Page 34 of An Unexpected Ascension (A War Between Worlds #1)

The Demon

“She hasn’t left her room.”

“Give her time.”

“I tried to stop her. It should have been me to touch the tree, but I couldn’t approach it, like there was an invisible barrier I couldn’t surpass.”

My mind reels with images of Briar trapped in the tree’s grip. The pain contorting her face gave way to what it was gifting her: the terrible, hard truth.

I shudder at the memory.

“Lynx, you cannot let it worry you. I can spare another couple days before we enact our first phase of the war to let Briar recoup, but should she... not, then we must do what we need to do. What we’ve always planned to do.”

Save Ada.

I slump even further in my chair as my fingers tap the metal table in the war room. My whiskey sits untouched near my hand, just the thought of swallowing right now constricts my throat.

Lucifer studies me in the way he always does. That brotherly assessment, trying to read my mind. Except that seems to be the one thing he cannot do. So, instead he simply asks.

“What ails you?”

Tap – tap – tap.

The pads of my fingers roll along the table, the incessant noise a reflection of my anxious heart.

Finally, I bring the liquor to my lips if only to delay speaking my worries aloud.

“I can take the truth. However harsh it is. I can accept whatever pain the universe wants to inflict on me, but Briar? I-I think it broke her. You should have seen her face. The way she crumpled to the ground as if her very heart was being ripped from her chest. Her cries.”

My eyes find Lucifer’s.

“They were so quiet in that place, all sound was quiet, but her cries – My God – I heard them loud as day.”

Those hardened eyes soften just the slightest.

“I know those cries, my friend. Live them every day I reign over Hell.”

Yes, perhaps he does know what I’m feeling. Lucifer pushes himself to stand and rounds the edge of the table. With a gentle hand, he squeezes my shoulder.

“So much for not loving a Fentonelli.”

This time, I don’t bother lying.

Love.

What business do I have claiming to be in love?

None.

Yet here I am aching over the pain Briar feels as if her very heart is my own. As if it belongs to me when I’ve done nothing but push and torment her, blame her for my sister's death when she was centuries from being born.

I have no business loving her or asking for her love in return.

No, my chances at love died the moment I watched the life fade from Damien Fentonelli’s hateful jade eyes.

And after?

My father.

The other men who reminded me so much of my sister’s murderer.

Their deaths made me irredeemable.

That last bit of my soul rotting black before my final kill; before my own death.

The last time I felt even a modicum of the blessed thing was years before my own adulthood. Perhaps even the story I shared with Briar. The way Mercy looked at me when I gifted her that doll. Something not even our own father would have done. Yes, perhaps that was the last time I felt so much love.

Dragging a hand down my face, I sigh. The halls of Lucifer’s manor are so heavy with silence and the soft yellow glow of the sconces flicker against the black walls, drawing me further down past my own room.

Though we only returned mere hours ago, I still have the urge to be near the angel. To drown in her and pray to the Devil that she’ll let me.

It’s so silent.

Even my footsteps against the dark wood of the floors hardly make a sound.

I pass the top of the stairs and cross over to the West Wing, following the tether that ends with Briar.

I pause outside her room, ready to knock, but think better of it. Instead, I just let myself in only to find her absent.

“Briar?”

No answer.

There’s a faint metallic smell perfuming the air and burning my nose. My heart stutters a beat and the world comes to a crawling halt.

“Briar?”

Nothing.

To the right, beneath the cracked open door of the ensuite is a bright flash of red against the golden marble floors. I can feel my mind screaming with each step closer and when I push open the door, my lungs seize.

Blood.

So much blood.

Puddled and pooling around her as she kneels with her back to me. Her body curls in on itself, hunched over, as shivers wrack through her with silent sobs. Her pale, bare legs are painted crimson, just as her arms are up to her elbows.

Coasting forward, my boots touch the edge of the puddle, smearing it along the ground. My stomach churns, twisting in knots. My entire life I’ve known gore like the back of my hand, enjoyed it even, but this... Briar so thoroughly broken and shattered, it breaks something in me I didn’t know could break.

Crouching down, I grip her shoulder to get her to face me, but she’s stiff as a rock. I just want to see her face, to look into those jade eyes, to see the angel I’ve come to know and?—

But when I crawl around her, ignoring how my pants soak up the bloody mess beneath us, my heart drops. It falls, down, down, down deep into my stomach. The plummet nearly makes me vomit, but I force myself to swallow.

Her dark lashes are heavy with an ocean of tears, eyes rimmed red, the green so vibrant it’s startling. She’s shaking violently and I wonder if the blood loss has rendered her cold. Searching every inch of her, I take in the black tank top, the hem sitting just under her breasts and her black undershorts. Then, along her lower belly, adorning her bared flesh and flooding with thick, oozing blood; a gaping wound lies wide open beneath her navel.

My brows knit together as I try to understand what’s happening. The angel is too distraught to even produce a coherent word. She just kneels there, her hands cupped together in front of her.

Another wave of agony throttles her, her body caving in on itself. She rocks forward, those hands coming to her forehead, painting her remaining untouched skin.

I don’t know what to do, but I know it can’t be nothing.

“Fuck.”

Breathing down a wave of panic, I slip my arms underneath her knees and around her back, cradling her to me and carry her to the ceramic tub on the terrace. Climbing in, I lower her down on top of me, reaching forward to start the water.

With a trembling hand, I glide my palm gently over the incision she’s made and heal it. Slowly, her skin melds together, the bleeding coming to a full stop. She shudders, taking erratic, uncontrolled breaths.

Her palms, still cupped, now lay in the center of her chest as her head lolls against my shoulder.

“What’s happened, Angel? What did you do?”

Her mouth doesn’t so much as move, let alone make another sound. Her eyes flutter shut, tears still streaming down her face, now tinged pink.

With caution, I bring my hands up to meet hers and gently pry them open. Inside lies the tiniest little creature, no bigger than my smallest finger.

“Devil save us,”

I mutter, letting out a quivering breath.

I close her palms again around the lifeless little thing and in a heartbeat, an object forms in her hands. In her grasp now lies her baby encased in a smooth, glass heart. I can feel the sobs coursing through her body as she tightens her hold on it.

The steaming water sloshes to the floor, reminding me to turn the faucet off. In the silence of the night, we lie there, her back against my chest. My fingers comb through her hair soothingly, careful not to catch in any tangles.

“Shhh, it’s okay. You’re okay,”

I tell her, but she already knows lies were born in Hell.

It’s in this moment as my fingers so gently stroke her head and I will my meaningless words to soothe her, that I find a girl so much like my sister. Strong, fierce, lovable and dealt such a terrible, horrible hand in life only to be met with an undeserving end.

When dawn breaks over the horizon, casting a ruby glow over the city in the distance, I begin to shift. The water has gone cold and matches the color of the ascending blood sun. By the way Briar shivers, I can tell it’s from the chill since her breathing has finally calmed. Rubbing my palms over her arms, I gently rouse her awake and pull her to her feet.

She stands near the tub, soaked and dripping. Ridding us both of our drenched clothes, I wrap a towel around her body, then one around my waist, and lift her once again. Her muscles go limp in my arms as I carry her to bed, and I slide in next to her.

To my surprise, Briar doesn’t object when I pull her back into my front and wrap my arms around her with the glass heart now held tightly to her chest. I trail my fingers along her arm, coaxing her back into a numbing sleep.

“You deserved so much more,”

I whisper with a kiss to her temple.