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The rage of the fight continued around them as Aqua applied the bandages. A cooling sensation remained under their wraps even after she finished.

“Alright doc, am I clear to continue fighting?”

Aqua gave a reluctant nod of her head before bowing. “Stay safe, Consort.” Then she phased out.

Rowan unsheathed her sword and tilted her head towards Harris, who shot her a wolfish grin before transforming and joining a bear shifter in subduing yet another citizen.

Chapter 32

Alessandro’s dragon swam through a pool of bloodlust. The being that kept on regenerating kept him there.

The magic that the overtaken body of Antoni Barros wielded was familiar.

Alessandro now knew what the source of the power was, and also why it had such a strong interest in his mate.

The curse wasn’t quite god-level, but it was so close that Alessandro should have registered its existence before it exposed itself. Tainted, but undeniably angelic.

Though rare, the few ‘spars’—if that’s what one wanted to call the all-out brawls—he and Lucifer had indulged in through their friendship had included magic.

They had always ended in a draw. Though Alessandro had a significantly higher magical aptitude, Lucifer was more creative than Alessandro could ever hope to be.

It was a trait that had passed down to his great-granddaughter.

The wild concept was still settling in his brain as he whittled the being down.

He had removed layers and layers of the witch’s flesh from the source, which he now knew was a cursed weapon of an archangel.

Those parts he tore away were working on mending off to the side. Barros was in a stomach-turning but much more recognizable heap.

Lucifer had always been open about the issues he had with his siblings.

One had remained a gaping wound in the fallen angel’s heart even centuries after her death.

Anytime he spoke of Uzziel, the archangel of faith, it had led to a night of debauchery that Lilith always blamed Alessandro for.

Uzziel had been one of the few angels who hadn’t taken either Michael’s or Lucifer’s side in the angelic war.

Since their creation, Uzziel had followed Michael through training, work and play time. Many thought the two had become codependent to an eyebrow raising degree. As such, it had been a shock for everyone, including Lucifer himself, when Michael’s shadow made her neutrality in the matter clear.

Uzziel had grown close to Lucifer during overlapping assignments on Earth, but her time with the fallen archangel was nothing compared to what she had spent with Michael.

Uzziel’s decision came with the consequence of animosity from both sides, each thinking she was playing them for information. But she continued her work as if their silly little war was the last thing she’d ever have to be concerned about.

It ignited a movement. Those who hadn’t felt as strongly about the issue—a question of what they were supposed to be doing because their creator had gone missing—followed her lead and resumed their daily tasks.

She maintained her decision until the day Lucifer and Michael met face to face in their creator’s throne room.

Lucifer wanted to take the seat. He’d seen that the angels, without proper direction, were becoming destructive.

Michael wanted to leave it open for their creator. Desperate for his return, he’d seen it as his duty as the most cherished son to cull the humans who he thought were the source of their creator’s displeasure.

Lucifer had his back turned, preparing to take the seat despite Michael’s protests when Michael had reached his limit.

Uzziel broke her vow to not get involved. She stopped the swing of Michael’s divine sword from taking Lucifer’s head.

The others thought her intervention meant she had finally chosen a side, but, when Lucifer attempted to end Michael while he recovered from the shock of the interference, the archangel made it clear she still wasn’t on either side by launching both Lucifer and Michael towards the walls on either side of the Hall.

Whether it was the violence Michael and Lucifer, two of their lord’s favored angels, had shown to each other, or that they’d done it in the throne hall, their god decided it was time to make his reappearance.

His absence had been a test of their loyalty. He wanted to see which of his creations would stick to their lord’s will if he ever disappeared.

Cast out of the celestial realms, Lucifer and his followers ultimately made their homes either on the earth itself or in the infinite circles of hell.

Michael and his side, in contrast, could not visit departed souls, limited to travel only in the confines of the skies or on earth.

Both sides shared the ultimate punishment of their creator’s silence. Only able to regain favor if they completed tasks set to them by Blessed. Those treasured beings who could hear the words of gods.

