Page 19 of Princess of Bael

Rather than wait for him to insult me again, I started pulling up the rune on my cuff that would allow me to portal.

But his palm curled around my forearm, causing a volt of energy to pass through us. I shivered and he visibly trembled, his irises flaring with liquid gold flames as I met his gaze. “What…?”

He didn’t give me a chance to finish my question—which would have beenWhat is that?—his teleportation ability wrapping around us and carrying us through time and space.

Sparks sizzled across my skin, an odd sort of power exchange occurring between Ezra and me as we traveled.

Then my stomach began to churn, confirming he’d whisked us up to the heavenly realm—a place I absolutely should never visit. It weakened my demonic senses to a point where I would eventually be almost mortal. Not even my enchanted bracelet would help with that.

I pressed my palm to my abdomen, my knees giving out as we appeared outside on a too-green lawn.

Ezra let me fall, his own hand leaving my forearm as though I’d burned him.

I shuddered, my body protesting everything around me. The cool air. The lack of chaos. The utter perfection of every foreseeable item.

Even the sky was too blue.

I curled into a ball of torment, my sense of purpose disappearing as Ezra left me in the middle of the grassy field.

A breeze caressed my cheeks as his feathers fluttered, his black-brown wings magnificent and sprawling as he used them to propel himself toward a house in the distance.

It was as though he didn’t care about me at all.

Leaving me again.

In agony. Suffering. A ball of worthless energy deserted to die.

A flame lit from within me, my heart hardening that much more as fire licked through my veins.

Move, I told myself. Don’t let him do this to you again.

I gritted my teeth, forcing my body to unfurl.

I’m not that girl anymore. I’m Princess of Bael. A future fuckingqueen.

Well, not literally.

A futureArchdemon.

But those semantics didn’t matter, because I needed tomove.

My stomach rolled as I forced myself to shift upward to a seated position.One step at a time, I thought, growling as I attempted to find enough strength to stand.

Seconds turned into minutes, the world spinning around me in an array of brightness that made me more disoriented than the pits of Hell.

I closed my eyes and massaged my temples, my lungs filling as I compelled myself to breathe.

In and out.

There you go.

Archdemons could technically enter Heaven. The more powerful the Archdemon, the more easily they ascended and acclimated.

Clearly, I hadn’t reached my full potential yet, because I felt like a withering Slither.

I stole another deep breath through my nose, blew it out of my mouth, and forced myself to my knees. My equilibrium shifted, a sense of weightlessness knocking me off-kilter, but after another handful of breaths, I was able to find my balance and stand.

Now I just needed to walk, something that would have been easier if I didn’t feel as though I was floating. The air up here was definitely thinner than the atmosphere on Earth and the murkiness of Hell.