Page 39
SARAH
"You don’t say?" Sarah's hands hadn't stopped glowing yet. The faint threads of violet-green-gold still bled off her fingers into the dark, and it took everything she had not to wave them around like a ninny showing off a new manicure. "You're just now catching onto that fact?" She curled her fingers into fists to smother the light before it drew anything else.
"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence." Izzy rolled her eyes hard enough that Sarah half expected to hear them click. The princess’s gaze tracked the scorched circle in the grass where the Titan had gone under, then lifted to the mansion's back windows. They were close enough that Sarah could count the lit rooms from where they stood. Mere feet away, this thing had been hiding so well that none of the powerful beings under that roof had so much as twitched.
"That thing didn't stumble onto this property," Izzy continued as she crossed her arms over her chest. She jerked her chin toward the burnt patch and scowled as if it had personally offended her. "This spot backs onto our ward line without ever crossing it. Somebody picked this exact location because it's the one place they could watch the house without tripping a single alarm. It should’ve been on our radar."
Jace shook his head and looked over as he continued treating Abraxos’s arm. "They could have had their own magic at play, making us overlook the obvious. He’s had his minions planning shit for a long time."
"Planning takes information." Donovan already had his phone out, thumb moving fast. "And where they get this information is the one thing none of us have been able to explain since the alley."
Abraxos hissed through his teeth when Jace moved his hands. "I’ve healed the bones. You need rest to recover fully from everything over the last few days,” Jace told him. “Can you walk back to the med bay?"
"It’s twenty feet to the fence and another thirty to the back door. I think I can manage," Abraxos informed him as his hand found Sarah's. The bond between them settled the second their skin touched.
“You’re really okay?” She clarified as she looked up at her mate. The tight lines around his mouth and eyes were gone. He wasn’t broadcasting intense pain like a few minutes ago, either. She couldn’t stop her worry. He’d taken a hit meant for her and suffered because of it.
Abraxos smiled down at her. “There’s no need to worry about me."
Sarah knew these warriors hated being fawned over, so she let it go. If his pain was still obvious to her, she might push it a bit more. They fell silent as they crossed through the broken fence line together. They were close enough to the mansion that Sarah could hear Micah giving Aison a hard time about needing to check on his mate.
“Give him a break,” Izzy told Micah. “You’ll understand when you find your mate.”
Micah grimaced and put up his hand as if trying to ward off the thought. “What did I ever do to you? I thought you liked me.”
That made me laugh as they walked through the open kitchen door. "Somebody want to explain why a Titan came up close enough to spit on the back porch?" Elsie's voice had none of its usual warmth in it as she met them in the hallway before they'd fully cleared the threshold. She had a stack of clean towels in her arms.
Her gaze swept Abraxos's shoulder, then landed on Sarah's still-glowing palm. “And how Abraxos managed to complete the mating in the middle of a battle?”
Sarah let her hand drop, the light fading as her palm settled back to the dull black of the brand. "The Titan came for me the way the last two did. Whether it was gathering information for Lucifer from that property, we can’t say. It was prepared to grab me, though.”
“I had to make them claim one another because Abraxos was bleeding grace into Sarah, and it was going to get them both killed,” Jace added.
Elsie blew out a breath. “We need to get ahead of these Titan incursions. They’re keeping us off balance. Come on, let’s make sure the others know what happened.”
Without waiting to see if we followed, the vampire queen headed toward the war room. Her strides ate up the hallway like she meant to outrun her nerves. Elsie's concern was understandable. Honestly, Sarah couldn't blame her for it. Everyone had been on edge since Amelia first felt something scrape along the wards.
"Was that you I felt a few minutes ago?" Amelia asked when they entered the room. She had color back in her cheeks, which eased some of the worry that had been sitting on Sarah's chest like a stone, and she had three of Nana's journals fanned open in front of her.
"We ran into a Titan next door," Sarah reported as she grabbed a bottle of water and cracked it open before handing it to Abraxos.
"Of course you did." Amelia let out a laugh with zero humor. She shoved a hand back through her hair hard enough to yank a few strands loose. "These fuckers are like cockroaches, always popping up right when you think you've swept the kitchen clean.”
Sarah laughed with her friend. “Those little critters are even becoming immune to the magical means we’ve been using to keep them out of the shop. There are more of them in the Quarter than ghosts.”
Camael came through the war room entrance with something folded in his fist. The sight of him stopped all conversation. He crossed straight to the table without breaking stride. The set of his jaw told Sarah whatever he'd found hadn't improved his night.
"I hear you guys dealt with another Titan. Good job rooting out how Lucifer is getting information," he said, dropping into the chair next to his mate. "I found this nailed to a fence post four blocks from here."
He set the object down in the middle of the table. Sarah's stomach dropped before her mind had finished cataloging what she was looking at. It was a scrap of black feather, singed at the quill. It was bound with a thread of gold that didn't belong to any angel she'd ever met.
"That's not one of ours," Abraxos observed as his good hand came to rest on Sarah's neck.
"No." Camael turned the feather over with one finger, careful not to touch the gold thread itself. "It's not from a demon, either. I've spent thousands of years cataloging everything you can imagine. I've never seen this particular shade of gold. Whoever left this wanted it found. It was staked through a piece of parchment with the same border burned into the edge as your invitation, Scribe."
Sarah's breath caught. "It’s Lucifer’s way of telling me where to go next."
Camael's gaze didn't leave her face. "The parchment had one line on it. It said the offer expires at moonrise tomorrow. Something's changed on his end, and I don't think it's patience."
