Chapter 10
Kaito grilled the Queen about Angelstone as we climbed more staircases than I cared to count. While I had super-strength, I definitely didn’t have super-endurance and halfway through my legs started to burn something fierce.
As I slowly trailed behind the group, I envied my mates.
Hendrik, a powerful Dark Mage, never seemed to tire.
Beneath those robes hid a masculine body powered by the forces of dark magic.
He’d literally devoured his soul for that strength, so I didn’t envy the price, but still, not dying while climbing stairs sounded pretty good right about now.
Dante? Hunter.
Logan? Tireless wolf.
Orion? Sexy demigod.
Kaito? Overpowered demon mentor whose power I felt like was just now scratching at the surface.
Then… me. A huffing, puffing, tribrid who was starting to run low on reserves. While I had strength swirling inside of me after a night with my Virtues, I didn’t draw on it. I knew I would need every ounce of power for when we faced Calamity.
Being a responsible Champion sucks.
“Here we are,” Sonya said as she guided us to one of the top towers of the palace.
The Queen of Hell continued on while I caught my breath. My mates chuckled, including Logan who made a huffing sound that was definitely a dog’s version of laughter.
“Do you want a muzzle?” I threatened him. “Because I’ll do it.”
“Easy there, wheezy,” Hendrik said as I caught up to them. He gave me a pat on the back. “Don’t get mad at the dog. You can do some more training with Dante when we get back and run laps around him later.”
The Hunter gave me a wicked grin that said there would definitely be training in my future with heavy breathing involved.
Pissed off, and now horny, I marched into the hall where my mother had disappeared. “Bunch of bullies,” I grumbled.
The Queen waited at a door where golden light streamed in from the edges as if a piece of the sun waited on the other side.
She’d brought Luke with us and she moved aside for him to open the door.
“Only one with angel blood can enter this room like this,” she said with a smile. “One on holy ground, that is.”
My eyebrows shot up. “There’s holy ground in Hell?”
Luke popped the door open and I jerked my hands over my face to block the worst of the brilliant light. “Angelstone is powerful stuff,” he said. “If you have enough of it, anything can be cleansed.” He waited a moment for our eyes to adjust to the brilliance before stepping inside.
With a wary glance to my mother, she waved me on in. I followed her mate and a strange tingling sensation ran over my body as I crossed the threshold. A yip came from behind me and I turned around to find Logan with a burn mark on his nose.
Sonya patted the beast, making Logan growl, but she didn’t pull her hand away. “Like I said. Only those with angel blood may enter.”
I didn’t like being somewhere my mates couldn’t follow. “What about you?” I asked Orion. He’d been right there in Heaven with me, so maybe deity blood qualified, although I wasn’t sure he was the “right” kind of deity.
He tested the entrance and while he managed to push a few fingers through, his jaw worked before he retracted his hand. “I could, but it would be painful. This place has some high concentration of purity, kind of like the stuff beyond the gates of Heaven I showed you where only spirits can enter.”
“I promise we won’t stay long,” Luke assured me when I started to bite my lip.
“Yeah, but—” My protest cut short when I turned back to him and gasped. Phantoms of brilliant white wings spanned out from his shoulders and he flexed as he adjusted to the new weight. “How did you do that?” I asked as I took a hesitant step toward him.
He gave me a mischievous grin as he fluttered his wings.
“Once you connect with your angel side as I have, you’ll be able to summon your wings too, at least on holy ground where your connection to your heritage is at its strongest.” He waved me on.
“This way. I’ll need you to attune to the Angelstone so you can take it with you. ”
The room sparkled wall-to-wall with diamonds, or what looked like diamonds.
An impossible brilliant glow bathed us in light and a headache started to form behind my eyes as I followed Luke further into the repository of brilliance.
I forced myself to pay attention, though, and I kept watch for any sign of trouble.
The connection to my mates strained under the weight of the sheer power in this room and I didn’t like it one bit.
“This is it,” Luke said as he waded through a thick layer of light that had almost turned solid, as if this end of the room was underwater.
I gulped in fresh breaths of air, finding it difficult to fill my lungs. “Okay, just hurry up.”
He took my hand and waited for my permission before pressing my fingers onto a hot stone.
A jolt went through me and I ground my teeth against a raw, scorching burn that spread out from my insides. “What is it doing?”
