Page 43 of Angel's Vengeance

“Hold still, Neela.Hold still— Fuck!”

“Wh-what?What’s happening?”The pain answered her question, though, causing her leg to shake and spasm.

“The apex,” Rhode growled out.

Then those gears from earlier, the ones that she thought had already clicked so solidly into place, stalled out and shut down her whole mind machine.Apex didn’t use mortal weapons, only ones of dark magic.Wasn’t he dead, though?

I thought ...I thought ...

The demon had been alive enough to strike her with his magic.

And for the first time in her life, it had wounded her.

Chapter21

Neela dropped into Rhode’s arms like a stone, her eyelids fluttering with a spasm that mimicked his erratic heartbeat.Fire roared through his veins as he briefly looked behind him to confirm that, yes, the portal had disappeared and the three charmers were nothing but steaming ashes painting the asphalt.

The charmer in his arms, however ...

“Neela—” he said thinly, trying to keep the worry and confusion out of his voice.

“Mmm ...Hurts ...”She moaned behind lips that had already begun to pale along the creases.

“There could be more coming.I have to move you.It-It might be uncomfortable.”

Neela closed her eyes and nodded sharply.“Do it.”

Ignoring the gouges along his ribs and the sharp cry she let out when he cradled her to his chest, he stretched his battered wings and got airborne.Not wanting to soar too high lest their presence call undue attention to themselves, he skirted the arcs of the nearby roller coasters, riding their descents until he saw the only place even remotely defensible: behind a dumpster at the back of a neighboring lumber yard.Plenty of construction vehicles and metal to work with and even more wood to ignite should he need it.

That was, if his fire hadn’t been entirely spent already.

Rhode touched down in the fading shadow cast by the dumpster and settled Neela across his lap.

“I’ve never—” She swallowed around a cough.“I don’t ...”

“Quiet.”The word came out harsher than he meant it, and he cursed himself before gentling his words.“Easy.Let me see.”

“ ...you’re ...angry ...not my ...fault ...”

“Shhh, save your strength.”

Rhode settled her gently onto the pavement and pulled the hem of her sweaterdress up her thigh, then hissed.On her right knee, just above where the boot’s leather kissed her calf, her pale skin had begun to crackle and peel.Dark char outlined her kneecap, the edges of which began curling outward from the corroded pockmarks in the center, attacking any clean flesh it could find.

The apex’s magic hadn’t been designed forherbut for the sentinels.It was a dark perversion crafted over years to fight back against the angels in their metallic forms.Cyro had long ago tasked his demons with cultivating magic that could rust, corrode, eat away, or molecularly destroy the sentinels’ metals.

And it seemed that the bastard had perfected the formula, improving it so it worked on their flesh forms as well.

Rhode sat there and watched in horror as the sickly spell crept higher over her knee, until the very swell of the lower thigh he’d had his hand on moments ago began to pucker and shrivel.The more intently he watched the taint, the faster it seemed to crawl.It was already a challenge to keep her hands from clawing at it.If she did manage to touch it ...

He, more than anyone, knew a fucking contagion when he saw one.

Neela’s moans turned to whimpers, then panting hisses as his soul bond tried to fight off a magical enemy she couldn’t understand, knew nothing of, and had no hope of defeating.

But he did.He knew all of those things.And it terrified him.

Rhode cleared his throat.“Neela.”

Agony raged in her eyes but did little to fight off the poison quickly consuming her.

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