Page 77 of Wrath's Call

“Well, you did promise to stay outside and all.”

“I didn’t give you a vow.”

“Semantics,” Felix said flippantly, throwing his hands up in the air as the other two mutts entered behind their alpha, Sabina still clutching the old tomb to her chest. “Oh, look, it’s a party! Bit of a smelly party - never loved the smell of wet dog and all, but party nonetheless.”

You smell like a hellfox half the time.I raised my brow mockingly toward Felix.

Yes, but that smell mixes with brimstone. So, it’s fine.

I rolled my eyes as the alpha reached the small single cot. He bent over my Thief, and I growled a warning low in my chest.

“Relax,” Zane said, not moving his eyes from Ryn. “I just want to see with my own eyes that she’s okay.”

He turned to look back at Sabina, silent communication passing over their pack bonds. The woman approached, replacing her alpha. She looked my Thief up and down, lifting both eyelids to see the steady state of her irises that I was happy to see now glowed with a steady hue of silver rather than the murky muddle of shades they had been before.

“Is she okay Sabina?” Ness asked, wariness still clinging to her voice as she rang her hands.

“I don’t see any signs of the venom,” she replied, extracting herself from the crowded space around my Thief.

This started a conversation in the room about why she was still asleep and how soon she would awaken. Questions came my way about what had happened and what I had done to pull her out of her nightmares, but I ignored them.

“Quiet!” I snapped as Cotton Eye Joe began to play over Felix’s cell phone.

“Drew,” he said, waving away the others as he leaned into his phone. Felix’s face pinched in a concerned furrow. “Right, where is she now? Right, okay. Thanks.”

“What happened?” Ness asked, beating me to my question.

“It’s the other healer - Miss Arison. The Boralis have arrested her.”

“Penny? But why?” Ness pressed, incredulity coating her features.

“Apparently they brought in a heredemore after all to check the hair. Only wise thing that pretty boy Valerius has done so far. Too bad he seems so interested in our Ryn over there, I probably wouldn’t hate him so much…”

“Felix.” I snapped, clenching my teeth.

“Right right, yes. Well, the heredemore checked the hair and it turns out it belonged to Miss Arison. After all the stink the Boralis caused by accusing Ryn of murder, they had no choice but to arrest her immediately.”

“I don’t get it; a hair doesn’t prove that Penny murdered him. Only that they came in contact.” Ness mused.

“Well, you’re right there, but it's a bit more telling than you’d think. I myself found a handful of blond strands in his hand when we first discovered the body.”

“You first discovered the body?” Ness’s voice raised in question.

Felix waved his hand again, dismissing her. “Based on the way it was, she had to have been there when he died - or at least shortly before hand.”

I rubbed my hand through the short black beard covering my jaw.Stay here. I commanded Felix, pulling the shadows around me to sift back to the keep.

The young woman with matted ashen tresses lay huddled in a corner of a subterranean cell. She was hugging her knees to her chest, which was already covered in a series of mottled bruises that took the form of boot treads. Two fingers on her left hand were twisted at odd angles, while blood pooled from cuts above her blackening eyes. One eye was nearly swollen shut, but still tears leaked from within, pooling at the corner of her split lip. The clothes she had been wearing were nearly torn clean off, her breasts covered only by a haphazard collection of cloth she kept pressed between her knees and her chest. Her lower half was completely exposed. I inwardly cringed at the blood I saw pooling between her thighs, as my demon rose with the excess of wrath pooled deep within me. He hammered at the walls of his cage, stalking back and forth like a tiger ready to pounce. It took almost all my waning control to keep him contained, his ferocity nearly eternal as he licked at the wrath confining him.

It was a great misunderstanding humans had that demons lacked a conscience or morality. They had their own code, and while true, it may not meet standard human conventions they still felt. And what had been done to this girl had him ready to burn the building to the ground around our feet. He sent the same psychic messages to me that he had earlier: of the keep crumbling beneath our flames, every last one of the scouts and ambassadors turning to charred husks of flesh just to be sent to Asmodeus to toy with. Lucifer usually allowed Asmodeus and his kind the pleasure of crafting the afterlife for all those who committed nonconsensual acts on others.

I squatted at the bars of her prison, tapping at one to gain the girl's attention. She raised her bruised face, and above her right cheekbone I could see the outline of a signet ring. While the insignia couldn’t be seen in great detail, the faint outline of a three-pointed shield could be seen. The Boralis crest.

Both Asmodeus and Lucifer would truly enjoy Ambassador Kingston when he met his final ending there.

The girl tried to push further back into her dank and dark corner, pitiful whimpers escaping broken lips.

“Please,” her voice was hoarse from screaming. “I didn’t kill him.”

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