by Cate Corvin
The soft tinkle of metal hitting stone filled the air like music. The slivers of the shattered Sword had caught up, pinging off the obsidian. The hilt bounced several yards and came to rest in front of me, all of its fire gone cold.
“Azazel,” I said, allowing myself to go limp when I realized I wasn’t going to die splattered across the stones. His shadowy form roiled around me, carefully lowering me to the obsidian floor.
My throat tightened, a lump forming that seemed to block all air and my next words. “I didn’t kill him. He took Vyra.”
31
Melisande
Azazel condensed back into a solid shape. He was only a vague suggestion of the Azazel I knew, still in his monstrous form of shadows and burning white eyes.
Something massive and golden hit the palace floor: a lion. Belial shook his head, his gleaming hide painted with blood, wounds still healing into pink scars.
He nudged me with his enormous nose, and I winced and cried out when I reached out to touch him.
My broken wing was shaking, hanging at a strange angle that made me feel sick to look at. I took a deep breath, willing myself not to pass out.
Tascius flew into the Pit and landed alongside us, his feathers ruffled, a freshly-bleeding cut running down his cheek to his neck. Wherever Satan’s wingbeats had blown him, it clearly hadn’t been as friendly as my smashing into the top of a building.
“What happened with Lucifer?” he started to ask, and then he saw the slivers of metal. He reached down to touch one, but the piece of the Sword’s blade flickered and shook, sending out sparks like a warning.
“He broke the Sword,” I said, my voice sounding like it came from a thousand miles away. It echoed in the eerie silence of the abyss. “I don’t know how, but these…” I picked up a sliver, feeling the residual echo of holy light in it straining to meet me. “These are the pieces of the Sword. Don’t touch them.”
Belial shifted back into his human form, revealing the full extent of the injuries he’d taken. “Forget the fucking Sword. What else is hurt?”
He knelt next to me, touching and examining every inch of me that was bloody. He raised my chin, inspected my nose, took in the damage to my wing with a scowl.
“Just my wing,” I said honestly. The nosebleed had dried up, at least. I felt for Sarai’s presence, having kept my magical shield up even through my fall, and felt a wave of relief as she moved inside me. “I think Sarai is fine.”
“But you’re not,” Tascius said briskly. “Belial’s right; forget the Sword. Satan is long gone now.”
“Along with Lucifer and Vyra.” My throat tightened again and I clenched my hands as Belial helped me to my feet.
“Soul-bonds,” Azazel said, his voice crackling. There was chagrin in his tone. “I did not think of them until it was too late.”
I’d once believed Belial had soul-bound me to him, but the whole time, a real soul-bond had existed much closer. I’d never thought to ask Lucifer why he was tattooed from neck to toe, believing he’d done it as a way to profane the temple God had given him.
I could’ve kicked myself for all the things I should’ve asked that might have made a difference today.
Azazel’s shadows condensed until he’d regained something close to his usual form. The planes of his sharp face seemed to waver, like the monster beneath was still struggling to escape, but his eyes were now violet, no longer full of white fire.
He touched my wing gently, feeling for the break. I tensed when his gently probing fingers found the spot and pain ripped through me.
“Sorry,” he apologized softly. He was being gentle now, but I felt his true emotions through the mate mark. They were terrifying, an endless void of pure hate for the Dragon.
“It’s okay,” I said through gritted teeth. “Are all the Princes still alive? Besides Mammon, of course. I saw Adranos kill him. He looked… different.”
My mind was going fuzzy from exertion and agony. I was no longer sure if the darkness pressing in on my vision was because I was going to pass out, or if it was just the natural state of the abyss. The walls were moving, no longer smooth, but bulging outwards like there was something in them.
“Because he was of the bloodline, he took his father’s power when Mammon died,” Azazel said. He released my wing, frowning. “He’s begun the transmutation into a Prince.”
I looked up at him, struggling to clear my mind and comprehend what he said. My eyes drifted over to Tascius, who was gazing into the darkness with a puzzled frown. His moonlit glow was powerful enough to drive away the shadows of the Pit, leaving him wreathed in light like a lone star.
Azazel followed my gaze and looked back at me.
“Yes.” His whisper of confirmation sent a bolt of panic through me. “Tascius is undergoing the same transmutation. I’ve only seen it happen once before, so I didn’t want to cause unnecessary panic, but…”
“But he’s becoming an archangel,” I said, unable to speak above a whisper. The natural glow, the increased height and wingspan, the burnished metal of his eyes… he was no longer quite Nephilim.
“There is a natural order to the universe.” Azazel wiped blood off my cheek as he spoke. “Nine Princes, seven archangels. When one dies, another must take their place.”
I took shallow breaths and leaned on him, looping my arm through his and Belial’s. My broken wing dragged behind me, sending stabbing pains like broken glass through my back, but I didn’t want to spend another moment in the Pit.
Not when the walls were moving like that. The shapes looked almost humanoid now, the press of hands and faces on the other side of the stone. Whispers that weren’t coming from us were floating through the air.
