Reign A Romance Anthology - Nina Levine Page 0,229

breakup.”

Silence blossomed as Tay chewed on that. “Okay. We’re going to go out dancing when you get back. Tequila is on me. You want to spill, then you can spill. But I’m about to upload your eye scan and override his. You ready?”

Sera took a steady breath.

The shard was all that mattered.

Preventing a new war was all that mattered.

“Ready.”

“Let’s blow the vault then.”

Get in. Get the shard. Get out.

She had a minute, at best, before he came for her.

Sera blew through the vault doors, the Glock up and covering the room just in case there was another nasty surprise coming at her.

“Let there be light.” Tay laughed a little maniacally in her head. Lights flickered through the vault. “Okay, he’s aware. He just looked up and froze. Move, Sera. I’m going to create a little mayhem downstairs.”

There were no glass cases here, but the treasures were intense.

A sword, suspended on an elegant display stand. A set of wings, nailed to the wall. Jewels beyond compare.

“Ooh, hello. Someone’s just realized I’m in the mainframe.” Tay laughed her ass off. “Too late, bitch boy. I own your ass. Pew. Pew. Kicking firewalls down like I’m Godzilla….”

“You’re having way too much fun with this!”

Music throbbed from down below. Sera caught just a hint of the little witch’s intensions—sprinklers deployed, music raging, lights cut. There were sparks everywhere as the water got into the electrics.

“Just call me DJ Tay!”

Sera ignored it all, opening her senses up.

Power hummed through her veins. There. Right at the back. Sera ran toward it. She could feel the vibration of that power through her skin even from here, like something radioactive. It had to be the shard. She’d prostrated herself in Michael’s presence, barely able to lift her head to look at him. She could feel the same radiance now.

“There it is!”

There was a single glass case back here, warded nine ways to Hell. But the wards were inverted—meant to try and contain the raw power inside the case. A shattered length of steel lay flat on a nap of black velvet. Golden angelmarks imprinted the steel. Glory. Power. Strength. Truth.

“Heaven’s glory,” she whispered. “This is it. This is a piece of Michael’s sword. It’s real.”

“Sera, I’ve lost him! He just fucking vanished. You need to get out now.”

But something else had caught her eye.

Right beside the glass case was another broken sword, set onto a little altar as if it were precious. It was just the hilt, and the first two inches of a shattered angel blade, but she could feel the hum coming off it as if it recognized her.

Sera froze.

Her own blade, broken in that last storming of Heaven.

She’d lost it in the melee, and when she’d been torn from Heaven, she hadn’t been able to find it on earth. Her heart began rabbiting in her chest so fast, she felt like Tay was mainlining sugar directly into her.

It was right there.

Her blade.

Her angel blade.

Why the hell had he kept it? How had he found it?

Had he… had he come for her that day in Heaven, when Lucifer’s forces breached the city? Had he been looking for her? Had he desired revenge?

She looked at her blade, nestled so carefully in it’s display. Pride of place. Even the shard was shunted off to the side as if it were of the lesser importance.

“It all starts to make sense,” said a dangerous voice behind her. “How desperate you were to have me.”

Sera’s heart kicked into her throat and she spun around.

Damn it. She’d hesitated. She’d let herself get distracted, and now she was caught.

Azazel stood in the doorway, one arm resting against the frame as he watched her with those merciless eyes.

There was no sign of the angel she’d loved now. No sign of the demon who’d branded himself on her skin last night. Not even a hint of the softness that he’d shown her. Blood dripped from his gloved fingers.

“Sera?” Tay whispered.

“Get out,” she told her friend. “Get out, right now.”

Because if he sought to crush her mind, then he’d take Tay with her.

7

“Who’s your master?” Azazel looked down, and began tugging his gloves off, one finger at a time. “I couldn’t get it out of your little friend downstairs, not before his brain melted out of his ears, but I’ll have the truth out of you. Don’t doubt me.”

He wasn’t even making a move toward her, so certain in his victory.

“We weren’t working together.”

“How’d you know he existed then? Tsk, tsk, sloppy of you, little angel.”

Sera