Kobal

I remained where I was as River’s eyes widened on Lucifer. I couldn’t hear what he said to her, but whatever it was caused her blue lips to tremble. The small veins beneath the surface of her flesh were visible as her teeth chattered. Pain radiated from her, yet fire had burned in her eyes when she told me to kill her.

She was my Chosen. Mine to love and protect, and she was asking to die because I had failed to keep her safe.

Lucifer’s mouth twisted into a cruel smile as he kissed her cheek. I lunged forward. I couldn’t kill her; I knew that as well as I knew that the Fires of Creation had forged me. However, I would not let him continue to torment her.

I’d already sent a message to Morax, alerting him to where we were and telling him to bring the rest of our troops here. Through our bond, the hounds would feel the bloodlust within me, would feel the battle, and they would come. If I kept Lucifer distracted, I could get River away from him when the others arrived.

Angels burst into motion as they came at me. Behind me, a battle cry erupted and the clash of steel rang against steel as the two sides attacked each other once more. Before I could reach River and Lucifer, Caim turned and planted himself in front of me. His wings unfurled and he swung one at me. The lethal tip sliced across my cheek, spilling blood.

So much for switching sides. For his lies, I’d make him pay almost as much as Lucifer when this was done. Lowering my shoulder, I crashed into his chest. His wings curled around me as his arms embraced me.

“Go for him. I will get her,” Caim’s words barely pierced through my bloodlust as I dug my claws into his back.

When they did register, they distracted me enough that Caim swung an uppercut into my jaw. The blow staggered me back and knocked my hold on him loose. Caim swept a wing at me, shoving me further away from him.

“Do not kill him!” Lucifer shouted. “I will tame the hound!”

Caim folded his wings behind his back; his chin rose as he held my gaze. The angels smirked as they closed in on us, and some of them took flight to orbit overhead. Phenex and Crux circled my legs, snarling as they kept the angels away, but they wouldn’t hold the winged pricks off for long.

Outside the ring of angels, the clash of steel against steel, the cries of the dying, and the snarls of the hounds resonated from the two, battling factions.

“More are coming, my lord!” an angel called from above, and I realized Morax and the others had arrived.

Rushing forward, I shoved angels out of my way as they tried to block me from River. I didn’t have the time to engage them in a fight—something Phenex and Crux understood as they leapt forward to drive more angels back, but they didn’t go in for the kill.

A wing hit me in the back, nearly knocking me to the floor as River tried to rip herself free. Lucifer placed his hand on her chest and pushed her more forcefully against the seal. Her scream resonated within me until her suffering became my own.

Nothing should have been able to pierce the seal, yet the spikes Lucifer had driven into her hands were buried in it.

Her blood is affecting the seal, I realized as it dripped down her arm. Against the unnatural paleness of her skin, the vibrant red stood out starkly.

“Leave us!” Lucifer barked.

The wraiths stopped circling and rushed upward as one powerful unit. They vanished through the ceiling a hundred feet overhead.

I tore the arm off an angel as I thrust her out of my way and used the bloody stump to bash in the head of another. The spikes on their wings sliced at me, flaying open my back and slicing across my chest, but I barely felt it as I remained focused on one thing: getting to River.

As more blood seeped from her, the ground beneath my feet vibrated before lurching violently and knocking me back a step. Around me, the angels scrambled away from the seal. Their frantic movements opened a pathway between me and River just as a crack spread through the seal behind River.

The crack lanced from her hand down by her knee all the way to the one above her head. One of the jagged lines raced toward the ceiling while the other ran from her palm to the ground. Orange light seeped through the edges of the fissure when it spread behind her.

River screamed as her back arched off the seal. Power crackled over my skin, my markings all shifting to point toward her. The orange light faded to the golden-white color River had emitted before traveling so close to Hell.

The vast power of my ancestors had forged these seals. The symbols etched into the surface of the wall were a power all their own. River had reacted strongly to the seals before, drawing on their energy to help me keep a seal up. When the wraiths were here, they’d kept her from latching onto the power of the seals. It had bottled up inside her, and once the wraiths fled, her ability had unleashed to feed on the seals.

More than that, Lucifer had made her a part of the seal by using her blood to crack it. Her blood seeped deeper into the seal at the same time the power of the seals spread throughout her. Lucifer’s hand wrapped around her throat, flooding her with his life force. He bowed his head against the increasing intensity of the light emanating from her.

I blinked as my retinas were seared by the aura burning brighter around her. River’s scream grew until the sounds of the battle were drowned out, or perhaps they had all ceased fighting to watch.

An eon seemed to pass as it all unfolded in slow motion, but only seconds elapsed. I ran toward her, my way clear now that the angels continued to stagger away from her.

Lucifer spun toward me, swinging out with a wing. Seizing the wing, I propelled him back and pinned him against the seal, but he didn’t release her. River’s eyes were the deepest shade of purple I’d ever seen when they met mine. Pain filled their brilliant depths to the point where I didn’t know if she saw me before her. I reached to pull her free of the seal.

“No! Don’t touch her!” someone shouted as my hand fell on her arm.

The second I touched River, her back bowed further out and a volatile rush of blinding white light exploded from her. It tore through my chest as it lifted me off my feet and flung me backward.

***

River

I’d never felt anything like the power coursing through me. It crackled over my skin and sounded like a million bees swarming me as it hummed in my ears. It saturated my cells and thawed parts of me that had been frozen solid only seconds before. I was pinned to the seal like some sort of sacrifice, but I didn’t feel like a sacrifice when every part of me was alive in a way it never had been before.

At first, I welcomed the warmth, but it swiftly became too much. I struggled to see anything past the golden-white glow as I became certain my heart would tear out of my chest. I tried to shut it down, tried to withdraw from the source of all the power, but I was pinned to that source, and it was consuming me.

Screams resonated in my head. I didn’t know if I released those screams or not. I didn’t know anything beyond needing it to stop before it destroyed me. I thrashed against the spikes, but whatever they were made of had melted and forged into the seal, making it impossible for me to break free.

Lucifer was knocked aside, but his hand continued to grip my throat. Kobal’s face swam before me, and then my body was flooded with more energy. Pushed beyond what I was capable of handling, power exploded from me and nothing existed anymore.