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Chapter Fifty-Two
ABADDON
“Don’t hurt him!” Hannah-consort yells, and I growl in fury as I pin the puny mortal man to the ground with my wings, my claws extended, arm raised.
I want to rip his pretty face apart as I did Thing’s.
But remembering what that moment cost me holds me in check. I lower my arm and look over my shoulder at my consort.
It feels like a lifetime since I have seen her.
I have never felt like more of an animal than this past week without her. It has been a long time since I lost my brother, and that was a different time. That is to say… I am unfamiliar with grief. Perhaps I did not understand many of the colors of emotions beyond red rage before meeting this soft creature who would show us a different way.
But this week, I have felt grief, and fear, and shame, and embarrassment, and an aching, aching sadness at missing her sweet presence.
So, I lower my arm and turn back to my consort. The first creature in this life to ever show me kindness, and a better way. If only now I can make her understand.
“I am not my father,” I say. “He did not love me, and so I believed in my center core I was not worthy of love.”
I lower myself to my knees before her. “Even if I have battered any possibility of you ever loving me, I think I am finally beginning to stop hating myself. Because of you. No one in my existence showed me kindness until the day you came to my cave. And then every time you gifted your body to me—”
“What?” the small mortal man shrieks from behind me, but I ignore the gnat, my focus only on my Hannah.
“Over and over you proved to me that you cared more about who I was than what I looked like. And it made me believe that change was possible. Even for a monster like me. So now it is I will who will get on my knees before you, Hannah-consort. You who have always been my equal.”
Then I shake my head. “No, not my equal, my better. I am here on my knees to beg you for the privilege of a life at your side to prove I can be the mate you deserve. Your strength gives me strength, and I bow before the person you are and always have been.”
And then, already on my knees, I bow low to the floor before her.
I await her response with bated breath.
Only realizing my miscalculation too late. My eyes fly wide open at the cock of a trigger. Then gunfire explodes in the small apartment.
Chapter Fifty-Three
ABADDON
“Get behind me, Hannah!” cries the weak little human male as his bullets strike my wings that I flare out to protect her. Fury lights through me. He may have been firing at me, but she is also this direction.
I spin toward him at the same time Hannah sprints past me. My mouth drops in astonishment. Is she actually choosing him? Or perhaps just fleeing the gunfire, an instinct I wholly approve of.
But then I see my consort attack the small human male. “Hannah!” he shrieks. “What are you— Stop it!”
The beast inside me roars to life as he puts his hands on her to push her away. I leap to my feet and scamper toward the man, claws again bared. But unlike the fool, with Hannah in the way, I do not launch an attack.
The fool, however, abandons Hannah and scrambles backward. I pounce. But again, right as my claws would tear through skin, Hannah screams, “Stop!”
My arm freezes. “Why?” I roar. “Do you love him?”
I look down at the beautiful man cowering below me, his whole human limbs as beautiful as most of the angels—
“No!” Hannah scoffs. “But what if I did? Have you changed, or haven’t you? Will you commit violence every time something in life doesn’t go your way?”
She moves so that she is in my line of sight, but I don’t move off the human male this time, and also keep my eye on the gun where it fell several feet away. With my wing, I fling it even further.
Hannah sees my pause and draws a breath before continuing. “I want to come with you.” Then she stands straighter. “But I refuse to be with someone whose temper scares me like yours does.”
Shame sweeps me head to foot again, and I shake my head. “You will not need to be afraid or scared with me. It was Thing who scried for me that I might come find you.”
Her eyebrows go up. “Thing can—”
“He is bad at it, but every so often, under certain circumstances, Death can call the runes. I begged him. We have had many long talks in your absence. I will change. I am changing. I have.” I turn and lift a hand to her cheek, putting a foot on the male to hold him in place. “Hannah-consort never needs to be afraid when she is with me.”
