Court of Sunder (Age of Angels #2) - Milana Jacks Page 0,3
God would strike me down for lying to my mother. I was one of five girls and two brothers. Both brothers were married, while none of my sisters had. Momma was eager to marry us off. I understood why. Our housing and provisions would improve if my sisters did something, anything, for the greater good of our Court. My sisters wasted time all day, always coming up with excuses that would get us nowhere in the commander’s Court.
“Do I know him?” Mom asked.
“No.” Technically, she didn’t know the prisoner, and the prisoner was not a boy and definitely out of my league seeing as he was the hottest thing that ever graced the mortal realm.
Mom pointed up at an angel with black wings. “There’s Uriel. Something big happened.”
“Or is about to happen,” I said, thinking about the exchange in the keep. I promised him sanctuary. Promised whom sanctuary? It could be anyone, but whoever it was, the commander wasn’t having it.
Mom nodded. “Look, Uriel is with that girl angel. I forget her name.”
“Alcona. She’s a scout.”
We watched as the pair took off, three more angels flying after them, one of them Koliko, my guarding partner. The commander would replace him, and then I’d have a really hard time sneaking into the keep. Damn it. “Mom, I think—”
An arm came over my chest and yanked me against a body. I twisted and jabbed an elbow into the attacker’s gut, then moved to grab my knife, but a sharp object poked the side of my neck, and as the one who held me turned us around together, I saw the mortals in the kitchen were sprawled on the floor. My mom, unconscious but breathing, lay next to a pair of the commander’s angels with twisted necks and broken wings. The keep door was open, and there stood Lord Raphael. In his hands, he carried his rotting wings.
Chapter 2
Michael wouldn’t know mercy if it broke his nose. Once-a-month meals kept me weak and reliant on my immortal strength for survival. Starvation also kept me from extending my healing powers to my wings, which he’d nailed to the wall across from my cell purely to torture me. Seeing as Michael wouldn’t give up the Marked girl and went as far as calling her his soul’s mate, I had relied on Lucifer to end her and prevent a catastrophe in the realm.
His control over the Marked girl meant he’d gained access to Michael, forcing me to make Lucifer an offer far more valuable than the pleasure of torturing the poor mortal and thereby torturing Michael. I’d need to deal with Lucifer once I returned to my Court.
Before I dealt with him, I needed to escape Michael’s keep. All these months, I bided my time, reserving my strength for the perfect opportunity. It came today when I wasn’t ready. I would’ve preferred at least another month of power reserves, but the soul of the soldier who fed me brushed mine right after Michael tore off my wings. As if Father chose that moment to give me the strength my brother had ripped from me.
Eventually, I would tell her what had happened that day. Not today. Today, we needed to escape. By feeding me more often than allowed, she put her life in danger. So here I was, standing in Michael’s kitchen, rotting wings in my hands, and a half-baked escape plan in my head.
“Bring that soldier,” I told Cayen, who held the girl captive under a knife. The second Michael found out Lucifer was in my Court, he’d fly after him. I would be surprised if he left his Court for longer than a few weeks since his soul’s mate lived here. But I had at least those few weeks to make it to my Court, find out what happened in my absence, assemble my males—if left with any—grow wings, and become a suitable match for my soul’s mate, and I had to do all this before Michael landed and wrecked my Court either in pursuit of Lucifer or just because he could.
Cayen, Job, and Galo, two of my battle angels Michael had placed on janitor duty, the girl, and I moved out of the kitchen and toward the healing baths, stopping first by the laundry room. There, the frightened staff lined themselves up against the walls. “You.” I pointed at the middle-aged woman. “Bring me a uniform.”
She scurried to the closets and opened them, searching the folded piles of white cloth.
“Today, mortal.”
She picked one and