thirty-four
“Wha-what happened to you?”
My whisper may as well have been a scream in the silent room. The only other sound is the shallow breaths that escape me.
I look over the archangel, my eyes dwelling on the chains that bind his wrists, the dark cloud surrounding them. Though that’s not what holds my gaze; it’s the black veins that run up his forearms from where the chains sit, fading out below his shoulders.
His hair is slicked to his forehead with a grotesque mixture of sweat and golden blood. His bottom lip is split. His shirt has been ripped open, only half hiding the long line of flayed skin that stretches from his collarbone and disappears beneath the shirt’s remains.
His head hangs low, but he fights to lift it to flash me a half-smile. “You should see the other guy.”
I laugh grimly and kneel before him, the humour loosening the tight rope that twists around me and tries to pull me away from him. “I’m sure you left your mark on him,”
I say simply. I reach for the chains, but the cloud of darkness that surrounds them forms a wall.
“They know who I am.”
His voice is weak as his eyes meet mine. He pauses, surveying every inch of my body. “It looks like you left your mark on all of them.”
I can feel the blood that coats my skin and clothes. I’m sure I look like the devil herself.
“How do I free you?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “They are bound with dark magic. You need to leave. She will come back, and she can’t find you here.”
She? “I’m not going to leave you, archangel.”
I look around, searching for something I may have missed before. I know nothing of dark magic, nor magic at all. But I do know that I’m not going to leave the archangel here to rot when he has saved my life time and time again. It’s my turn to save him.
“Amara.”
His tone is enough to snap my attention back to him, though it’s my name on his lips that stuns me. “You must leave. I will be fine.”
I only roll my eyes, searching the room again. “I am not going to leave you.”
“It is not a request, it is an order.”
The archangel is out in full force, willing the meaning of his name into the commanding tone of his voice.
I lean in, careful of the black shadows that swirl around him and dance their way towards me. “Then it’s a good thing that I don’t take orders from you.”
His lips twitch, as if he’s warring between annoyance and amusement. “Stubborn as always.”
I ignore him and study the swirls of black dancing around his wrists, the icy veins that taint his skin. “Tell me about dark magic. How is it undone?”
He coughs twice before speaking, golden liquid spluttering onto the floor. “It’s not simply undone. There is a power source behind it, and only disrupting the link to that source can release me.”
He looks down at the bloodstains on the floor. His veins flicker with power, as if proving his point. The sight of it tightens the knot in my stomach even further, and I wonder if it’ll become too twisted to unravel.
“Then tell me,”
I say. “Who is the source? I will take care of them.”
“You wish to kill the devil?”
There is no humour in his words now, nothing to indicate that he is joking.
The devil is the one who crafted those chains. The devil is the one whose power needs to be broken to release him. The devil is the one who has infected this estate like a disease.
“I had a feeling I’d find you here, Miss Jones.”
The sickening voice snaps our attention towards the man in the doorway. The smile that Vince has mastered so well plays on his lips.
“Thank you for saving me the last dance.”
“You.”
I snarl the word, my blade drawn quicker than my mind can process.
His lips curve into a wicked smirk. “Me.”