waist, zipping open a stinging wound.
Fuck these freaks—all of them—he needed to find Mikhail.
He fled the habitat and hastily illusioned his wings away again. Mikhail had said he’d spoken to an angel at the administration building. He’d go there for them to remove his emotions.
“Halt, demon!”
He glanced down the path behind him. The guards sprinted after him.
His unruly wings sprang from their illusion. “Fuck.” Severn turned and raised his hands. “Fellas, clearly we’re not gonna get along, so if you want to die, keep coming at me. I’m happy to oblige.”
Their wings flew open and launched them off the ground, then they bolted toward him.
He launched off his back foot, burst forward, and sprang at the dark one, catching hold of his right wing and dragging him to the ground in a blast of white feathers. A punch to his jaw stunned him enough for Severn to snatch the blade from his hand. He could have stabbed it into his heart, but despite what they thought, he hadn’t come here to kill angels. He thrust the blade into the guard’s thigh. The angel cried out, his wail echoing across the park. Gods, they’d all be on him soon.
His back prickled. He whirled, lifting his wings, and shied sideways, avoiding a blade’s incoming slash by a hairsbreadth. Oh, that light bastard was fast.
“You are to come with us!” the angel announced, as though his words alone could tie Severn up.
“That’s not going to happen.”
Dark hobbled to his feet, clutching his bleeding thigh. He’d be healed in minutes.
Movement above caught Severn’s eye. Two more angels were inbound. He couldn’t fight four. And in minutes, more would descend on him. Haven wasn’t short on guards. So that left running. Or flying. Which was easier said than done. He spread his wings, rolling his shoulders to balance his wings’ extended weight down his back and through his shoulders. Shit, it was like he was a pup again, trying to make the leathery extensions work together instead of flapping about like sheets in the wind.
He beat them once, pushing air downward to lift him off his feet. Simple. In theory. In practice, one of his wings wasn’t as strong as the other, or he was just out of practice, because the right wing provided too much lift, shifting him sideways. He staggered to his feet and ducked Dark’s sudden right hook, then rebounded and punched Dark across the face. Angels rarely expected to be met with fists when their opponent wielded a blade. The guard pirouetted, and Severn landed a heavy blow on the back of his neck, dropping him facedown into the dirt.
The light-footed angel suddenly rushed him.
Severn tried his wings again, flapping them haphazardly into the air. Fingers wrapped around his ankle and yanked. He kicked out. The light angel recoiled, and his kick went wide.
Severn hit the dirt in a mass of hands and wings and feathers. He slashed wildly with the stolen blade, keeping the angel at arm’s length, but then his wings snagged a bush or tree or something behind him, and the angel thrust his blade in. Sudden, breath-stealing pressure in his chest jerked Severn back. He grunted, swung wildly, and punched the bastard in the jaw, then kicked him off, but the heated throb up his left side confirmed the angel’s blade had gotten through and found its target.
He couldn’t afford to look. If he looked, it’d be bad.
Two more angels landed on the path, freeing their blades just like the others.
Severn clutched at his side and tugged at his damn wings, still snagged in the bush. One sprang free, but the other wing was stuck fast, surrounded by branches.
The guards grinned, their prey caught.
“Shit.”
He yanked again on his stuck wing. “Four on one is hardly fair, boys.” His wing twitched, finally pulling free. The shift in weight stumbled him forward. The cool, smooth kiss of a blade lay beneath his chin, freezing him rigid. One wrong move, and he’d lose his head.
Severn blinked into the guard’s cold, hard eyes. They both knew what came next. Ultimately, it would end with Severn broken at their feet.
“Did you think you could infiltrate our most sacred of places and survive?” the guard at the end of the blade asked.
He wet his lips, considering a witty reply that could very well be his last words. He did not want to die here. He’d always thought he’d die in battle for demonkind. He’d die fighting for what was right, not because he’d