Page 38 of Rage of the Fallen

“You’re not escaping me!” Rage’s voice cut through everything else, a sound of pure fury. Then I heard him command, “Get her!”

A familiar snarl pierced the chaos. Justice, moving faster than I thought possible. Through the spinning colors, I glimpsed his face, twisted with Rage’s power but still achingly beautiful. He reached for me, his fingers almost grazing my jacket as the vortex pulled us apart and slammed us back together.

The world spun faster, colors bleeding into one another until I couldn’t tell up from down. My team’s voices came in fragments through the roar of magic.

“Sawyer!” Damon’s shout, desperate and fading.

“Hold on!” Was that Brody or Lisa?

A phoenix’s cry, high and piercing.

The hourglass burned so hot I thought my skin would blister, but I couldn’t let go. Wouldn’t let go. Through the kaleidoscope of power, I felt rather than saw Justice drawing closer, using his vampire speed to fight the magic trying to separate us.

Then, everything went black.

The darkness exploded into sudden, blinding light. My body slammed into cold, hard stone, the impact driving the air from my lungs. The hourglass slipped from my numb fingers and rolled across the rough surface. For a moment, all I could do was lie there, gasping, my head spinning with leftover vertigo from the transport.

Somewhere nearby, I heard groans and the scraping of bodies against cement. My team, scattered across what had to be Rosslyn Chapel’s courtyard. The phoenix’s soft glow pulsed weakly, illuminating ancient stone walls looming above us.

“Everyone okay?” Brody’s voice, steady despite everything.

“Define ‘okay,’” Damon groaned from somewhere to my left.

I pushed to my knees, every muscle screaming in protest. The harp dug into my back. That was when I heard it—a low, predatory growl from the shadows near the chapel entrance.

My blood turned to ice. I knew that sound.

“Sawyer, don’t move,” Lisa whispered urgently.

A pair of crimson eyes gleamed in the darkness of the chapel doorway. Justice had made it through with us, and we were still outside the chapel’s protection.

“Guys?” Damon’s voice had lost all its usual sarcasm. “Please tell me everyone else can see the homicidal vampire blocking the entrance.”

Justice stood at the top of the chapel steps like a nightmare made flesh, his movements liquid and deadly. The sun caught his face, highlighting the inhuman beauty Rage’s possession had twisted into something terrible. His gaze never left me, tracking my every breath like a predator savoring the moment before the kill.

“Sawyer.” My name on his lips was both a curse and a caress. “Did you really think you could run from me?” Rage’s power colored his voice, but I caught something else beneath. A flicker of the man I loved, drowning in darkness.

I scrambled to my feet on the rough cement, instinctively reaching for the harp on my back.Not yet,a voice in my head whispered. The timing had to be perfect. He had to be consumed by rage first.

We also had to get past him into the chapel, the only place that might offer us protection when the demons arrived.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I held the harp in trembling hands and faced Justice. He was a complete contrast to Rosslyn Chapel. The sun’s light painted the medieval stone walls in shades of rose and amber, and ribbons of mist wove between Celtic crosses and weathered headstones. The chapel’s western face loomed behind him, its Gothic windows dark, like hollow eyes watching our confrontation.

The courtyard stretched around us in a patchwork of ancient graves and uneven cobblestones, slick with morning dew. Some headstones listed to the side after centuries of Scottish winters, their carved angels and death’s heads worn smooth by time and weather. Wild roses and thorny brambles had claimed the crumbling boundary walls, their pale blooms nodding in the chill breeze like silent mourners.

Around the courtyard’s edge, gnarled yew trees cast long shadows across the wet grass, their branches reaching like skeletal fingers. A lone raven called from atop the chapel’s highest point, its harsh cry shattering the stillness. Beyond the stone walls, rolling hills emerged, their heather-covered slopes still shrouded in morning mist.

Justice stood motionless, his immortal presence more ancient and terrible than even this hallowed ground. The sunturned his skin to marble and his eyes to burning embers as birdsong heralded the morning. Perhaps our last together if I failed.

He released a menacing roar, the sound morphing mid-cry from Justice’s rich baritone to the demon’s guttural snarl and back again.

Ravens erupted from the chapel’s gargoyles as he rushed toward me across the dew-slick cobblestones. His movements were a violent dance of grace and fury, one leg stumbling as Justice fought for control, the other striking with demonic precision. Dark veins writhed beneath his skin like living serpents, spreading from his heart in pulsing waves before retreating as Justice pushed back against the possession.

The air crackled with supernatural energy as Damon’s boots crunched across fallen leaves. “Sawyer, look out!”

Let this work. Please, let our love be enough.

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