“The ultimate fate of this dimension is rapidly approaching,” he said. “Will you allow it if the malachim do not sacrifice themselves, but you will feel pain when calling upon their power?”
Max’s eyes flashed gold. It didn’t escape my notice that after years of being insignificant beside Lex, I suddenly had three deities trying to persuade me to be stronger. They were offering me strength in exchange for pain. Max growled low, but I shushed him with a look. I could live with those terms.
“Okay.”
The exchange itself was painless. Michael touched each malachim in the forehead. They shuddered, but not in a bone-chilling way, before their essences were transformed into a silvery white glow that reminded me of something that I couldn’t quite remember at the moment. When he directed the flow of energy into me, Gaia reached out and touched my forehead too. The tingle as the malachim entered my chamber of magic was like champagne bubbles fizzing over my skin. Their essences latched on to the paths that the blood magic had traversed, to manifest as blood blades down my arms. Michael sealed them there, and I felt their presence even if I could no longer communicate with them directly.
Max inhaled and I opened my eyes. My arms and hands were glowing. Tattooed over my skin were delicate swirls in silver like I had vines growing inside me.
“Ummm...”
“A by-product of their light,” Michael said. “When you need it, they will manifest.”
All three of them disappeared without another word. I sat there for a second, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Max was a contained ball of fury beside me. “You know what they effectively did, don’t you?” he asked.
I nodded. “They’ve made me into a celestial vessel.” Power hummed inside my veins. Was it enough? Only time would tell. But inside my heart, a small weight lifted. This was at least half-way towards fulfilling my promise to Lex.
I couldn’t help thinking of Emily and how being a vessel had turned out for her. But then the mating link surged up and slapped sense back into me. I wasn’t Emily. I’d grown up with wolves and lived my life under the shadow of a murderer. It would take more than that to break me.
“Let’s get out of this place,” Max said. “I can’t stand the stink of self-righteousness here.”
“I dare you to say that to Kai.”
He grinned at me and I blew out a breath. Oh great, he was definitely going to say it to Kai and get punched in the process.
That night, I sat in the garden bed filled with the flowers Lex had created for me and inspected my hands. The silver was very prominent against my dark skin. I heard the soft tread of bare feet and knew I only did so because Max wanted me to hear him.
I was ready when he crowded me and picked me up, setting me on his lap. “I’ve been out here two minutes,” I told him, leaning into his chest.
“I don’t like waking up with you gone.”
Through the mating link, I felt the real reason he was here. He didn’t like waking up and feeling my unease.
“Can you tell me again how she looked?” I asked.
For the thousandth time, Max described her to me. He could have left out parts, I knew he wanted to, but I also knew he didn’t want me to wonder, either. “I can’t stand knowing she’s there alone,” I said.
He wrapped his arms around me. “She’s strong too, Soph. She’ll be okay.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
“Both.”
I wasn’t worried that she wouldn’t survive. My concern was how she would do it. She’d lived so many years on her own that survival meant being meaner and tougher than the things that scared her. And there was nothing in this world scarier than Lucifer.
Max held me tight, feeling my emotions swaying. The mating link poured warmth through me. In the moonlight, the silver tattoos glistened.
“We’ll be ready,” Max said. “We’ll get her back.”
I leaned into him and made myself take a long breath. For now, I remembered what I had told the kids when this all started. When she returned, I would be ready for whatever she brought with her. And we would finish this once and for all.
54
Lex
Being seraphim encompassed a lot of repression. Azrael was repressing big time as he gave me what was effectively an angelic death stare.
“You cannot circumvent death,” he said. “It upsets the order of things in ways you cannot imagine.”
“Might I remind you that you did exactly that and that’s the reason why I’m in the shit in the first place?”
It was so gratifying to watch him try and ninja himself out of the corner. “That was different.”
“How? Because you’re seraphim and I’m human?”
He didn’t even try to deny it. “Yes.”
I snorted. “But you decided to save me. Ergo, you think I’m worthy of life. Therefore, you accept how I live my life. And I choose to save my friends.”
The black and silver of his magic rippled over his face. “This was not what I had in mind.”
“Then you can always rescind free will and–oh wait, you can’t.”
“Alessia.”
I blew out a breath. Months and months of holding my tongue in Lucifer’s presence was making it all come out at once. “I’m not going to apologise for saving their lives,” I said. “But I’m sorry if it upsets you.” I was sorry about a lot of things these days.
I swung the demon blade against the grass, decapitating the lawn. He watched me attacking the environment at his workplace and sighed. “How did you know he would be here?”
The same way I knew many things. “I’ve seen a lot of prophecies by now. I chose to believe in the ones where my friends make it.” The other ones didn’t bear thinking about. I would not
