My head jerked up, and I found him staring down at me with a soft, tender pull to his lips. I could feel warmth hitting my cheeks even as I snorted in the most unattractive manner possible. “I’ve seen what I look like right now, and—”

“And you’re even more beautiful than before.” He lifted his hand slowly to my face. His thumb brushed over the curve of my chin. “Each and every bruise is a badge of your strength.”

“There you go again, saying all the right things,” I murmured.

“How is this for not being the right thing to say?” He traced a finger along the line of my cheek, stopping where I knew the skin was still a lovely shade of bluish-purple. “I’m going to hurt Gabriel. Every bruise he left behind, every hurt he inflicted, I will repay tenfold. I want him to be alive and breathing when I strip his flesh from his bones and tear his organs from his body, and then, before he takes his last breath, I want the last thing he sees to be you before you kill him.”

Oh.

Wow.

My heart skipped a beat. Not at the cold promise in his voice that assured he planned to do exactly that or at the violence he wanted to reap, but because he would face Gabriel again. We both would face the archangel, and what if something happened to him? Again? My insides turned cold and panic started to take root. Could I convince Zayne to take a vacay? To sit this out—?

I stopped myself right there as I stared up into his eyes. Every day carried the risk of one of us meeting an untimely demise. That hadn’t changed. If anything, now Zayne would be less easy to kill. That was good news, something I needed to remember, but Zayne hadn’t asked me to sit this out.

Inherently, I knew he wouldn’t.

I also knew I needed Zayne at my side when I faced off with Gabriel, even if Roth and Layla were successful in recruiting Lucifer. And it wasn’t like Zayne would listen to such a request. He hadn’t when I asked him to before, and maybe him charging in when he did, drawn by the pain the bond was feeding him, had played a role that had ultimately led to his death.

I couldn’t ask that Zayne not let guilt get in the way of us living. And I couldn’t let fear do the same.

I wouldn’t.

I took a small breath. “That was also the right thing to say.”

Zayne raised one eyebrow.

I shrugged. “I mean, probably not to most, but I have absolutely no problem with you doing exactly that.”

A faint grin appeared. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d say that. You’ve always been bloodthirsty.”