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Bring it, you fucking hag.
Iva’s attack finally comes, but I’m not there. She doesn’t appreciate me turning her game on her. She growls at my ingenuity, her perfectly painted lips screwing up as she snarls.
Who’s the cat and who’s the mouse now, bitch?
Her next assault is interrupted by my fist in her stomach, earning me a gasped groan in response. Before she can retaliate, I’ve flitted off again, waiting for her next move. She gags at the blow to her stomach before staggering back to standing.
Oh, she’s pissed off now, and her Fireskin whooshes over her body faster than I can blink.
Aww. I think I made her mad, I think as I chuckle.
And then my chuckle dies.
Slowly, her wings erupt from her back, their mangled form wrenching a gasp from my lips.
Tattered feathers black as her soul, have fallen away in huge patches revealing the raw, red, and bleeding skin underneath.
And then it all becomes clear.
She's dying.
Then the other puzzle pieces in my brain click together.
If there is no one to send you to Hell, then where do you go?
You go nowhere.
Chapter Twenty
RHYS
The steel storm shutters on Aurelia’s house are something out of a zombie movie.
Evan used the generator in the basement to trigger the failsafe, slamming them shut before soldiers breached the main entrance. But the attic window was missed, and now they’ve found a way into the house.
They’ve breached our walls—the battle has begun.
I’m guarding Aurelia’s bedroom, praying no one gets past me. Bodies are piled on the dark hardwood floor, scarlet blood pooling under their bulk. My blades are coated in the gore of the fallen. I use my wings to brush off an attacker, and as he flies into the sheetrock, another approaches from my left. His blade’s drawn, ready to cut me down like an errant weed, when my dagger breaches the unfortunate gap in the plates of his body armor.
Four soldiers have met the end of my blade before I’m met with real resistance. The phoenix before me is a big bastard, but unlike so many of them, he actually knows what he’s doing.
Taking him down won’t be as easy.
West and Evan are paired back-to-back, moving to the living room after being herded down the stairs. He goes high as she goes low, spinning and slicing, smoking out and back again, moving as one. Plucking the life from soldier after soldier, they move in tandem as if they’d been fighting together all their lives.
Ian and Aiden stay to the periphery, exterminating any that get past the three of us. Aidan pops in and out of the shadows, slaying soldiers as he passes, while Ian lies in wait in the gloom.
Although we’ve only fought together in one battle, I miss Aurelia’s presence at my back. Especially when a big motherfucker gets a hit in. The hiss of pain that leaves my mouth is not by my consent.
An agonizing sting rends through my shoulder, the familiar bite of Morganite ricocheting through the limb.
Bastards.
Now I’m pissed. I parry my blade against his as he goes for my head, catching him in the throat with my dagger. Twisting the knife, I open his gullet before ripping out my blade and moving onto the next one.
And the next one.
Cutting them all down until I meet one I can’t.
