Angel Lover

by Tricia Skinner

  Mariel tipped her head back and squinted until her eyes locked onto the Renegade leader. His joker-wide smile broadened, a sight that burned hotter than the steady amps of pain.

  “Stupid fool,” Mastema hissed. “Long before your creation, I walked this world. And you thought to trap me?”

  She spit again.

  “No matter. Kaonos will be replaced, but you…” He leaned against the railing. “Your mission ends here. Tonight.” He straightened and gestured to his men. “Take her to my laboratory. I have use of her Grace.”

  …

  Kas had entered the mansion behind Rahab, but every step cranked his anxiety. In the distance he caught the sound of a scuffle, and Mastema’s last sentence. He shoved past his sire and ran to the center of the room.

  Two angels dragged Mariel toward the basement. His eyes flicked to the trail of blood staining the travertine floor, the streaks soaking the back and right side of her T-shirt, and finally, he stared into her face.

  God of All, her face.

  Bright crimson streams ran thick from her nostrils. More painted her cheeks and lips, and her left eye was half closed.

  “Wonderful timing, Rahab,” Mastema called out. “Good, you brought your son.”

  Kas couldn’t tug his gaze from Mariel. She partially stood, partially leaned, against one of her captors. With effort, she raised her head, but her eyes didn’t track with his. Could she even see him?

  For every hurt you suffer, I will make them hurt. I swear this to you.

  “I will absolve you of Kaonos’s death, Nephilim, with one simple task.”

  Kas forced his eyes up until he found the Renegade on the balcony, standing with what looked to be all the fallen angels in the mansion. A veritable wall of hate stared down at Mariel and him.

  He stepped forward, away from his sire, until he was mere feet from the angels still holding her upright. “The task?”

  He knew what was coming before the words left Mastema’s mouth.

  “Kill her. Now.”

  One of her captors chuckled until he looked into Kas’s face. The grin vanished.

  “The woman is a spy for those who have bound you,” Mastema said in a casual air. “You are fortunate to have found your sire alive. So many others did not survive. She aids the men responsible for all that has befallen us—and you.”

  The cool punch of his Grace filled Kas’s body. He calculated the space between him and her holders, of Mastema on his fucking dais, of his heartless sire behind him but off to the side. If he didn’t move, any one of them could kill her.

  He dipped his head and concentrated. Inside, his power weaved around itself, contracted, released, built up. His chest expanded as he filled his lungs, his daggers gripped in both hands. Kas summoned his new ability and launched himself into void space.

  Teleported to the angels holding Mariel, his arms flashed out, embedding the daggers deep into their hearts. Neither reacted beyond flared eyes. He reached under his jacket, and his hands sliced the air.

  Six throwing stars sailed into the assembled Renegades and cut into throats and arms and chests. He spun even as Mariel turned at the same time. Both had guns drawn. They opened fire at the gallery.

  “Destroy them!” Mastema yelled.

  A soldier roared a challenge at Kas then raised his hands to the ceiling. A mass of electricity rotated and twisted. The air filled with static, raising his hair around him. The charge sailed away from the angel, and Kas lunged to the side. The wall it struck sizzled and burned on contact.

  The angel formed another electrical sphere.

  The sphere wavered. The wielder grunted and pushed more of his Grace into forming the weapon. Kas leveled his guns at the Renegade’s exposed chest. The bullet impacted the flesh beneath the military-style double-lapel jacket. The angel’s rigid body tipped forward, flipped over the railing, and slammed face-first into the floor.

  Kas shot a quick look at Mariel. Her face contorted with pain, but she wiped sweat from her brow.

  Her white noise. Of course.

  Mastema shook and glared at Rahab. “Your whelp stretches my patience. Make him suffer before killing him.”

  “It shall be my honor.”

  Kas lunged, pushing Mariel aside an instant before his sire’s flaming sword sliced through the space where her head should have been. He centered his Desert Eagles on Rahab, but the son of a bitch blinked out.

  “Behind you,” Mariel yelled.

