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Bleeding, his terror fading to anger, Arsene scrambles to his feet. “Monster!”
The hollow doesn’t reply. Arsene’s hand comes away wet with more blood. He moans, disturbed beyond his mind’s ability to comprehend.
“You—fedon me.” He stares at his hand.
A faint snort comes from the ground.
The hollow gets to his feet. Arsene stares; the hollow has shrunk back to his previous stature. There’s new light in his eyes. As he rubs the back of his head, there’s an answering twinge on Arsene’s scalp. A strange echo. Slowly, it registers that only does the left side of his neck ache, where the bite is, but it burns all the way around. Like a collar. Like the hollow’s wound.
His heart sinks.
“What’s happening?”
Chapter 8
NUR
Color drainsfrom the angel’s face as he stares at Nur.
Nur is tempted to shrug him off. He feels good—better than he’s felt since before he was exiled. Flush with the shuddery warmth of a truly generous meal. He could fight, kill, say or do anything.
He remembers being furious, desperate to protect the angel’s precious soul from the enemy—the angel was soclumsy. One last burst of strength drove him to attack, and he ripped out the chimera’s throat in anger. But in the wake of feeding it’s hard to hold onto those emotions. Smug satisfaction takes over. He licks his lips as the angel stalks toward him.Ahh. Sweet, rich soul light.
“What did you do?” The angel demands. He gestures at his neck. “Why can I feel?—”
“The bite will heal quickly,” Nur informs him, unable to keep the smirk from his lips. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t scar much.”
“Not that.Yourwound.” The angel’s face darkens. “I feel your wound. Why?”
How does he know about that?Did the angel hold open his collar and peek inside? Why does the idea give him a shiver?
He shrugs. “You must be imagining things.”
The angel picks up a piece of twisted steel from the now-ruined cuffs. He grabs Nur’s wrist, then hesitates. Probably remembering that Nur overpowered him a moment ago—not a trick he’ll be able to repeat any time soon, but the angel doesn’t know that. His Hellform uses a sheer amount of precious energy he has no desire to expend, now that he’s been fed.
But Nur feels magnanimous, so he lets the angel take his hand.
The angel pulls his fingers back and drives the shard of metal into his palm. The pain bites quickly, and Nur yelps. He rips his arm out of the angel’s grip. The angel lets him go and turns the weapon on himself, driving it into his own palm. And Nur feels it.
He feels the angel’s pain.
“That,” the angel says. “What the fuck is that?”
Nur stares at the black ichor welling up in the divot of his skin.
“You’d better tell me your name,” he says. “It seems we’re bonded.
“Bonding isimpossibleoutside New Yden,”says the angel named Arsene, striding in front of the cold fire pit in a huff. “Only primus and vergis bond. Bonding is between angels. Betweenmates.”
He pauses for breath. His diction grows haughtier the more he talks, an ugly flush spilling across his sharp cheekbones. His ruffled collar twitches in the wind, exposing a gleaming gold chain at his neck. His boots shine with recent polish. His chest puffs up with disbelief.
He’s glorious.
Nur lolls against the boulder and considers what kind of horrific mockery of fate brought him here.
“Bonding can’t happen outside the Seraphim Council’s will. Maybe once upon a time it did, but not any more! Angels don’t—with other creatures—and are you even avergis?”
All this comes out in an explosion of breath, and he stops in his tracks and turns to Nur expectantly. Nur bites his tongue.
