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That opening had been a trap. He’d left it deliberately and then grabbed me as soon as I twirled into his arms.
With his free hand, he’d captured my sword arm in a tight grip, and now he twisted and squeezed my wrist so hard I was forced to drop my blade. My other hand was just going for one of the daggers strapped to my thighs when he kicked the backs of my knees, making my legs buckle.
He hauled my arm behind my back as I crashed down on my knees, pain spearing through me from both the impact on my kneecaps and from the force with which he wrenched my arm behind me. He’d followed the move with his sword at my throat so as not to decapitate me…yet.
I still had one hand free, though, and if I could grab one of my daggers?—
That thought vanished with the air in my lungs when the angel unceremoniously shoved me down face-first onto the ground. Pain shot out from my cheek where I’d hit the stone, and I cried out. He stomped on the wrist of my free arm, and then the cool steel of his sword touched the back of my neck.
All my survival instincts screeched in panic.
He could sever my head with one simple strike.
“Demon!” he yelled. “Stop fighting, or I’ll kill her!”
I sucked in an acid breath.
The angel must have seen me and Azazel embrace and drawn the quick conclusion that this demon cared for me, and he could therefore use me as leverage.
From my vantage point on the floor, I saw how Azazel pushed away from the angels for a moment to glance over, and as his gaze locked on me—disarmed, prostrate on the ground, a blade at my neck—he stilled.
No.
It was only a second, the time it took for my quickened breath to painfully leave my body, but it seemed like an eternity, that moment, this instant when I realized that this was it, that we’d lost. He’d never risk my life.
Azazel dropped his sword and raised his hands in surrender.
“No!” I yelled.
But it was too late.
They were already stepping up to him, divesting him of his remaining weapons. I ground my teeth, hot tears prickling in the corners of my eyes. They wouldn’t even need to put him in chains to get him back to the compound—as long as they held my life in the balance, he’d simply follow their orders.
They’d bring him back, and whether they’d torture him some more or move right to execution, his life was forfeit. And even Naamah, with all her influence and connections, wouldn’t be able to pull off another rescue on short notice.
A sob crawled up my throat, threatening to choke me.
I’d lose him, just when I’d found him again.
I’d lose him and?—
Hot liquid splashed over my back, hitting my hand still wrenched up between my shoulder blades. Viscous spray drizzled down my neck and hair, and then something thudded next to me.
My eyes widened at the sight of a head, a severed head, rolling away from me for about two seconds before it dissolved into particles of light.
The pressure on my wrist behind my back vanished, as did the weight on the boot pinning down my other arm. The next second, empty clothes fell down on me, the sword at my neck tilted sideways, and I rolled over with a strangled scream of surprise and my heart hammering wildly.
There was no one above me. The angel was gone.
But there was no one else around either.
Someone had killed my attacker, and there was no trace of whoever it was.
I scrambled backward on my hands and feet, my panicked gaze sweeping the courtyard, locking on the rest of the angels grouped around Azazel…and my entire soul seized at the sight.
At how, one by one, their heads were severed from their necks by a near-invisible blade, only becoming tangible in the very instant it sliced through their skin, then disappearing again before it flashed into view as it decapitated the next angel.
Showers of sparks lit the courtyard in a macabre fireworks display of death, three angels dissolving into blips of light in close succession, their empty armor and clothes hitting the floor. Three more lay on the ground, daggers in their chests, stunned by Azazel.
