Page 16

CHAPTER 16

A melia woke to find Camael's massive form curled protectively around her. His white wings created a shelter that blocked out the rest of the world. Memories of their night together brought a flush to her cheeks. The archangel had shown her exactly how much she meant to him. Multiple times. Each touch, each kiss had reinforced the bond between them in ways that went beyond physical.

She should have been asleep after the day she’d had, but something was off. Her magical senses screamed warnings even as her body wanted to sink back into his warmth. The Key at her throat pulsed with urgent energy. Its erratic rhythm was like a distressed heartbeat. Something was wrong in the mansion.

Carefully extracting herself from Camael's embrace, she pulled on one of his shirts. The black fabric fell to mid-thigh. It carried his scent. The unique blend of ozone and male made her knees weak. Her bare feet made no sound on the marble floors as she followed the pull of energy.

The east wing was too quiet. The mansion's halls should have been alive with activity. Dark Warriors should have been coordinating patrols. The triplets should have been arguing about battle tactics. And her mate's Angels of Retribution should have been preparing for another day of hunting corrupted grace. Instead, silence pressed against her ears like a physical weight. It was the kind of quiet that made her witch senses scream danger.

"Shit." The curse slipped out as she reached the makeshift dormitory. Empty beds greeted her. Sheets were still rumpled from sleep. There was no sign of a struggle. The wards hummed just below her magical awareness. They hadn’t been breached. They were just gone. At least two dozen fledgling angels had vanished without a trace.

Her phone was already in hand as she dialed Pema's number. The oldest Rowan sister picked up on the first ring. "I was just about to call you," the witch said without preamble. "You feel it too?"

"Yeah. And the fledglings are gone." Amelia's voice was tight as she scanned the room again. "The wards are intact. This had to be an inside job."

"How many are missing?" Pema asked.

"At least twenty-four." Amelia moved between the empty beds, counting quickly. "Maybe more. I need you here. Something about the energy signature is bugging me."

"We're on our way. Don't touch anything." The line went dead as Pema hung up.

Amelia's fingers flew over her phone as she sent rapid-fire texts to the Dark Warriors. She needed to check on the fledglings who were moved from the mansion. Not to mention, they needed eyes on every street and security camera in the city. If those angels were still in New Orleans, she was going to find them.

"What's wrong?" Camael's deep voice rolled through the space like thunder. The archangel filled the doorway. He was battle-ready despite wearing only low-slung jeans. His ice- blue eyes took in the empty room. His expression went granite-hard.

"Someone took the fledglings." She moved to his side, needing his solid presence. "No alarms went off. There’s been no disturbance in the wards. They just... walked out."

A growl that would have made lesser beings spontaneously combust rumbled through his chest. "Jeremiel."

The name hit her like a physical blow. Of course. The evil archangel would know how to bypass their security. He'd helped design some of the protocols himself before going to the dark side. The fucking asshole.

"But how did he get them to go willingly?" she wondered aloud. "These kids know better than to trust him by now."

"He can still appear as he once was,” Camael replied grimly. “He was Heaven's most trusted teacher."

The implications made her stomach turn. Before she could respond, the Rowan sisters arrived in a whirlwind of power and purpose. Pema took one look at the scene and started casting tracking spells while Isis began a methodical sweep for energy signatures. Suvi pulled out crystals that hummed with stored power.

"The residual energy isn’t like what Lucifer has been spreading around town," Isis muttered as she worked. "There’s grace underlying this. Although, to my magical senses, it feels like it’s been put through a meat grinder."

Amelia joined the efforts and began casting her own spells. It took a few minutes before something pinged her radar. "There." Her voice carried raw fury as she pointed to traces of darkness that clung to one corner. "It’s archangel energy. From my visit to the archives, I can say it’s Jeremiel's signature. And it's evolved somehow."

Amelia moved to the corner where corrupted energy clung like black ice. Her expanded senses recoiled from the signature. She forced herself to look deeper. The Key at her throat hummed as she probed the twisted grace. Next to her, Camael went rigid.

"An archangel's fall isn't like a regular angel's," Camael growled in a voice rough with anger. "Our grace runs deeper. Our connection to divinity is more fundamental. When one of us turns, the corruption spreads like poison through our entire essence. It strips away what we are piece by piece. Something vile replaces our pure grace."

