Page 113 of Wicked Believer

But I pay them no mind, don’t dare to respond as I allow my thoughts to drift to another place. To the hunger in Charlotte’s eyes when she first kissed me. To the unshed emotion, the longing in her gaze when I first cast my light over the city. The look of betrayal she gave me the other night when I chose to let her believe the worst of me.

Nothing they do to me could ever compare.

The worst has already been done.

Already I have been brought low, humbled completely.

My jaw clamps tight as I fixate on Michael. “Are you going to tell me what I need to do, or are you going to keep playing childish games?”

“Careful, Lucy. There’s only one of us still in Father’s good graces here, and it isn’t you.”

He jabs the Flame of Death at me unexpectedly, the tip of his blade stabbing shallow and fast through my middle, making it difficult to breathe.

I sputter, coughing up a bit of blood as I snarl at him through crimson-coated teeth.

“You were the Morning Star, the greatest of us all. Now look at you. Reduced to a beggar.” He tsks. “And now I get the privilege of finishingwhat Father started when He cast you out.” He grins. “Stripping you of your power.”

My eyes widen. “What?”

This is more than evenIbargained for.

I stagger to my feet. “You can’t do that, brother. Not when you still need me to open the rest of your precious seals.”

“You think I don’t know that the otherOriginalsare just as capable of opening them? You’re not the only one who’s three steps ahead, Lucy.”

I sway slightly, my muscles tensing as a sudden feeling of cold grips me.

“Hold him.”

Raphael and Uriel step forward.

But like fuck would I ever make it that easy.

I should have known better than to underestimate what kind of punishment I’d need to endure in order to open the first seal, what act of penance my Father might expect of me in exchange for His permission to burn the precious world He created.

He’s the God of the Old Testament, after all.

Known for His cruelty.

And the divine monster who created me.

He’s nearly as vicious as I am.

I unleash my wrath, summoning the whole of my shadows and absorbing all my light into my body as my siblings charge me. All hell breaks loose inside the courtyard seconds before it plunges into darkness, my power blacking out the night sky and the stars overhead, until the world around us is an infinite nothing, a lightless void.

Someone screams.

The courtyard erupts in chaos as I release my hellish fury upon my siblings, but Uriel manages to locate and tackle me, sending us sprawling to the ground. The starlight illuminating the courtyard rushes back, revealing where Jophiel and Barachiel, along with several others, now lie dead, their severed, bleeding heads rolling at Michael’s feet.

From where I used my shadows like a blade to gut them.

I make a show of licking their blood from my hands as a manic, fiendish laugh escapes me. I will pull out their entrails and feast on them. Gladly.

But my other siblings, the more experienced among us, the Archangels, have far more practice guarding themselves against me.

And I’m not the only one who came prepared, it seems.

Raphael conjures his Golden Staff out of the ether, wielding it in a mighty arc above his head. A protective force field pulses outward, nearly knocking me off my feet. I stagger, unsteady and bleeding, as Uriel summons the licking flames of his Holy Fire into each of his hands.