Page 57 of Alastair

I felt raw. Broken. And so goddamn angry.

“Come on, brother,”Raiden projected into my head.“Don’t shut us out.”

“Yeah,”Gray said.“Let us beat up whoever upset you.”

“Is it Michael?”Galen asked.“Want me to kill him?”

“You can’t kill an archangel, you hotheaded buffoon,”Daman told him.“Not without putting all our heads on the chopping block.”

As their banter filled my head, it comforted me a little. They were there. They cared. As I soared over the island, listening to them, words failed me. I didn’t know what to say. Not yet anyway.

So I flew, focusing on the heavy beating of my wings as they cut through the air. I didn’t want to return to Baxter’s villa. I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I just needed to put distance between me and Lazarus.

He was my fated mate. The angel I had hated, feared, then grew to respect. I was more conflicted than I’d ever been. Shocked. How had I never figured it out? Even with the seal in place, I should have realized.

The pieces of the puzzle were finally sliding together. It explained so much. Explained the rare moments when Lazarus had let his guard slip, like when our mansion burned down months ago and he’d cupped my cheek and told me to stand when all I’d wanted to do was sit there in my study as it went up in flames.

It explained the night of the harvest moon when Lucifer was freed from his cage and Lazarus had decided to stay behind to fight with the others. I’d begged him to change his mind, saying we needed him, and he’d grabbed me by the nape and pulled me in closer, his breath warm on my mouth.

“Don’t let yourself be blinded by emotion,”Lazarus had said.“I taught you better than that.”In a softer voice, he had then added,“If I do die tonight… don’t let it be in vain.”

“I won’t,”I had responded, my breath shaky and my heart aching—though I hadn’t understood why.

“Good boy.”

Those two words had stirred something in my chest. And when he had slid his hand across my jaw, his icy eyes had been so damned soft. It had propelled me to stay behind too. The decision had been impulsive but feltright. Either he was coming home with me, or we’d both fall.

Knowing the truth now—that we were mates—I wondered if the seal had warped a little that night, like a newly forged blade that had been too hot before being quenched in the oil. The poorly tempered steel could then develop stress fractures. One hard blow and the blade would snap in two.

The stress fracture in the seal had come the night in Echo Bay when Lazarus held Lucifer back with his whip, our eyes meeting before the teleportation stone had activated and forced me to leave him behind. What would it take to break the warding completely, to snap it in two like a brittle piece of forged steel?

More importantly, did Iwantit to break?

Reaching a cliff at the edge of the island, I landed on the grassy overhang and stared out across the Mediterranean. Stars twinkled in the darkening sky, and a reflection of the rising moon shone on the water’s surface below. The beating of wings came from behind me.

Galen and Raiden, closely followed by Kallias and Castor. Bellamy and Daman arrived together before a yawning Gray landed beside them seconds later.

“You didn’t have to come after me,” I said, working hard to keep the raw emotion from my voice. “I’m fine.”

“That’s a total load of bull,” Castor said. “You’re not fine. We all feel it.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Raiden said. “What did we say about keepin’ this shit bottled up? Ya gotta talk to us, Al.”

“I…” I turned to face the seven of them, and my heart lifted into my throat once meeting their worried stares. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

“Around what?” Bellamy asked. “Talk to us. Let us help you sort through it.”

Out of all of them, he would understand the most. When he’d realized Phoenix was his mate, he fought hard to ignore their bond. Phoenix had been our enemy at the time—definitely not someone we’d easily accepted. Bellamy had stressed about losing us once we found out.

Just as I feared the same in that exact moment. Lazarus wasn’t a demon like Phoenix, but my brothers held little love for him nonetheless.

“When each of you found your mates, I saw how you struggled with coming to terms with it. But now that you’re with them, you can’t imagine it being any other way, can you?”

Galen frowned. “Nothing could take me from Simon. I dare anyone to try.”

“Happy isn’t a big enough word to explain how I feel being with Kyo,” Castor said.

Daman nodded. “War is my everything.”