Page 15 of Catch a Tiger

He watched as dark blood oozed down the stump, joining the ever-growing circle of blood seeping into the snow.

“He took everything,” she said, finally breaking that awful silence as she crouched down and tilted her head. “Even my sanity. Should I take yours?”

“You’re going to regret this,” the head told her, eyes flashing with white flames just like Lucifer’s did.

She tilted her head the other way then. “You know, it’s been a while since I’ve felt like this.”

The sudden lilt in her words concerned him, and Samuel shared a look with Rune. Whatever the fuck was going on here, it was obvious she wasn’t all there.

But honestly…neither were they.

“He took me,” the woman confessed, propping her chin on her fist. “Did you know that?”

“Who?”

“I still dream of it…” She smiled again, but it was a cruel, twisted thing. “Bet your precious brother didn’t expect that.”

“My brother?” The head frowned, completely lost just like the rest of them.

Then she flicked his forehead. It was so fast and sudden Samuel tensed. “The last head was more useful than you and he couldn’t even talk.”

Samuel tried not to wonder how many times she’d done this. It was honestly disturbing, and it took alotto disturb him.

“At least your eyes aren’t green,” she murmured, reaching out like she might just gouge his eyes out with her thumbs.

“I have a lot of brothers,” the angel said with a sneer, making her hands freeze mid-reach. “You’re going to need to be a little more specific.”

She sat back on her heels and considered that.

It felt like Samuel blinked and suddenly she was standing over the angel’s body, one foot on his back between those gray wings. Seeing someone move that fast…there weren’t many who could move through the world as if it were standing still.

She might even be faster than him.

Nothing on this earth could force him to blink again, not when she stood there like a wild thing made of vengeance and rage. Angel blood was smeared across her face like warpaint and the stench of it eradicated everything else.

He felt blind without the ability to scent her emotions, especially with such a blank expression on her face, but for the first time in a long time he couldsee.

This tableau before him felt like a prophetic vision when she gripped the base of the angel’s wings protruding out of his shoulders, blood gushing from her hands.

A splinter of heaven had carved through this place in the gentle silence of winter.

“Wait.”

That wild creature smiled and it was savage—cruel.

It reminded him too much of Mylo.

She slid her gaze to the head, her vicious smile widening as she waited.

Blood oozed from her hands down the ridges of those wings, and Samuel couldn’t help but wonder if she could feel any pain at all. Even the stab wound the angel had given her seemed to have barely registered.

Rune suddenly took a step forward like he planned to join her in ripping the angel limb from limb. Grabbing the back of his shirt, Samuel yanked his third back and wrapped his hand around the back of his neck, claws digging into skin as a silent warning.

He held on so tight he might just break bone and he’d already done enough of that the night before. Mylo pressed into Rune from the other side to keep him surrounded as the three of them watched the scene unfold before them, unable to look away from such horrific grace.

An angel was notoriously difficult to kill. No one even really knew how to do it per the archives, but this woman did…she knew exactly what she was doing. He just had no fucking ideawhyshe was doing it.

Finally, the angel spoke. “What do you want?” he asked, his eyes on his wings like he was actually worried.

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