Lucifer plummeted. Spinning down through the darkening sky the light he’d been shot with seized his muscles and bones. Torture rode his insides like the fire Gabriel was set alight with. But there was no time to wait until he hit the ground. She’d be dead by then.

Accepting the agony rather than fighting it, Lucifer’s teeth grated as he redirected the power to his hand. One click vanished him from the rushing air to deliver him lower. Another click. Lower. Another click. The ground rushed up, appearing every split moment as he spun in the air. His wings flung out, bones seizing, control failing.

This was going to hurt.

Lucifer collided with the Earth with a resounding Boom! that vibrated the field. Right before landing, he stabbed his feet down, taking the rising land with bent knees that buckled and popped. As the dust settled, he struggled to stand—and saw the horror he’d glimpsed from Above.

The men no longer pumped their torches and weapons in the air. Now floored by Lucifer’s ground-shaking landing, they all scampered back to their feet. Flames caught from their dropped torches, the dry grass succumbing to crackling orange fire that grew and snaked out. But Lucifer cared not for the danger the fire posed to any of these men or even Noah and his ark.

Because all he could see was her.

Surrounded by the men, Gabriel writhed against the tree she was tied to. The flames had eaten up her robe in the seconds he took to plummet to Earth, acting as a fiery cocoon. Skin ignited with oozing silver blood and bubbling flesh, and flames crackled higher as they reached her bound wings. With eyes pinned shut she screamed, yanking at the ropes over her chest while fire climbed her arms. Her head shook at the same time, fighting to evade the embers racing up her hair toward her tear-streaked face. So consumed by her will to get free and survive, she was blind to his sudden arrival.

But not for long.

The men yelled words he didn’t care to hear, words that failed to drown out Gabriel’s screams. A few ran for the village. The rest ran at him, brandishing their spears.

Lucifer let out a war cry and his wings flung out. And then he was running too. His splintered legs stabbed with pain to slow him down, but his sore wings lifted him from the burning field, flattening men as he plowed straight through them. In the quick sweep, he secured hold of a dagger from the bearded leader and didn’t stop. Arcing around the tree, he sliced the remaining ropes to release Gabriel.

She fell and he caught her, flattening her to the ground to strangle the flames with his body and wings. Her screams stopped on impact and the heat died off, embers snuffing out. Her raw flesh stuck to him, sticky and wet. But it was her softening sobs that struck his heart. And then Gabriel breathed in deeply—like she thought she never would again, like she could smell him—and her bright eyes blinked open from her blackened face. “Lucifer? You came—” She gasped in a rattled breath, horror stealing the shock from her face. “No. Oh no. Leave, before they get—”

Lucifer tensed, grunting as jabbing pain pierced his wings that sheltered their bodies. The humans were attacking, stabbing their long spears at them, trying to finish what they had started.

“If they fly we are all doomed!” The leader screamed in his authoritative voice. “Keep them down and sever their wings!”

Fury burned in Lucifer as if his veins had absorbed the flames he’d doused over Gabriel’s body. Despite how badly he wanted to stay and make sure every ember was out, how much he desired to hold her close and never leave her side, he had to act. He would not allow these men to get away with what they had done to her. They would not draw another breath when he was done with them. “No being will ever hurt you again. I vow it.”

Rising up fast, his unfurling wings threw off the closest men. His healing bones re-fractured with a shock of sharp stabs, but there was no time to repair. More of them closed in, cutting the fiery grass down with their running strides.

“Lucifer!” Gabriel reached for him, but he was already staggering away. Brandishing his stolen dagger, he was ready to make it bloody.

Despite his injuries, he was still fast—faster than any mortal.

The first men he bashed down with the dagger’s hilt, knocking them senseless as fire closed in around them. The next ones he sliced their arms, making them drop their spears as blood flowed like crimson rivers. None of them were dead, but soon they would be. Though this was not going to be a quick death for any of them. For all they had done, they deserved to suffer, slowly and steadily.

Finding the man who commanded this raggedy group, Lucifer smiled. He flattened the last few men that stood between them with near-fatal blows. Then he was right in front of the leader, his punishing grip curled around the man’s throat. He hoisted him up with ease, leaving his legs to dangle.

The mirroring of Michael’s assault was not lost on him, and being on the inflicting end made Lucifer’s smile broaden. “You attacked the wrong angel, you disgusting excuse for a human.” With his elbow bent, he lifted the dagger high and pointed the tip down at the man’s wide eyes.

Spit sprayed from the peasant’s mouth. He was trying to speak. But the hold Lucifer cranked tighter around his neck refused to allow a word to escape.

“And now you die.”

“Lucifer, no!”

Head craning at Gabriel’s sudden scream, Lucifer saw too late what he couldn’t stop.

One of the other men he’d knocked down was back on his feet. A long spear was clutched in his dirty hands—right behind Gabriel. She wasn’t aware he was there. Her total focus was set on Lucifer, her face distraught at the sight of him about to murder the same man who had set out to burn her alive.

Lucifer flung his intended kill and ran. The force of his wings propelled him forward while fractures threatened to become broken bones. “Gabriel, look—”

The spear punched through her back—straight through her heart and clean out the other side.