Chapters (42)
- TITLE PAGE
- COPYRIGHT PAGE
- DEDICATION PAGE
- CONTENTS
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fuck you almost made it out of my mouth, but I clenched my teeth around the words. And for some reason, it seemed to intensify Raphael’s amusement. He patted my knee but pulled his hand away at my sharp intake of breath.
“What we need is to be immortal,” I said, clutching at my knee and realizing it was swollen to nearly twice its normal size. “If you need us to fight the Mazikin, why can’t you make us invincible? Or fight them yourself?”
His smile disappeared. “The Mazikin are not under the authority of the Judge, and haven’t been for thousands of years. I cannot interfere with them directly. I am bound by the Judge’s oath in this matter.”
“Wait, what? The Judge promised the Mazikin that you wouldn’t—”
“Only what you need, Lela,” he said with a tone of quiet warning.
I bit my lip and tried to figure out what I might need to know. “They’ve escaped before, haven’t they? Ana told me.”
Raphael settled himself on the floor. “They have.”
“And the human Guards stopped them.”
“They did.”
“So we can do this, right? We can win?”
“I can’t tell the future, Lela. That’s not one of my skills.”
I watched his face, looking for clues. “They’re stronger now, aren’t they?”
He nodded.
I swallowed back the metallic taste of fear. “So I’m in charge of preventing an evil demon scourge from killing who knows how many innocent people, and if I don’t do it soon, they’ll split up and become unstoppable.”
He smiled again, but it had a distinctly ghostly quality. “I’m glad you understand.”
“I could do this better if you could numb me up, you know?” I said, my voice breaking. “You said you wouldn’t ask where I hurt, but I’ll tell you anyway. Everywhere. Not just my knee or my head. I don’t want these feelings. It’s too much.”
He didn’t even have the grace to look apologetic. “That’s a different kind of battle wound entirely. I can’t erase that kind of pain, Lela. It wouldn’t be good for you anyway.”
I lay back on the couch. “Then you’d better patch me up so that I can get out there again.” Not that I was eager to go. What I wanted was the moment of peace Raphael’s healing provided. Just for a little while, I needed the world to go the fuck away.
“Now, that I can do,” he murmured, and sank me under the weight of dreamless sleep.
ELEVEN
ELEVEN