Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SAVANNAH
The rest of us just stared in shock . . . and a little bit of horror.
And relief. Frankie was alive. She hadn’t died.
We’d guessed wrong. Then again, the woman—no, the angel—standing in front of us had Frankie’s face and pink eyes but there were details that definitely were new.
But the soul I felt was identical to the one I’d felt in Frankie before she left on her quest, when I told her that her old soul had opinions.
My brain was trying to do something, but it wasn’t doing it fast enough.
Time seemed to stand still. I wasn’t even sure I was breathing. No one moved.
Auryn stumbled forward, her blue and white eyes wide and filled with tears. She cringed as those tears slid down her cheeks. With a heartwrenching cry, she dropped to her knees and buried her face in her hands . . . and just sobbed.
“Auryn.” Frankie’s cheeks flushed. Her pink eyes teared up. She leapt over to Auryn and sank to her knees to mirror her pose, then dragged Everest’s angel-daughter into her arms. “I’m here now.”
Wait.
Everest, a very much NON-angel has an angel daughter. His soulmate is somehow an angel? Why did Astaroth say she died? Hold up. Is Frankie a—
“Mother, I can’t believe you’re finally back,” Auryn said between sobs, her whole body shaking in Frankie’s arms.
—reincarnated angel?
Hell on a rose bush . . . WHAT?
WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY?
“MA’AM,” I croaked out.
Frankie and Auryn just held on to each other sobbing, their fingers digging into each other’s backs like they were afraid the other would vanish if they let go.
The rest of us just stared in shock, taking turns to glance around at each other to make sure we all saw the same damned thing.
Only Tegan seemed to not be shocked, which was not shocking.
That little smirk on Bentley’s face might’ve suggested he knew too.
Auryn pulled back, tears running rivers down her face.
She shook her head. “I knew you were coming back. Father told me. You told me. All those visits to us on your quest. I’ve been waiting for this day for eight centuries and yet .
. . yet somehow I think I was afraid to believe it would actually happen. ”
Frankie sighed and cupped Auryn’s face in her hands, then used her thumbs to wipe her tears. “I’m sorry I left you for all these years. I’m sorry you had to hurt—”
“Oh, Mother,” Auryn whispered, then collapsed against Frankie’s chest again. “And you look like you again.”
Frankie smiled and let out a soft chuckle as she ran her fingers through Auryn’s hair that was—I gasped. Frankie and Auryn had identical hair. Auryn had Frankie’s hair and Everest’s eyes.
“Hold on a damned minute, ma’am!” I shouted and shook my head to try and get my thoughts to settle in the right places. “You’re her mother? HOW?”
“Yes, I am her mother.” Frankie looked up at me with a frown. She cocked her head to the side. “Everest hasn’t filled you—Where’s Everest?”
Auryn sniffled.
All the color drained from Frankie’s face. Her eyes widened. She looked left and right and back again. “Where is he? Where’s Everest? Auryn, where is your father?”
Silence.
My heart was pounding in my chest. In my mind I saw Everest’s face when I told him what happened to Auryn on our trip to Issale. Then I saw his face right as he went into Lilith’s realm to save her.
Frankie jumped to her feet and scanned the forest. She spun in a circle. “WHERE IS HE?!”
Auryn was openly crying, but she managed to say, “Lilith has him in Avolire.”
Frankie staggered back, gripping her chest. “No. Why? What happened? Why would he go back? He knew I was coming. I just saw him—”
“They took me,” Auryn whispered.
Tears filled Frankie’s eyes. “Tell me,” she breathed.
So Auryn did. She told her mother every detail of what happened. That we’d left Eden because of me, that Lucifer’s sons had agreed. She told in eerie accuracy what happened once we left Eden . . . and then the parts we hadn’t heard yet.
“Sam sent me a message that they’d taken her to Lilith’s realm, so we made a plan—” Tegan began.
“For him to get her out by going in the back door he created,” Frankie finished for Tegan. “So they captured him when he went back out the front.”
Tegan nodded.
Frankie turned to her daughter. “Akecheta—”
“Safe. In Issale.”
“And—”
“On his way here with the bag you gave him.” Auryn pulled her phone out and showed Frankie the screen. “He’s taking the safest yet slowest route.”
“He’s getting close,” Bentley added softly.
“Who is? Who are we talking about?” I glanced around at everyone, yet they seemed just as lost. “What bag?”