His Sword of Light manifested in his hand. "Jeremiel is deliberately accelerating the process of his fall. He’s using the fledglings' grace as a catalyst to speed his transformation. Their untainted essence is the perfect fuel because it hasn't fully formed yet. It's raw power that he can reshape into whatever perverted form he wants."

Ice-blue eyes blazed with fury. "The euphoria hits first. There’s a rush of dark power that feels like freedom. Then comes the hunger. An all-consuming need to consume more and feed the void where divinity used to be. It seems as if Jeremiel's gone beyond that. How far, I can't say."

"Why would he want to deal with a bunch of adolescent angels?” Suvi asked with a frown on her beautiful face.

Understanding hit Amelia like a thunderbolt. "He’s trying to create an army that can be easily guided by his corruption." Her voice shook as the implications sank in. "Think about it. If their grace is still developing, they're malleable. Like clay waiting to be shaped."

"Son of a bitch." Isis's curse carried enough venom to kill a demon lord. "He's going to try turning them before their powers fully manifest and could put up a fight. He’s hitting them when they're most vulnerable."

"That's why he didn't take the older angels," Pema added. "Their grace is too set, too pure to corrupt easily."

"Precisely. Can you track them?" Camael demanded. His massive frame vibrated with the need to hunt. Amelia was right there with him.

"Maybe." Amelia reached for her expanded magic. She used her merged power to cast a tracking spell. She raced from the room to find out what her spell revealed about where the angels were taken.

Amelia winced when the war room door exploded inward. Apparently, she’d put too much oomph behind her spell opening the panel. She was eager to see where the fledglings had been taken. They’d been traumatized in Heaven by Jeremiel’s attempt to take over, and now he’d kidnapped them.

She barely registered the movement from the leather couch as her power coursed through the map beneath her palms. The tracking spell she'd cast in a desperate attempt to locate their missing angels was going to work. Movement in her peripheral vision made her turn. Izzy was sitting up on the couch. The warrior princess's usual grace was slightly off. It had to be the lingering effects of too little sleep. "What's going on?"

"About time you joined us, sleeping beauty." Rami's deep voice rumbled from the entrance. Amelia hadn’t seen the Angel of Retribution join them.

Amelia pushed her dark hair back from her face. "The fledgling angels. They're missing." The words tasted bitter on her tongue, and she didn’t bother to hide the exhaustion in her voice. "I cast a tracking spell to find them."

"All of them?" Izzy's expression shifted to one of alarm.

“Those that were here,” Amelia clarified. “Oh, my goddess.”

Camael’s head snapped in her direction. “What?”

“They’ve been taken from the other sites as well,” Amelia replied.

Izzy was fully alert and awake when she pulled out her phone. Her fingers flew over the screen as she dialed the first number on her emergency contact list. "We can’t assume that. Let me verify what happened there."

Izzy’s expression darkened with every call she made. "Over half of the fledgling are missing.” Izzy's voice carried the kind of rage that made the air crackle. "Those bastards swept the safe houses while they were dead to the world."

"Shit." Amelia cursed. The map pulsed with spots of ethereal blue light. Each one was a stab to her heart. She jabbed a finger at the markers, anger building in her chest. "That asshole is really pissing me off."

Jo materialized in the room. The female AOR's presence was a lethal whisper in the room. "He's mocking us."

"Son of a bitch." Camael's massive frame tensed. Power rolled off him in waves that made the crystal chandelier above them tremble. His voice carried through the mansion like thunder. "Remi! Rami! Jo! Az! Malachi!" The names of his Angels of Retribution echoed off the walls. "Ayil! Araton! Abraxos!" He was so lost in his anger that Amelia doubted he realized Jo and Rami were already there with them.

The triplets materialized first. They were ready to go to war. Their synchronized movements were both beautiful and unsettling. The rest of the AORs appeared in rapid succession. Their weapons were already drawn, and their wings were mantled for battle. The air grew thick with angelic power. It made it hard for Amelia to breathe.

Camael updated the others on what had happened. "We're getting them back," he growled. His blue eyes blazed with righteous fury. "Now."

Malachi stepped forward. His dark skin gleamed in the witch-light. "The Dark Warriors are gearing up. We can be mobile in three minutes."

