by Cynthia Eden
Ramiel’s wings burst from his back. White angel wings—big and broad—and Ramiel surged to his feet. And as he did—he shoved a knife into Leo’s stomach. He drove the blade deep and twisted it. Leo’s blood poured from him, but his knees didn’t so much as buckle.
He locked his hand under Ramiel’s chin and lifted the angel up into the air. “You know it will take more than a knife to kill me…”
“Wasn’t…trying to…kill…” Each word was gasped, probably because Leo was crushing the guy’s wind pipe. “Just…need…blood…” And Ramiel smiled. Then he said… “Kill her. Rip her…apart.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
A growl sounded then, from right behind Leo. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Merius had come inside the house. His friend’s face was carved into deep lines of madness…and bloodlust.
Come when you smell the blood. Shit. “Merius…” Leo began. I didn’t mean my blood!
But Merius lunged at him, and Leo felt the vamp’s fangs at his throat.
***
“Don’t.”
That one word from Luke froze Mora. Her fingers were barely a breath from his.
He jerked his fist away from her. “Changed my mind,” he said curtly. “Don’t need you to see a damn thing for me.” He whirled on his heel and marched away from her. “I make my own fate. Always have, always will.”
Her heart drummed too fast in her chest. “You don’t want to hurt him, either.”
He stopped. His shoulders were tense. He was in front of the door, standing in almost the exact same way that Leo had just a while before. Their bodies were held in a similar posture. Even their voices held the same mix of anger and determination as Luke said, “I spent centuries believing a prophesy was going to tear my world apart.”
It will.
“Now I just say…” He glanced back at her. “Screw the prophesy. I know what I will do when the final battle comes. I don’t need you to see anything for me.” Luke inclined his head. “But I do thank you for sending Mina my way. That’s a kindness I will never forget.”
Then he strode out of the bar. Mora stood there a minute, gulping in deep gasps of air. Had it been enough? What she’d said to Luke? What she’d done for him? Would it be enough to change the destiny she’d seen for the Lord of the Dark?
And for the Lord of the Light?
He left the door open when he exited. The scent of rain drifted inside. The softest whisper of the wind blew over her cheek. She backed up until her arm hit the bar, and then she turned, running her hand along the marks left by Leo’s claws.
He’d said he loved me. She wanted to believe those words so badly, but believing him would mean trusting him again.
If he betrayed her, it would rip her apart. Mora knew it. She also knew…
I don’t have a choice.
The wind blew against her once more. And this time, it brought another scent to her. A familiar scent. Her eyes closed and she gave a little laugh. “I guess it’s just the day for unexpected visitors, huh?”
Silence.
“You’re probably wondering how in the hell Resurrection is back, aren’t you?” Once more, she stroked over the marks in the wood. “That’s a funny story.” Not really. “But since you’re in the supernatural world now, I think I can tell it to you…” She turned to find herself staring into Dax’s eyes. “I figured I’d be seeing you, sooner or later.” She tried to smile. “You doing okay?”
The door was still open behind him. She could see streaks of rain pounding down outside. She looked at the rain, then at Dax.
He stared into her eyes. His face was a hard, unyielding mask.
“That bad, huh?” Mora shook her head and marched around the bar. “Tell you what…for old time’s sake, how about I give you a drink, on the house? I think we could both use a drink.” She grabbed for the scotch. Leo had even restocked her liquor. How thoughtful.
He did all of this to make me happy.
The door creaked as it was slowly closed. She filled one glass with the amber liquid. Then another. The mirror still lay over the bar top, but she ignored it. A blood-stained mirror.
She wrapped her fingers around her glass and lifted it in a little salute toward Dax. “Drink up.” She drained her glass, barely feeling the burn as it went down.
He moved toward her—a weird, almost lumbering movement that brought him to the opposite side of her bar.
“You know, I hate to say this…” Her gaze trailed over him. His hair was disheveled, stubble lined his jaw, his clothes were torn…and the guy had claws sprouting from his fingertips. “But you look like hell.”
