Page 46 of Light

Although the pain of his rejection left a deep chasm in her chest, it gave her new resolve. For one fleeting moment, she had dared to hope someone cherished her. And in that moment, she’d given far too much of herself away. When he’d left, taking her innocence and her last shred of hope with him, she’d finally accepted the truth.

In this life, she could rely only on herself, and now, with a child soon to be in her care, she would need to be even stronger.

Chapter 31

Gabriel

Gabriel wiped an arm over his brow, resting the tip of his sword in the dirt as he leaned against it. Seraphim didn’t need sleep, but they certainly needed rest when they’d been using their gifts for forty-eight hours with no break and the seemingly endless well within them began to suggest there might actually be a bottom.

He looked out across the smoking, burned earth and spied Yomiel wiping a blade against his leg as he sent another demon back to Primoria. Days had jumbled together, and only the memory of Adalaide’s soft skin, flush with his and his name spilling from her lips, kept him sane.

Around him, men carried makeshift stretchers as they sifted through the dead for the ones who clung to life.

Now—in the moments when only moans of the sick and dying permeated the air—was when demons mounted their attack. They dived on the injured, sucking their misery from them, pressing into their bodies only to bask in those final precious moments

Between a mass of bodies crumpled over one another, he spied a dark form slipping in and out of their gaping mouths: a wraith drawing energy from their last breaths. They could always be found around a battlefield or a hospital. They hastened men’s demise, stealing their final moments.

He pressed into his sword, stepping over prone forms, some with torn limbs, others with dark stains across their chests or heads, stopping in front of a pile of lifeless bodies. He lifted his sword, waiting for the moment when the wraith would materialize once more.

A dark substance dripped from a man’s nose, pooling just in front of Gabriel. He waited for it to be material enough to vanquish; as it solidified, a dark gleam settled in its red eyes.

“Astaroth,” he seethed, swiping at the demon.

“Ssseraphim,” Astaroth hissed, dodging the blow.

“What are you doing here?” Gabriel demanded. “Don’t you have more important tasks to attend to? Surely your king does not find human battles worthy of his general’s time.”

Astaroth’s red eyes narrowed. “I am here to give you a messsage.”

Gabriel straightened. “What is it?”

“My king sssays you have found your mate at long lassst.”

Gabriel lifted his sword, prepared to strike.

Astaroth brought up smokey, insubstantial arms. “He wissshesss to make a deal.”

“What deal.”

“Hisss mate for yoursss.”

Gabriel’s chest seized. He couldn’t have her. Gabriel would have known. He would have felt it. As if in answer, the warmth inside him pulsed. She was alive, still on the mortal plane.

“He is in no position to make such a bargain.”

“Hisss mate wishesss her dead. When Sssanura wants sssomething. Ssshe getsss it.”

It was true. Gabriel had never been able to stop her. In three thousand years, she had always managed to elude him.

“What does he want from me?”

“There isss an amulet. Give it to her, and your mate goesss free.”

“I don’t have any amulet.”

“But your mate doesss.”

“What does she want with it?”

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