. No. Please, God, no. Zayne, please...”
Roth carefully took my hand, placing it on Zayne’s cheek. The movement hurt, but I didn’t care. His granitelike skin was too cool. It wasn’t right at all. My fingers moved, trying to rub heat back into his skin. Those pale wolf eyes were open, but they... There was no light in them. His chest wasn’t moving. It was still. He was still. I didn’t understand, didn’t want to. I rubbed his skin, kept rubbing his skin, even as it stopped feeling real.
“Trinity,” Roth began, voice all wrong. He rocked back, hands dropping to his knees, and then he looked away, rising to his feet. He staggered a step, hands lifting to his hair as he bent over. “He’s—”
“No. No.” I searched Zayne’s face. “Zayne?”
The only answer was the bond wrenching deep inside me, as if it were a cord stretched too tight. It snapped free as a keening wail tore through the air, ripped from my very soul. I no longer felt the bond.
And then I no longer felt anything.