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“Your position among the wolves,” Micah said with terrifying calm, “does not entitle you to tell a Governor of the Republic what to do.”
Sabine didn’t back down. Not an inch.
Micah just loosed a long breath. He met Hunt’s eyes, disappointed. “You acted foolishly. I’d have thought you, at least, would know better.”
Bryce was shaking. But Hunt didn’t dare touch her.
“History indicates that a slave assaulting a free citizen should automatically forfeit their life.”
Hunt suppressed a bitter laugh at her words. Wasn’t that what he’d been doing for the Archangels for centuries now?
“Please,” Bryce whispered.
And perhaps it was sympathy that softened the Archangel’s face as Micah said, “Those are old traditions. For Pangera, not Valbara.” Sabine opened her mouth, objecting, but Micah lifted a hand. “Hunt Athalar will be punished. And he shall die—in the way that angels die.”
Bryce lurched a limping step toward Micah. Hunt grabbed her by the shoulder, halting her.
Micah said, “The Living Death.”
Hunt’s blood chilled. But he bowed his head. He had been ready to face the consequences since he’d shot into the skies yesterday, pastry box in his hands.
Bryce looked at Isaiah, whose face was grim, for an explanation. The commander said to her, to the confused Amelie, “The Living Death is when an angel’s wings are cut off.”
Bryce shook her head. “No, please—”
But Hunt met Micah’s rock-solid stare, read the fairness in it. He lowered himself to his knees and removed his jacket, then his shirt.
“I don’t need to press charges,” Amelie insisted. “Sabine, I don’t want this. Let it go.”
Micah stalked toward Hunt, a shining double-edged sword appearing in his hand.
Bryce flung herself in the Archangel’s path. “Please—please—” The scent of her tears filled the office.
Viktoria instantly appeared at her side. Holding her back. The wraith’s whisper was so quiet Hunt barely heard it. “They will grow back. In several weeks, his wings will grow back.”
But it would hurt like Hel. Hurt so badly that Hunt now took steadying, bracing breaths. Plunged down into himself, into that place where he rode out everything that had ever been done to him, every task he’d been assigned, every life he’d been ordered to take.
“Sabine, no,” Amelie insisted. “It’s gone far enough.”
Sabine said nothing. Just stood there.
Hunt spread his wings and lifted them, holding them high over his back so the slice might be clean.
Bryce began shouting something, but Hunt only looked at Micah. “Do it.”
Micah didn’t so much as nod before his sword moved.
Pain, such as Hunt had not experienced in two hundred years, raced through him, short-circuiting every—
Hunt jolted into consciousness to Bryce screaming.
It was enough of a summons that he forced his head to clear, even around the agony down his back, his soul.
He must have blacked out only for a moment, because his wings were still spurting blood from where they lay like two fallen branches on the floor of Micah’s office.
Amelie looked like she was going to be sick; Sabine was smirking, and Bryce was now at his side, his blood soaking her pants, her hands, as she sobbed, “Oh gods, oh gods—”
“We’re settled,” Sabine said to Micah, who punched a button on his phone to call for a medwitch.
