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You will not touch him.
A blinding light pierced the darkness, illuminating the entire room. It laid bare the carnage and the loss. Julian tightened his arms around Jaden as she struggled to sit up in his embrace, to stay conscious.
The center of the far wall liquefied, the gray swirling into diamonds as the light continued to evolve into a hole. Out of it stepped a man. He was small, round, and less than ordinary.
“Bill.” Julian spoke quietly.
The little bastard elf was right on time.
“Who the hell are you?” Ethan glowered and moved forward. Bill held out his hand, and the wolf froze.
“Seraphiel,” Azaiel whispered, and struggled to gain his feet. His abused, bloodied body was weak, but he pressed on.
“Surely you knew we’d find you one day?” Bill said, a jovial smile gracing his features. “It took two half-broken men to get it done, and I’m not certain anyone really believed they could do it, but I’m very pleased.”
He winked at them all as if he were sharing a secret. “Once Azaiel was liberated from the hell realm, we lost touch. We are limited in our abilities to track each other, the original seven.”
“We?” Jaxon asked, though his eyes never strayed from Libby. She was bent over Ana, her face wet with tears.
“The Seraphim.”
“Angels,” Skye whispered as she moved closer to Jagger.
Bill smiled and walked around the hellhounds, who lay in grotesque shapes upon the floor. He was careful where he placed his feet, and Julian held tightly to the woman in his arms as he approached.
“Stay back,” Jaxon warned.
Guess my time is up. Julian glanced back at his brothers and shook his head, telling them it was all right.
And yet it wasn’t. He didn’t want to leave her.
Bill bent over. “She’s beautiful, your lady.”
Julian nodded but didn’t speak. What the hell was there to say?
Bill righted himself, his hand scratching his head as if he were slightly confused. “Too bad she’ll be left incomplete for the remainder of her days.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Nico had shifted back to his human form and clutched his midsection, several large bruises already forming to join the older scars.
“Well, Nikolai, it means that Mr. Castille and Mr. O’Hara made a deal with me. We needed to get our hands on the portal, but with no way of tracking Azaiel, we had to outsource.”
Bill paused and looked back to Declan, but the sorcerer’s eyes were held by Ana’s still form. “They had the motivation we needed. A man cannot live with only half of his soul. Without light to give him salvation, he will fall into the abyss. It’s only a question of time. In exchange for handing Azaiel back to us, we agreed to return the missing bits and pieces of their souls that were left behind, and, well, they’ll have to serve our organization for the next little while.”
Julian snorted. Next little while? A thousand fucking years?
Jaden’s eyes flew open, and he couldn’t bear the look that lay there.
“You were never coming back?”
“No.”
“Oh,” she whispered, then took a deep breath. “It wouldn’t have worked anyway. I was never a white-picket-fence kinda girl. Besides, Castilles and DaCostas don’t mix.” She sounded flip, but he knew her pain.
Her bottom lip trembled, and, in that moment, he knew that if he could he’d change everything, he’d live with only half a soul. It hit him then.
Jaden DaCosta was his light. She was his salvation.
“You have to know you are everything to me. Your strength and courage, your passion . . . I’ll never forget one second of the time we’ve spent together.” Her dark eyes glistened, and his heart cracked as a single tear fell from the corner. “I love you, Jaden. I always will no matter where I end up.”
