Page 25

"That's a lot of lamps for four in the morning," Sarah observed, peeling out of his arms the second her feet hit grass.

"Camael doesn't believe in wasting power," he blurted. Abraxos didn't like where that thought was headed. His wings flared before his mind could catch up. Every feather along the joint stood up like they'd smelled trouble before the rest of him caught on. "Sarah. Stay behind me."

"Why—" The front door came off its hinges before she got the rest of the question out.

It shattered, and the pieces flew into the yard. It was replaced by a smoking hole. The smell of sulfur came first. It rode under something sweeter. It was the kind of rot that made you flinch before your brain caught up. The odor came from the right.

"Flensers." Abraxos bit the word out, already angling himself between Sarah and the doorway. He was familiar with every kind of demon out there and knew which nightmares liked to skin things alive and which ones just wanted to eat you whole. "Don't let them get a grip on you. Whatever's in those teeth doesn't kill outright. It just makes sure you feel every second of dying for the next hour."

These demons stood upright and were roughly man-shaped with skin the mottled gray-purple of a bruise. Their mouths didn't open so much as split, straight down the jaw. It didn’t end until halfway to the collarbone. It was lined with backward-pointing teeth, perfect for ripping and tearing flesh.

Every one of them screamed the same note at once. It was high-pitched enough that the fountain behind them cracked straight down the middle. Wonderful. Add property damage to the tab. Camael was going to be pissed about that fountain. His mate loved the damn thing. It was why the archangel had it installed in the first place.

"I see we’ve got company," Izzy called out as she raced into the yard. “Where is everyone?”

“We’re inside. They never made it past the porch,” Amelia called out from the front door.”

“Amelia decided she wanted new doors,” Elsie added from beside the witch.

“And windows,” Amelia quipped as she threw out a spell.

"Get her inside," Donovan barked at Abraxos. It was the exact opposite of what every instinct in his body was telling him.

He didn't get the chance to argue the point. Sarah shoved past his shoulder with her hand already glowing violet-green. He made a grab for her, but his fist closed on empty air. The woman had taken advantage of the half-second he'd been distracted and sprinted straight at the problem instead of away from it. Naturally. Because why would his mate do the sensible thing when there was a perfectly good disaster to run toward instead?

"Sarah!" His scream echoed across the yard.

"I'm going to fight beside Amelia," she shot back, sprinting for the house. "You take care of the assholes out here!"

Wonderful. His mate—yes, that’s how he saw her and was finally able to admit it to himself—had apparently decided her first instinct in a demon incursion was to run toward them like they owed her money. He went after her because there wasn't another option worth considering. The lawn between them and the porch felt longer than it had any right to be, even for something with wings.

The porch was chaos. Abraxos had never seen more shattered flowerpots and scorched gravel. Amelia stood just past the blown-out doorway with both palms spread and gold light pouring off her in sheets. She was holding the line at the threshold against three of the flensers while Elsie fought two more on the porch steps with her sgian dubh. Her blade looked delicate, but clearly wasn't. It was currently removing a demon's head from its shoulders without much ceremony.

Zander had one of the creatures by the throat out on the lawn and was repeatedly introducing its skull to a stone porch column. The vampire king fought with the calm dedication of a man doing chores he'd done a hundred times before. It almost looked as if he found it mildly tedious.

"Where's Camael?" Abraxos shouted over the noise as he conjured his flaming blade. He was already swinging into the nearest demon that got close enough to Sarah to make his vision go red at the edges. No one touched his mate.

"He was gone before these asshats showed up. If he were here, he’d have opened the door the easy way," Amelia called out without looking away from what she was doing. Sweat cut tracks through the dust on her face. Gold light guttered low around her palms like a candle running out of wick. "His phone went off maybe ten minutes ago. Araton said the port was overrun and he needed every blade Camael could spare, or he was going to lose the whole waterline."

Guilt swamped Abraxos for a second as he thought of his brother and fellow angels in danger because he hadn’t been there. It vanished as quickly as it appeared. Protecting Sarah was as important, and not just because she was his mate. If Lucifer got his hands on her, everything would be lost.

"Och, the attack at the port was calculated." Zander's voice cut in from where he was currently introducing a demon's skull to the porch column a second time. "’Tis no’ a coincidence that minutes before demons hit this house after most of our strongest warriors were moved off the board."

"Do they need help?" A fist closed around Abraxos's chest. His brothers had been holding that port for weeks.

"You canna leave here. They hit the port hard. It had to be urgent enough to require most of our forces, but we need you here. My mate and I canna be out here much longer. Dawn is the perfect time to split our forces." Zander flung the demon he'd been holding into the porch balustrade hard enough to crack the stone. "The devil's gotten good at directing a battlefield he isn't even standing on."

Amelia's mouth had gone tight, and the gold light flickered around her fingers. "He’s a gods damned menace," she cursed, mostly to herself. "He planned this distraction perfectly"

Sarah turned and gaped at Amelia. "Distraction for what?"

Abraxos swung around hard enough to strain something in his back. Sarah was close enough to a demon for it to reach her and wasn’t paying attention. It was going to attack her. Horror gripped him when he realized it wasn’t going for a killing blow. They didn’t want her dead. Injured was another story. It split its mouth open inches from her right arm.

He didn't think. He didn't remember crossing the distance between them, honestly. It just happened. The alternative is unthinkable. All he knew was that one second, he was five feet away. And the next, he had the creature's throat, what passed for a throat, in one hand and his blade buried in its chest. The flenser came apart in a spray of black ichor. It smelled as if it had died a long time before it ever showed up. Sarah stumbled back against one of the porch columns. Her chest was heaving, and she was staring at him as if he'd grown a second head.

"You need to pay attention. You nearly lost an arm," he ground out. His voice had been scraped raw from his fear for her.

"I had it handled," Sarah insisted. She thrust her chin up as if that settled things.