AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was being sentenced to death for the simple crime of being born.
8
LAST BREATH
Sariel
Ihadn’t been grateful for Azazel Ambrose’s existence since I was thirteen years old, when he’d gotten my brothers and I tickets to Disney World. After that, it had mellowed out to a very, “Woah, thank God my dad’s rich and powerful and I can get whatever I want” sort of thing. A thing I wasn’t exactly proud of, but one that I exploited regularly as the first-born, if illegitimate, child.
As I watched Aria—because I really couldn’t take my eyes off her—I realized how much I had suppressed the bad effects left on me from being separated from her. I witnessed the moment the reality that those fuckheads on the Council were all spineless pieces of shit settled into her, and when it dawned on her just how depraved our leaders were, that they would kill her for being born for the sake of keeping their power.
I wanted to rip through my handcuffs and tear them limb from limb for doing this to my mate and putting that distraught, broken look on her face. I wasn’t sure where my angel’s rage ended and mine began, so I simply assumed that the inferno building within me was a mix of both. It had to be, because if this was all me, I wasn’t sure how much longer I would hold out watching her struggle not to fall apart.
I wasn’t sure why she wasn’t communicating with me, but the bond remained sealed shut on her end, and I had to fight my angel’s incessant need to know she was okay. He needed to be reassured that she wasn’t mad that we’d left her in a cell with a demon-possessed angel, let them dress her like a sacrificial lamb, then put her on display. She wasn’t going to let me in right now, and I had to respect that, the same way she’d respected me closing it while I was being tortured.
The executioner began to climb the stairs to her platform. Terror crawled into my stomach and up my throat like bile. My brain was sizzling and my muscles were tensing.
I couldn’t act, not yet. I hadn’t gotten the signal; not that I knew what it was going to be, I’d just been informed that I would know when to act.
Just then, our saving grace came in the form of Azazel’s voice. “And as for my son?”
Though the title rubbed me the wrong way, I would be his goddamn little princess if it meant he could buy us a few extra minutes. Like I said before, I hadn’t been grateful for his existence in a long, long time, but in that moment, I could have wept at his feet like he was my Lord and Saviour.
The executioner stood next to Aria now, his claymore strapped diagonally across his back. A half-wall had risen out of the platform, which Aria now knelt before. I shook with untamped rage at the blank expression on her face.
“He’s to be executed as well, Azazel,” the High Priestess said dismissively. “We discussed this. You knew what we were going to do before you came out here.”
Azazel adopted an almost devastated expression. “You think I want to see my son die like this? I didn’t agree to that,” he rushed out. “I thought only the girl would be executed in public—”
“Isn’t your son like the girl though?” the vampire Elder interrupted. I had to swallow my gratitude to the universe before it choked me. Whoever was looking out for us was busy. “Should he not face the same public shame?”
For a brief moment, I saw the unmasked version of him, all that simmering hatred in his expression as he looked at Elder Nikolai. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by his crumpled-up features. For one insane second, I thought he might manage to pull tears out of his ass, but his sniffle was so clearly forced that I inwardly cringed.
“But he’s my son,” he said pathetically. I would have clapped at the authenticity in that one line. Nice acting skills. “Does that not afford him some semblance of respect? After all the sacrifices I’ve made for the Council?”
Elder Nikolai smiled. “He is your son, and he has somehow survived for two-and-a-half decades without his half-blood origin being known to us. And yet, you, his father, still sit on the Council.”
Azazel’s expression froze. “I didn’t know,” he sputtered. “I’d never noticed any abnormalities until recently. I am loyal to the Council, you know. I’ve put my blood sweat and tears into making this world a better, safer place for supernaturals to live in! You think I wouldn’t report my own son?”
“How does Lucy feel about that?” Elias Olskin interjected. The cool detachment in his voice made the hairs on my arms stand on end. “Where is she? Her son is being executed, yet she’s not here to plead her case with the Council? I haven’t seen her for a while, now that I think about it.”
I sucked in a harsh breath, meeting Aria’s own wide eyes.
“She’s not here because she can’t bear to witness it,” Azazel snapped.
Elias’s expression clouded, but it was Elder Nikolai who pinned Azazel with his steely gaze.
“And all those times you boasted about teaching your boys to fly, did his wing color not garner your attention? Or did they change color only very recently?”
I couldn’t find it in me to laugh under these current circumstances, but if this was any other day, I would have cackled at the hideous shade of red creeping into Azazel’s features. I wasn’t sure how he was keeping himself in check, but when he muttered something about a witch and something else about my birth mother paying a witch to put a spell on me to make it look like I was a regular fallen offspring, I let out a chuckle.
His colleagues' expressions said enough. They knew he was talking out of his ass and were embarrassed for him.
“Youwill be dealt with afterwards,” the High Priestess announced. I’d completely forgotten that there were thousands of people watching as the Council bickered amongst themselves—maybe even hundreds of thousands or millions, since this thing was probably being livestreamed. Satisfaction filled me. They'd exposed a little of their inner workings to the world—shown their asses, so to speak—and now there were many witnesses to the fact that they were not as united as they liked to advertise. “The boy dies right here with the girl, Azazel. End of discussion.”
Incredible.
I might have high-fived the woman if I wasn’t the boy in that sentence, and the verb used hadn’t been “die.” I hadn’t heard anyone speak to him like that since Credence had told him where to put his accusations of me.
