Page 18 of Wrath

And we needed all the help we could get if we had any chance of defeating Aaliyah.

Dair’s jaw clenched, but he nodded stiffly, his blue eyes twinkling in the candlelight.

The shadows coalescing around Ryland flickered out of existence as he silently agreed to give it a try, his chin dipping once.

Devlin and Bash both verbally gave their consent, and Jax blew out an agitated breath but nodded.

Only Killian remained silent, his gaze lowered to the tabletop. His tail, snaking through the back of the chair, thumped against the floor.

“Kill?” Lupe asked. “We’re only doing this if we all agree.”

“It’s our only option!” Turner argued.

“Shut the fuck up,” Mali snapped.

“Agreed.” HH tapped his fingers against the table. “Shut the fuck up.”

Turner scowled but snapped his mouth shut, audibly grinding his molars.

“Who knows what Lilith will make us do?” Killian’s voice was soft, rife with fear. “Especially to?—”

“I know,” I interrupted, though not unkindly.

Killian’s worry came out of a place of love, and I couldn’t fault him for that. He was terrified of what would happen to me. In the memories Aaliyah gifted me, my mother was never the warm and fuzzy type of figure. She saw my birth as nothing more than a business transaction, a way to make peace between the demons and angels.

I swallowed around the razor blade in my throat.

“It’ll be okay, Kill.” I wanted to touch him, reassure him, but he was too far away. “Everyone will be okay.”

Killian seemed to hesitate, his green eyes dark with tension, before he turned to Lupe and nodded.

Lupe blew out a breath and slowly flipped open the book. Dust scattered in all directions as the cover hit the table with a deafening bang.

“Then let’s get this over with.”

EIGHT

Z

Lupe ran his hand over the book reverently, his brows furrowed in concentration. His glasses slipped farther down his nose, but he used his middle finger to push the frames back into place.

Then, in a low, lyrical voice, he began to speak.

I wouldn’t be able to repeat what he said. I knew for certain that he wasn’t speaking English, but what language he actually spoke eluded me. Latin? Wasn’t that what Davia said? The vowels flowed together in a way that was almost…musical.

Goose pimples pebbled on my skin, and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood upright. My stomach muscles tightened in a way that was almost painful.

When Lupe finally finished reading, he sat back in the chair, the crease between his brows even more pronounced. He absently scratched at the back of his neck as he surveyed all of us.

“Nothing happened,” Davia interjected.

“We don’t know that,” B said pointedly. “No one has ever?—”

The world turned dark. The floor beneath my feet dropped away, and it felt like I was spinning. Falling. Tumbling head over heels with no way to differentiate up from down, left from right. A strange wind blew at my blonde tresses as I fell, fell, fell…

Once, when I was young, I stumbled upon an old book from thebeforetime. The cover depicted a fair-haired girl falling down a rabbit hole, clocks and bunnies and teacups and hats whirling past her. I certainly felt like Alice.

Falling, falling, falling…

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