Page 53 of An Unexpected Ascension (A War Between Worlds #1)

The Demon

As I shove my foot into a leg of the pants William Andrews has begrudgingly lent, I thank the Devil for the relief my muscles now feel. Each movement before this was laced with a blinding agony.

Dressed in jeans and a simple white T-shirt, we leave without so much as another word to the angels Briar calls friends.

“How are you feeling?”

she asks with a quiet hesitancy as we walk down the street towards the Market.

I roll my shoulders back, straightening my spine.

“Physically, great.”

She winces.

“And your soul?”

She watches me carefully, searching for any hint of the man I was hours ago, but I refuse to let him show.

The pity she fights is worse than anything I’ve been through already.

Her soft features, worried eyes, the tension in her muscles at the anticipation that I’ll tell her I won’t ever recover.

Perhaps I won’t.

The torture I’ve endured the last six months has burrowed so deep into my soul that it’s changed me. For better or worse is yet to be known.

I keep my gaze forward, my steps even.

“Lynx.”

Her small hand wraps around my forearm, halting me.

She pulls on my arm, begging for me to look at her, but I just can’t.

Not until her soft palm is cradling the side of my face, forcing my eyes to hers. It’s then I break. My chest caves at the way my soul aches and bleeds.

There doesn’t seem to be any words that fit this moment.

Instead, she leaps into me, her arms wrapping snuggly around my neck and her feet dangling just above the ground. Her chest molds to mine and it’s as if her heartbeat is strong enough for the two of us.

For a second, I’m too stunned to move, but slowly, I wrap my arms around her waist and hold her to me.

She stifles a sob when I nuzzle my face into her neck and breathe her in, my Angel.

A long silence passes between us, unbothered by the scarce busybodies traipsing about.

They take their quick, nosy peeks, then scurry, afraid that our presence will darken them from the inside out.

After the subtle quivering in Briar’s body has subsided, I lower her back down to her feet and cup her face.

“I’ll make it.”

“Promise?”

she urges, her eyes still glittering with tears.

“I’ll do my best.”

She nods, knowing it’s all I can give her right now. I brush my lips against hers, tasting the salt from her sorrow.

Pulling away, a deafening silence surrounds us. The soft patter of hurried footsteps evaporates, the quiet humming of whispers between angels at our presence halts, even the birds have stopped their happy morning tunes.

Briar stiffens, noticing the same moment I do that something is not right. It feels too close to the death that hung heavy in the air around the Tree of Death. The only thing missing is the endless ash raining from the skies.

“Something’s wrong,”

she whispers as if her voice is too loud for Heaven now.

“Come on.”

I grab her hand and begin to jog.

My mind whirls with all the possibilities of what is happening, but I do know one thing for certain: the peak of this war has just begun. And by the sight of the vacant market, I've been affirmed.

“It’s empty!”

Briar’s cries frantically.

She drops my hand, running through the center, checking every single stand there, hoping the others may just be hiding.

Except, I already know what’s been done, what can never be undone.

Recklessly, she tears apart each stand; fabrics and food and jewelry tossed every which way. But not a single soul steps forward.

She spins on her heels to face me. Her eyes so wide it looks painful.

Without a word, she sprints in the opposite direction, passing me by.

“Briar!”

I call after her, but it falls on deaf ears.

I chase her, making it in the nick of time to catch her as she slips on her feet as she reaches the top step of a very large church. With a hefty tug, she swings the door wide open and aims for a set of stairs.

“Briar, wait!”

I urge her.

Only, it’s no use.

She storms down the empty hallway, her brows furrowing with every passing door, and stops at the last one.

She just stands there, hands hanging by her sides.

I don’t know what to do as I watch her heart break all over again, if there’s anything left at all to break. There’s been nothing except tragedy in her afterlife and it doesn’t seem to ever get better.

As I reach out to grab her shoulder, she drops. Her knees land heavily to the stone floor of the church. I wait for a wail, a howl, an earsplitting cry of despair, but nothing comes. She kneels there, shoulders slumped, mouth hung open in pure shock.

“They’re all gone.”

Crouching, I gather her in my arms.

“They’re all gone,”

I confirm.

I anticipated this, I saw it coming, yet nothing prepared me for the devastation writhing through Briar. Everyone she has come to know and love here are all gone forever, no longer in existence.

“Why are we still here?”

She looks up at me with a stoney face.

I shrug.

“Perhaps because we’re demons and don’t truly belong in this world. Or maybe we have something even worse waiting.”

It takes a long moment for her to shake this stupor, for the unbelievability of this horror to turn to a debilitating rage. I can feel her body heating, her skin lighting on fire in my very arms, her heart galloping inside her chest. She shakes in my hold like a firework preparing to spear the air and detonate into a million sparks of pure hatred.

And it bleeds into me, every bit of raw fury, it wraps around my heart and yanks me to my feet, pulling her with me.

She laughs, with watery, wild eyes, she laughs. It echoes hauntingly through the empty stone church, settling right inside my soul.

“I’ve never wanted to take a life, never wanted to end someone’s existence – not even the man who killed me – but Lynx, right now I want to slaughter an entire army of Gods. I want to wear their blood like warpaint and their intestines as my fucking crown. I want to watch their eyes as I mutilate them like they mutilated you. I want to feel their hatred for me as I feel for them. I want their reign to come to a devastating end.”

I kneel before her, grasping one of her hands in my own and look up at my seething Angel.

“So you shall have it.”

I plant a kiss to the back of her hand before we free-fall into space. The world swirls around us in a collage of color before we’re righted on the grounds of Lucifer’s manor.