of stone, he let the edge of the knife create sparks against it. They made basic sharpeners, but he wanted his victims to see the show.
His vindictive smile was missing a soul behind it. As a demon, he wanted to gain access to Heaven's gates instead of being sentenced to Hell. He got quite a few secrets out of the angels who were lost to his damned cause, but I knew my mother.
She'd never give up her worthiness for a man so cruel. As one of the creator's best archangels, my mother was the only female to stand beside Gabriel and Michael. They led the war in Heaven when Lucifer opposed his master.
"Lyra," my mother's voice sang to me. "You, my child, are more than this. You remember my words, Daughter. Nothing Dolion does, strips you of your worth. You will see me in our kingdom on high. Just promise me you'll live accordingly to reach that goal."
Though, I was old enough to understand most things, I was too slow to process why she wanted me to promise that. Even so, I'd tell her whatever she wanted to hear, if it eased her suffering.
"I promise," I whispered the hollow words. She had been raising me as an angel of the light since I was born. My father went the dark route, but he was still a good man. My mother fell in love with him instantly, and they made their love work with his darkness contrasting her light.
"My sweet Canary..." Dolion walked across the room to where she was shackled and chained to the wall. My mother didn't give him a lick of her attention. She was completely focused on me.
"Your worth has not been tarnished, Lyra. Please tell me you understand." Mother's eyes searched mine for her purpose to be understood.
"I do," I answered vehemently because I did. I knew exactly what she meant.
"It's time to make you sing, Canary," Dolion and Katrine cackled at his words.
"I love you more than the creator loves his men, Daughter." After my mother's final words to me, the angel's death prayer fell from her lips.
I had to see firsthand the true power that rested behind her plea. By asking the creator to take her life, she wouldn't lose her wings. By her invoking the power of God, I also understood she knew this was our end.
Katrine tossed me to the ground in a hurry to stop my mother with Dolion. It was too late, though. With lightning beginning to rise above the house, her death just signaled where it happened.
My father would recognize whose wings lit the sky as she was called home. It was a short matter of time now that my mother took the high road. My father's army would come for me.
By her keeping her wings intact in her death, she'd be received by her court on high.
I should feel something. I should be mourning the loss of my mother, but I was just grateful she was free of the pain.
Dolion and Katrine tried to revive my mother's lifeless body, but God was swift in her collection. He understood her wings were on the line. He let her die to save me and to save her grace.
The gravity of it all hit me at once. Where I thought my emotions were done spiraling, I began to sob. That numbness went away as I understood I'd never have my mother again. She wouldn't be at my next school dance. She wouldn't be at my wedding.
I screamed the injustice of what I had been robbed of. A future my mother wouldn't be in with a physical body, at my side.
Something powerful snapped within me as the shackles around my ankle shattered. With the roar of my greatest loss, my mother's love set me free.
My mother just saved my life… by sacrificing hers.
27
Caine
"She is mine. My piece," Dolion snarled as August and I caged him in. "I deserve her grace for what she took from me."
"You killed her mother," I reminded the fucker. The freak paused his feral movements after my words.
Dolion's smile grew too wide as his maniac came forward. With his long cackle, I felt a little sick to my stomach. "Evangeline took her own life, dark one. And Lyra watched her do it. Oh, the irony of an angel committing suicide to get into Heaven with her wings intact..."
As he laughed harder from the memory, I needed to know if what he spoke was true. My eyes locked with