A bloody, barely breathing Amaya lay at Bane’s feet.

A Spaun crouched a few feet away.

Sunlight streamed through the roof of the tunnel, separating Bane from his target.

“UnHallowed,” it spat. The Spaun giggled, feeling safe on the other side of the light, even though the end of the tunnel was at its back.

Thunder rolled in the distance. The once bright, blue sky darkened and rain pelted the landscape above their heads with a heavy drumbeat. A beaming shit-eating grin stretched across Bane’s face in anticipation of bathing in Spaun blood. Amaya’s hand touched Bane’s ankle. He dare not break eye contact, but her touch quelled part of his rage, until she coughed, spewed blood, and grunted wetly, “Destroy it.”

Bane leaped over her, his twin blades appearing in his hands at his furious summon. The Spaun dashed for the opening. Bane slashed a four-inch gash in the demon’s abdomen. No organs spilled out because the demon didn’t have any, though something oily and viscous splashed on the tunnel floor and walls. A high-pitched screech came from the Spaun and he hauled ass out of the hole. Bane went to follow when Amaya’s groan halted him.

He ran to her and, as gently as possible, scooped her into his arms. “B-Bane.” She touched his cheek and he stared into her pain filled eyes.

“No,” he snarled when she went limp. “Hospital. I have to get you to a hospital.” The rain stopped as quickly as it started and sunlight peaked through the opening. Without hesitation, the shadows swarmed over them. He swept through the conduits and exited in a staircase of the nearest hospital.

“Help her!” he demanded of the first medical personnel he came across when he carried her into the emergency department. The medical staff froze instead of helping. Bane caught his reflection in a sliding glass door and understood why. Blood and greenish ooze covered him and Amaya. Also, his eyes were fully red and blazing with an unholy intensity.

He turned his gaze on the staff and planted an image of what he would do to each one of them, along with the compulsion to obey him. “Save her life, or forfeit your own.”

“Room three is open. We’ll take her in there.” A doctor led the way with a team of personnel following.

Bane placed her on the stretcher. He smoothed her matted hair away from her face, aware of his trembling hand. “You’re going to be fine. They’re going to fix you.”

“Sir, you’ve got to move out of the way,” a doctor said.

He nodded, but found he couldn’t obey until he said one more thing. “Don’t you die on me.” A nurse touched his elbow and he allowed himself to be led outside of the room. He didn’t go far, just to the hallway where he watched them cut her clothes away, revealing the gouges on her abdomen.

“Good God! What happened to her?” a different nurse whispered.

“She was attacked,” Bane supplied.

“By what? A velociraptor?” the same nurse whispered.

No. something worse.

“Save. Her,” was Bane’s reply.

They connected machines to her body as the doctor shouted for someone to get blood as he slipped on a pair of gloves and probed the gouges.

Bane tensed, torn between ripping the doctor away and letting him do his job. Never had he been more impotent and hollow. Scarla would’ve healed by now. Her UnHallowed half didn’t make her immortal, but it damn sure made her hard to kill. Amaya was the same, yet vastly different. He hadn’t pieced it all together, until now.

Amaya wasn’t just half angel. She was half archangel. The answer to the question posed by the UnHallowed was in her spilled blood. The scent of it was unmistakable, especially when that scent had recently filled Bane’s nostrils in Braile’s burial chamber. Braile, Chancellor of the Celestial Army, the archangel every warrior emulated in principles and deeds, had broken a cardinal rule and fathered a child. It was unimaginable that someone with his integrity would. Love between angels wasn’t uncommon, though unrequited. Duty was the code they lived by. Love between an angel and a human…it had happened to lesser angels. Comfort angels, watcher angels, who interacted daily with humans, where archangels didn’t. Interaction between archangels and humans were, at best, minimal.

Who was the woman that had captured Braile’s heart for him to give up Heaven? No human was worth that. Yet, Amaya was here, and Bane was grateful, regardless of how she came to be.

Her existence had to be the reason why Braile was killed, and Michael had to be the one who did it. Only that bastard was coldhearted enough to slay Braile. And that meant Gideon—the UnHallowed who had closed the Cruor—hadn’t killed the chancellor. But if this were true about Michael killing Braile, why was Amaya allowed to live? Why did he allow an abomination to continue to exist? He wouldn’t have. He would have slain her without reservation.

Another thought struck Bane. One so stunning it knocked him off his feet. He had to grip the sliding glass door to keep from landing on his face. What if neither Michael nor Gideon had killed Braile?

* * *

Taige lay on the grass, a few feet away from the opening that the UnHallowed had created. Bathed in sunlight, he waited for his body to knit back together. Today had started on a high and devolved into a clusterfuck, with him in pieces in a fucking field in the stronghold of an UnHallowed. Well at least he had an answer to his missing Darklings.

