Page 23

The stone walls drank the lantern’s dim light as the ocean growled through stone cracks.

Reuban stood near the table, fingers grazing its grain, breath steady but threaded with something… off. Like pressure humming behind the bones, a low pulse in the back of his jaw. And it couldn’t be the Sinner’s Bond, not after it just got finished obliterating his balls.

He adjusted the row of tin cups again for no reason other than to do something with the strange tension. Midnight hung close. The air, thick and real.

A soft creak slipped from the back—Josie stirring, likely. Kaos’s healing sleep was fading.

Reuban flicked his gaze to the door’s latch, wondering again over the manner of Raviel’s arrival. Would it be the sound of boots? Wings? Chariots of fire?

Maybe that's what was bothering him. Having an Archangel over for a midnight chat invoked his psychotic obsession with detail to divine protocol.

Kildare warned about being careful with words. They were beings of few syllables and were known to cast judgments on any who uttered the wrong ones.

Kross’s footsteps behind him journeyed along his frayed nerves. They felt like a hallucination of drunk rhythms that hid a secret map or code he was supposed to hear or see or taste.

“You do realize he’s not coming for dinner,” Krave informed, brick-walled in his chair as Reuban placed a pitcher of tap on the center of the table.

“It’s water,” he informed back, going around his Sire’s hunger for their Queen. And not just her blood. It was strong enough to stir Reuban’s appetite, even while he had no need or desire for his queen or her blood.

Kildare sat with hands clasped behind his head, body stretched out with his eyes closed.

The attire Reuban had purchased him was ditched for his celestial blood skirt and wing-webbing embedded into the rest of his skin.

In the light, it appeared like rubies crushed down to powder and gave him a celestial beauty that felt unlawful.

Reuban wanted to ask him about the Archangel’s visitation habits again. But no matter how he arranged the words, it felt like a childish are we there yet? query.

He blew out a steady, measured breath, only to run into Kaos’s dark aura.

He seemed the least interested in whatever hid in the shadows of the ticking time, but Reuban knew better.

He stood before the wall-sized window, locked down tight.

Not tight enough that Reuban didn’t pick up what seeped from the cracks.

And he surely wasn’t going to try and learn what it was.

Not because he feared Kaos but because he sensed whatever he hid was tied to the gnawing unease in his own spirit.

Reuban opened a chair and forced himself to sit and not arrange or touch another fucking thing. He felt Larena enter the room and then jolted from the heat of her hand on his shoulder.

Fuck, he was ready to get this over with.

She opened the chair next to him and sat.

He let her take his hand under the table while eyeing her serene face and the hint of joy at the edge of her mouth.

He remembered her mercy matrix right as it oozed from her palm into his, coating his nerves with something close to a numbing agent and yet not.

Like he knew what he felt but wasn’t forced to drown in it.

The air suddenly cracked with Raviel’s appearance and Reuban’s hand slammed into a tin cup with his barked, “Fuck!” The dish clattered across the table into the others like a bowling ball and he shot up to fix the mess only to send shit spinning out of reach.

The archangel pulled the chair open at the head of the table and sat, entirely oblivious to the embarrassing welcome wagon.

“Everyone needs to be here,” he announced as Reuban abandoned rescuing his pride, taking quick note of the angel’s eerily familiar human form as he sat.

As if feeling his scrutiny, silvery eyes landed on him and jostled his memory.

The maintenance manager at their apartment.

The one who’d graduated from federal prison for cutting off his father-in-law’s head with dull scissors.

Mistook him as an intruder at his hunting cabin.

“He wore a ski mask,” he’d paused to say, a detail as important as a speck of dust. "Took me over an hour,” he informed with pride, gaze twinkling. “But I championed through it.”

Raviel could’ve been his older identical twin by fifteen years. He lacked the glint of insanity in his gaze, but had the same do as I say or die vibe. And rocked it.

Reuban realized Kaos was no longer at the table the second he returned with a wide-eyed, wary Josie clinging to his arm.

He felt her fear. The kind you had when you broke a million divine rules and Heaven was paying you a visit to chat about it.

