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He wasn’t using his power because doing so would hit me, too.
The kind of raw force necessary to fight off half a dozen high-ranking angels, among them a seraph, would kill every angel in this cave.
Including me.
Whatever had saved me during his outburst earlier wasn’t something I knew how to control, even if it had come from within me, and he had no reason to believe I could shield myself again if he unleashed his power.
“Chain him,” Dahariel barked, jerking his head at the angels next to him. “Let’s make sure he’s fully subdued.”
No. No, no, no.
I jerked forward without thinking, slamming against an arm.
“We’ve got it,” Derdekea said calmly, pushing me back. “You did well. Let us handle the rest. No need to defile your hands by touching him.”
Lightheaded, my heart in my throat and that fucking headache tearing painfully through my skull, I stared in agonizing paralysis as the angels stepped up to Aziel, one of them grabbing him by his hair and shoving him down face-first, while another yanked his arms behind his back.
Aziel’s face slammed down on the hard stone floor, the crack and thud making me heave.
A full-body tremble took hold of me, nausea rising in my gut, that pounding headache blurring my vision.
“Stop!” I croaked.
Derdekea looked at me askance, her silver-blond brows lowering over unfathomably dark eyes.
At that moment, Aziel bucked up with a snarl. “I dare you to fucking touch me, you angel bitch,” he spat, his eyes locked on me. “I’ll tear you to shreds and feast on your intestines.”
I reared back as if his words had hit me like a physical blow. What? Disoriented, I swayed on my feet, unable, unwilling, to process this change in him.
“Charming,” Derdekea drawled, her focus pulled off me and onto Aziel again, who now fought against his chains and the hold the angels had on him, like a wild animal backed into a corner. “Full of venom and spewing filth. Could you be any more of a cliché, hellspawn?”
When my eyes met his again, he shook his head the slightest bit, mouthing, Don’t.
Understanding clicked in my pain-addled mind, some sliver of reason piercing the haze of fear. He’d drawn Derdekea’s attention—and that of the other angels—from my suspicious outburst in order to protect me, yet again. He was thinking beyond this situation, whereas my brain was caught in shock and panic and helpless fear.
If I pleaded on his behalf, if I tried to stop them from arresting him, it would raise questions about my loyalties and possibly get me arrested as well. Right now, they believed me to have caught him, believed me to be an upstanding warrior angel who’d apprehended a demon invader.
If they suspected that Aziel and I were anything less than mortal enemies, if they caught even the slightest hint of there being a relationship beyond trespasser and alert guard, I’d lose any chance of actually being able to help him—not now, but later. Trying to get him out of this right now would be nothing short of madness. I’d have to play along and not risk my mask slipping, no matter what it cost me.
“Seems like he’s in need of a lesson.” Dahariel nodded at the angels standing close by. “Make him regret ever opening his fucking mouth.”
What happened next occurred in such close succession it seemed like an instant wrapped into a moment frozen in time, everything crashing over me like an avalanche of events and sensations.
Aziel still fought against the two angels holding him by the arms, his hands bound behind his back, but they jerked him up until he was on his knees—and then they held him there for the beating that rained down on him.
Two other angels, a male and a female, took turns punching and kicking, using the pommel of their swords to increase the impact of their blows. Blood sprayed, the sound of boots and fists striking flesh filled the room, and the crunch of bones breaking twisted something vital within me.
I wanted to yell, to rage, to weep at the sight of Aziel, the man I loved, being bloodied and broken right in front of me while there was nothing I could do.
Every strike seemed to echo inside me with the crack of a missile against a fortress wall, each blow joining the throb of pain from the migraine crawling through my system, until I couldn’t separate the sounds I heard from my own agony—until something deep inside me shattered in a violent burst.
A silent scream tore through me, my mind splintering, a furious kaleidoscope of images, sounds, tastes, and smells fracturing my thoughts. A floodgate opened, a dam broken, and through the rubble of a once heavy wall streamed a storm of memories that brought me to my knees.
All of it, all of it, from the earliest recollections of childhood to the last moment I’d looked at his face before the encroaching darkness of my transformation into a wraith had pulled the rug out from under my consciousness, all of it ravaged through me in a twisted tangle that overloaded my mind.
Before everything went dark, I clung to the name that rang with a truth reclaimed, that spoke to every part of my bleeding soul.
Azazel.