  He jumped back and fired his guns just as the flame sword swung on an arc for his gut. Rahab grunted and stumbled to his knee. Kas roundhouse kicked his sire in the chest and then pressed the triggers.

  Again, Rahab teleported.

  “Fight me, asshole!”

  He caught a knee in his groin as answer to his demand. Kas gritted his teeth to stave off the pain and tossed his guns aside. In each hand, he placed a dagger. His chest burned where the sword had clipped him.

  Mastema’s form took shape behind Mariel, silent as a phantom. And he was…a phantom. The leader’s gift? His body appeared as thick as fog rolling over Lake Superior. His wings retracted and cast an ominous shadow on the wall and over her.

  Kas charged his Grace and teleported. As he popped into the space between her and Mastema, he tugged her to his chest then vanished.

  They appeared across the room. Regrouped Renegades descended from the balcony. Rahab, his voice filled with malice, issued orders.

  Then the ceiling of the mansion exploded.

  Debris rained down, chunks of plaster, electrical wiring, shattered fixtures. The brightest light he’d ever witnessed filled the hole and covered everyone in its glow.

  “Warriors,” someone yelled.

  He squinted through the flare, grabbed Mariel, and teleported out of the way of the incoming angel platoon.

  When he reappeared, the fierce war cries of Renegades joined those of Heaven’s angels, but the sound of a familiar voice made Kas look up.

  “Jarrid?” His gaze darted around the room, through the white and black wings of combatants, until he found his brother. All his brothers.

  The Bound Ones had come.

  “How?”

  “I will explain later,” Mariel said, tugging his arm.

  Kas glanced at her wide eyes shining with excitement. She was in her element, a warrior on a battlefield, and she was gorgeous. They shared one look, and then she spun away from him.

  The first Renegade she encountered never saw the blade in her hand until it sliced through his throat. Kas watched her a split second longer, then went in search of Rahab.

  …

  Cracked ribs limited her movements, but Mariel had survived decades dealing with pain. She would fight until she dropped.

  The next Renegade paired off against her was a towering hulk with slow reflexes. He raised his sword and snapped it to the side. She brought up her two facons to deflect. Her arms ached with strain, but she could bear it. She would not die before her mission was complete.

  “Traitor,” her assailant spat out.

  “I could say the same about you.”

  Using her lighter frame to her advantage, Mariel ducked under a second sweep of his sword arm, twisted behind him, and jammed a facon hilt-deep into his back. As his chest puffed out, the second blade speared him through the center. He fell to his knees. Another fighting pair knocked him over, but he was already dead.

  She crouched and scanned the fights around her. As in battles of old, the angels on both sides fought with swords, not Grace. It was an old custom, one she never expected Renegades to adhere to, but it appeared even the rebels had a code.

  Then she spotted the Nephilim.

  The Bound had arrived with her brethren, and they fought with a passion that awed her. They also fought as a team, unlike the fallen angels. Where was Kas? She eyed Cain, the mind controller, and tensed.

  Cornered by four of the fallen, his eyes flared with power. His lips moved, but she was too far to hear his words. Two of the Ren
egades turned on each other, fighting with swords and fists, but two remained unaffected. One raised his hand at Cain, and the Nephilim yelled.

  Mariel bolted and pushed her power forward. It struck the Renegade and his companion just as the one called Jarrid appeared. Energy shimmered over his body and flowed over Cain, but he was too close to the Renegades under her static. Jarrid’s shield crackled and broke.

  “No!” she cried out the moment the enemy realized the shield had failed.

  She pushed all her strength into another static blast. As she neared, the two Renegades and two Nephilim turned. The fallen angels reacted first, but Cain and Jarrid drew daggers and tackled one angel each, throwing themselves away from her and into the crowded center.

  She had to find Kas. She felt him in her heart, blood, and mind. He had become everything to her, and she wanted to give him all she had.

  Mariel switched direction and received a savage blow across her back. The impact sent her sprawling into two white-winged angels. Her head snapped back and struck the floor. A wall of darkness covered her eyes.

  She tried to rise, but her body mutinied. One of her broken ribs pierced through her skin. A scream escaped on a wave of torment.

