Chapter 10
The bond between Samael and I was wild and unfettered.
Delicious.
Forbidden.
The last sensation was how I knew that something was wrong. I sensed it the moment he entered me and our dance began.
But I couldn’t stop. I needed him just as much as he needed me.
His overpowering light burned through my system and sent pain scathing through my veins. I clutched onto him and drove down, finding pleasure in the pain.
He held onto my hips to pull me off, but I breathed out a refusal.
He’d said I was worth the risk. Wasn’t he worth the risk, too?
“We don’t stop,” I ordered him as my world threatened to spin upside down. His amethyst eyes bathed in a sheen of molten gold, capturing me in his magnificent and unrelenting brilliance.
“I’m burning you,” he said, his jaw tensing when I worked myself on him again. He leaned his head back to thump against the wall as he groaned. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I don’t care,” I said as I braced myself on his shoulders and flared my wings.
He was right. It hurt, but it also felt so good.
I’d failed to bond Cole only because I’d been afraid to push through the pain. I’d passed out, but this time I had the boost of Azrael’s power. Perhaps with his link, I’d find a way to power through the incompatibilities.
I’d chosen my mates, and just because I knew they were the completion I needed didn’t make us immediately compatible.
I was two-thirds demon, making most of my core make-up a direct opposition to Samael’s.
Azra had found a way to bond with me by changing himself. He had ingested darkness to dampen the power of his light, but that didn’t mean corrupting an angel was the only way to make this work.
Angelic magic worked on the power of speaking something into existence, or willing it to be so.
Power that I was supposed to have.
“You are my mate,” I said, my words sure and confident. I willed Samael’s light to travel across my tongue and make it true. “We belong together.”
His jaw flexed again as I purposefully rode him, helping us both find pleasure even though his light had reached a fever-pitch of blistering heat despite my efforts to control it.
He threaded his fingers into the roots of my hair and held me where he wanted me. Then he pulled me in and enveloped my mouth with his, his teeth grazing my lower lip before he thrust his tongue inside.
I groaned from the power of his possession. Samael was tormented and desperate, something he hid extremely well.
I was his addiction.
I was his sin.
And he was giving in to everything I had to offer.
Unfortunately… it wasn’t enough.
Pain snapped up my spine, making a scream rip out of my throat.
“No,” Samael growled. He’d shoved me off and had retreated to the other side of the room after my body had twisted in an unnatural angle.
My wings snapped, bending backwards as the bones broke, making me cry out again.
Everything had gone horribly wrong in an instant. I’d tried to force a bond when neither of us were ready. His light tore through my body and broke over my skin like shards of glass, sending my black blood everywhere.
Sam wasn’t faring much better. Black tendrils of dark magic dug through his skin. I’d spoken our union into existence, but my magic had taken the only form it knew to fix this.
One that might kill us both in the process.
Our bond required mixed magic, a balance between light and darkness, Heaven and Hell. It was a union of two opposite powers that would allow me to fully bond with a pure being like Samael.
It was further proof that even though the twins looked exactly alike, they were completely different beings. Azrael had found a way to bond with me, but Sam was going to need a different path.
I couldn’t do this for him no matter how much I wanted to.
Cursing, he growled as his light sizzled against the darkness of my passion. He flung his white wings wide, roaring with fury that our bond had failed.
I knew he took this personally.
“Samael,” I said, hoping to calm him, but my own agony refused to allow me to speak.
My voice cut off with a pained whimper when my demon wing twisted the wrong way again, fighting Samael’s influence.
Shredding pain ran over my left shoulder and down my spine as my demon’s side fought off the intrusion of Sam’s magic.
The Song Sphere between us broke and fogged over, its mixture of melodies seeping out like blood.
The music wasn’t unpleasant, but it came out garbled and chaotic. A part of me wanted to fix this, but I wasn’t sure how. Mastering the angelic magic inside of my soul was going to be harder than I’d hoped.
“He’s not capable of change,” Azrael said, his voice a soft caress from the window. “There are many differences between us, but that’s one difference that often bites Samael in the ass.”
I turned to find Azrael perched on the edge, his white wings spread wide as his feathers caught the breeze. Maybe I thought I’d find a smug look on his face, but there was only sorrow. He was looking at his brother, not at me.
He’s not capable of change.
That statement seemed to solidify how Azrael thought our bonding worked. Angels were too powerful, too perfect, for a bond between us to work without them lowering themselves to my level.
I didn’t like it.
“He doesn’t need to change,” I snapped as I struggled to my feet.
Pain ricocheted through my wings when I snapped them open, forcing the bones to align again.
My attempt to bond Samael was over. The fated strand between us frayed and withered, but it didn’t disappear completely.
We were still meant for one another, but we couldn’t fully bond, just like I hadn’t been able to with Cole.
Samael wasn’t looking at me. He seemed transfixed with his mirror image sitting at the window. Azrael had surpassed him in the one task he truly wanted.
To find peace and absolution with his destined mate.
I knew that was his desire because I’d felt it during the brief moment our hearts had intertwined. My hand went to my chest, the pain of being prematurely separated from him worse than a dagger to the heart.
“We’ll see about that,” Azrael said, his bright, violet irises flicking toward mine.
He frowned when he took in the sight of me.
I flexed my claws, knowing that I was covered in blood, and not just my own.
My talons had caught Samael when the pain had hit, but he looked like he’d already healed. That was a good sign.
Because we stopped a bond that destiny doesn’t approve of, I thought grimly.
“Go with Azrael,” Sam said as he turned his back to me. He pressed one arm against the wall and leaned his head against it, his wings sagging behind him. “I’m going to see if I can repair the Song Sphere.”
Was that all he had to say? “ Sam—”
Azrael stepped inside and edged around the twisting sphere. He held out a hand. “Come on, sweet cheeks. I think my brother needs a moment alone.”
Turning back to the angel I couldn’t bond with, I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to leave him like this.
All of his muscles coiled with frustration and his skin blazed with golden power.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” I told him, which earned me an amused scoff.
Taking Azra’s hand, I allowed him to summon clothes for me. The magic cleaned me off as well, and he worked the angelic powers around me with such ease that I was envious of how naturally they came to him.
Somehow, even though he’d imbibed evil, he hadn’t really changed. Something else seemed to have made our bond work, now that I thought about it, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
His magic summoned a tight white blouse that hugged my breasts and opened in the back for my wings. He paired it with a short blue skirt in a jewel tone that complimented my grey eyes. My irises had once been green, but after my rebirth it was as if all the color had been leeched out of them.
Or maybe it was just my demonic side taking over. I wondered what color they were now.
“You’re beautiful, sweet cheeks.” He seemed to put some effort to not look at his brother again. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’m going to be,” I said.
My heart broke a little bit when I let him guide me through the window and away from Samael.
As I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from feeling the pain in my heart, Azrael tucked me against his chest. I squeezed my wings tightly against my back as he dropped us into the sky and I closed my eyes, conflicted that I had bonded one brother, but not the other.
I wasn’t sure where that left us.
But if there was anything I’d learned about my destiny, it was that sometimes it took a little failure to get things right.
Somehow, I was going to figure this out.