Those who had maintained that they were not on either side could roam where they wanted and continued to communicate with their lord without restraint.

In fear that they too would lose this privilege, these angels never told either side what their god said to them.

They flitted around, listening to commands only they could hear.

As a unique case, Uzziel received a unique punishment. Confined to earth, and earth alone. The celestial realms and the endless hells both existed just out of reach.

At first, the archangel hadn’t minded the punishment.

She liked humans, took joy from guiding and caring for her charges during their natural lifespan.

But, as time went on, humanity became more and more twisted.

She lost her love for the fragile creatures, leaving her only one thing that brought joy—magic.

Despite there being an actual archangel of magic, no other was as well-versed in using it as she was. She used her skill to weave the most beautiful landscapes, awe-inspiring illusions and dedicated herself to more deeply understanding nature.

She created her own personal oasis on a deserted island through the means of this natural resource, still answering missions assigned directly from their creator without a fight until one day came when her answer was no.

Lucifer insisted no one knew what the command was, but Uzziel’s outright defiance incited the wrath of their god.

Instead of having the freedom to move wherever she wanted to on Earth, their god sequestered her on her moving island. Within its borders, she could use her magic, but as soon as she stepped too far into the ocean, it would come to attack her.

Her god had turned her last joy into bars and chains against her.

The punishment enraged Lucifer, who hadn’t seen the archangel since that fateful day where she both saved and doomed him.

He found the island, but by the time he’d arrived, the madness had already taken Uzziel.

Isolation had done its worst. The results—a heap of wings on a glistening white beach, a trail of cooked blood leading to the drenched staff that had done the mangling.

Buried deep, it stood upright, just a breath from the crashing waves of that too blue ocean.

It was Uzziel’s last act of defiance.

The weapon had been a gift from their creator, just as precious as Lucifer’s sword. It was a weapon that could transform into any form its owner wished.

Lucifer imagined the archangel had walked right into the ocean and, instead of fighting, let the magic tear her apart.

When Alessandro found out Lucifer had left the weapon there as a memorial, he tried to hunt it down to expand his hoard. In those days, he’d been young and didn’t understand the sentimental weight some treasures carried.

It took him months to locate the moving piece of land. It had been so challenging that he’d almost given up half a dozen times.

The sight of the giant oak tree wrapped around an even bigger weeping willow at its very center was unique enough to make the hunt worth it. But that hadn’t been his actual goal.

He combed through the overgrown flora in the middle of the island with only a hatchet, looking for it when he didn’t find it next to the perfectly preserved wings on the beach. Roses and lilies thrived next to cacti and succulents of all shapes and sizes in the canvas of the deranged spellcaster.

It took weeks, as magic didn’t work to its full capacity within the borders of the islands. Looking back, he was sure it was an unintended consequence of Uzziel’s punishment.

In the end, his efforts proved futile.

The staff was missing.

That was no longer the case. It was here, finally within his grasp, somehow embedded inside of the witch that had thrown the world of shifters into a fiery storm.

It had overtaken that witch’s will over for one reason.

It wanted Rowan Dahl.

It must have sensed her divinity during her fight with Antoni Barros, her angel-hood inherited from Lucifer. Her incredible control of magic must have reminded it of its original owner because to Alessandro, Rowan was, as Lucifer had described Uzziel, magic personified.

Even with celestial magic, he could not cleanse the staff, but he could trap it and it knew it.

Each time Barros regenerated, the weapon tried to split a bit of itself off to get around Alessandro to find a path to Rowan. It moved when she did, full effort fixed in her direction, but it was wary of having its physical form caught by the Dragon King.

It was in a desperate attempt that it hurled a collection of bodies, still under its control, at Alessandro. It had hidden a sliver of its form in the masses, passing through the bodies on its route to his woman.

He could feel her somewhere to the right, her magic close to both Japhet and Lucifer.

It had been a surprise that Lucifer had stayed behind to help Alessandro’s people when Lilith had phased out without a second thought.

The fallen angel had been working through the shadows that crawled along the battlefield until he realized his progeny had shown up when Rowan faced off against the djinn.