River

My heart lodged in my throat when Kobal leapt off the cliff and plummeted into the cavern. Resting my hand against the rock wall, I leaned forward to watch him crash onto Lucifer. Many of Kobal’s followers moved to block the tunnels as they fought the craetons who had remained in the cavern.

Pulling on the flow of life beneath my fingertips, I created another small ball of energy. I aimed it at a manticore diving toward Kobal and released it. The blast tore through the back of the creature. The screech it released made me wince as it spiraled downward. With a loud crack, it hit the ground and its body bounced across the floor. Bale leapt forward to sever its head with her sword.

“Nice blow, my queen,” Lopan complimented.

I started drawing from the rocks again as Lucifer battered at the air with his good wing. The bones of the other wing were already knitting back together and his blood didn’t flow as freely. He tried to propel himself away from the hounds jumping to nip at his heels.

My breath hissed in when Lucifer swung one of his lethal spikes at Kobal again. The gash in Kobal’s cheek had stopped bleeding, but now fresh blood spilled from the flayed open skin and muscle of his back.

“Son of a bitch!” I spat.

Turning my hand over, I released the energy on a blast that discharged in a straight line from my palm. Lucifer’s howl echoed throughout when the flow of life tore through his back. I glimpsed his spine before muscle and blood swiftly started to repair itself.

Lucifer’s head whipped around. His pitiless black eyes burned into mine as he bared his teeth. No matter what his plans were for me, if he’d been standing beside me right then, he would have torn off my head.

“Shit,” Hawk said from beside me.

“Get her!” Lucifer shouted. His flight faltered again when Kobal jerked on him, bringing him toward the ground once more.

“Not good,” Magnus stated.

“Time to go,” Corson said and snagged my arm.

“Kobal,” I breathed. I jerked against Corson’s incessant tugging, but he refused to release me.

“You promised him you would go, that you would think of yourself first,” Corson said. “Kobal will focus on the fight better if he knows you’re safe.”

Before I could respond, a manticore flew up to fill the mouth of the tunnel. Corson shoved me against the wall as the tail of the manticore swung in. It slammed into the floor where we’d been standing. Rocks splintered and broke; their shards pelted my legs. The manticore pulled its tail free, lifted it up, and plunged it down again. Lopan yelped and jumped out of the way in time to avoid being pierced by the poisonous stinger.

Setting his caultin down, Lopan dipped his hand in and pulled out a small sword. Gripping it with both hands, he lifted it above his head and swung the sword across the manticore’s tail, severing it. The sliced off end flopped on the ground for a few seconds before going still. Green blood gushed out the other end, spraying the walls as the remaining stump of the manticore’s tail lashed back and forth. I dodged a wave of blood as the manticore trumpeted a sound that had me slapping my hands over my ears. It reeled away from the entrance.

“Get her out of here, Corson!” Lopan shouted as he kicked the stinger out of the tunnel.

“We’ll fend them off,” Hawk said and punched the face of the next manticore who rose to float in front of the opening.

I almost tripped over my feet when Corson started propelling me away from the others. Behind me, something crashed against the rocks with enough force to shake the tunnel. As pebbles rained down on us, I blinked against the dust filling the air and wiped it away from my eyes. Corson threw his arm up, trying in vain to protect us when another crash brought down more debris.

“Don’t look back,” Corson ordered when I twisted to try to see the others.

I turned back to him just as the tunnel and Corson faded away to reveal a woman coming toward me. Her black hair fell to her waist in thick waves. Her stalking steps emphasized the sway of her hips in the low-slung black skirt she wore. The hem of the skirt dusted the floor, but the slits on both sides went to her waist to expose her thighs. Her black, bra-like top pushed her full breasts upward and was cut low enough to reveal the tops of her areolas.

When she lifted her head, her black eyes locked onto mine and a smile curved her full mouth. Behind her, dainty black wings unfurled, and she ruffled them. Unlike the other fallen angels I’d seen, she didn’t have foot-long silver spikes sticking out of the tops and bottoms of her wings. Instead, she had shorter, golden spikes. The ones on top stood straight up, but the bottom ones curved to form lethal hooks.

