Page 27 of Blood of Two Crowns

“Mareina, let me help you.”

I turned my head to find Nakoa and Rumiel flying hard beside me.

“Take my hands,” I shouted over the wind to both of them.

Before they had a chance to ask why, I tucked my wings in tight and reached out with my arms. In the breathless momentthat I began to plummet, Nakoa and his father lashed out to grip my arms.

I focused on Malekai’s spirit, his presence, as I silently chanted his name.

Space, and the absence of light, swallowed us whole. A moment later, a hole in the fabric of the universe unfurled, and we stood in Malekai’s living room.

Malekai’s name tore from my throat at the sight of his enormous, prone form laying on the floor like a felled tree. I sank to my knees, gripping his blessedly warm flesh with my hands and shaking him to wake.

“I have to say, I’m rather impressed with your timing.”

The sound of an unfamiliar male’s deep, lilting voice had my magic spilling out of me in writhing red tendrils as I turned to face him.

Before I could speak Rumiel stepped forward, and I didn’t miss the foreboding undercurrent in the rasp of his gravelly, broken voice.“Azrael.”

“Rumiel,” Azrael grinned, eyes sliding to Nakoa and studying him in a way that made my hackles raise, “I see you’ve produced off-spring during your time off the leash.”

“If Malekai has been harmed in away?—

“He’ll wake soon enough, don’t worry… I apologise for employing such a brutish method, but I had to find some way of drawing you out of Avernus and away from the prying eyes of Zurie’s palace, .” Azrael’s gaze drifted back to Nakoa and Rumiel briefly. “Though I see that was an exercise in futility.”

My voice dropped to a growl.“Tell me why you’re here.”

For a moment, Azrael hesitated as something like nervousness shuddered his expression.

“I have two favours I implore you to grant me: I need you to open your realms, Avernus and Bellorum, to some of mydenizens that have grown restless within the confines of my realms…AndI need you to help me find someone.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Why would I do any of this?”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter,butif you decide to be amenable, you’ll be gaining a powerful ally.”

Nakoa, Rumiel, and I all replied at the same time.

“No.”

Azrael frowned.“It’s an inevitability.”

“Then so is your death.”

Azrael gave a sardonic huff. “As much as I wish the solution were as simple as that, it’s not. My power is the only thing securing my realms from yours. So as tempting as death may be, it would only further enflame the situation.”

“Well then, if that’s the case, what difference does it make?”

“When the citizens of my hell realms arrive, youwillwant me as an ally. And I can assure you, I am not easy to kill.Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Myarcanum, as Malekai had called it,burnedas my magic writhed beneath the surface, desperate to be unleashed. While I may have been powerful compared to some, against someone like Azrael, it would be sheer delusion to think I could overcome him. He had been strengthening and wielding his power for time immemorial. I was a mere 120 years old, and I’d only developed a fragment of my power.

“I think you’ll have a better understanding of things if I simplyshowyou. If you like, I’ll swear it in blood that I will return you.”

If it was a choice between going with Azrael and potentially saving my soulbound, and the entire realm, from a slow and bloody death, or not going and being forced to allow Azrael to rip a hole between our worlds... Then, there was no decision to be made.

Nakoa stepped between us. “Mareina isn’t going anywhere with you.”

Touching Nakoa for the first time since he’d rescued me sent a flood of emotion through me as I laid my hand on his chest.

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