Page 16 of The Road to Hell

As though her voice had summoned them, the shadows unraveled. One by one, six familiar figures stepped forward, their winged forms cut from the night itself. Moonlight gleamed off their weapons, their faces unmistakable.

Lucifer’s fallen.

We were so fucked.

ChapterFive

RATHIEL

My gaze moved over the fallen, cataloging positions, measuring their stances, reading the tension in their frames. They primed themselves for violence, shifting with the controlled precision of trained killers. But it was Gremory who stepped forward first, marking himself as their leader.

That should have been me.

The role didn’t fit him. He wore it like a soldier in borrowed armor, posturing rather than commanding.

I had no regrets. The second I’d turned my blade on Lucifer, I’d made my choice. Lily was worth the cost. But seeing them now, falling into rank behind Gremory, still moving as a single unit—it cut through me like a blade sliding between my ribs—a feeling I was intimately familiar with, thanks to Gremory. I hadn’t just walked away from a post. I had walked away from my brothers and sisters, who I’d fought beside for millennia. They weremysoldiers, my family, and I’d walked away from them all. For her.

And I would do it again.

I scanned the area. Empty.

Good. Lily claimed humans were oblivious to the supernatural, and it needed to stay that way. That would’ve been difficult if anyone had been around to witness the fight about to break loose.

Gremory spread his black wings, feathers catching the moonlight as they flexed against the cold air. He tilted his head, assessing, calculating. Even from here, I could see the damage Lily’s hellfire had left behind during our last encounter. Jagged burns twisted across his face and neck, warping flesh where her flames had consumed him.

He deserved worse.

“Brother,” Gremory called, his voice rougher than I remembered. Lily had done quite the number on him.

I didn’t respond.

His gaze snapped to Lily, and his blackened upper lip curled into a sneer, his expression furious.

“And you,” he spat, the words thick with venom.

Tension spiked through the fallen as they adjusted their stances. Their gazes locked onto Lily with the same unspoken intent. Gavrel’s chaos warped the air, bending moonlight into restless shadows. Miriel’s pestilent aura thickened, tainting the crisp winter air with a deep rotting scent. Ezrion’s fire sparked to life in his palms, embers spilling from his fingers like his control was slipping. Calyx’s grin stretched, hollow and predatory. Even Raelia, the most composed among them, let her power bleed out, black veins creeping through the snow, leaving rot in their wake.

Gremory took another step forward. The crunch of his boots was the only sound before his voice cut through the frozen air. “You’ve been busy.” A slow, measured pause. “Killing family. Spilling celestial blood.” Another step. “Tavira and Zera were my kin. My sisters.” His voice fractured at the edges, the fury barely restrained. Then his wings flared wide, black feathers bristling. “And you—” His control snapped. His fists clenched, his scarred face twisting with raw hatred. “You killed them like they were nothing.”

Lily unstrapped her pack in a smooth, deliberate motion, lowering it alongside Vol’s bag. No wasted movement. No hesitation. Just a soldier preparing for battle.

Beside her, I did the same. The duffel bag holding Lily’s and my weapons hit the ground, my pack sliding off my shoulders in one efficient movement. Eliza mirrored us, immediately slipping into warrior mode.

Lily straightened. “To be fair,” she said, voice cold, unnervingly steady, “they tried to kill me first. I was just better at finishing the job.”

I recognized the mask. The empty expression. The clipped tone. I’d seen her use it countless times when facing her father. She carried the weight of Jack’s death and had killed Zera out of retaliation. But Gremory and the others wouldn’t care about her reasons. To them, humans were fleeting, insignificant things. What did killing one matter when there were billions more?

Gremory stilled for a fraction of a second. Then his fury detonated.

His wings slammed downward, a gust of wind blasting through the clearing, sending ice and snow skidding across the ground. The earth cracked beneath him, spiderweb fractures splitting outward as his power surged.

“You dare mock their deaths?” he roared, the force of it rattling through my bones.

I didn’t wait for his next move.

I dropped to a knee, unzipping the duffel in one smooth motion, fingers closing around the hilts inside.

“Lily!” I barked, tossing both her blades in her direction.

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