There’s a desperation in Toreon’s face as he watches Morax out of the corner of his eye while he tries to unravel the portal faster, but it’s slow going, and he’s the only one who can touch it.
My scythe burns with a comforting heat beneath my palm, pulsing with power of its own that it wants unleashed as we stare at the light within Morax. He’s tainted, his soul muddy and jaundiced. There’s no cure for the wrongness coursing through his veins.
Taz is the closest to the Ophidian, and even though I don’t know my father very well, I can appreciate how effortlessly he moves. He may be Pride, but he fights as well as Wrath does, and the demons coming at him don’t stand a damn chance.
It’s time. I feel it in my bones just as surely as I do the scythe in my hand. It’s time to ensure that balance prevails.
Medley and Delta rise up into the air, heading for Morax like I am. They must have felt what I did in our bond, felt the call for retribution.
We meet in the air, silent determination coursing through our veins, and drop down behind the Ophidian. Like we’re operating as one, each of us calls to our power and uses the dark essence to cut Morax off from the portal. He stops short as a wall of menacing black light shoots up around him, and then it spreads, encasing us in a dome quicker than he can blink.
He whirls, looking wildly around him, and as soon as he notes that he’s completely cut off, that he’s stuck in here with the three of us, rage fills his slitted eyes. His snakes go insane and start snapping and hissing and trying to lunge for us, as if they can rip themselves right off his skull and sink their fangs into us.
“Drop this barrier now,” Morax demands, his voice laced with so much power that it hits me in the chest and makes me stumble back. But our darkness is too strong. Too evolved. The claws of his words can’t gain purchase, and his compulsion sparks and fizzles out like a fly against a bug zapper.
“That ain’t gonna work this time,” Medley tells him, my sisters on either side of me.
Morax’s fists ball at his sides, an order tearing through his throat as he looks beyond the barrier to his followers. “Get in here!”
My eyes flicker past him to the demons who try to follow his command, but every single one of them who attempts to break through the black dome instantly burns like charcoal, their body nothing but a burnt husk as it lands on the ground.
Delta smirks. “It’s just you and us now, Ophidian.”
Fear. Real fear flickers over Morax’s face for the first time ever.
I revel in it. The power inside of me watches like a predator waiting to spring. All the torture, the violations against my free will, and the choices he robbed from countless others. The attacks, the taking of what doesn’t belong to him, the destruction in his wake. Every sin against him runs through my mind like a rap sheet that’s being read before judgment and sentencing.
“You’re being shortsighted,” Morax tells us. “Look at the three of you. Look how powerful you are. Strong. Beautiful. You can rule Heaven at my side. We can have every single angel and demon kneeling at our feet. We can be so much more than what they want us to be. We can rule. Together. Not be stuck under the thumb of Lucifer. Don’t lose your chance.”
His silver-tongued words seep into the air, the power of his Impel bloodline trying to make it all sound so enviously sweet. I can even picture it—me and my sisters ruling. Never being subjected to another’s will ever again. Safe. Free from being hunted and used. It’s a powerful picture.
Morax takes a step forward. “Just think of it. You’re light and dark Annuli. You’re half angel and half demon. You are so much more than everyone else out there. Why let that go to waste? Come with me into the portal, and we can rule. We can build a realm for ourselves.”
His snake eyes swing around us, his face desperate, his brow dripping sweat, his clawed fingers desperately holding onto the last chance he thinks he has.
I look him steadily in the eye, and then I speak a single word that shatters his hope and