His hand lifted and then his fist came down, shattering the mirror on the bar top.
Mora yelled and jerked back as the mirror splintered and glass went flying. “Dax! Dammit, stop!” A chunk of the glass had cut across her arm, making a deep slice. Her blood dripped onto the floor. “What are you doing?”
“Trying…to…stop.” His voice was guttural. “I…can’t…”
Her heart stuttered in her chest. “Dax?”
“R-run…”
She did. She leapt over that bar and she ran past him. She didn’t know what was happening, didn’t understand at all, but the door was near, she was almost outside and—
His hands closed around her from behind, and he yanked her against his body.
“S-sorry…” Dax whispered into his ear.
He was touching her, and the images of his future spun through Mora’s mind.
Chapter Nineteen
When Merius attacked Leo, Ramiel escaped. He lunged out of Leo’s grasp with a wild, savage yell of triumph.
“Trust me, man. You don’t want my blood. It’s poison.” Before Merius could sink his fangs into Leo’s throat, Leo threw his friend across the room, and Merius rammed into the fireplace. Bricks fell onto the floor.
Immediately, Merius leapt to his feet, body ready to attack again.
“Stop!” Leo bellowed at his friend.
Merius froze. He didn’t so much as blink.
But Ramiel didn’t stop. He was running out the door. He cleared the cabin and the guy immediately leapt into the air, taking flight.
Leo chased after him as his own wings burst from his back. “You can’t get away, Ram!” Outside now, his knees bent as he prepared to surge after—
“Leo!” Merius bellowed. “Leo…come look!”
What? No, he needed to chase Ramiel and end the bastard. He needed—
“Mora!” Merius shouted. “Leo…Mora!”
In a flash, Leo was back inside the house. The woven rug was in a twisted heap around Merius’s feet, and beneath it, Leo could see the spell that had been carved into the wood.
One glance and he recognized the same fucking spell that had been used to summon the hellhounds before, only this time…
His blood was in the middle of that spell.
So was a picture of Mora. A picture of her, standing behind her bar at Resurrection and smiling at a customer. The picture had been taped down right in the center of the spell. He ripped it up, frowning at the photo.
It was Mora…and…that asshole Dax? When had the picture even been taken?
Then Ramiel’s words rang through his head. Words that hadn’t made sense before, but right then—they did.
“Wasn’t trying to…kill…Just…need…blood…” Ramiel had smiled at him and then said, “Kill her. Rip her…apart.”
Leo didn’t waste another second. He ran out of that cabin and erupted into the air. He moved as fast as he could, his wings beating against the wind. That sonofabitch Ramiel had used Leo’s blood in his spell. Probably to make it more powerful. And he’d put Mora in the middle of that spell so…what? So the hellhounds would go after her? So they’d know their target? So they’d—
Rip her…apart.
No fucking way. It wouldn’t happen. It took twenty-four hours for those beasts to rise. Luke had said that. Twenty-four hours. Leo would make certa
in Mora was well-hidden before those beasts walked the earth again. He followed Ramiel’s scent, hunting him down.
Ramiel thought he would distract Leo by throwing Mora at him, but Leo knew she was safe for the time being. Twenty-four hours. That meant Leo had time to hunt. It meant he could kill.
It meant…
You’re done, Ramiel.
But as the miles disappeared around him, a new tension slid through his body. Because the area around him was familiar. Ramiel was taking him to the outskirts of Vegas.
To a bar that waited, smelling of ash but in perfect condition…with an empty parking lot.
Taking him to…Resurrection?
He landed on the ground and his wings vanished. Ramiel’s scent was all over the place, but Leo didn’t see the angel. If that traitor was inside…
Leo rushed into Resurrection—
And the sight before him made Leo freeze.
Mora stood with blood covering her body. Dax was near her, his claws out, and blood covered him, too. He looked bigger than before, stronger, and the guy’s total focus was on Mora.
She held a broken chunk of glass in her right hand, her fingers tight around it as she lifted it toward Dax. “I don’t…want to kill you.”