  “Stay down,” someone ordered.

  She strained to open her bad eye, now so badly swollen she only had a sliver of vision. Mariel forced it, and she saw the most horrific pair of wings in creation.

  The angel had platinum-white hair and the face of a god. But his wings. God of All, his wings!

  “Tanis,” she said in wary awe.

  This was the leader of the Bound Ones, the scarred angel who’d saved Kas. He didn’t reply. Mariel cupped her side and drew back her fingers coated in blood.

  Tanis rounded on two Renegades, swinging his sword to parry against one and stabbing behind him to delay the second. As he moved, she recognized the techniques she’d also learned in Heaven, but he used new moves, a warrior dance all his own. His front attacker’s head fell to the tile. The second attacker earned a slice from his navel to his collarbone.

  Then the gray-winged angel stared down at her.

  She tightened her grip on her long dagger and struggled to a sitting position. Her head spun, but she forced her legs under her and slowly rose. Bent at the waist, she kept her left hand pressed against her wound and lifted the facon with her right.

  Time froze them in a bubble, protected from the madness around them. Her worry for Kas temporarily ebbed under a potential new threat—his mentor.

  Tanis continued to observe at her with an unreadable expression. “I know who you are.”

  She rolled the dagger hilt in her hand. He shook his head.

  “Survive, and we will speak later.”

  With that, the angel sprang into the throng, leaving Mariel to gape in his wake.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Adversaries fell, and the immediate area thinned. Mariel counted the number of white wings versus obsidian wings. Far more of the Renegades lay dead or injured than Heaven’s chosen warriors, but as her gaze roamed over those still fighting, there was one person she sought over all others. Kas was in this melee, fighting alone.

  Twelve warriors surrounded Mastema. Her pulse quickened, and she limped closer to witness the moment the elusive Renegade was brought to his knees.

  She’d waited ten years. Ten years of spying, of inching closer to stopping Heaven’s greatest enemy, and now the moment had arrived. Her long exile would end with the leader’s death.

  “Are none among you truly brave?” He gave a madman’s smile. “Do none wish to claim my head and receive Ascension?”

  The mention of the sacred ritual pulsed through the warriors. They shared glances, but Mariel caught the moment one warrior broke formation and charged. Too far away, her warning cry was snuffed in the clang of steel and roar of battle-hardened men.

  The heavenly angel brought his sword down, and Mastema leaned out of the way. Grace backlit his eyes, and he reached out and grabbed the warrior around the neck. The soldier swung his arms to break the hold and kicked out at his opponent. The enemy held him aloft as if he were weightless.

  What appeared to be steam floated from Mastema’s body. Dark, smoky tendrils rose as if a heated rock had been tossed into water. Whips snaked out, swirled down his arm toward the still struggling soldier. Paralyzed by terror or morbid curiosity, his companions did not intervene.

  She had seen him as mist. She had never, ever seen him like this. “Stop him,” Mariel screamed.

  No one paid attention.

  She summoned her power and slipped between fighting men. A wayward punch sent her flying. She landed on the rubble of an eagle statue. Groaning, she coughed, and blood filled her mouth. Too many injuries began to take their toll.

  “I see why he likes you.”

  She peered into the scowling face of Jarrid.

  “Stubbornness.” He bent down and pressed the side where her rib broke the skin. “You’re done. No more fighting.”

  Mariel pinched her lips closed and swallowed the pain. “Get me over there.”

  He followed her gaze. “No. Mastema’s the last angel you need to fuck with right now.”

  She grabbed a handful of his torn shirt. “He is not playing by the rules of battle. Look again.”

  He did, and she allowed him to slip his arm around her. The Nephilim swore as she muttered, “Too late.”

  The twelve warriors were now connected to Mastema by dark tendrils. Their bodies danced like kites in a storm. Anyone near the stricken group backed away, but still watched, impotent.

  Fear rooted in her gut.

  All at once, the tendrils snapped forward and the fallen angel opened his mouth—and inhaled their Grace.

  “Holy fuck,” Jarrid said, but the half angel hadn’t moved them closer.

