Page 111 of Alastair

“D?” Bellamy dropped in front of Daman and pulled him to his chest.

“This will kill him, B,” Daman said through his tears. “It’ll break War’s heart. Fuck. It’s breaking mine.”

Gray whimpered and made himself smaller in the sand, curling more into himself. “I want Mason.”

“I’ll give you time to think this over,” I said, fighting the sharp, burning ache in my sternum. “Michael’s making arrangements for us to visit Asa. Give me your answers before then. For tonight, return to your mates. Hold them. Love them.”

“While we still can.” Castor lowered his gaze.

Galen’s black-and-red wings exploded from his back before he shot upward, leaving the beach without a word. Castor gathered Gray in his arms and did the same. Daman and Bellamy stood and, with one arm wrapped around each other’s waist, found the path through the trees that led to their villa.

Kallias continued staring at the dark sea, expression calm even as his soul wept. “I will never see Elasus again. Will I?”

I couldn’t respond. No matter how hard I tried to stay strong for them, I felt myself slipping. Felt the pillar starting to crumble.

“If we choose not to fight, Uriel won’t allow our souls into the celestial realm.” His voice carried the weight of his grief. “And if wedofight… if we defeat Lucifer… our souls will be forever trapped. Unable to pass on to the afterlife. Either way, my soul will never join his.”

That’s what I’d seen in the vision.

Eight stones along the hilt of Night Fall… meant for eight souls. It would be more than a simple blood spell or transfer of some of our energy. The sword was a vessel for us to channel our powers through. Our souls had to be placed inside Night Fall, housed in the stones. Only then would it be powerful enough to kill Lucifer.

It was just like when Asa’s soul had been transferred into the ring. He hadn’t died, but in all ways that mattered, he had been gone from the world. The same would happen to us. Still alive but confined, unable to speak or feel. Frozen in a moment.

No way to be freed.

“Let’s go home,” Raiden said to Kallias. “I’ll make us late-night nachos. Extra meat and sour cream, just how you like ’em.”

With a sad nod, Kallias turned from the sea and released his wings. He and Raiden then left the beach.

I stood alone beneath the starry sky, listening to the sound of their wings grow faint. Only when they were completely out of sight did I finally crumble. I fell to my knees and released a strangled cry, my fingers burrowing into the sand.

I wept for my brothers and their mates.

I wept for me and mine.

I wept for the future we’d never have and our broken dreams, like Daman’s wish for him and Warrin to have a child. Bellamy wanted the same with Phoenix. I hadn’t known they’d desired families of their own, and the realization of how much they’d be giving up only added to my crushing heartache.

Once I pulled myself together, I returned to the bungalow. Before meeting with my brothers on the beach, Lazarus and I had made love. It had been gentle at first, but as my heart weighed heavier and heavier with the truth I’d kept from him, I had pushed him to his back and ridden him hard.

Even still, he had sat up and taken me in his arms, kissing me softly. As if a part of him knew I hadn’t told him everything. Afterward, he’d held me close and pressed kisses into my hair until he’d fallen asleep. As an angel, he didn’t need much rest, but when the days caught up to him, he slept deeply. Deep enough for me to sneak out unnoticed. So he wouldn’t follow.

“Where did you go?” Lazarus asked in an adorably sleepy voice as I crawled back into bed. He brought me closer and nuzzled my neck. “You smell like the sea.”

“I met with my brothers and told them about the vision.”

He stilled. “It required you to speak with them in secret?”

“Yes. We had much to discuss.”

“Then discuss it with me too,” he said. “When we face Lucifer again, we do so together. I will fight beside you. Watch over you. Just as I always have.”

I pulled back to look at him, storing every detail to memory. The way the moonlight kissed his flawless skin, the gold flakes in his blue eyes, and his cupid bow lips. I traced the edges of them before leaning in and ghosting my mouth across his.

He shakily exhaled before melding them together, a soft pressing of his mouth on mine before he deepened it.

“I know you’re keeping something from me,”he said telepathically as our lips met again.

My heart weighed a thousand pounds. Barbed wire scraped my sternum and plunged to my gut, twisting, gnarling. I broke from his lips with a pained whimper.