“You…you did this. You ruined everything!” he screams, and I see the moment he flings his power at me.
I don’t try to stop it, I wait, hoping I’m strong enough to survive it. But it never hits. I blink and there is Lucy, right in front of me. He stops the power mid-air and tuts. “Oh, Amos, you and your little council are so stupid. Did you think we would never find out? That we would let this stand? You are not above the law, you are to uphold and protect our people. You are just like everyone else. And now you must pay that price.” He flings the power back and it smacks into Amos, making him fall backwards.
A woman on the council tries to flee, and suddenly Lucy is behind her, his hand protruding from her chest. Her mouth opens and closes in shock as she slowly looks down in dawning horror. With a squelch, he pulls his hand back, holding up her heart for everyone to see. He smirks as he sets it on fire, letting it burn until only ashes coat his palm. She tumbles down the steps, her body broken at the bottom as he turns to the other council members. “One blood debt paid. I, Lucifer, the great snake, the eternal flame with the power and authority of the sleeping council, hereby strip you of all titles and responsibilities. You are sentenced to death for your crimes against our people. Do you accept the charges levied against you?” Lucy asks calmly.
“I do not! I am the head of this council! These people are mine, you are nothing but relics!” Amos yells.
Wow, what a drama queen. Can’t he die with dignity?
He turns then, his eyes alighting on me. “And you! I gave you everything, power, opportunity, and what did you do? You threw it all away! Well, I don’t need you! We don’t need you!”
“We who?” I roll my eyes.
Veyo sniggers, and I glare at him as Griffin snarls, “He’s mine, he touched you.”
“We? Oh my, did I not tell you who made you?” Amos cackles, seeming very calm all of a sudden. “No use hiding anymore, why don’t you come out?” he calls.
A door behind the throne opens, but I can’t see the person yet. “You saw his laboratory and work, Dawn, one of many, I assure you. This man has been doing this for years. I, of course, had to hide it and kill a few people who condemned his actions, but I recognised what he was doing for what it was—genius.”
The man steps from behind the thrones and I hear Griffin suck in breath, “Da—Gabriel?” he whispers.
My eyes dart from Griffin back to the man, the angel, waiting there. He looks like Griffin, I can see the resemblance. This is the man behind it all? The very same man who made all the nephilim….and my mate? Who supposedly died for his crimes?
Fuck.
Dad...Gabriel.
He’s alive.
He’s alive…it keeps repeating in my head. All this time, I thought he was dead, killed for his crimes, and here he is. Alive and well, and not only that, but thriving and making more of his experiments, one that includes my mate. He stands tall, proud, and cold. He looks the same, but it all feels so wrong. How did I never notice the utter callousness behind his eyes, the cool way he would watch us, even back then? Because I was a child, wanting my dad’s love. I can see the real him now, but did he ever love me...love us?
God, Mum. He let her die, he let it happen and didn’t even try to stop it! He could have! He could have stopped it, why didn’t he?
“Because she was a means to an end, boy, nothing more,” he retorts, watching me with those golden eyes I used to wish I had.
He never loved us.
“No, you were amusing. I will give you that, and once I felt something akin to kindness towards you and your human mother, but then I realised that sentiment was holding me back. If I wanted to complete my mission, to make the strongest soldiers, I could not afford such luxuries and weaknesses.”
I flinch and he steps forward, his eyes on me, driving each word home, flaying me open until I stand before him broken, damaged, and unloved. I start to spiral, my madness rushing through me...
“You were not the perfect soldier, too driven by emotions. And those others could not even think for themselves. I realised where I went wrong. I needed to start with babies with souls and minds of their own. Take the strongest of our kind and mate them, breed them until we had soldiers. Raise them as ours to follow us.” He looks at Dawn then and I slump when not under his gaze. “But you...you were a hope. A daydream. I did not think it would actually work, but here you stand. And how magnificent you are!” He grins, pride on his face. “You are what I was searching for all those years. They were all failed experiments, but you? You are true power, I filled you with it. Enough to kill any man, human or otherwise. Pulled directly from the oldest of us, the gods, and injected into you as an embryo. You bonded with it—” He shakes his head, staring down at my mate like she’s his world...he used to watch us like that.
It was all a lie.
“Gods?” she repeats, confused and angry, her fists clenched at her sides.
“Old relics of a world past, creatures best forgotten. They turned their backs on this world and retreated. The very first of us. I found a few of the first seven, the original gods. I took their power, harvested it!”
“And put it in me,” she whispers, watching him in horror. “What am I?”
“I don’t know!” He laughs. “Nothing we have ever seen before! You have the exact untrained and unknown magic that made them...but now it’s more. So much more, and you are magnificent!” he cries, and steps towards her. “Think of everything we could do! We do not need the council, any council, they can’t rule us.”
“You mean me,” she spits. “You are nothing, just an angel. You call your son fallen, an experiment, an abomination, but you are the same. You’re fucked up, so fucked up.” She shakes her head. “Even if I didn’t hate you for what you did to me, I would loathe you for what you did to my mate!” she screams at him, and power launches through the room, tossing everyone back as it spins faster and faster with her at the center of the storm.
“Mate? Interesting,” Gabriel mutters. “What else can you do?” he questions, looking around at the evident power.
“You want to know?” she queries, her tone deadly, quiet, and I know she’s going to explode. “I’ll show you!” she roars. “You will never hurt him or anyone again!”
I know she means me. She’s angry on my behalf, and love for her fills me at that, pushing back some of the darkness. The woman who loves me despite everything, who wants to protect me from my own father, from my own mind.
With her last word, pure, unfiltered power flows from her, like she’s a conduit, to do her bidding, but it’s too much. Too powerful. “Dawn!” I yell as she screams in agony. I can feel it searing her, killing her. “Vasculo, stop it!”
Everyone else fades away—my anger, my betrayal, Gabriel, Amos. Nothing matters but my mate.
Dawn.
“Little Monster, that’s enough, they will pay!” Nos tries to gain her attention, laying his hand on her arm, and I watch it start to burn. He winces in pain but holds on. “I am here, Little Monster, I can feel you, so lost, so alone...you never are.” He looks at me then and I know.
She needs me.
Stepping forward, I struggle against the power, but when I get close enough, I lay my hand on her too. My knees almost buckle from the pain, not just my own at the fire racing across my hand that’s touching her, but at the pain inside her. Coming from her…she is lost. Alone in the middle of all that power. It’s controlling her, not the other way around, wanting to do her bidding, but it’s too much for her alone. She’s curled into a ball inside, cut off from everyone, unable to even feel our minds.