Page 122 of Angel Betrayed

Sam shook his head. No, no, she couldn’t love him. He was Death. He killed. He destroyed.

Pain twisted her face.

He could only watch. “Seline!” The skin of his hands split open as he battered the invisible walls that held him.

Jeremian’s fingers were inches away from her. “You don’t want her to keep suffering,” the angel said. “It’s time for her to be at peace.”

At peace? Slaughtered by the hound? “I’ll kill you!” Sam roared—the vow was for the angel who just watched and for the beast who was hurting Seline.

Jeremian shook his head. “Doubtful. Though you may try.”

A red haze filled Sam’s vision. He shoved his hands flat against the barrier, pushing with every ounce of his strength. Pushing, pushing, spending his energy, desperate?—

Seline’s eyes widened. The beast’s teeth tore deeper into her throat. Sam saw her lips try to move once more. Another tear leaked from her eye, and her mouth shaped his name, “Sam.”

Then a giant ball of fire exploded, and Seline, his beautiful, precious Seline?—

Everything burned.

Chapter Seventeen

“Sam, you’d better fucking be alive in there!”

Sam heard the voice. Hollow. Distant. He lifted his eyelids, aware that every part of his body hurt.

“I’m gonna get you out of there! Just hold on.”

There was nothing to hold on to.

“Damn. What did you do to yourself?”

Sam managed to stare stared down at his chest. The claw was still embedded in his flesh and muscle. “Wanted…to get to her…” If he’d been close to dying, if he’d shed enough blood, then he’d thought that maybe the hound would come for him.

Come for me instead. He’d screamed those words as the fire erupted, and he drove the claw into his own chest. But those weren’t the rules. Sam had tried to break them, but—not the rules.

The hellhound had taken its real prey.

Mateo chanted and threw ash in the air, and Sam fell out of his prison.

He didn’t look back at Rogziel’s body. No fucking point. He rushed across the room. He slid in the blood that continued to pour from his body and soak the floor.

It should have been me.

“Seline!” The flames burned low now as they flickered red and gold near the edges of the room.

Az lay in the corner with his skin scorched, but he was still breathing.

Seline was just…gone.

Nothing left. No blood—just nothing.

“Where’s the succubus?” Mateo asked. Then his eyes narrowed. “That Fallen looks like shit.”

Where are you, Seline?

If she’d died, where had she gone? Not to the fire, not her. She couldn’t be in the fire. He wouldn’t let her be. He shot to his feet and grabbed Mateo. “Our deal.” Talking was hard. Too much rage and fear and pain poured through his veins, hotter than the fire.

Seline.

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