Page 62 of Sinner's End

A second flash, and the blade replaces the crossbow in his hand, a stark, reflectionless void against his fading but still present glow. An intimate, elegant weapon for a personal death.

The next look I cast Mana is filled with panic.If he does this, he’ll never be the same.

But Mana’s eyes are sad, and he shakes his head without returning my stare as my chest closes. A scream builds within my throat as Bowen answers me, stalling my warning by a hair’s breadth. Too late.

And that’s all it takes.

“Because I wanted to,” he says simply.

Lethe raises the hellish blade and parts the taut skin at Bowen’s throat, ending the fallen angel’s existence.

My scream is as silent as the Void of Harken in that last moment before Mana’s domain truly crumbles, and he loses the last cornerstone tethering his realm together.

Because the blood that pours from Bowen isn’t red, like mine, or black like I might expect after the sin he’s immersed himself in recently. It’s a lurid green we all know so well. The color of ForgetMeKnot. Mana’s blood, replacing his own.

Before the angel drains out on the floor, before Lethe turns to stare down at me in utter desolation I can’t fix, the black blade clattering to the floor without an echo, Mana swears, pivoting on his heel without another word, and stalks away.

I’m left with a dead angel, one that wants to be that way, and an excess of a drug that could solve all my problems if only I’d bend the knee to crouch on the floor before Mana’s broken throne and lap it up like the dog he trained me to be.

It’s oh-so-fucking tempting.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When They Call

Adreana

All around me is darkness. Fear creeps its way up my spine. I instinctively know I am not alone. Something caresses my neck, sending a full body shiver through me.

“It’s too late,” a voice whispers.

I feel the darkness wrap around me tighter, seeping into my bones and tainting my soul

“They are lost to you.”

I know this disembodied voice is talking about my men. My lovers.

“No!” I shout into the void.

“Yes,” the voice hisses in return. “You turned your back on them. Mana is done with you. And where he leads the rest will follow.”

Panic envelops me, my throat closing in on itself, making it hard to breathe.

****

I wake with a scream. Daisy makes little noises of distress beside me and I gently rub her ears. It was just a nightmare. But if that’s true, why do I still feel the darkness roiling inside me?

Swinging my legs off the edge of the pull-out couch, I start moving. My feet carry me quickly through the house I grew up in and I dress in haste. I can’t stay here.

I may have been afraid of what was happening between the five of us, but I am truly terrified of losing them. Come hell or high water, succubus, ghosts, mothers, demons, angels, or any number of godforsaken things, I now know where I belong.

I love them and they love me. And together we canconquer and survive anything.

Exiting through the front door, I take a deep breath of the fresh night air. And then I do the only thing I can think of.

I run.

Not away from what scares me. No. I run toward what I now know I can’t live without.

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