Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
EVEREST
Traveling through the shadows of the realm was faster than blinking—unless my mother was furious. I was stuck in the darkness of my own magic, present in the room but entirely out of sight from the others. Mother was livid. My vision flashed red, then went back to normal. She was too angry to even speak.
Panic squeezed my throat.
The sight before me was too treacherous to believe.
Inside my mother’s tower, with her orb glowing red in the middle, Sweyn, Sam, Pierce, Asmodeus, and Azazel stood at the five points of the inverted pentacle used to summon. The call within my sire bond was too late. The damage had been done. I needed to think quickly to get control of this situation.
Because three fallen angels stood with their black wings around my mother’s orb.
Astaroth still wore his toga from ancient times because he was too lazy to change, but the Angel of Laziness caused more damage in the world than anyone gave him credit for. Beside him, Soneillon’s red eyes glowed with anticipation. My stomach turned. Her very look stirred an uncontrollable anger within her victim. Wars had been launched by her attention alone, and judging by all the glares in the room, she was already at work. But the last of them . . . he was the real problem, one I had hoped to not be burdened with for some time still.
He spread his arms wide and stretched like a cat. “I can always count on Azazel for his inability to be satisfied in his sins.”
Asmodeus cracked his knuckles. “We did not summon you, Mammon.”
Mammon. Fuck. The walking personification of greed. He would stand in the shadows and whisper desires into your ear in your own voice so you never knew you’d been tampered with.
“You should have kept your greedy little pet on a tighter leash then.” Mammon spun in a circle with a wide grin. “For you know better than anyone, the only thing that summons me . . . is greed. And even faster when it’s an angel’s greed.”
I cursed in my mind. Any second this hold on my body would snap. I had to be ready to act, and they could never see the panic in my heart. Two fallen angels in the realm were bad enough, now there were five.
Asmodeus put his hands on his hips and turned to Azazel.
Azazel just rubbed his hands together and wagged his eyebrows. “Did you see how much fun she is, my brother? Just think of the sins we can stir up together.”
She. That’s my angle. I looked to Soneillon and pushed my magic at her until the tendrils of my black smoke coiled around the black strands of her hair and pulled.
She gasped and her eyes flashed with excitement. The black runes on her skin glowed neon-red like the color of her eyes. Her gaze snapped right toward me. I felt the hunger and desire in her attention even before she dragged her teeth over her bottom lip. “Mother taught you how to tease I see,” she purred.
I forced myself to look in her eyes as Mother’s hold severed. Rage filled my veins, burning like lava through my limbs. I stepped out of my shadows and growled.
Sam gasped and leapt back.
Sweyn narrowed her eyes on Soneillon, then turned her glare to me. “ Everest. ”
“ What the fuck are you doing? ” I shouted, my hands in fists at my sides, my magic coiling up and down my arms. My vision turned red. Good. Let Mother see this. I flicked my wrists and light flashed all around us. “ Answer for your sins. ”
Sweyn’s eyes widened for the briefest of moments, but long enough for me to see just how much she feared my mother. I relished in her panic and fear—and stored the information to use against her later. " My Lady ? — ”
Mother screamed so loud the marble floor rumbled and the onyx walls cracked.
Sweyn paled.
Asmodeus chuckled like the cocky bastard he was.
Lilith spun to the angels, her favorite followers, and bellowed, “ GET OUT !”
They vanished instantly, as if they’d never been here at all.
I looked to Sweyn’s pet and arched one eyebrow. “Leave, Pierce. Pray I do not see your face for some time.”
Pierce whimpered as he bolted for the door and out of sight. That I did feel some remorse for. Poor Pierce was as much a victim in this game as anyone else. There was hope for that one yet.
Sweyn stomped her foot like a petulant child and hissed. “How dare you dismiss my court in my kingdom. Perhaps you forget your place?—”
“You’re just a half-breed daughter of a slut,” I snapped, pouring every ounce of venom in my soul into my words. “I’m the son of Lilith. Perhaps you learn yours finally.”
“Excuse you?—”
“You’re a figurehead. I call the shots. Why do you think I can summon Mother and you cannot?” I pointed to the ground where the arrival of the three fallen angels had left burn marks in the black marble floor. “We weren’t ready to babysit them yet.”
Sweyn growled and her fangs dropped down. I had never feared this spawn and I would not start now. If today was the day I made my allegiance known, then so be it.
“ You! ” Mother growled and turned on Sam. The glowing red runes on the ground lifted up and wrapped around Sam’s body, lifting her off the ground. “I gave you one task, and you have not managed to complete it, and you think this ? — ”
“Tell your son to do his part!” she said through clenched teeth. She turned those gold and red eyes on me. “He knows where to find my bed. It is not me that prevents this.”