Also, he had his answer to why the female smelled like both Heaven and Hell. The UnHallowed was her protector. An odd coupling since she was a Halfling. Not just any Halfling. She was the offspring of an archangel, and exactly what he needed to reopen the Cruor—which, by the energy pulsing from the hole in the ground—was somewhere below in that tunnel. Close.

He couldn’t sense the UnHallowed anymore. Excellent. Once his strength returned he would find the portal and take it. Afterward, he would track down that bitch and—

The air shimmered, vibrating with a subtle hum, then turned silvery, and streaked with rainbow colors in a spherical pattern. A dimensional pocket was about to open. He hoped it was Aiden. Taige had informed him of his destination after leaving Malphas in Vegas. The two of them relocating the Cruor would be easier than himself alone, especially in his current state.

Stifling a groan, he shifted back to his human form. Shirtless, hand pressed to his abdomen, he forced himself into a seated position. Though not perfect, it was better than greeting his co-conspirator flat on his back. Weakness—of any kind—was to be exploited if found in another, and eradicated if found in oneself. Never coddled.

The vibration ceased yet the spatial distortion remained. Malphas stepped from the pocket. The blond highlights in his brown hair glinted in the sunlight as he surveyed his surroundings. It only took five seconds for his head to snap around and his gaze to latch onto Taige.

Taige didn’t run. The time for running had passed. He clutched his abdomen and gathered his strength.

Malphas halted, his attention diverted to the opening in the ground. “The Cruor. So, this is where it lays,” he murmured, and his gaze shifted back to Taige. His head canted to the side with false concern. “That looks painful. Whom should I kill or thank for placing you in this condition?”

No use lying. “UnHallowed.”

Malphas’s eyebrows shot up and he nodded. “You agile bastard. You got away from an UnHallowed. I am suitably impressed.” He angled his face to the sky and basked in the sun as if he didn’t get enough in Vegas. “So, how long have you planned this coup d’état?”

Beneath Taige’s hand, his wound slowly knit together. Pain lanced his guts. A few more minutes and he’d be healed enough to escape. He didn’t change his pained expression. “The day greed became your deity.”

With a gentle scoff, a wry grin twisted Malphas’s mouth. “Three centuries. Not too long. And how long has the portal been here? I haven’t sensed it in six months.”

“Because you didn’t care,” Taige snarled.

“Correct. I didn’t. The reason I didn’t—”

“Because you’re a self-serving greedy bastard.”

A blinding grin spread across his features. “Yes. I am. Is that why you did this? Hid this from me? Were you hoping this action would serve some misguided form of comeuppance?” He chuckled as if the idea was absurd.

Taige shook his head. “I did this because you do not deserve to be free while my true lord remains trapped in Hell. You promised to free the other Demoni and for three centuries you’ve fucked and lined your pockets! Why?”

“I lied.” Malphas gave a careless shrug. “I’m a demon. It’s what we do.” He moved closer to the opening. “Has it been here all this time? Buried here? Its signature blocked. How did you find it?”

No point not telling him when he knew almost everything. “When the Darklings stopped coming, I hunted for it. When that proved fruitless, I hunted for a being powerful enough to shield it. Only one being fit the bill.”

“An archangel,” Malphas filled in. “How did they place it in stasis? Whom did they sacrifice? Which one of the noble Council of Archangels allowed their celestial body to be drained?”

“What does it matter?

Malphas’s features morphed into something not quite human. “It matters to me.” He shifted back to normal in an instant when he regained controlled of his emotions. “You’ve forced my hand. I would’ve been content to never know the Cruor was here, or content to know it was here, and leave it. Let whomever guarding it keep that responsibility. You forced my hand.” The ground trembled from his anger. “For that I will show you no mercy.”

“I never expected you would.” Taige tensed.

“All of this planning and you have failed.” Malphas raked Taige with a scornful glance. “Relax. I will retrieve the Cruor, after I’ve dealt with you.”

With a burst of energy Taige couldn’t afford, he threw himself into the dimensional portal with Malphas’s laugh following him.

“Laugh while you can,” Taige murmured and touched the inner layer of the portal, gaining control. Energy swirled around him. Its properties healed his wounds. He had a final glimpse of Malphas, jumping into the tunnel, then Taige was gone, but not far. He licked his fingers, his grin darkly possessive. Malphas may have won this skirmish and claimed the Cruor, but the key to winning the war resided inside a Halfling. Whoever controlled the Halfling, controlled Heaven, and Hell.

And that would be him.