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My father sighed behind me. “I’ve waited a very long time for you,” he said. “I am a patient man, you see, but I grow bored with these games. As you know by now, I’m planning to rebuild Scarlata Empire. But I need you and your magic in order to do that.”

She laughed in his face. “I’ll never help you.”That’s my Huntress.

“Show me the magic you wield,” my father barked. It was an order from an archangel—one that vibrated the steel of the cage in front of my face.

She raised her chin in defiance. “No.”

Luseyar applied pressure to his angelic sword and slid it down my back, just between my wings. Burning hot agony ripped through my skin that was sliced open with barely any effort. My shirt fell from my body like it was never there at all. I grimaced and growled against the pain, but I did not move.

Don’t fall for this, Huntress. Keep hating me. Keep wishing I were dead.

“Care to change your mind?” My father stepped forward until I could see him from the corner of my eye. I dared a glance at Huntyr, who stood tall on the other side of the bars.

Her beautiful black curls fell awry across her face, and her eyes looked red from crying.Fucking hells.

Still, she looked into the face of the archangel before her and shrugged. “Keep hurting him. This is getting fun for me.”

Luseyar’s blade sliced me again, this time just touching the base of my wing and slicing a few of the feathers there. The pain rattled my entire body, worse than any pain that could ever be inflicted on my body alone.

I cried out in pain and dropped my head, gnawing on the inside of my cheek. I would not ask them to stop. I would not ask Huntyr to give them answers.

I would rather take a lifetime of this pain than betray her further.

“What makes you think I have magic at all?” she challenged.

“My son here tells me you have none, but consider this a hunch.”

I felt a wave of fear and helplessness through the bond—empty and shattering. When I lifted my head, Huntyr met my gaze, and her eyes widened with something that was not hatred.

“I’ll ask you one more time before Luseyar here removes Wolf’s wings from his body. Quite agonizing, I’ve heard.”

“What?” I snapped, turning to my father. He would torture me to get information, yes, but take my wings?

He wouldn’t.

Huntyr remained silent, and I felt even more of that fear flood from her.

“Show. Me. Your. Magic.”

Huntyr’s eyes now glistened in panic. Her gaze slid from my father to me, to the blade that now flirted with the flesh just above my left shoulder blade.

Don’t break, Huntress. Not now. They’re bluffing.

She shifted on her feet. Her breath hitched.

My father’s dark, chaotic laughter gutted me. “Who knew the new Queen of Scarlata Empire was so cold-hearted, she would let an angel’s most prized possession be sliced away from their body? Perhaps I was wrong about you.”

I held my breath, but I felt Huntyr’s relief flutter through me.

“Though if you truly never cared about my son, you won’t mind him without his wings, anyway.”

No.

Luseyar raised the sword.

I looked at Huntyr and sent her one last wave of all the adoration consuming me, sent her every good thought and loving emotion I had left so she wouldn’t feel as much of the pain that was about to rip me to shreds.

Huntyr screamed.

The sword sliced through the air.