Page 44 of Her Sinful Saints (The Seven Sinners of Hell's Kingdom 4)

I grab onto Zade’s blond mane and hold on for dear life as he bucks like a damn bull. It reminds me of the one time that I tried to ride a mechanical bull at a bar and ended up getting thrown off in a matter of seconds. I am not cut out for this shit. If I didn’t have Zade’s mane to hold and a strong will to stay attached to him, I’m sure I’d be on my ass right now.

“Surrender Raven. We don’t want to hurt her. Please, Zade. I will take her myself, and I will protect her. Just stop fighting.” Cassius stays just out of reach, but the two other angels don’t stop attacking.

“Never. Raven is mine. She belongs to Hell. So do you. Stop resisting, Cass. It’s pointless.” Zade snaps his huge teeth and manages to bite the tip of Mikail’s sword and flings it away, leaving him with only his heavenly light. But it doesn’t hurt Zade like it does the other devils. I think he’s still too new.

“Raven, you have to talk some sense into him. He will send them to Hell. Please remember what I said about the war. Just trust me. I know that we have some darkness between us. I know that I have done nothing to earn your trust, but I’ve touched your soul now. I want what you want. I want to ensure that those precious gifts you carry survive and flourish. I will do anything to see to it. Right now, you are standing in the middle of a war. Let me get you away from all of that. Please.” Cassius extends his hand to me, his amethyst eyes shining in the light. He sounds so earnest with his intentions that I believe him, but still, I don’t want to go. I am not going to let anyone push me around or make decisions for me. The angelic army has been warned. They need to learn the consequences of trying to stop us. We can’t be stopped. I will take a throne in Hell. I will nurture these tiny new beings with both light and dark and show the world how it should be. I’ll teach them how important humanity is.

I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t. Zade will defend me. He is mine as much as he now belongs to Hell.”

“Raven—” Cassius doesn’t have a chance to finish his plea, because the ground between us opens up and fire licks the pavement before exploding toward the sky.

Zade spins and ducks his body again, using his big hooves to kick Mikail. The angel flails and flaps his wings, but he can’t do anything as he crashes and rolls toward the Hell portal.

“Mikail!” Meri screams. She flies down and grabs hold of Mikail by his wings.

Cassius swears, flying at the two of them. He tackles the two angels and gets them out of the way before Zade can kick them into the fiery pits.

I expect for Zade to try again. I expect him to launch into the air in his devil form and grab onto the angels to take them to Hell, but he doesn’t. He stops.

Actually, the whole world stops. Dark haze ripples through the air, morphing the Mortal Realm into the spiritual plane I had found myself in before. This time, it’s not Cassius who stands in the darkness with me. It’s Zade. He’s no longer in his devil form.

Light sparkles from my hands and swirls through the air, wrapping around him, drawing him closer. He gasps, his beautiful blue eyes glittering in my light. It’s so strange. I know that he jumped from grace, but in this moment, he still feels like an angel. The light dances over his skin, healing the wounds caused from the battle. He drinks me in, his mouth open with his surprise.

“Raven, I don’t understand. How are you doing this?” Zade asks, reaching up to caress a finger along my cheek.

“What am I doing?” I tilt my head, pressing my cheek harder to his fingers to feel his touch as it teases my soul.

“You’re manipulating my very being. You shouldn’t be able to. Only angels and devils can access this world. And none of them can mess with each other’s beings.” Zade licks his lips, his eyes looking back and forth as he stares at me, trying to find the answers that I can’t give him.

“It’s hard to explain, but something set my body off. I think it’s the babies. I don’t know why they’re so reactive suddenly, but it’s like they figured out how to use me to do things like protecting myself and them. I think finding Elias and also touching Heaven again with you triggered the power of my baby created from the purest light in the universe. And with that light, I think the darkness of my devil baby rose to help balance it. But that’s just a guess. I have no fucking clue. And I’m scared. I just want to go back home and see the other devils. We need to figure it out.” My voice turns soft with my words. I wish I had better answers than this.

“You have to release us. If you do so, I will take you there.” Zade continues to caress my cheek working his way to my neck and down my shoulder.

“But the angelic army,” I say, shifting on my feet. “If we go back...” I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to see those bastard angels at all. I don’t want to see Cassius either. He’s left me feeling so conflicted and rejected and completely out of my mind. I don’t even know how to handle him or if I even should try.

“Let me try.” Zade inhales a deep breath and closes his eyes. Placing both of his hands on my temples, he leans in and caresses his lips to mine.

I expect the world to shift. Expect the light to bloom from the two of us. What I don’t expect is for the light glowing around us to vanish.

A wave of ice and heat, pain and relief, and new, unusual emotions pours over me with strange shadows.

“Oh no. Raven.” Zade’s words hum, the sound muffled to my ears.

There’s nothing I can do as he disappears.

I vanish next.

Chapter 16

RAVEN

Balance

“YOU HAVE TO make sure that stays on her at all times. If it comes off, she won’t be grounded to the mortal plane.” Lucian’s voice trickles to my ears, pulling me from a weird state of calm.

I remember being scared as hell as Zade disappeared, and I found myself in a world of nothingness, but that’s it. I don’t know how long I was on another plane by myself, but it’s long enough for me to lose my shit.

After basically crying myself into oblivion, my being kind of just shut off. Until now.

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