"Wait." Amelia's voice cut through the testosterone-laden air like a blade. She had to do something before the male she loved and her friends walked into a situation they couldn’t get out of. She planted her hands on the table and met Camael's fierce gaze. "We need to secure the remaining fledglings first. Then we go after Jeremiel. That's how we save them all."

"There's no time—" Camael started.

"There's no point rushing in if he's just going to take more while we're gone," Rami interrupted, earning a sharp look from his commander. "The witch is right."

Az nodded, running a hand through his shock of white-blonde hair. "We need an actual location. We can’t hope he will go after the angels he hasn’t taken."

Camael's jaw clenched, making his muscles tick. His wings rustled with barely contained violence. "I can't find the bastard. We have to do something.”

"What do you mean, you can't find him?" Izzy demanded. "He's a freaking archangel. Don't you guys have some sort of divine GPS?"

"Jeremiel's blocking me somehow." Camael's fist came down on the table. The force cracked the wood. "Every time I get close, it's like hitting a wall of static."

Amelia's lips curved in a predatory smile. "Then it's a good thing you have me and the Rowan sisters." She pulled a black velvet bag from her pocket. Her mate needed to remember he wasn’t alone anymore. "We have magic to find him."

The Rowan sisters smiled and synced like a well-oiled unit. “And together, we’re unstoppable,” Pema said as she stalked north with that ice princess meets predator attitude. Isis claimed the east, with don't-fuck-with-me energy that she wore like designer perfume. Suvi prowled to the south, her curves a lethal weapon as she moved with feline grace. While Amelia took the west .

"What's the play here?" Ayil asked as his brothers flanked him in mirror positions.

"We try tracking first," Isis suggested. Her red hair glowed like fire in the dim light. "If that fails, we move to scrying."

"And if that doesn't work?" Remi's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.

Pema's smile was all teeth. "Then we get creative."

Amelia joined hands with them and reached for her power. The magic slammed through their circle like a tsunami. Amelia's power merged with that of the sisters until the room blazed with blue-white light that was hot enough to singe. Static danced over their skin, raising goosebumps and making their hair float like they were underwater.

The Dark Warriors and angels backed the hell up real quick, considering the voltage they were throwing around. Amelia locked onto tracking first. The witches’ combined energy swept the city grid like searchlights. The map ignited like Times Square on New Year's and then went black as pitch.

"Son of a bitch." Isis's curse carried all kinds of promises of violence. "Fucker's got himself cloaked tighter than Fort Knox."

Amelia pulled out the feather. Its surface lit up like premium angel bling. "Time for plan B. Let’s scry." The thing practically hummed with fresh essence. "Easier to track this poor angel than chase Jeremiel's trail."

"Hellz yeah." Suvi's approval came with that trademark smile of hers.

Amelia locked hands with them again. Power surged as the feather went airborne. It spun like a compass. Pema led the chant. Almost instantly, the feather's celestial glow turned ultraviolet. Its rotation created rings of light that expanded outward like ripples in a pond. Each pulse sent their collective consciousness riding the currents of space and time. Images overlayed the feather. They saw streets, buildings, and faces. Amelia recognized some but nothing pointed to a location.

Just when she was about to give Camael the green light to go on his wild goose chase, the feather's spin went nuclear. Light exploded outward, and St. Louis Cathedral materialized in high-def clarity. Its spires stabbed the night sky like daggers. Inside that holy ground, shadows danced to a vile conductor's symphony. And there at the epicenter? One beautiful, cruel maestro was orchestrating the whole damn show.

Amelia panted and braced her hands on her knees. Sweat ran down her back, and her muscles trembled from the voltage they had channeled. But they had the motherfucker's location locked down tighter than a virgin's chastity belt.

"Got you, you son of a bitch," Izzy breathed.

"The cathedral?" Az shook his head. "That’s ballsy to be hiding right under our noses."

"It makes sense," Jo said, checking her weapons. "It’s sacred ground with lots of ambient divine energy to mask his presence. Plus, there are tourists coming and going all day. It’s the perfect cover for moving prisoners."

Camael's wings snapped open. They were twenty feet of lethal grace. The displacement of air sent papers flying and rattled the windows. He looked at his assembled warriors before locking gazes with Amelia. The look in his eyes made her grateful he was on their side "Time to end this. Jeremiel dies tonight," he growled.