“Tascius,” I said, almost choking on the words. My throat was coated in blood and dust, and he was becoming an archangel, another step removed from me. Universal order or not, I wouldn’t allow the cosmos to take him away.
Nor could Satan have Lucifer. I felt his absence like a tangible presence, a dark shape sitting beside me and mocking my failure. The silence on the other end of the mark was a stab in the heart, but he was still there, somewhere under the soul-bonds Satan had placed on him.
“We need to leave,” Belial said, giving Tascius a sharp look. “Dis is free, and Melisande needs a healer. It’s time to regroup.”
Tascius had moved away from us, but instead of being swallowed by darkness, he was burning the shadows away just by standing there. He took a step towards two towers that stood like monoliths, peering downwards. “I feel something in here.”
Azazel and Belial stopped, and I peered towards whatever Tascius was looking at, but I saw nothing but darkness.
“What is it?” I asked, and Belial scoffed.
“Whatever little traps Satan kept down here, it has nothing to do with us.”
“It’s not evil,” Tascius said. His wings ruffled, and his shoulders were tense. “Whatever it is, it feels like… it feels like me.”
“Like you?” Azazel asked with a frown, but he was no longer going along with Belial’s steady pull towards the mouth of the abyss. “You mean angelic?”
Tascius cocked his head, taking another few steps. His light was enough to illuminate a set of stairs descending further into the abyss.
I didn’t want to go towards them, but if he felt something of holy power in there, we needed to know. I didn’t have a hope that I was mistaken about Satan taking Vyra, but if one more Bride still lived, maybe one from Heaven itself…
“We have to investigate,” I said, letting out an explosive sigh. My wing was just broken, not severed. The healer could wait for a few more minutes.
“No.” Belial’s tone was sharp. “The Circles are in chaos, and we’re lucky if any healers survived the storm.”
I looked up at him pleadingly, hoping I was pulling off the puppy eyes despite the pain I was in. “Please. What if it’s a Bride down there?”
“If it’s a Bride, she’s already dead,” he said, not ungently, but
I felt him capitulate when his grip relaxed. We caught up with Tascius and looked down into Satan’s nest.
“It reeks,” I said, covering my mouth and nose and breathing shallowly. If the stench had been bad at the surface, it was a thousand times worse down here in the still and suffocating air of the Pit.
“I’m going down.” Tascius walked down several steps, gripping a dagger he’d yanked off his belt. With his light guiding the way, the stairs were lit up, and the obsidian was no longer even visible under endless bloodstains.
Thousands of years of blood. The steps were sagging and cracked in some places, and I imagined Lucifer having to come down here all those times to visit his father.
More than ever, I was determined to cut right through that soul-bond. He would never come here again.
“Damn,” Belial grumbled. He unhooked his arm from mine. “Melisande, for the love of all things unholy, stay here with Azazel. Take an order, just this once.”
He kissed my forehead and began to shift, bones creaking as he grew to massive proportions. I reached out to stroke his golden fur.
“Just this once,” I agreed, mostly because my broken wing burned like fire, and I was sure if I went down those stairs, I’d pass out for real just from the deathly smell hanging in the air.
The darkness down there was so thick that even with Tascius’s light, they were barely visible as they descended. The golden lion disappeared, along with the sound of their voices.
Azazel led me back to the center of the palace. The mouth of the Pit was so high above us, I could barely make out the color of the sky as I looked up.
“So the other Princes were fine?” I asked, determined to keep my mind off the pain. “I saw Abaddon was sleeping.”
A little half-smile crossed Azazel’s lips. “He’s one of the most dangerous, though you wouldn’t know it from looking at him. He can form a field of entropy while he sleeps. Everything that touches it is dismantled on a molecular level.”
I made a face. “Sounds like a peaceful way to go.”
He shook his head. “No, he tells me it’s extremely painful. He feeds on their agony as they dissolve.”
My eyebrows shot up. And here I was thinking he was the most adorable of the Princes, almost child-like.
“And what about Lucifer?” I asked, barely able to voice the words.
Azazel gripped my left hand, which was just about the only part of me that didn’t hurt. “He’s alive. Satan wouldn’t waste someone as powerful as him, not when he was forced to flee for his life.”
It wasn’t much, but it was a small comfort. We had a chance of getting Lucifer back, and a chance was all I needed.
We sat in silence for another few minutes. I was gritting my teeth, beads of cold sweat forming on my forehead as the ache spread into my chest, making it hard to breathe.
Then we saw a light in the distance, rising from the abyss.
Tascius’s silver glow was a welcome star, and Belial padded silently at his side, his golden eyes flaming. He held something in his massive jaws, a box almost big enough to look comical carried in his mouth.
The lion dropped the box on the palace floor, and I realized it wasn’t a box at all. It was a sarcophagus, lacquered a glossy black, and painted with red sigils.
“What is this?” I asked, and Tascius shook his head. A line seemed permanently engraved between his eyebrows.
“All I know is that there’s something holy in it. I feel it reaching out to me.” He stepped closer, not quite touching the lid.
