Page 68 of The Surrender

Quinny’s head lifts higher, neck arching. While I have the keen vision to rival a thousand owls, those spectral gray orbs seem to pierce the veil of the storm to deadpan with me. Her head thrashes violently from side to side in desperate refusal. Her lithe little hands rise to touch her mouth. And even with the rain howling around her to soak her dress to the skin and her hair to fracture her face, I detect the tears escaping her eyes and sliding down her cheeks.

The moment my partner’s arms sweep around her from behind, I meet his eyes and nod, knowing he can see me from this distance. Drago and Mayce arrive from across the bridge.

The chain of command yanks the collar on my throat.

Seething, I turn to Nuriel.

A true demon of the dark, he surrendered his soul for the cause of revenge.

We never surrendered ours.

I smirk at the irony. Amusement feathers through me when I remember the day Kronos discovered he could hold our souls but not devour them. He could shed our blood but not destroy us. He could break our bones, and they simply grew stronger. He could not thwart the protection of the greatest gods of the world binding us, as well as our elements and powers and souls.

The worst he could do was curse us, darken those souls, and exile us to a realm of his own making while our souls grew blacker and blacker.

Until one little light squeezed her way through the Veil of Souls and showed her spark in the Court of Ash. One little light who grew in darkness and desired the fire of a dragon, the breath of a fallen angel, the blood of a vampire, and the grounding earth of a fae.

I will go to hell forever craving the spirit light of our gray angel.

When she moves, all the monsters stop in their tracks.

“On your knees,” he cements again, his voice cutting into me like a sword. “Present your wings to me.”

For the first time in centuries, I lower myself to the ground, spread my wings, and bend the knee. Quinny’s eyes rocket wide open, their silvery energy threading deep into my heart to grant me warmth and strength to endure this.

Not alone.

Shadow rises. Muscles expanding, body growing large, wings shifting from iridescent to a blinding black. The fullest power of my demon claims the battle.

We hate our demons with all that we are, he speaks the words I once gave to Merikh. They do not thunder into the depths of my heart. They do not roar into my soul. They echo softly because we have arrived within the eye of the storm.

And curse them with our souls.

But in the end, they are the only ones who accept us and our scars.

The edge of a blade reflects within the raindrops as Nuriel swings.

And brings it down.

I feel no pain and hear no words beyond Quintessa’s scream piercing the air.

45

“You, alone, can break it and bring Kyanatu back to life.”

QUINTESSA

After Nuriel severs Kyan’s wings from their roots, all it takes is one kick for him to send Kyan over the cliff’s edge.

I open my mouth. But my second scream is silent.

I hug my arms to my belly. Disbelief carves clear through my soul as he falls hundreds of feet in seconds. My heart seizes with a desperate need to do something, anything.

Kyan showed me what it meant to fly. Now, it’s cost him his wings.

All my nerves short-circuit. The position of his body is unfathomable—how he spreads his arms and arches his back while blood streams from his wing stumps. At peace. In full surrender. All my limbs tremble from twisting dread as the ground rises to meet him. Mere feet from where the four of us stand, the sharp rocks will crush him. Every last bone.

Five seconds.

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