Kaos sat her in the chair that put her between her four Kings. Himself then Kross on her left, and Krave then Kildare on her right. That put Reuban and Larena directly across and Raviel by the large window with the ocean view behind him.

Where was the Pontis? No longer needed? He was a being that wouldn’t be missed. Except by their Queen maybe.

He caught Larena’s gaze, soft and steady on the table before her.

He sensed no shame, no fear. No regret from their post-fuck apocalypse that lingered between them.

Everyone had heard it, no doubt there. He hadn’t cared then, and he didn’t care now.

Their Bond seemed to equate… a phenomenal weather event. Rare and catastrophic. But necessary.

“Let’s begin,” Raviel said with a finality as he reached inside his burgundy overcoat and drew out a card. Plain and weathered by long possession, he flicked it across the table. It hovered in the air midway.

The atmosphere seemed to adjust around it, gravity making exceptions for the impossible thing as light appeared at its edges — first a faint ember, then a burnished gold.

Something darker laced through the glow. Then a hum followed, moving through his body — bone, breath, blood — deeper than sound.

The card spun slowly, each rotation revealing nothing on either side and yet something… something was coming. Something that caused every breath in the room to slow.

“The Earth King must drink the Queen’s blood and see,” Kross suddenly said.

Krave turned to Josie, and she moved her hair aside, giving him access. He cradled the side of her head with one hand and her jaw with the other. He stared at her neck, her vein a lifeline after he’d been dangling from a cliff for hours.

Josie’s gasp plunged through the air like a dagger as he took his eternal craving with a hunger that caused every muscle in Reuban to tense up.

Kaos’s hand closed over Josie’s shoulder, his nails piercing her skin as the card suddenly flared and light surged outward in waves.

The hum rose, moving across the stone and seeping through skin, mind, and memory.

The revelation arrived as a vision. A place, a symbol. No, a direction. A knowing of a memory long buried, now burned into a place that existed before breath.

Suddenly the air cleared, and the card fell to the table, a blinding white fire burning it up until crystal clear air filled its impossible wake.

Raviel rose and all eyes turned to him, his silver eyes aimed at Krave.

“The Bond of The Kings shines too bright. Hell watches. The Savior’s Bond is the only tie that can remain.

” He regarded Reuban now. “Kross carries the truth.” He looked at Kaos next.

“And holds the burden of it.” Kildare was the last one to get his gaze. “And you must see that it is done.”

He stepped back and the air itself opened like an invisible mouth and swallowed him, leaving them with the wicked thing none of them could ever be ready for.

“What did he mean?” Josie asked quietly to every pair of eyes locked on the horrible thing the archangel had just left them with. “Reuban?” she pressed, when nobody answered. “What did he mean about hell watching? And the Savior’s Bond being the only tie that can remain?”

She looked at Kross. “What truth do you carry?” Then at Kaos. “What burden does he hold?”

“Who is going to tell her?” Larena whispered.

Josie stood now, gasping. “Yes, who is going to tell me? Kildare?” she demanded. “What must you see done?”

“The bonds must be cut, Mother,” Kross said quietly.

She looked at him. “What…which bonds?” She regarded Larena. “Which bonds, Larena?” she pushed, breathless.

“Please tell her,” Larena gasped, wiping the tears from her face.

“Kildare and Kaos can no longer be tied to you the way they are,” Kross said softly.

Josie stared at him then slowly sat, wiping her face. “Tied how?” she asked, the words small and frail.

“Intimately,” Kaos answered, drawing a jagged gasp from her.

“What?” she barely whispered, the word tight. “I don’t…”

“There must be another way,” Kross said, standing so quickly the chair flew back with a clatter.

Kildare finally spoke. “There isn’t.” She looked up at him staring down at the table, gripped in the nightmare. “If we don’t sever the bond, our enemies will find our son,” he breathed, his head shaking. “And we cannot permit that.”

“I can shield,” Kross demanded, pacing now. “I’m stronger than you know. I can protect all of you.”

