Page 130 of Grave Revelations

“That’s all you have to say? Not ‘I’m sorry.’ Not ‘I apologize for ruining your life?’” The words were out before he could stop himself, and he winced at their sharpness, realizing at that moment that even his words had been somehow bound back then. Now, he could say exactly what he felt. It was freeing and terrifying.

Rebecca stumbled away as if he’d struck her.

He saw it then. Her gaze was unfocused, and even as she took in his narrowed eyes and the set of his jaw, she couldn’t process his words. Rebecca was in shock. Simon knew that feeling well. Coming to terms with your end was no easy thing.

He stepped closer, and she backed up. She shuddered, looking lost and afraid, and all at once, his anger banked.

He was hurt and betrayed, but he loved her. That part, at least, had been real. He held out a hand.

“Come on, let’s find them.”

Chapter 85

Azazel

Azazel blinked open new eyes and wished for nothing more than to have his head torn from his body once more so he could return to the nothingness where pain and her absence didn’t exist. Lifeless orbs stared back at him in the dirt, twins to the ones he’d just regrown.

He pressed an arm into the floor, pushing himself into a sitting position. His gaze darted from the head Samael had ripped from his neck to the dais at the center of the room, still bathed in her blood.

His shoulders screamed in agony where the poison had not yet faded; his face ached in all the places it had regenerated. Bone lengthened along his back, stretching into new wings. Soon, dark feathers would sprout, each one a tiny pinprick.

None of it mattered.

He stumbled on unsteady legs to the dais and threw himself across the table. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. She didn’t exist.

He laid his head against the damp wood, slick with her life force. It was cold. Devoid of her essence. As if a mere human’s blood had been sacrificed on this altar. She had not been sacrificed, though. She gave herself willingly.

For him.

But he was unworthy of her, of her sacrifice. He had failed her.Again.And now she was gone, and he was forced to exist for eternity with only her memory and the aching chasm in his chest where half his soul had lived.

A chill crept over him as the room grew colder. Somewhere, the Fallen was completing the mortal plane’s transformation. He no longer needed the witches. With the rift open and the demon populous swarming Earth, their dark deeds would soon ravage the land.

His light wouldn’t have wanted him to stand by and let it happen, but she was gone, and thinking of her was a dagger through his tattered soul.

The first prickles of sensation started at his shoulder blades as feathers grew in. He inhaled sharply, desperate for a last whiff of her essence, her being, but the room smelled only of copper and death.

Chapter 86

Angeliki

Angeliki called lightning down, sending it spider-veining across the sky, but try as she might, there were too many demons and not enough of her coven.

“Thalia!” she yelled over the howl of wind and the screams of the humans far below. “Tell our sisters to get back. I’m going to send a wave over them.”

“You’ll kill the humans,” Thalia shouted back.

“They are possessed. They cannot be saved!”

Thalia looked dubious, but she nodded, shouting down the line of sister witches perched atop the cliff overlooking the town of Bath.

Humans ran screaming in all directions as demons dove for them, and Angeliki raised her hands once more, prepared to call the sea and wash them all away. She never imagined she would find herself on this side of the war at the end of the world, but the demons were too numerous, and the humans were sheep to be herded. If they were gone, there would be nothing to draw the attention of the demons.

A hum started as her sisters raised their hands, singing to the sea. It answered, a wave swelling high overhead.

One of her sisters screamed and fell to the ground. The others followed suit, dropping their hands to duck and cower. As the wave crashed harmlessly into the ocean, thick rain clouds parted, and she saw them.

Massive balls of flame barreling straight for them.

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