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Wrath felt his chest expand with pride. “That’s my brothers. And my fighters.”
“They’re devoted to her.”
He thought back to the very beginning, when he’d had Beth at Darius’s mansion in town, and he’d walked in to find the Brotherhood down on one knee around her, their black daggers buried in the floorboards, their heads lowered in devotion. Even Zsadist’s.
“She’s worth being devoted to,” he said.
And when he thought about all the pain she’d endured over the last three decades? He wanted to feel Lash’s blood flow, warm and thick, over his bare hands.
“Now tell me about the war,” he growled.
“We’ve been holding the line.”
“Bullshit. I’m hearing about the inductions. They found a site earlier tonight—and it’s been used a lot.”
“Lash is efficient.” The angel’s bitterness was clear. “I’ll give the bastard that.”
“What about the demon? No one’s talking about Devina.”
“I haven’t seen her around for years. Something happened between them, I don’t know what.”
“So one thing broke our way. We don’t need the pair of them working together.”
“Aw, come on, I thought they were justdarling.”
“Bonnie and Clyde, the undead version.”
“And I was never on their Christmas card list. Such a disappointment.”
Wrath stopped. “How many have we lost. Civilians, that is. I already know all the brothers and fighters made it.”
Lassiter kept going, but his wander was in a slow circle, like he was tethered to the patch of ground Wrath stood on. He couldn’t totally picture the angel. He’d had Beth describe the male as he currently was, so there was a cobbled-together vision of something tall, covered in gold chains and piercings, with blond hair on the top half of his head and black on the bottom. Edit in some hot pink and zebra print, and maybe a halo? A set of iridescent wings?
It was like if David Lee Roth got canonized.
Eventually, the angel reported with sadness, “We’ve lost too many—and I’m not saying that because even one death at the hands of those slayers is too much. It’s been hundreds. The brothers and the fighters do their very best, and they’ve eradicated a lot oflessers. But Lash is faster than his father with the inductions, and he’s using women now.”
Wrath had a sudden, nearly overpowering urge to go downtown and fight, and the drive brought back the past. In a series of flashbacks from his time in the field, he saw his throwing stars shimmering through the darkness, finding targets, cutting down the enemy so that he could get out his daggers and send them back to their unholy maker, the Omega.
Flexing his hands, he could still feel the metal, cold at first, when he took them out of their slide on his waist, warmer after he’d held them.
Abruptly, he thought about last night and the hours he’d spent in the new Audience House, meeting with his subjects, as if nothing had interrupted him.
“I saw a lot of males and females of worth, yesterday,” he said. “I proclaimed two young, blessed a mating. Released a property.”
“I know you did. Felt good, right?”
Well, except for at the end when he and the Brotherhood haddecided to give Nate the fucking boot. And of course everything would have felt fucking great if he could just get out and fight.
He frowned. “I owe yourshellana lot, for filling in for me in my absence. She did an amazing thing for the species.”
“She’s an amazing female. That’s why I mated her—plus she puts up with me.”
“So we know she’s a saint.” Wrath shook his head. “Can you explain something to me?”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
“Why can I feel the time up here so clearly? The decades that have passed?”
