AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I ignore his comment. There will be time for that later. “How do they know already?”
“I told them the second you let your mask down that you had it in the bag.”
That takes me a second. “You were watching?”
“In a fashion, I suppose. You don’t think the Lords in charge of the safety for the entire city would let you deal with this without knowing if they needed to step in, do you?”
“And they would have?”
Chonk regards me like he’s determining whether I can handle his response. “They would have made sure your father left by any means necessary.”
His words are very carefully chosen, and I call him on it. “Ah, so if I died but Malachi left, that would have been fine.”
“They have many lives to worry over. You are just one.”
Axe approaches, grinning. “So, I was right?”
I sigh, exhausted, physically and all the rest. It’s been months since I’ve carried my wings. They’re heavy. “Right about what?”
He drags a finger over the top of my right wing, and I shudder at the sensation, before drawing them tight to my back, and vanishing them with a veil of glamour magic. “Calling you angelcakes.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
There is only one thing that can make an angel lose her Grace.
- The Zealot King’s Journal: The Unabridged, Unsanctioned Edition
The heirs didn’t leavemy side while I showered off my father’s blood.
They took turns holding me when sobs wracked my body and affirmed my act was justified. They commiserated the loss of my best friend. Then they sat me in the solarium and stayed with me until…
Until I wasn’t locked in my mind replaying every word and feeling every sensation of cutting my father’s chest open and stealing his essence.
Until I’d worked through all the ways Malachi used doctrine written hundreds of thousands of years ago to keep me under his purview and needlessly make me fear an entire species. He toldme over and over that demons would ruin me, would steal my magic, when really, he was the threat to my life and magic.
He was the one who wanted to steal my essence, my magic.
The heirs have only ever made me stronger.
And while I took time to ruminate on Malachi only ever seeing me as his personal repository for new magic and knowledge, the heirs didn’t pry or hover.
I sat in the chair by those windows for hours, staring blindly at the demons walking by, questioning everything the Book of Grace preached. I thought about it until my brain felt like it was melting.
And then I went to bed, snuggled between Dash and Bash.
Pressed between their bodies, mine reacts the way bodies do, and at first, I try to ignore the stirrings. I try to make myself go to sleep.
Until I ask myself why and decide that my answer needs a second opinion.
From between them, face buried in Dash’s chest, I ask, “Is it completely wrong to want to fuck the both of you the same day I murdered my father?”
Bastian laughs behind me and squeezes me tight. “I was thinking the exact thing.”
“It’s not wrong for two reasons. One, you’re still inustrues,and your body gets turned on at the slightest touch right now. And two, sex is the quickest way to a flood of feel-good chemicals hitting your system.” Dashel inches backward on the bed to look at me. “So, I would argue that not having sex after murdering your father is themorewrong thing.”
That gets a smile from me, and I watch Dashel’s gaze move over my features.
“It’s still you. The glamour didn’t change much, did it?” He touches my hair, not straight and black anymore but iridescent blonde and wavy. “It’s nice to finally meet the real you, Dove.”
