Page 124 of Conflicted

Everyone, that was, except for me and the Seraphim. I think we all could’ve predicted exactly where this was going.

A group of regents detached from the wall just as Micah neatly stepped in front of me, wearing a pleasant yet deadly smile.

“Oh, I don’t think you’re going to want to do that.”

29

Micah

Gloria’s saccharine smile slid straight off her face. “Stand aside, Micah. Your mate has committed a crime, and he will be punished accordingly.”

“I will not. Nox is my mate, and I’ll protect him as such.”

The regents who’d been tasked with bringing Nox forwards paused, exchanging uncertain looks.

“Seize him, immediately.” Gloria’s command was a shout, her temper slipping.

From when we’d first stepped into the courtroom until now, I’d been tunnelling down into my power. This wasn’t the loss of control Lyle had displayed, but a carefully measured descent to the very depths of power that I possessed.

When the regent at the front risked a step forward, I unleashed it.

Lightning filled the room. Cracks appeared in the floor under our feet. In the columns. The walls.

And the table those pariahs hid behind? It was shorn clean in two.

Everyone except Nox and the Seraphim was knocked from their feet. The manacles around my wrists fell harmlessly to the floor.

“Consider this a warning.” Unlike Gloria, I didn’t need to shout to make myself heard. “You have trained me to be God’s most formidable soldier. I’ve spent millennia honing my skills on battlefields. Do not test me. Threaten my mate again and the next time I unleash myself, nothing will be held back.”

On either side of us, the Seraphim drew their weapons. I wanted to scream at them to step back, to let me fight this battle alone, to not condemn themselves alongside my mate and me.

One glance at the stubborn set of their faces told me this was one battle I wouldn’t win.

“The Seraphim do not accept this judgement.” Ezekiel’s voice rang out. “We formally challenge the authority of this court under article sixteen, paragraph eighteen, line six.”

None of us needed Benji to read the law back for us. We all knew this one.

No arch is above judgement. If an angel believes justice being delivered is not honest and true, they are permitted to intervene however necessary.

We all knew it, but the fact that Ez knew the exact article to quote suggested Benji had prepped him. Which meant they’d been ready for this. They’d known this was a possibility when they’d walked into this chamber, yet they’d done so anyway.

The loyalty they were showing me was dizzying. It was so much that I couldn’t process it now. I pushed it away to deal with later.

“In other words,” Nate said with a smirk, “fuck around andfind out.”

Nox snickered beside me as I groaned inwardly. There was standing our ground, and then there was inciting violence. I should’ve known it’d be one of the twins to take us over that line.

“Nox has executed an arch,” Gloria said. With the table in pieces in front of her, there was nothing to hide the tremble in her hands. Was that fury or fear? I guessed we were about to find out. “Hewillpay for his crimes.”

“If you execute Nox, Micah dies too,” Breann said quietly. “We’ll not allow it.”

The door banged open. “Neither will we.”

My eyes bugged wide. No…it couldn’t be. There was no way he’d risk his mates by coming here.

But when I looked back over my shoulder, my former second was strolling into the room, Dagon at his side.

The shocks kept coming as Ferry stepped into the room. He paused in the doorway, a shiver going through his frame as he took it all in. Then the former Grim Reaper stiffened and stalked into the space like he belonged here.

---