Chapter 8
My body refused to listen.
No matter if I screamed.
No matter if I tore out my own flesh as I slashed with my Demonspawn claws.
Logan’s mark on me burned my skin, sizzling my flesh with a command that I couldn’t deny no matter how hard I tried.
Kill him.
The words were too direct to be misinterpreted or skewed. I’d found a loophole with some of his commands, but my brain burned as I struggled to find a way out of this one.
Cole didn’t seem to understand why I was coming at him. I’d told him to run, but that was as much as I could do.
If he refused to listen to me and just stood there like a target, he wasn’t going to survive.
Because I knew I’d only become more powerful while he’d weakened himself. Even if it was to save me, that didn’t matter.
He wouldn’t survive a one-on-one fight with me.
Luckily, my father seemed to understand that.
“Stop her,” he said, a simple order seemingly to no one.
I realized he wasn’t alone when shadows erupted from the alleyways, sending dark wolves emerging from all of the corners of the street.
None of my senses had picked them up, and when one slammed into me, I was relieved beyond measure.
Logan growled, his bones breaking as he began his shift. “Fight them, then kill Cole!” he demanded, his voice gravelly and strained as he forced out the words before completing his change.
He launched into the air a moment later, going for the wolf that had me pinned. When he tore the creature off, he ran to my other mates, ripping them awake as he yanked them one by one.
“Fuck,” Dante hissed, struggling to his feet as he gripped his new wound. “You better not give me an infection, Logan,” he snapped, then took in the situation.
My Hunter blurred into action. He pulled a magicked dagger from his holster and slashed at the wolves.
Orion slammed his fist, sending starlight bursting in a violent wave.
Hendrik was the last to wake. He grabbed his chest as blood spilled over his fingers.
I cursed, because he shouldn’t be moving, much less fighting. Just sitting up had reopened his wound.
But there wasn’t much I could do for him right now, so I was relieved when I spotted his lips moving on a spell.
At least now that he was lucid, he could hopefully keep himself alive.
Because I, unfortunately, was otherwise occupied. Wolves attacked me, attempting to pin me down to keep from going after Cole.
And I had no choice but to fight them even though I would have gladly let them have me if that meant it would save my mates.
Logan’s order thrummed through my veins and gave me a false sense of vitality. His order had been to fight them, so I reluctantly obeyed.
A scream ripped through my throat as I slashed at the beasts, going through them one after another.
Although I noticed that these weren’t like Logan’s pack back at the Academy.
They bled black blood that splashed over my arms and down my face. When one fell, two took its place.
As if they somehow multiplied.
Where are they all coming from?
“It’s pointless to fight them,” my father said as he lounged on the hood of his truck. He propped up one leg and took something from his pocket, then began chewing on it.
Was he… snacking?
In the middle of literal Hell breaking loose?
Wrapping my fingers around the neck of one of the hounds, I squeezed.
My stomach turned.
“Logan, please!” I cried. I didn’t want to do this.
I knew I should have felt bones cracking under my unforgiving grip, but instead the creature seemed to dissipate, its black blood puffing into ash.
The other wolves that had been fatally wounded did the same, breaking apart under Orion’s blast of light and Dante’s blade.
Hendrik whispered a spell and crows rained from the sky, taking out another wave of the dark wolves.
And they too vanished as if they’d never been there at all, leaving only a dusting of black, splattered blood and dark ash behind.
“They’re not real,” I said, relief flooding my body.
I hadn’t just killed a bunch of wolves.
“They’re conjurations,” Derek said, snapping off the end of a rather large pretzel. He chewed, paused, then spit it out. “How do you eat these things?” he asked Nate, then threw it onto the ground.
Nate chuckled. “By swallowing them, of course.”
The Incubus King rolled his eyes, because that wasn’t what he’d meant.
He wasn’t human like his son, so I suspected that his preferred form of sustenance was slightly… different.
Proven by the fact that mass amounts of wolves were invading from the shadows with him as their master.
Even if the wolves were conjurations, they were doing a good job at keeping my mates occupied.
Cole paced like a trapped animal behind the carnage, leaving fiery footprints in his wake.
What has the mutt done to you? he asked in my mind.
Something he’s never done before, I admitted. He can control me while I wear his mark. You need to run, Cole. I can’t stop myself.
No, he said, narrowing his red eyes. I’m not leaving you with these idiots.
