AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 16
I woke with a headache from Hell.
Blearily, I opened my eyes, groaning at the spike of pain that shot through my skull at the light hitting my pupils, as if someone shoved an ice pick into my brain.
“Oh,” a voice spoke from somewhere to my right. “You’re awake.”
With a grimace, I sat up, wincing at another ice pick attack to my cerebral tissue, and turned my head.
Bifiel stood on the other side of our shared room, her arms crossed and a put-out expression on her angelic face. “How?” she asked.
“How what?” I grunted, swinging my legs over the side of my bed.
Everything spun precariously for a moment, and I grabbed the edge of the mattress hard and breathed through the bout of dizziness.
“How,” Bifiel snarled, “did you manage to catch a demon?”
My stomach hollowed out, the room swaying around me as the events right before I’d lost consciousness came barreling back to the forefront of my mind.
Along with a quick-fire succession of other long-suppressed memories.
Azazel’s smile as he pulled me to him, his black wings wrapping around me.
Taylor’s laugh.
Mephisto’s “gifts.”
My dad’s ghostly form, his hands in his pockets as he waited for me on the front porch of his home, a self-deprecating smile on his face.
Lilith’s blood-dripping fist after she’d yanked a piece of her power out of her own chest to give to me.
Lilith’s power… I gasped at the realization. That was what had saved me there in the cave when Aziel—Azazel—had lost control of his demon power. Just like before, the kernel of her essence she’d bestowed upon me had protected me in a time of need.
But that meant…that meant…my transformation into an angel hadn’t excised that part of her from me. It was still there, fused with my soul, apparently so inextricably linked with my own essence that it had survived my ascension. Well, if it was truly part of my soul now, it figured that it would remain, since it was the immortal soul that was turned into an angel, the new body crafted from it.
“It’s not fair,” Bifiel seethed, snapping me back to the here and now.
I grudgingly focused on my idiot roommate. “That you only have one brain cell, and it’s not enough to operate both your thoughts and your mouth at the same time? I agree.”
Her eyes promised murder. Not that I gave a flying fuck. I’d faced down Lucifer himself and had come out whole on the other side. A snippy roommate was a blip on the radar in comparison to that.
“Of all the angels who could be blessed with the honor of apprehending a demon trespasser in Heaven, it had to be you? You?” She balled her hands into fists. “You don’t deserve the accolades, let alone the promotion!”
My brows drew together, the aftershocks of my headache making me flinch. “Promotion?”
“They made you a throne!”
I blinked and jerked back. A throne? That was two whole ranks above a virtue, just one rank below a cherub.
My mouth agape, I turned my focus inward, felt for my innate power…and gasped at the strong current I found. It was like my blood and my very soul were newly infused with breathtaking force, flowing through me in a steady throb of magic.
My skin started to glow. Wide-eyed, I held my hand out in front of my face, stunned by the silver shine of divinity all over my fingers, my palm, my wrist, and up my arm.
They’d bumped me up two ranks…because they thought I’d caught a demon.
Azazel.
The shine on my skin faded as if someone had turned off the lights. My stomach plummeted as nausea gripped me tight, and I choked on my own breath.
