“I want to kill you, but master needs you alive. For harvesting.”
“No!”
“Eden!”
She heard Seren and Agone but couldn’t look away from the entity holding her. And she didn’t want to as she twisted her hands around in the tight grip and latched on to the spindle arms keeping her pinned.
They said she had power, said she was gifted with grace and whatever flowed in the veins of a prince of Hell. Eden dug her fingers into the flesh of the entity, looked into its soulless eyes, and poured all her righteous fury into the demon.
A ripple disturbed the surface of the beast, followed by a deep shudder. It yanked to be free, but Eden wasn’t inclined to grant its wish. Now, who’d captured who?
She spit the dirt and grass out of her mouth and grinned. She wanted it to see her joy as waves of energy raced out of her hands. Entranced, she watched as blue streaks raced up its arms and across broad shoulders. One streak raced up its neck to the head, while the other streak raced down to its chest. Head and heart. Both exploded in a shower of black goo raining on her. What was left tipped over and crashed next to her.
“Eden!” Slowly, she cranked her head around to see Seren crouched beside her. The horror on his face made her flinch, and she couldn’t understand why. Why the disgust?
“What did you do?”
Wasn’t it obvious? “I killed the bastard who killed my friend.”
She rolled on to her hands and knees. Her vision blurred. It took a few seconds to clear while Seren watched her like she was the next anointed savior, or the devil incarnate.
She straightened, got a quick glance at the surrounding carnage of bodies and body parts, blood and guts, then her vision swam again. Seren reached for her. Weakly, she slapped his hand away. “Where’s Agone?”
“Behind you, love.”
Love. If she had any blood left in her body, it would’ve warmed. She felt hollowed and dehydrated, wrung out like a wet dish towel. Standing on wobbly legs, sheer will kept her from buckling as she turned to face Agone.
He was a glorious sight in his demon form, with his wings extended and his tail flicking back and forth. He didn’t look at her with horror. Pride shone in the depths of his crimson eyes.
“I’m sure I don’t look as good as you.”
He chuckled and crowded her with his massive height and width. “No. You look ten times better, love.”
There was that word again. She liked it. Much more than she should. He reached for her, and she swayed, anticipating the touch when her knees said, “We’re done,” and all her muscles agreed.
Down she went. Her fall abruptly ended by a pair of muscular arms. She slid into darkness, hearing a hiss of pain. Trying to fight the slide into oblivion accomplished nothing.Who hissed? Agone? Seren? Were they under attack again?She prayed not because she had nothing left to give.
And she really didn’t want to die, not now. Not when she’d found both of them.
No, not both of them. Just Agone. Not Seren. No... Where’s Seren...?
Chapter 10
Agone swung her into his arms before she hit the ground and hissed in pain. “What the fuck?”
Seren came up to his side, smug because he knew something Agone didn’t. “Want to know why holding her hurts?” He held out his arms to take her from the demon.
Agone clutched her tighter and paid for it with more pain by the look on his face. Smoke curled from their contact points as his bare arms and chest sizzled. Grimacing, he snapped, “Tell me.”
“You didn’t see what she did to the siv-e,” he asked, already knowing the answer. If Agone knew, he wouldn’t have been so quick to snatch her into his arms before Seren could.
“I was busy killing my kind to witness the event, though I enjoy seeing the results. Now, spit it out,” he said between wincing in pain.
“It hurts because she pushed her grace out into the -siv-e.”
“What?” Agone looked down at her in horror and pride. “How?”
“That is what we must find out to protect her.”