I growled, slicing my way through another conjured set of wolves. There was no way that the Incubus King had this sort of power, but thanks to Olivia, I knew he had an alliance with the Shadow Coven, a sect of Blood Witches that she had once been a part of.
Based on his nonchalant posture while he watched the rest of us bleed suggested he was accustomed to this. He offered a smile or a wink and always got what he wanted.
It rubbed me the wrong way, but he was the only reason I hadn’t ripped Cole’s head off right now, and for that, I was immensely grateful.
A wolf yipped in pain, and I realized it was Logan.
Snarling, I turned to him, ready to rip apart anything that would dare touch any of my mates.
I’d ripped apart realms and threatened the very fabric of the universe to keep them all alive.
This was my problem, one I was going to fix.
Somehow.
Logan’s silver wolf faltered as a larger wolf chomped down on his neck. Blood coated his shimmering fur, making me fucking lose it.
Logan was a powerful wolf, but the shadow creatures fighting him weren’t normal.
They came from the most controversial of witch covens.
Freya had been such a witch, but I’d killed her myself.
Had she somehow returned?
Lucifer would want his brother alive. Logan’s order to kill him would be reason enough to attack, and now that I was here on Earth, I was vulnerable.
I wasn’t sure who to trust or what to do, so I acted on instinct. Ripping the creature off of Logan, and sank my claws into its chest and ripped out a dark heart.
It disintegrated into ash.
A male’s groan from behind me told me that Logan had shifted. It would be easier for him to heal in human form. “Fuck,” he growled, rolling onto his side as he held a hand to the bleeding wound at his neck.
Crouching, I placed my hand on his to help initiate healing, but I’d already used up what little angelic power I’d had on Hendrik.
“Don’t worry about me, pup,” he said, grinning. His teeth still held points to them, giving him a devious look. Then he glanced at Cole who was fending off Dante and Hendrik while Orion kept the shadow wolves at bay.
The Dark Mage kept his distance, but rained spells down on the demon from above.
Dante kept him in place, using his speed and superior strength to force Cole underneath Hendrik’s spell.
“How’s it feel now, asshole?” Dante asked the demon.
They had quite the history. Dante had traded his free will to Cole’s care to protect me. That had been before I’d died, before Calamity had infected them.
Cole had most certainly abused that power, a power that I broke.
Now, Cole had changed, but it didn’t take away his sins.
He was weaker without his wings, and noticeably worn down.
Whatever power boost he’d gained to travel to earth was fading fast. The flames around his feet dried up and the stones cooled.
He was out of his element here, literally.
A snarl escaped my lips, one of aggression as I sensed his growing weakness and fatigue.
Logan’s Alpha command still ran strong within me, demanding me to rip my claws into Cole’s chest and rip out his heart.
It would be the only way to really end him. Demons were immortals, but it didn’t mean they couldn’t be killed.
Nothing was truly immortal.
It just meant they were rather difficult to kill.
His soul would end up in some unreachable place in Hell, probably the same place Balthazar had gone when Lucifer had taken his life.
Distress twisted my stomach into knots, because Balthazar had been lost. If I wound up killing Cole, I wasn’t going to get him back.
“Run, you idiot,” I growled under my breath.
His jaw flexed.
Why did my mates have to be so damn stubborn?
Logan’s wounds sealed over and he cracked his neck. His shifter healing had increased since the last time I’d seen him take a blow.
Now that I was paying attention, Hendrik’s spells packed way more punch and Dante’s endurance didn’t seem to be running out.
Apparently, Calamity was giving them power.
A lot of it.
“You better handle this,” Nate growled to his father as he swept past the demon.
Cole didn’t bother him as my brother ventured into the pits of Hell.
I hoped he found Sonya, for all our sakes.
The shadow monsters all turned on me as I set my sights on Cole. Dante and Hendrik stepped aside, leaving nothing between us.
My muscles coiled.
My wings flared.
My mind screamed at Cole to get out while my body launched myself at him, claws drawn and wings propelling me forward.
I slammed into him with all of my might. Brilliant light encased us as I released my inner angel, a holy force that would make him kneel.
Cole slammed to the ground, punching his fist through the asphalt as my power crashed into him.
I didn’t give him a chance to recover. My claws came down next, followed by my taloned wing.
I slashed again and again, painting us both with his black blood. The irony of using his own wing against him wasn’t lost on me.
Logan’s Alpha command compelled me to keep slashing, to go for Cole’s chest that he protected with his massive arms.