“It’s documenting your sins,” he said matter-of-factly. “Angelstone attunes by knowing what impurities are in your body and—”
I cut him off with a scream as pain snapped through me, bringing me crashing to my knees as I tried to take my hand away from the horrible burn.
“Shit,” he cursed, then winced as the stone punished him for vulgarity on holy ground. “Listen, don’t move. I didn’t know you had broken one of the ten commandments.”
“One of the what?” I bit out the question, then screamed again as another wave of pain raked through me.
The air around me felt suddenly heavy and hot and I choked, unable to draw in any more breath.
Yelling sounded from my back and two strong hands took hold around my waist, ripping me away from the suffocating heat.
I couldn’t retract my fingers from the stone, so after a moment of struggling my captor dragged me away with the stone burned into my grip.
Stars sparked behind my eyes, then I realized Orion was the one dragging me out. “Stay with me, little star,” he hissed as he fought his way through the brilliance. Blisters and cuts spread out across his face and his body, marring the beautiful freckles that I loved on his skin.
We tumbled out onto the ground and the weight pressing down on me vanished in an instant. My entire body shook with violent tremors as I coughed up a sticky substance and golden light spilled onto the ground.
“Daughter, are you all right?” my mother asked.
She tried to reach out and touch me but Luke joined us.
His wings vanished in a puff of ash as he grabbed her wrist. “Don’t,” he said, his tone stern.
“She’s just going to have to endure the cleansing.
You didn’t tell me she broke one of the commandments. ”
“What the fuck is going on here?” Hendrik shouted, his wild black eyes a reprieve against the terrible brilliance I’d just endured.
All my other mates started talking all at once, including Logan who barked and I groaned as I eased further into Orion’s embrace.
“Shut it,” Dante growled, sending everyone else into silence. “Orion. Is she okay?”
I couldn’t understand why everyone seemed so concerned with me when Orion’s skin ran slick with blood.
“You’re hurt,” I whispered. I couldn’t release the stone still burning a hole in my palm, so I took my free hand to run my touch over his wounds.
I tapped into my power reserves and his freckles lit up with a red aura as he began to heal.
Orion hissed as the worst of the damage rejuvenated and he drew my fingers to his lips. “I’m fine, little star. Save your strength.”
“Which commandment did she break?” Kaito asked, his voice stern.
“All sins are equal, however, the stone will react stronger to acts of violence.” Luke gave me a once-over. “Given the reaction I just saw… it was a bad one.”
“I’m so sorry, dear. If I had known I would have thought of something else.” Sonya looked at me with such pity and sorrow that I wanted to slap her.
So I was a sinner. I’d broken one of the worst commandments, even if I couldn’t remember it.
Maybe that’s why I’d destroyed my memories in the first place. It wasn’t some vile act of Calamity. It had been my own denial and fear.
I was a murderer.
The reality of it made total sense to me, and in a way it was actually a relief. I’d tried to hide from my fear of being a monster, but that was the truth, wasn’t it? I’d committed a terrible sin and now I was going to have to pay for it.
I reached around to Hendrik and drew him in closer. “There’s always a price, isn’t that right?”
He frowned. “Yes, pet. But I think you could have told us you had murdered someone before you walked onto holy ground.”
“Fuck, Hendrik,” I said with a weak laugh. “You don’t bat an eye at this, do you?” He didn’t care that I’d committed murder. He took sin in stride.
Kaito rested a hand on my shoulder. “We bear our suffering together,” he reminded me. That had been our promise to one another when I’d helped him accept his origins. He was a lower level Japanese demon who had once only cared about ultimate power and was willing to do anything to get it.
Just like me, he had a past worth regretting.
Now, I had to accept my past as well, one where I had taken a life.
The pain in my hand eased to a dull, aching throb and I whimpered when Dante took my fingers. He pried them away, one by one, and flesh stuck to the stone as he worked it free.
I ground my teeth together and buried my face into Orion’s chest as the Hunter continued his delicate work. The stone had scourged its powers of purification through me, but the deed was done. The price paid.
Dante pried my final finger free and took the diamond stone blackened with my blood.
Hendrik murmured a spell over my fingers, helping the skin to stitch back together.
The pain eased as the healing effect worked, however the wound left behind long, jagged scars running over my palm that I feared would never go away.