Azazel straightened up, looking over the sarcophagus with curiosity in his eyes. “These are binding sigils, painted in blood,” he said, walking around it. “Sleep sigils.”
“Can you open it?” Tascius asked. “I don’t give a damn about the sigils.”
Azazel raised his hands, his fingers forming impossible configurations and gleaming with dark light.
The sarcophagus began to shudder, rattling against the floor until the lid broke free with a crack and shot upwards, coming down twenty feet away and splintering to pieces.
There was another lid beneath the first. “Silver and blood,” Azazel said with a frown. “This one isn’t enspelled.”
Tascius lifted off the silver lid to reveal another. He pulled away a lid of bone, one of iron, another of dark, thorny wood.
When the last layer was revealed, a thin cloth like a shroud, we’d all gathered closer, holding our collective breaths. Once the lid of iron had been pulled away, the power trapped inside the sarcophagus spilled out, thrumming against me with a familiar sensation.
It was holy power. The thrum of nervousness I was accustomed to feeling at that sensation burst into life, making me prickle with anxiety. I’d only ever felt this sort of power from archangels.
Tascius leaned over the coffin, his silver hair spilling over his bloody shoulders as he gripped the shroud and pulled it back.
Belial sucked in a breath, then laughed. Azazel made a small noise of assent.
The figure in the sarcophagus gleamed like the sun. Golden armor, golden hair spilling over his chest in braids, skin so perfect it might have been carved from tawny marble. Wings as white as snow cushioned him, some of the feathers tipped with brilliant razors.
“So this is where Michael went,” Belial said with amusement. “Now we know how Gabriel accomplished it. I was wondering why this bastard never showed up for the End Days.”
I was awestruck and fearful at the sight of Michael sleeping in the sarcophagus.
God’s warrior, captive through the Apocalypse… I’d never seen him for myself in Heaven, only heard of his prowess in war. He was supposed to help us. I’d thought he was like Gabriel and his cohort, too arrogant to give a damn about the fate of humanity.
And Satan had been nesting on him this entire time.
“Is he… alive?” I asked. With the golden chestplate, it was impossible to tell if Michael was breathing or not.
Tascius crouched and leaned over him again. “I think so.” He reached out to feel for a pulse.
His hand had barely met skin when Michael’s eyelids fluttered open. Liquid gold orbs looked up at Tascius, pupils wide.
“Gabriel?” His deep voice thundered through the dark palace, slow and thick with sleep.
Tascius withdrew his hand. “I’m not-”
Michael’s eyes suddenly came into sharp focus, rage boiling in their depths. He focused on Tascius, his lips drawing back over perfect teeth in a snarl.
“Gabriel, you fucking traitor,” he growled, and launched himself out of the sarcophagus to wrap his hand around Tascius’s throat.
The End
To Be Continued in All Hell Breaks Loose
About the Author
Hello reader!
If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon! All of the books I write are important to me, and leaving reviews helps support authors so they can write more for you!
Cate loves all things passionate and paranormal, from sexy, hunky warlocks in haunted houses to shredded shifters under the full moon! She lives in the South with her family and pets, and loves every kind of coffee, horror and fantasy movies, and cats. Reading is her favorite hobby when she’s not writing.
Mailing List for New Releases and News:
http://eepurl.com/gi598f
Website:
https://catecorvin.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Cate-Corvin-2310068932385752/
Instagram: @catecorvin
For more books by Cate Corvin, check out the links below!
RAZING HELL
A Hellish Paranormal Romance
An angel pushed from heaven must claw her way back for revenge… if she can escape her demons first.
For the Hell of It
Hell to Pay
Hell Hath No Fury
All Hell Breaks Loose
Hell Bent
A LITTLE LUNACY
A Paranormal Shifter Romance
I’m a witch and a hunter, hired to hunt down a Lycan serial killer. The wolves who hired me are claiming to be my mates, even though I asked for payment, not three boyfriends.
Wolf Bait
Wolf Trap
Wolf Hunt
DARK AND WICKED FAE
A dryad steals faerie fruit from the wrong Seelie hitman in this Hades and Persephone-inspired reverse harem urban fantasy romance.
Spin the Shadows
THE CIMMERIAN CAGE
A Dark Academy Romance
A witch cursed with uncontrollable fire is sent to a prison posing as a reform school in this steamy academy trilogy.
Kissed by Wildfire
Kissed by Moonlight
Kissed by Midnight
The Complete Series with Bonus Stories
BONDS OF BLOOD
A Bully Academy Romance
All I wanted to do was make my brother proud by earning my place in Libra Academy. Now I have to go toe to toe with my asshole stepbrother and his gorgeous best friend… all while a vampire knight stalks me from the shadows.
Ill Will
Bad Blood
Dirty Deeds
THE HOUSE OF MIRRORS
A Paranormal Romance in the Cimmerian Cage Universe
An exorcist tries to flee her past with the help of her loyal guardian, but the past is determined to catch up with her whether she likes it or not.
Roses and Revenants
STONEHEART
A Standalone Gargoyle Romance by Cate Corvin and Melora François