“Shut up,” Zayne snapped, and I was surprised Lucifer said nothing in return. “Forget this. Forget all of this. We run. We keep running and hiding until the whole damn world falls apart.”

“Do you hear what you’re suggesting?” My eyes widened.

“I don’t care,” he swore. “I don’t care about any of this. All I care about is you.”

“You don’t mean that—”

“The Hell I don’t,” Zayne growled.

I twisted, not making it very far as Zayne held on to my wrists. My gaze collided with Lucifer’s once more, and the look on his face said it all. It had to be now. There would be no later. Gabriel would capture me. He’d kill Zayne. He’d kill Roth and Layla and anyone else who was still alive. I couldn’t let that happen.

“I love you, Zayne. I love you with every fiber of my being,” I said, and then nodded at Lucifer.

He charged forward, slamming into Zayne’s side as I pulled with all my strength, breaking his hold. Zayne and Lucifer hit the ground, and it was...

It was surreal, like an out-of-body experience. As if it wasn’t even me who stood there, right hand steady as Zayne shouted, as Lucifer held him down, turning his head to the side, away from where I stood in a gesture I wouldn’t have expected from Satan. I felt nothing as I lifted the dagger. Or maybe I was feeling everything and it was too much, overriding my senses. I lifted my eyes, not wanting to see nothing, but all I saw was gray smoke as I—

A trumpet blared, the sound sudden and loud, seeming to come from all around us. The ground and the very air around us rattled, throwing Lucifer to the side. Zayne popped to his feet, and in a second, his arms swept around me, clamping them to my sides, but I didn’t fight him as I stared up at the sky.

At stars.

33

“Someone is in trouble,” Lucifer sang from where he sat on the ground. “And it’s not meee.”

Zayne and I looked over at him as he threw his head back, laughing.

Gabriel flew into the air, appearing above the shifting horde of demons and angels. “No! No!” he shouted. “You have got to be kidding me.”

The trumpet sounded a third time, and I looked up again. The glimmers of bright lights in the sky were rapidly growing closer.

“Do you see this?” I breathed.

“I do.” Zayne held on to me tightly.

Stars fell out of the sky, one after another.

That’s what they looked like as they raced toward Earth. Dozens and dozens of them. Angels. Actual battle angels.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.