  The bright white glow of the twelve warriors’ souls appeared as ghostly shapes dragged out of their owners. The first soldier, the one who had foolishly accepted Mastema’s challenge, shriveled first. His husk slipped from between the evil angel’s fingers.

  “He…he is a…” Mariel couldn’t finish.

  “Demon.”

  She barely managed to drag her eyes away. Beside her, Tanis stood next to Cain and Jarrid. All of them focused on Mastema.

  A demon. Mariel had never imagined all this time… But Rahab had to know. Few Renegades could claim to have known their master, but this? Angels did not serve demons.

  The dying clamor of fighting spiked her neck hairs. She peeked around the room. “Why does no one try to stop him?”

  Tanis rotated his shoulder and released a low hiss. “Only one angel in this room has ever fought that demon and lived.” He drew his sword from his scabbard. “Me.”

  …

  Kas swiped his arm across his face and removed the blood of yet another dead Renegade—and some of his own. The floor was slick with the muck of fluids, entrails, and body parts. White wings and black wings crunched under the boots of those still fighting. He stumbled and slipped, but he returned to his search.

  Somewhere in the bedlam was Mariel. God of All, keep her safe until I find her.

  The madness also hid Rahab and Mastema. He didn’t give a damn who he found first.

  Near the basement door, a sharp sound diverted his attention. Bodies littered the area, as did broken chunks of concrete from the ceiling. He crawled over the crushed remnants of a couch, pushing himself to hurry.

  Nesty was on his knees, his face contorted in a grimace. Beside him lay the caved-in bodies of four enemy angels. Kas slammed a magazine into his guns and hurdled over another obstruction. If his brother had used his resonance to stop his targets, then the Act of Contrition had hit.

  A Renegade lifted his sword to finish off his brother. Kas fired.

  The enemy lurched from the bullets’ impact, but he brushed it off. He spun from Nesty and stalked toward Kas. The Renegade’s sluggish movements sent a pang of relief through him. An injured angel was easier to deal with.


  He cranked the triggers until the chambers emptied. Angels might be tough to kill, but blow enough holes through one, and his odds would improve. He slammed new magazines into his guns and repeated his barrage.

  The burly angel was in no hurry to die.

  “Damn.” The guy was probably bullet resistant.

  The angel’s blade cut into Kas’s thigh. He grunted at the burst of acidic pain. Then the Renegade’s wings swatted him hard. He sailed back and careened into several fighting groups.

  He lay on the heap, so damned tired he could barely struggle up from the squirming pack he’d landed on. Someone shoved him, which got him upright and back to Nesty. The Renegade he’d fought was tangled up with a warrior angel.

  His brother still shuddered through the lingering effects of having his insides fricasseed by Heaven’s wretched curse.

  “Why the hell are you fighting solo? We work in teams,” Kas said, hauling the auburn-haired half angel to his feet.

  “Separated from Tanis.” Nesty brushed his hand away.

  “He’s here?” He surveyed the crowd.

  “Wouldn’t stay behind. Plans to kick your ass.”

  Despite their situation, Kas grinned. That sounded like his adopted father. Wait until they got a load of his badass lady. The light moment faded when his gaze landed on one of his targets.

  “Find him and find Mariel. Protect her until I arrive. Gotta jet.”

  He dodged through brawlers and teleported to the top of the staircase. On the landing, he appeared directly behind Rahab.

  “Hey, Pop.” He struck out with his fist.

  His sire’s head snapped back. Kas brought his hands up, but the Renegade knocked the daggers away.

  He pummeled Rahab’s midsection and kicked the kidney area.

  “I will see you dead, Kasdeja.”

  “It’s Kas, you dick.” He aimed another punch, but the angel deflected the hit and landed a few of his own.

  He shoved his sire and palmed his last daggers.

  “This time, you’ll stay dead,” Kas vowed.

  …

  Mariel gawked at the angel with twisted wings. One of the straps that had secured them had been severed, leaving the left wing free. She flashed Kas’s mentor what she hoped was an empathetic look without the pity.