Auryn pushed to her feet. “My son.”
A ghost of a smile crossed Frankie’s face. “My grandson. I met him in Salem and handed over Tegan’s magic bag—Tegan, are you sure he made it out of her realm?”
“Yes, he told me himself.” Tegan tapped on her temple.
“Get us there.” Frankie flicked her wrist and sent pink magic into Tegan’s chest. “Now.”
It was an explosion of white and pink light. When it faded, we found ourselves just beyond that archway into Avolire. Sweyn’s marble castle stood sparkling like ice in the morning’s sunlight. The snow on the ground and clinging to the trees glittered like a vampire’s skin from Twilight.
There wasn’t a soul in sight, not with dawn giving way to morning in the sky. The last hints of pinks and oranges were fading into blue. The vampires and Unseelie would be behind those steel shutters by now. But I felt the tickle of their presence just beyond the walls.
“What’s the plan, babe?” Tenn whispered, then turned to his right.
Tegan scowled. “Uh . . . well . . . see, Frankie—”
“Cousin?”
“You stay here behind the archway.” Frankie’s aura was radiating so much power the air around her danced in ripples. That neon-blue magic of hers rolled away from her on the snow like waves on a beach. “I’m going to get my husband. Kill anything I miss.”
We all gasped yet none of us moved, not even as she stomped toward the archway with her wings flapping behind her back. Her bare feet gliding over the snow without sinking reminded me of Legolas in Lord of the Rings.
“Mother . . .” Auryn rushed forward, then stopped beside me. “Mother, what are you going to do? Tell us so we can be prepared to help.”
Frankie looked back. “I’m going to tear it down piece by piece and let the sun remind them of who they’re dealing with.”
Riah stepped out from behind the archway as if he’d been waiting for her. He arched one blond eyebrow and held both palms up. “Celina, remember the rules—”
“Tomorrow!” Celina growled back.
His face fell. “Celina—”
She flicked her wrist and her blue tide slammed into him, carrying him out of her path. “Seek the one who paid the price. Change the name, she won’t play nice.” She glared at Riah. “Valathame knew how this would play out, Zabkiel. Move.”
His lips curved into a slow, sly smile. He crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged, then spoke to her in what sounded like the angelic language.
Frankie marched through the archway with pink magic coiling around her fingers.
Five feet in, she stopped and lifted her arms, pulling her right elbow straight back.
A glowing bow and arrow made out of her pink heavenly fire appeared in her hands, the arrow ready to fly.
With her head held high and rage filling every crevice of her soul, she released the arrow into the air.
It soared up and over the front wall and slammed into the side of the tower in the back.
Bright pink flames swallowed the tower instantly.
Frankie had already fired three more arrows. They slammed into the walls of the castle and the whole place shook. Screams erupted from within. The vampires had noticed.
A voice that sounded like Sweyn’s screeched from inside.
Auryn reached down and gripped my arm, her gaze locked on her mother.
Riah nodded in approval. “Okay, I’d say that was sufficient warning for the innocents to flee. Go get our boy.”
I couldn’t see Frankie’s face, but I felt her aura lighten with excitement for what Riah had just given her the green light to do.
A soft chuckle danced in the icy breeze.
She threw her arms back behind her and flexed her fingers.
Golden light identical to the magic swirling around Michael’s sword whenever Tenn summoned it coiled in her palms. Golden body armor covered her from neck to ankle.
When those golden balls of light were the size of basketballs in her hands, she thrust her arms forward to shoot Heavenly magic into the walls of Avolire.
But it wasn’t just two bombs, it was two steady beams of raw power.
Frankie’s whole body trembled. She dropped to one knee and screamed with all the rage I felt coiled in her soul.
The castle shook like it was in an earthquake.
Steel shutters cracked off the walls and snapped into pieces.
The glass windows exploded into dust. Sunlight streamed through the now open windows.
The screams from inside would haunt my dreams but not more than the scent of burning flesh.
The walls rattled and swayed, bricks and stones crumbling onto the snow. The wooden roof burst into shards.
The ground rumbled and pulsed. Whole walls fell to the snow like trees falling in the forest. Vampires dressed in all-white were thrown out onto the snow. They scrambled to get back into the shade, but the sun’s rays were too fast and strong and they burst into flames and ash.
From somewhere deep inside, Sweyn was screaming.