Mother narrowed her eyes on me. “Why haven’t you? —"
I sighed, interrupting her scolding as I flicked my wrist to slice through Mother’s runes so that Sam stood on her own two feet again. “I’ve been doing your job for you? — ”
Mother growled.
“Your insistence on secrecy from the key players on your team are the sole reason things are falling apart. You tell them nothing, refuse their questions, and then explode when they act on their own. Like this.” I smirked, just to piss her off. “Did you warn me before bringing Asmodeus and Azazel here? Did you warn me before you drop a bride in my lap? You ask things of me and then blow your own plans to shit because you think in only chaos, and I swear to you that will be your downfall.”
Mother crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin. “Chaos serves a purpose? — ”
“How does that purpose feel right now?” I screamed at her and gestured around the room. “You have a Queen who thinks she’s in charge, a granddaughter whom you refuse to even teach your language, and fallen angels who answer to no one? — ”
“They are here for a reason? — ”
“ They fell for a reason! ”
She gasped, her eyes widened.
But the panic in me was growing too strong. I had to disguise it with rage or it all ended right now. “You think yourself better than God and Lucifer? You promised your angels anarchy and sin and yet you expect them to obey your orders. The fallen will always fall.”
“Harnessing them limits them. I need them at full power? — ”
“If I take my eyes off of them for one minute, I’ll have new disasters to tend. Disasters that you cannot yet handle yourself as you haven’t managed to enter this realm again in your own form in centuries.” I gestured toward my betrothed. “And you expect me to have time or energy to lie with that ? Why? So I have yet another set of sins to wrangle?”
Sam flinched but I felt no remorse. Giving her more power was not a task I was excited to complete, especially not in the manner I had to do so, so I growled and spun away from them, all but sprinting for the door.
“Where are you going?” Mother hissed. “I have not released you? — ”
“Are you going to clean up their mess, Mother?” I stopped and spun to face her. When she just snarled, I nodded. “I thought not. Handle these two at least or get out of my hair.”
I fled faster than I’d ever moved. Inside, I was a whirling tornado of panic and rage. Too many thoughts raced through my mind at once. I saw nothing until I nearly slammed into Braison outside of my room. I nodded to him and opened the door. Nothing we needed to speak of could be spoken out in the hall. The second we crossed the threshold, I slammed my door shut and threw my magic up to create a barrier around us so we could speak freely.
Braison whistled under his breath. “You really didn’t like seeing Saber hook up with Azazel, eh?”
A growl I didn’t approve of slipped up my throat. I glanced around my room only to remember I’d torn it to pieces quite literally after Saber went with the Angel of Sin. My stomach rolled so hard I gagged. I couldn’t think about what she’d done. It made me violent.
I scrubbed my face with my hands. “Where is she now?”
“Um . . .”
The pause told me more than I wanted to know. Yet still, because I was a glutton for punishment, I glanced over my shoulder at him and arched an eyebrow. “Um?”
Those green and red eyes darted around the remains of my ruined room before landing back on me. “Saber said someone had to monitor what the angels were doing, so she went.”
I growled and ripped a chunk of marble off the doorframe of my closet. “I don’t want to know . . . I cannot think about . . . you heard of who they summoned?”
“Astaroth, Soneillon, and Mammon.” Braison looked sick. His skin turned a grayish-green color. “We have to warn them.”
I sighed and stared at the ground. There was no doubt as to who them was. The Coven. He meant we needed to let them know they now had five fallen angels on Earth. He wasn’t wrong.
I looked up at my new friend and grimaced. “We cannot or we risk revealing our allegiance prematurely.”
Braison shook his head. “No, YOUR allegiance cannot be risked. Mine has been at risk since you turned me. They are suspicious at best.”
“I may need you before I reveal myself,” I said softly and slowly. “So you mustn’t send message.”
He frowned and nodded, then I saw a spark in his eyes like he had an idea. He cocked his head to the side. “What if I went to sleep?”
I stared at him. There were two members of The Coven who had a knack for dreams. The Star Card, Cooper Bishop, was a literal dreamwalker. But their new Devil had mastered the skill, which spoke volumes on Deacon English’s power. It was beyond rare for the Devil Card to play within a person’s unconscious mind the way he could. It meant he had a strong comfort in dark magic. So, if Braison were to sleep, especially now that Francelina was no longer within Avolire’s walls, there was a chance one of his former Coven-mates might be waiting for him.
Sharp, electric pulses slid down my spine. I straightened. My sire bond to Sam was burning. Again. Except this time, I sensed pain. A million images of what my mother could be doing to her flashed through my mind.
Braison just continued to stare at me in silence, unwilling to speak his request out loud but waiting for the answer anyways.
I nodded and headed for my door. “I have to handle something. Take a nap, you look tired.”