Dax’s body contorted. His hands slammed down on the floor and fur erupted over his body as his muscles bulged.
Fuck! “Mora!” Leo yelled. She hadn’t seen him, not yet, but at his cry, her gaze swung toward him. For an instant, wild hope filled her stare.
And then the beast lunged at her.
No. Leo lifted his hand. Fire erupted from his fingertips. It flew right toward Dax’s body.
“Stop, Leo! Don’t!” Mora screamed. She leapt toward Dax’s shifted body—and toward Leo’s flames.
Horror rolled through him, and Leo tried to pull the fire back, but it was too late. “Mora!”
Dax shoved her out of the way. One of his big paws swiped over her stomach as he threw her back. Then the flames took him. He howled and—screamed. A man’s scream. The fire consumed him in mere seconds.
And then there was only ash.
Leo raced across the room. Mora was on the floor, covered in so much blood…and her stomach, where the claws had sliced across her…
The cuts are so deep.
“Baby, it’s going to be okay.” He put his hand over those slashes.
“You can’t heal me.” Her voice was a rasp. “Not you, not Luke. I don’t belong to either of you.”
Lie. You are mine. Always.
“I’ll…heal…on my own. T-takes time…”
Leo didn’t want her suffering for even another second.
“I didn’t want him…to die.” A tear tracked down her cheek.
She was killing him. Leo lifted her into his arms, needing to get her out of there. He’d given her back Resurrection because he wanted the bar to make her happy. But now the place was covered in blood and ash and memories that she’d want to forget.
“I saw his death coming…I saw the fire that would take him. I saw him burning again and again…” Her head slumped against his shoulder as he carried her toward the door. “I wanted it to change.”
They were outside. The rain had stopped, but puddles were on the ground. The scent of her blood filled his nose, driving up his rage and his fear. Mora said she’ll heal herself. That it takes time, but, dammit, she needs to heal—now!
“I always want things to change, but sometimes, no matter what I do, they can’t change.” Her hand lifted and touched his cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
She was apologizing to him? To him? “Baby, I shouldn’t have left you. You were right. I was fucking driven by rage and—”
“It’s about to get worse,” Mora whispered. “I’m sorry. I—I’m going to leave you…for a little while…”
“What?” Frantic, his gaze locked on her face.
But her eyes had closed. Her skin was stark white, marked only by the splatters of blood on her body. Her lips were parted, but no breath stirred from her.
He strained, but Leo couldn’t hear her heartbeat, not even with his supernatural hearing.
He couldn’t hear it because Mora’s heart didn’t beat.
Mora wasn’t taking a breath.
Mora was…dead?
His knees hit the pavement, splashing in the puddles, and he held her with an unbreakable grip. “Mora?”
She didn’t stir, and terror tightened its icy hold on him. Her blood was on him. In his mind, he could see the claws ripping into her skin, again and again. Going so deep. But those claws had only swiped at her…because Dax was trying to get her out of the way. So my fire wouldn’t hurt her.
Laughter reached his ears. Taunting. Smug.
Leo’s head lifted, and he saw Ramiel walking toward him. “You’re a dead man,” Leo promised the angel.
Ramiel shrugged. “Wrong on both counts. I’m not a man. I’m an angel.” His lips twisted into a smile. “And the only one who’s dead…that would be the woman you hold in your arms.”
“Fate can’t die.”
“Of course, she can. She’s died plenty of times.” Ramiel smiled at him. “Oh, wait, you haven’t been there for those deaths, have you?”
Leo blinked at him, and he kept his tight hold on Mora.
Ramiel held up his index finger. “The first time she died, that was right after you left her back in dear old Greece. After I sent my hounds to get rid of her. I couldn’t stand her false visions and promises. She died when she leapt from that tower and plummeted to the ground.” He lifted a brow. “If you don’t have wings, you really shouldn’t try to fly.”
A growl built in Leo’s throat.
“Technically, though, I think it was the fall and the fire that killed her that time. I got the hounds to use fire on her right after she hit the ground.”
