“Because, Lightbringer, Laney traded her soul for her friend’s.” I turned and found him so close I could see the black specks in his irises. “Consider your debt paid.”
He released a gust of air in my face. “You will pay for this,” he growled, and if looks could kill, the one in Leon Milliari’s eyes would have done just that.
But then, I was already dead, wasn’t I? At least, to this world of goodness and hope.
I summoned my shadows and let them coil around me, ready to take off. “No, I won’t. I never do. That’s the benefit of working for hell.”
Epilogue
Laney
I didn’t feel different when I returned from the gates of heaven what seemed to be hours later … or no time at all. There was no pain, no emptiness other than the one I already knew from longing to return and walk right through those gates … the gates I would now never walk through.
There was nothing to indicate I had struck a bargain with the Shadowbringer. Nothing other than the memory of Cas’s palm against mine as we’d shaken hands after he released Jo.
My skin still seemed to tingle where our skin touch had met.
The bargain was done, and there was nothing I could do right now. It would have to wait until tomorrow when I could tell Leon that I had ruined everything, until I could plead with him to help me find a solution. And if Leon forsook me for the choice I’d made—
Then, I would find another way. I would heal first so I was strong enough to confront the Shadowbringer. Then, I’d make a different, a better bargain.
The hospital bed was as I’d left it, and at the sight of it, I wondered how I’d get those needles back into my arm without help, wondered how to fake hearing for the first time that Jo hadn’t made it through the night, how to make my features accommodate surprise, shock, everything that I no longer had in me now that the relief that I had managed to get her to heaven was the only thing that filled me—
It wasn’t the only thing. For at the thought, grief overcame me, and my ethereal body faltered two steps from the hospital bed. Pain shot up my leg as it was suddenly holding my corporeal weight; my chest clenched, my head heavy as lead … and as if I were a toddler unable to carry myself, I slumped to the ground with a gasp of pain.
“There you are.” I looked up at the voice that drifted from the chair in the corner. “I’ve been wondering how long it would take you.”
The kind nurse smiled at me, getting up and dashing to my side. She gingerly wrapped her arm under my shoulders and helped me up enough to bring my torso into the hospital bed.
I must have stared at her with the shock I thought I no longer had in me, for she said, “Don’t look at me like that, honey. You think I didn’t see you there in the other girl’s room?” She folded me onto the mattress, her hands professional, efficient, and careful, making the procedure minimally painful, and then pinned the IVs back into my arm. “I recognize one of you when I see them.”
“One of us?” I asked into the air between us as she bent over my face and kissed my forehead the way my grandmother had done when I was a child.
“You are what we speak of when we whisper angels.”
Before I could say anything, she reached above the bed and pushed the button to call for the nurse. “My shift is over, Laney.”
And as I watched her leave the room, I realized that mine had just begun.
Thank you for reading Torn (Breath of Fate Book 1)!
I hope Laney, Leon, and Cas gave you some exciting hours of reading, the same way it was exciting for me to write this book.
If you enjoyed the book, it would mean the world to me if you left a kind review on Amazon and/or Goodreads.
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Thank you!
Angelina
About the Author
“Chocolate fanatic, milk-foam enthusiast and huge friend of the southern sting-ray. Writing is an unexpected career-path for me.”
Angelina J. Steffort is an Austrian novelist, best known for The Wings Trilogy, a young adult paranormal romance series about the impossible love between a girl and an angel. The bestselling Wings Trilogy has been ranked among calibers such as the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, and Lauren Kate’s Fallen, and has been top listed among angel books for teens by bloggers and readers. Angelina has multiple educational backgrounds including engineering, business, music, and acting. Currently, Angelina lives in Vienna, Austria, with her husband and her son.
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Torn: A young adult paranormal romance (Breath of Fate Book 1) Page 26