It was causing him a lag in movement, and he knew for a fact that Devlin was a bitch in battle. She played rough and dirty, and didn’t hold back on the cock shots.
Blood red eyes stared him, seeing past his soul and straight into his future – his death. Grimly, he accepted the fact that unless anything happened to intervene, neither of them were going to make it out the fight alive.
Heat boiled through his arms and legs, coursing through his body and going straight through his hands. Instead of melting the metal as his power would have, it caused the bitch to flame up and in less than a second, Devlin was screeching.
And throwing herself at him.
He dodged out of her way and slashed the knife across her bicep, barely missing the her frosty wings. He knew enough from fighting with demons that if their wings were damaged, they emitted a coldness strong enough to freeze an arm until it burst apart.
“Fuck,” he cursed, turning around, only to be kicked in the side. His body slammed against the wall. He brought up his fist, throwing the knife with a death-letting accuracy. It slammed into her shoulder, but she kept coming at him. Her fist connected with his face, and for a brief second he wondered why she wasn’t using her wings.
The question caused him a dangerous pause.
Bam.
The wall blew out behind him, and once-a-fucking-gain he was tossed – straight into Devlin. She screamed, her body trapped under his. He felt the crush of rubble and large bricks as they landed on his back. Furious, he pushed with his knees and, while stealing the now-bloody and cold knife from her chest—jumped over a large piece of stone.
Devlin didn’t follow him.
Smoke curled out of the building that had blown up on them, and he had only a second to whip around before a large, hulking body shuttled its way through the crushed stone. The large bang was deafening, startling. He saw familiar silver eyes, quickly turning to a dangerous onyx, before he was looking towards the building.
“Jamie,” Talon tried to shout. His voice was rough and panicked, and Talon barely understood what he was saying before he was unconscious.
“Oh my fucking god,” he groaned, getting ready to save his friends love, and die at the same time. Whatever was going on in there, it wasn’t good. Evil, so dark and black, was pouring out of the building in oily waves. He had no clue what was happening, but he knew that he’d been betrayed. And set up. And everything was going to fucking hell.
He only made it through the large, gaping hole of the rec-center before another blast echoed and collided with him.
The last thing he heard was Jamie’s cry of pain, Talon’s unconscious shout, and a small whimper from under the rocks before he was also dropped the fuck out of the world.
~*~
“She’s in danger.”
The soft voice carried over him, through him. Curled in his gut. Sunk into his soul.
Zyn turned around, seeing nothing but empty air and trees and a telephone. Emptiness.
“Who’s there?” he asked into the forest, feeling the pull and lure of it as he had from the beginning. From the beginning of time, the forest had been his only solace, his only home. It was what called to him in his darkest days, what comforted him in his sorry excuse for a life.
“You need to go to her. She’s in danger!” the voice said, more insistent than before. It was feminine, yet strong. Controlled. As beautiful as a lullaby.
“Who is?” he asked to the voice, lifting his face to the sky. Nothing was there either. Leaves rustled softly, small drops of moisture falling from their high thrones of beauty. Besides one thing, nothing else had enchanted him as much as the forest had.
But she was gone.
Missy had given him a twenty dollar bill, a smile, and a nod toward the diner. He promised to repay her, and could only imagine the look that would come over her face when she opened her purse. The baby had slept the whole way to the diner, and it had been all he could do not to sit there, stare, and cry.
He’d never gotten to see his daughter as a baby, so innocent and untouched. He’d never gotten to see her first steps, her first word. He’d known nothing about her till she entered school. Every award she received, every performance she’d done, he’d seen. Revealed. Regretted. Loved. She