In his mind, Leo could see Mora falling…
Ramiel lifted a second finger. “The second time she died, well, you were searching frantically for her. It was a painful sight to see—someone who is as powerful as you, brought so low. You were desperate. I found her, of course. In one of my visions. I saw her, and then I killed her.”
When Leo eased out a breath, smoke appeared before him.
“I sent a band of villagers to turn on her,” Ramiel confided in a too-loud whisper. “It wasn’t a pretty death. I convinced them that she was a witch, and well, you know the best way to deal with a witch…” He smiled. “Burn, baby, burn.”
Leo leapt to his feet, still holding Mora. “You sonofabitch!”
“Shall I tell you about the third time she died?” Ramiel cocked his head to the side. “You were so close to finding her. I couldn’t let that happen. You two are not meant to be. You should see that. So the third time, I went for a more intimate kill. I whispered the right words into the ear of a human she trusted. Mora has always had a bit of a weakness for the mortals. She didn’t see this betrayal coming, and the human slid a knife right into her heart.”
The beast inside of Leo was roaring. And Mora still wasn’t breathing.
“I think this is death number four for her.” Ramiel dropped his hand. “Or maybe it’s five. I can’t really recall. She dies and she suffers…” His face hardened. “But the really annoying thing is that she always comes back.”
Leo carefully put Mora down on the ground. “Why?”
“I have no idea,” Ramiel replied with a frustrated sigh. “But I figure, I just have to keep trying. Eventually, I’ll find the right way to kill her. The way that ensures she won’t wake up to walk this earth again.”
Leo turned to face the angel he’d considered a friend. Then he slowly began to stalk toward Ramiel. “Why have you hurt her?”
Ramiel’s face tightened. “Isn’t that obvious? To hurt you.”
Leo kept closing in on his target. Ramiel wasn’t retreating. He was standing there, begging for death. Jaw locked, Leo spat, “You attacked your own kind. You killed humans. You summoned hellhounds…and you targeted Mora all b
ecause you fucking hate me?” Angels weren’t even supposed to feel emotions like hatred, they weren’t—
“I don’t hate you.” Ramiel’s voice was flat. “I just know…you aren’t the right one.”
Leo lunged forward, and when he did, he drove his claws right into Ramiel’s chest. Right at his heart.
Ramiel grunted. “S-see…what I m-mean?” His wings flared behind him. “Y-you’d h-hurt…angel…”
“I’m going to do more than hurt you,” Leo promised. His control was gone, absolutely shredded on the inside. “I’m going to make your life a fucking hell.” He jerked his claws out of Ramiel’s chest and then Leo’s beast took over. Leo felt his body getting bigger and stronger. Ramiel was screaming, begging, but Leo didn’t care.
He ripped into the angel’s wings. His razor sharp claws tore them apart. Feathers fluttered to the ground—white feathers now stained with blood.
Ramiel was trying to fight but…
You aren’t strong enough.
Leo swiped at Ramiel’s chest again, and the angel screamed in agony. The sky darkened overhead. Thunder rumbled.
And Leo wanted more blood. He wanted this bastard to suffer. The things that Ramiel had done to Mora…You hurt her. So I will destroy you. I won’t stop. You will lose everything …and your agony will not end.
His claws slashed at Ramiel. The angel fell to the ground, cowering, not even trying to fight back.
“St-stop…” Mora’s voice. Mora’s sweet, fucking perfect voice.
Immediately, Leo spun and ran to her. She was struggling to sit up, still too pale, but her eyes were open, she was breathing, speaking, and he could hear the steady beat of her heart. He grabbed Mora and pulled her up and into his arms, holding her tightly. Holding her as if he’d never let her go. As if…
“Leo…what have you done?” Mora gasped.
“Not enough.” Not nearly enough. “But I’ll finish him. I told you before…Ramiel will pay.”
She pushed against him and stared into his eyes. There was grief on her face.
Ramiel’s laughter reached him. Leo’s shoulders stiffened. Why the hell would the guy be laughing? Ramiel had lost his wings. He was the Fallen now. Leo looked back at him.