Michael swept me up. In seconds, he deposited me on the landing post before his chambers.
“Get inside,” he said.
Blood seeped from the cuts that covered his beautiful face, and he sported a swollen eye, a split lip, a sagging wing. Behind him, Raphael flew toward us, looking even worse.
“Get inside, Julia. I have found I will lose this battle if I think about your safety.”
Uriel intercepted Raphael.
I kissed the corner of Michael’s lip. “I never made a great soldier, Commander. But you made me feel like I could do anything.”
Michael smiled.
Over his shoulder, the sky split. Obsidian wings flew so fast, they blurred.
Lucifer pitched a spear.
I pushed Michael away.
The spear pierced my body, and pain ripped through my spine all the way to my brain. I gasped. Tiny breaths. Burning lungs.
Michael screamed, the high-pitched agonizing screech of a dying eagle. He kept screaming, clawing at his chest.
I fell to my knees, then leaned back. My lungs felt like they caught on fire. I couldn’t breathe. Lucifer hovered in the air, his expression almost remorseful. “Goodbye, July.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I have fought thousands of battles, some with opponents far greater and more powerful than I. I have fought seraphim, three-headed beasts, and countless angels. I have suffered great aches. Had my wings broken more times than I could count. Broken legs and arms, and I’d been gutted, even burned to the bone once. But I had never felt pain like this before. My soul was being ripped from me, the spirit, the essence of who I was. Because my soul’s mate bled on the concrete.
Next to her, I knelt, not knowing where to touch her. For the first time in my long life, I felt lost. I didn’t know what to do. Should I take the spear out? How would I heal her? I couldn’t decide. I cradled her cold, pale face, her pretty eyes slowly acclimating to the darkness found before the mortals cross into the Heavens. “Oh no,” I said. “Why? Why would you do that? Why would you push me away?”
Blood spilled out the corner of her mouth. “Because you’re my people.”
“Don’t talk,” I said and picked her up, awkwardly cradling her, pushing my healing power into her. If I spent what was left of my healing ability on her, I knew I would lose the battle, the Court, maybe this entire realm. I didn’t care. I didn’t care, because without her, the world made no sense. I only got one soul’s mate, and Lucifer…
Rage ran through me like a living fire.
Julia’s breaths became shallow.
The spear stuck out of her back, so I laid her on her side on the landing platform, then searched the sky for Raphael. Found him. He fought Uriel. From Uriel’s waistband, I willed the rope to uncoil and wrapped it around Raphael’s neck. Then I dragged him like a dog until he stood before me, ready to be suffocated.
I rounded him, then stood behind him and pushed him forward. He fell to his knees, choking, his entire back bruised, his ribs, I knew, broken in several places. I pressed a boot between his shoulder blades, picked up his wings, and spread them apart. “Heal her, or I will rip them off.”
“She’s dying.”
“She’s not dead yet. Heal her.”
“I can’t.”
“You can!” The House trembled. Mortals screamed. Without looking, I knew the earth under their feet had split open. I would bury them all.
“Hear me, Raphael, if you do not agree to heal her, I will rip off your wings and lock you away. When you heal your wings, I will rip them off again. I will do this for eternity.”
“So be it.”
With the boot wedged between his shoulders, I pulled, straining as Raphael willed his wings to stay attached. Raphael roared as I pulled harder, hearing the muscle, tendons, bones tear and heal and tear again until the top gave way and only the bottom stayed attached. I yanked and tore them off. Raphael slumped, quieted.
With Raphael’s great big wings in my hands, I turned and stood on the platform so his fleet could see me. Down below, the earth shook, the wall wobbled, and the waters rose, a massive wave threatening to drown the city. So it did. It gushed onto the shore, surging up the hill, ripping roofs from homes, throwing cars, drowning the Marked, ravaging my home. All the angels in the sky stopped fighting, confused.
Raphael crawled to Julia. “What are you doing, Michael?” he asked.
“I will destroy everything,” I said.
“We have nowhere else to go,” he said.
“You will go behind the Veil. If I decide to keep it. Although, I am not feeling generous now. I am grieving, Raphael. You should fear me now more than you ever did before.”
Raphael barely moved, but I caught the moment he encircled Julia’s ankle with his broken fingers, and in turn, I willed the rope around his neck to unravel. All too soon, he removed his hand.
“Do it,” I barked.
He looked up, the light from his eyes drained. “This soul is immortal,” he said. Then he slumped to the ground, defeated, wingless. Stubborn bastard.
On the platform, I sat down, wings bent, the left one hanging onto my back by a thread. Holding the spear sticking out of her back in one hand, I broke off the end, then yanked the length of it out of her. If Raphael lied, she’d die. There wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t raise the dead.
Julia’s body slumped, and I moved her so her head lay on my thigh. I willed power into her, but mine had also waned. Beside her sleeping body lay the broken spear I’d commissioned from Mr. Habib and Lucifer had bought. I searched the sky for him, but knew he’d left and was hiding somewhere dark and deep, maybe even underground, where one day, I would find him and sever his head from his neck.
I was not all-powerful. All-knowing. All-anything, really. I was a man trying to save a girl he loved. It