She hovered above the ground for a second before flying at me with deadly speed. Corson had vanished when the vision first started, but he suddenly reappeared before me. Fire light reflected off the steel blade of the angel’s sword when it swung out of the shadows; it whistled as it sliced toward Corson. I opened my mouth to shout a warning, but it was already too late.

Corson’s warm blood sprayed over my face and clothing. The coppery scent of it flooded my nostrils as his head hit the ground with a dull thud. It rolled over until his sightless eyes stared accusingly up at me. His mouth remained parted in surprise as I gawked at his head.

How had I not seen this sooner? He seemed to be asking, and that was the same question screaming through my mind. Tears burned my eyes as a strangled cry of horror and grief lodged in my throat.

I didn’t have time to react before the angel’s hand snaked out of the shadows. She grabbed my shirt and yanked me off my feet. Our noses nearly touched as I gazed into her soulless, black eyes. “Hello, niece,” she purred.

The drops of Corson’s blood dripping from her sword sounded as loud as gunshots when they hit the ground. She twisted her hand in my shirt and wiped her blade on my pants while she grinned at me.

***

Kobal

My skin thrummed from the energy River had shot into Lucifer. The flow of her power had spread from him and into me, zapping me hard enough that my grip on him loosened. She’d been able to take out bartas with a stream of energy before, but for it to travel through Lucifer and into me was something neither of us realized she could do.

I fumbled to maintain my hold on Lucifer as he jerked awkwardly in the air to stay afloat. Tremors racked his body from the lingering effects of River’s blast. Finally, gripping him firmly again, I released my legs from his waist and swung them down. One of the hounds leapt up and snagged my boot, dragging me toward them.

Lucifer grunted as his blood dripped onto my face and spilled downward. I glanced at where I’d left River to find three manticores attached to the wall outside the tunnel. Two had their tails swinging in, while the third was perched to peer inside. My heart thudded with worry for her, but the best way to keep River safe was to make sure Lucifer died. I yanked on his foot, pulling him down until I could wrap my hand around his calf and sink my claws into his flesh.

I never saw the angel swooping toward me until a sword pierced through my ribcage and straight out the other side.

Blood spewed from my lips as every breath I took caused agony to lance through my battered lungs. The angel holding the sword turned it within me, slicing through my heart until blood pumping freely though my chest cavity. Releasing one of my hands from Lucifer’s leg, I clutched the sword before the angel could twist it again.

Turning my head, I met the eyes of the angel hovering beside me. The hounds howled as the one holding my foot pulled more insistently on me. When Lucifer jerked in my grasp, I realized that another angel had grabbed his arms and was trying to tear him free.

Flames burst from my palm to set his pants on fire and sear the flesh from his leg. He kicked at me with his free foot, catching me in the jaw and rattling my teeth. The angel with the sword tried to pull it free as the fire spread up Lucifer’s front and raced toward his face. His wings may be fire proof, but his flesh was not. His wings swung forward to try to beat the flames out before it engulfed him. The breeze they created only fueled the blaze.

The flap of wings sounded behind me, and I turned my head in time to see a sword swinging at my neck. Releasing my hold on the sword impaling me, I caught the other one before it could sever my head from my shoulders. The blade bit through my hand, slicing all the way to the bone.

The angel released the sword in my hand and flew up to capture Lucifer’s wrists as fire engulfed his head. The burnt smell of his hair filled the air as the skin on his face sloughed off in chunks.

I labored to breathe as the angel who still had the sword within me, twisted it again. When the angel started sawing the sword up through my body, my claws were torn free of Lucifer’s leg.

Before I plummeted to the ground, I managed to seize the angel with the sword by the wrist and drag him down with me. The second we hit the ground, the hounds pounced on him. His screams reverberated in the cavern as they tore him limb from limb.

Rolling to the side, I staggered to my feet and gritted my teeth as I wrapped my blood-coated hands around the handle of the sword. The blade scoured my ribs as I worked it free of my body and tossed it aside. With the blade free, blood ran down my sides to pool around my feet.

One of the hounds whimpered and rubbed its head against my waist as the angels drew Lucifer upward. The manticores parted so the angels could set Lucifer on the edge of the tunnel where I’d left River and the others.

“River!” my shout came out raw and broken as fresh blood burst from my mouth.