be there with their men to capture the demons who come to collect the cadets.”
“Smart,” Grayson said. “What about the sleeper agents at the other academies.”
Keon’s mouth turned down. “Two academies have already lost contact with cadets who left on a field trip. The other two have identified and arrested the spies in their midst. It turns out that the drop-off was meant to occur in two batches. Our Academy was in the second batch.”
So Mammon already had some of our cadets. Fuck. Still, we were lucky we’d cottoned on to Mammon’s plot when we did.
“You won’t be alone,” Uriel said. “I promise I will protect you with my life.”
All this time, I’d believed that the Underealm was a no-go area for celestials. Conah had sent Uriel a message by phoenix when we’d needed to contact him, so I’d naturally assumed he couldn’t come into the Underealm. But the Powers had gone into Limbo centuries ago, and Seraphim had patrolled the nine circles back in the day, so my understanding of how things worked was obviously flawed.
“I always thought celestials couldn’t come into the Underealm. I mean, you never visited.”
“You never invited me,” he said with a wry smile. “Although, in honesty, I would probably have declined. Too much time in the Underealm taints a celestial.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I was possessed by a malignant, Fee, so I think we can safely assume I’m tainted. But even if I wasn’t, I’d still come with you.” There was a warmth in his voice that was different from his usual sincerity. His throat bobbed, and the corner of his mouth lifted. “So, yes, I’m with you.”
Keon’s plan could work, and if it did… “Azazel and Mal will be able to find out where Mammon might be holding Lilith.”
“It could be just the break we need,” Keon said.
“But what if Azazel and Mal don’t get the messages you sent?”
Keon’s eyes narrowed. “Then we hope the three of us will be enough to keep the cadets safe and capture one of Mammon’s men.”
Seventy-two hours was beginning to look smaller and smaller.
“I hate this,” Grayson said. “I hate that I can’t come with you.”
I pressed my cheek to his chest, memorizing the feel of him and filling my lungs with his scent. He stroked my hair and pressed his lips to my temple, infusing me with a sense of security.
“Keon and Uriel will be with me. I’ll be fine.”
He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to. We both knew that a team of celestials had failed at what I was about to attempt. I was merely a reaper. A Dominus with only a fraction of celestial power, and I was headed into Limbo, a place that even the demons who resided in the Underealm chose to avoid.
Not even Keon knew what we could expect when we got there.
I’d found home in my guys’ arms. Grayson, Mal, and Azazel. They were my everything, and the possibility that I might not see them again made my chest ache with loss.
I held Grayson tighter. “You’ll find Hunter. You’ll make peace with him.”
He pulled away from me. “Stop it. Stop talking as if you aren’t coming back from this, because if you don’t, there’ll be no me or Hunter. If you fail, there’ll be nothing.” He cupped my face. “You have to succeed, Fee, and to do that, you need to stay alive. Do you understand?”
His husky eyes were bright with passion, and my heart swelled with love for him. Love.
“I love you, Grayson.” My words were a whisper.
He stilled. “What did you say?”
The words swelled in my chest like a live entity, making me breathless. “I love you. I fucking love you, Grayson, and I need you to know that, okay?”
He kissed me hard on the mouth, and my eyes grew hot with emotion. He broke the kiss, his nose brushing mine. “I love you too, Fee. So fucking much. Promise me if you can’t find this power source, you’ll come back to me before the end. If we have to end, then I want to do it together.”
I kissed him softly. “I won’t fail. I can’t.”
But even as I said the words, something clawed at the back of my mind, and ice filled my stomach because there was a part of me that didn’t believe those words.
And that. That could be lethal.
Chapter Eleven
Keon carried Uri into the Underealm. Turned out that although celestials could fly back and forth from the Underealm, they couldn’t jump in. However, once