----------------------------------------

Rule #15: vengeance is your birthright.

We came from the bones of the Death Goddess.

We are the children of magic and murder,

burning with hellfire and starlight,

and Her rage lives on within us.

----------------------------------------

By the time Mori reached the cave exit, the forest beyond was little more than an inferno.

A blast of tar-black smoke billowed across her path, and she skidded to a stop. She raised one arm to shield her eyes while Cricket burrowed into her hood. The heat scalded her palm despite her natural resistance to fire, and she grimaced as she rode out a blistering surge of pain.

Hellfire was a beast to deal with, even for angels.

Rapid footsteps echoed across the cave walls behind her, and through the corner of her eye, she spotted Tia racing toward the exit.

Lottie, however, was nowhere to be seen.

“Tia!” she shouted over the churning crackle of the flames. “Where—”

“Out cold,” Tia interrupted, her brows furrowed in focus as she scanned the burning woodland. “Ava’s wing hit her hard. Lex is back there with her, and Cricket should go too. She needs all the protection we can give.”

“WHAT?!” Cricket shouted indignantly. “Tia, there is blood to be had out here. I can smell it! I’m not going to miss a single second of it!”

Tia scowled at him, and without a word, her angry glare shifted to Mori.

Mori hated the idea of Cricket being anywhere but at her side, but she couldn’t deny her sister’s logic. With everything at stake. Lottie needed support. Besides, hellfire could hurt even familiars, and she wasn’t going to risk his life in the name of a good time.

“Go,” she ordered.

He whimpered in disappointment, and she peered down to find his big red eyes staring up at her silently begging that she reconsider.

“She needs you,” Mori said gently.

He growled in irritation but ultimately jumped off her shoulder. His long tail twitched with barely restrained anger as he ran back toward the others. As he left, Mori watched his fading form, her heart twisting with the hope that this wouldn’t be the last time she saw him.

A shuddering boom snapped her back to the present.

A massive branch toppled from a nearby tree, leaving a dark orange imprint on the night as its flaming corpse fell to the smoldering ground below. She and Tia dodged it with seconds to spare and rolled across one of the few areas of the forest that weren’t actively burning.

Right. At a time like this, sentimentality could get her killed.

“We need a plan!” she shouted at Tia.

“The humans are probably dead by now.” Tia squinted as she peered through the fire around us. “We don’t have long before she comes for us.”

“Great,” Mori said flatly. “But you didn’t answer her question, so can they get to the part where you come up with a plan?!”

Tia shot her an irritated glare, but it softened almost instantly. “Before I do, there’s something you need to know about winged angels. You need to be ready.”

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

A flicker of dread hit Mori square in the chest. Her eyes roamed her sister’s face, and she waited for here commander to continue.

“She won’t try to kill us,” Tia explained. “But she will do everything in her power to break us. The only thing a winged angel wants more than bloodshed, Mori, is company.”

That hit like an arrow through the heart. It was a pang of terror, of dread, and of every ounce of fear she had ever felt in her life. It slammed into her chest, stealing the breath from her lungs. For a moment, she could only gape at her in surprise.

“A lone angel is dangerous enough,” Tia continued. “But together, angels are unstoppable. She will not stop trying to break us. She will do anything and everything she can think of to shatter you. No matter what she tries to do, no matter how she tries to twist your mind, don’t listen to her. Understood?”

Though Mori swallowed hard, she ultimately nodded.

“Good. We need to split up and find her. Keep close, but—”

A cackle echoed through the woodland, and the deafening crash of falling trees thundered from the patch of dying forest to their left. A shadow loomed above the burning ruins, her wings blocking out most of the sky beyond.

“Found her,” Mori said dryly.

“You have better stealth than me,” Tia said. “I will draw her attention, and you come up from behind to—”

Before she could finish her thought, the silhouette above them dove. Little more than a shadow burning through the flaming oaks, Aurora plunged through the fire and emerged from the thick orange haze with her arms outstretched. In a blur of starlight and feathers, her nails dug into Tia’s shoulders. The momentum hit like a warhammer to the chest, and Tia’s head snapped backward as the angel dragged her off.

It had all happened so fast that Mori hadn’t had a chance to do more than turn her head. In moments, her sister was barreling through an inferno in a winged angel’s claws.

Shit.

Mori launched to her feet. Her boots pounded against the ashen grass as she followed them, and though she ran as fast as she could, Aurora was faster. The winged angel and her prey became little more than a pinprick of darkness amongst the flame.

As Mori ran, the fires ate at her shoes, at her clothes, at her skin—all of her burned as she ran, charring whatever it touched, but she pressed onward.

She had to.

As much hell as Tia gave her sometimes, they were sisters, and Mori would flatten cities if that was what it took to keep her family safe.

The shadow dove to the ground, and Mori’s heart leapt with a flicker of hope that she could finally catch up to them. Their two silhouettes appeared in the flames far ahead, flickering in and out of sight as the fires raged, and Mori pushed herself harder to close the distance. The murmur of their voices floated over the raging inferno, slipping in and out of earshot as she neared, until she could finally make out words.

“...you failed,” Aurora said over the crackle of the flames. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? You always had the most control of any of us. You were always able to hold her back.”

“This is between you and me!” Tia shouted.

Their voices grew louder with each passing second.

Mori was so close.

She caught glimpses of her sister through the flames. Tia circled the winged angel and, in a well-practiced swing, her dual swords sliced at Aurora’s throat with streamlined precision.

The steel missed by a hair, and Aurora laughed with wicked glee.

“You’re slower than I remember.” Aurora slammed her wing against Tia’s chest, and Tia was launched backward. “Besides, I don’t want you, Tia. I want them.”

Tia’s spine slammed so hard into an oak that it cracked, and she let out an agonized scream as she fell to the ground. Her swords slipped from her grasp, and her face contorted in pain. She grimaced and grabbed her shoulder, gritting her teeth as she fought against the agony, and for some reason, she didn’t stand.

That wasn’t like her at all. Tia had taken blow after blow from werewolves and dark fae alike without showing a flinch or hint of pain. For her to not even be able to stand…

…Mori didn’t want to think about how powerful that meant Aurora truly was.

She ran faster, pushing the limits of what her body could handle without a second thought of what the fires were doing to her. She could feel her skin blistering, and she didn’t care.

“I could never break you.” Aurora’s bare feet stirred up amber sparks along the cinders that had once been grass as she stalked slowly toward Tia. “You’re pathetic. You fight against what you truly are because you fear it. You fear power. You fear the hellfire that makes us what we are. I won’t waste a breath trying to break you.”

The winged angel bent before Tia and grabbed both swords. With her wings stretched out around her, like glistening black gems in the firelight, she raised both blades and pressed them against Tia’s chest, right where the steel had been in that suspended moment when Ava had almost gotten her dying wish.

No.

By the fallen gods, this couldn’t be happening.

As close as Mori was, and as fast as she was running, she still wasn’t going to make it in time.

Mori was too late.

----------------------------------------