“You cannot be a shield,” Kaos growled. “I see the purpose for your existence as well as you do, and we must be your covering. If they target you, then our Queen becomes a target. I severed my existence to protect her, and I will not hesitate to sever our bond to ensure she remains protected.”

Josie gasped as she hurried from the room.

“I have her,” Larena whispered, hurrying after her.

Reuban stood and did his own pacing. “Is this temporary?” he demanded, eyeing all of them only to see none of them had the answer to that.

“I will sever the bonds,” Kildare muttered, his wings unleashing from his body. He eyed Kaos. “If there is a chance that this is temporary—”

“It’s not temporary.”

Everybody eyed Kross, now facing the window.

“Once you’re severed, there is no going back. The triune bond was a one-time weapon. It’s been executed and it accomplished its purpose and now it is no longer, it is done and gone.”

“Do it now,” Kaos ordered. “The Darkness is already coming.”

Panicked, Reuban shot his powers into the perimeter and slammed into a dense wall of Dark power.

“Hurry,” Reuban urged. “He’s right.”

“Wait!” Josie cried, racing into the room, sobbing as she collided into Kildare.

His fire flared as he wrapped his wings around her tightly.

She held his face and kissed it. “I just want to say I love you and I will never stop loving you! I’m not afraid to do whatever we have to,” she gasped, pressing her head to his chest. “But you’re not leaving, right? Are you leaving, Kildare?”

“Little Saint,” he soothed, his voice thick and hot, hand glowing as he stroked her head. “Our fierce little warrior. You will never be alone. Our bond will be severed but never forgotten.”

“But will you be here?” she half shrieked.

“I will,” he whispered, the broken word suffocating Reuban because of what it meant. A sentencing. To be there, unable to forget. A living wound that never stopped bleeding.

She gasped and turned. “Kaos!”

Kildare released her and she raced to him, gluing herself to his white, rigid frame, now locked in torment.

“Thank you for loving me,” she choked as his white hand cradled her head to him.

“You’re not evil, you’re good! So good, just like our son!

Thank you for our son!” The words wrenched from her chest, jagged and piercing.

Reuban felt the darkness creeping closer. “Krave,” he urged.

Krave hurried to her, moving the hair from her face. “Little Saint,” he urged, tugging at her arms glued to Kaos. “It’s time.”

Reuban’s chest ached at the eternal torment billowing from Kaos’s being. The ice-cold rage and burning hot love sucked the air from the room.

Kildare moved away from them as light grew within him. He braced his legs apart, both hands together before him, his wings spread wide, pulsing with light and red fire. A sword materialized, its hilt in his clenched hands, tip nearly reaching the ceiling.

The air was silent but strained, like it might tear if Kildare breathed wrong. The light within him flashed, as if a door to heaven had cracked open inside him, and Reuban realized in awe—it had.

Kildare closed his eyes, his face hardening as the light pulsed faster and began flooding out of him in strobed waves. He spoke in a heavenly tongue, “Awaken the Severance Flame.”

Reuban held Larena tightly as the blade pulsed once in answer, a darker hue of blood fire seeping from Kildare’s chest and lacing with the brilliance. Both coiled around him without touching the floor, a low, growing grumble now riding each beat, till the pressure slammed his ribs.

Kildare’s eyes opened, red and white fire filling them. “Sever the ties of flesh and spirit.”

His voice quaked with the command and the Severance Flame erupted from the sword and struck Kildare and Kaos in the chest.

The impact slammed Kaos to his knees and shoved Kildare back several feet. His teeth clenched, but neither King cried out or made a sound. The light detonated with a low whomp, rattling blood and vision then slammed back into Kildare’s chest.

The quiet room echoed with their ragged breaths, Kildare’s head and wings hanging, Kaos, a broken monument of grief too deep for anything human to touch.

Josie’s wail ripped through the silence, a broken sorrow for the ruin left in the room. Her beloved Kings. Both stripped from her soul.

Reuban knew — with the sick certainty of a man watching his own blood spill on the ground —that nothing sacred had survived the price they had just paid.

And all that remained was paying hell back for the cost.