Page 59 of A Lost Light

The futility of it all grated against my nerves. We would fight. We wouldprobablywin. But some of us might be injured, maybe even killed, in the process. And for what? If these angels died, the angelic realm would just send more people after us. The only solution would be to move the pocket world. Something I wasn't sure I could do without killing us all. That, or we could escape to the Magea or Planus realm… where evenmorepeople were waiting to kill us.

My wild train of thought trailed off when I realized that we still weren't being attacked. I stared at the guy who seemed to be in charge—though I didn't recognize any of these particular angels from our previous encounters. He was just standing there, arms crossed over his muscular chest, blue eyes staring right back at me.

“Uh,” I said intelligently, glancing around me to see if I had missed something here. “Why aren't you trying to murder us right now? Stage fright?”

He drew in a deep breath and let it out, as if he was trying his best not to show impatience with a very slow child. “If we wanted you dead, you would already be dead.”

I huffed. “It's funny that you think so.”

He arched one golden brow. “Instruct your slave to remove his fire and lead us to a comfortable place to parlay.”

I just stared at him. Slave. Parlay. Angels were such douche canoes.

He uncrossed his arms and leapt into the air, the glowing branches of his wings flaring out wide as he soared over Aahil's flames. The jinn tensed, probably getting ready to send the fire up higher to singe the angel's ass, but I put out an arm, gesturing for him to hold back on the murdering. Something wasn't right here.

The angel landed in front of me, and I really wondered if he knew how close he was to getting his ass torn apart by the people around him. Was he stupid? Had to be a bit dim not to sense all of the hostile power surrounding him.

“Witch,” he said in a clipped tone. “I do not have time for your idiotic games. We will speak, or you will die.”

Dyre stepped forward, his eyes gone completely black and his aura swelling with dark rage. Aahil's fire circle disappeared, but a ball of flames formed in his hand as his golden eyes watched the angels. Tendrils of terror snaked out between us, Ambrose'sdark magic ready to take over their minds and fill them with horror at a moment's notice.

I sighed. “For fuck's sake. I'm not in the mood for this bullshit today.” Shaking my head, I turned around, pushed past Zhong and Ambrose and headed toward the door. “Angels aresucharrogant dickbags,” I muttered under my breath.

I felt a strong, but shadowed, angelic presence at my side and glanced at Elijah as he spoke. “They absolutely are.”

I huffed a laugh. But the holy host behind me didn't seem amused.

Once we were all awkwardly seated in the front sitting room where I usually tended to assholes I hated but had to play nice with, I waved a hand at the stupid angel. “Well? Now that you have a nice place to rest your ass, what do you want?”

He arched a brow at me. “You attached an unstable pocket world to our realm, attacked our High Choir, slaughtered several angels, and stole a powerful magical artifact from us, and you wonder what I want?”

I waved that away. “Ididask nicely to borrow the nullifier first. But you pompous asshats wouldn't listen to reason. I had to dosomethingto stop the shit that's been going down in our home realm. And it was the stupid cult that caused all the carnage. We didn't kill anyone.”

His blue eyes landed on Elijah momentarily, one chiseled lip curling in disgust. Then he returned that stony gaze to me. “I have the feeling our dead would tell a different story, were they given the opportunity to avenge the wrongs done to them. But that is beside the point.” He waved a dismissive hand. “The High Choir has been cleansed due to their incompetence. They should have been more than capable of taking care of a few lowly misfits from Magea.” His wings flared and settled as he crossed one leg over the other and leaned back into his chair, like he wasunconcerned with the vendetta the angels should have against us.

“As the new High Ophanim, I have been tasked by our Most High Seraph with handling our parasite problem. I am not as unreasonable as my predecessor.” He smiled, and I really wished he hadn't. It wasn't a nice smile. “You will give me the nullifier and I will refrain from executing you and your slaves in exchange for your pledge of loyalty to the angelic throne.”

I laughed. Like, actually fucking broke out in hysterical barks of disbelieving laughter.

Everyone stared at me as if I had lost my mind. Which, to be fair, was probably true. I had been worried all this time, afraid that the angels would sense us lurking here, our pocket world sanctuary attached to their realm like a supernatural boil. I had feared they would one day find us, find a way into our only safe place, and murder us all for our various offenses. Or for just existing, because angels were assholes that way.

But they didn't come here to kill us. No. Of course not. That would be far too simple and straightforward. They came here with hopes of using us. Just like every other fucking person or institution we encountered. And if they couldn't harness the power of my strong Lovell magic and the abilities of the creatures who had tied themselves to me, well,thenthey'd murder us.

If they didn't find some way to force us into slavery when we declined to do their bidding willingly.

My laughter died out and I was suddenly, bone-achingly, tired.

I was tired of everything. Tired of fighting. Tired of hiding. Tired of being who I was. I just wanted a fucking break. But I could never seem to catch one, no matter how hard I tried. And now, as if it wasn't enough that the Supernatural Allianceanda cult of crazy zealots were out for our blood, now we had an entire race of beings from another dimension gunning for us.

But much as I wanted to, I couldn't just lie down and give up. Because there was more at stake than just my own witchy skin. Everyone who had foolishly tied themselves to me since I destroyed the bestiary was now in danger.

“We won't be doing that,” I told the golden-haired angel dickhead. “Swearing loyalty to you. Or anyone else, for that matter.” I gripped the arms of my chair as I stared him down, trying my best to channel the Lovell haughtiness that came with knowing just how powerful you were. He could try to force us. Attack us now with his handful of minions. Some of us might be hurt, or worse. But ultimately, I would ensure this jackass died a horrible death in the process, and probably a few of his stupid lackeys with him. Hell, if Dyre let Sunshine off his leash, we mightallend up dead. And I was pretty sure this jackwad knew it.

His blue eyes narrowed at my challenge, but he took a good look around the room and seemed to understand that either way, he wasn't walking away with what he wanted today. No easy prey. No power play as the new high whatever-the-fuck-he-was. We weren’t buying into his authorityorhelping him look good for his superior. And if he tried to force us, absolutely nothing good would come of it.

At least, Ihopedthat was the message he was getting. Because honestly, I was getting really sick of pretending to be a bad ass. One of these days I was just going to forget the pretending part and go full Lovell on the next person who pissed me off.

“As I told you,” the head asshat said slowly, “I'm not as foolish as my predecessor. I don't believe in wasting assets, power, or opportunity.” He arched a brow at me. “Tell me, Lovell. If you refuse to swear fealty to the angelic empire, why should we allow you to shelter at our border, to hide in the shadow of our realm?”

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