Death of a Demon (The Dark Angel Wars 3)

“Come, brother. We leave now.”

Seth shrunk away from his brother’s touch, but came willingly. He threw me a look that could’ve seared right through a human, but I stood my ground. I wasn’t going to be intimidated by him. He was finished on this world.

“So, do we have a deal?” I asked, scrambling after them as they descended the hill toward the Hell Gate. Mona echoed the question in my head with as much hope as me.

Prince Arawn grumbled something unintelligible and stopped when he came to the solid wall separating him from Hell. He gestured toward it and I rushed forward to put my hand against it, unsure what was going to happen.

It didn’t take me long this time to create the smallest of holes in the gate. Just a pinprick—enough for our visitors to exit. I looked expectantly at them, waiting for something to happen. Surely, they weren’t going to leave without taking either me or Mona with them. I couldn’t leave Gabe in there. I wouldn’t.

“Goodbye, my child,” Prince Aita murmured, running the tips of his fingers across my arm as he passed through the gate. I shuddered at his touch and my stomach threatened to eject its contents.

His brothers slowly followed him, although none bothered to say anything to me. Finally, only the Princes Seth and Arawn remained. I stepped into their path as they tried to pass me.

“Will you fulfill our deal?” I demanded, feeling less courageous than I sounded. “Or do I have to close the gate?”

Prince Arawn chuckled, his laugh like nails on a chalkboard. He held tight to the collar of his brother’s suit and peered down at me from his towering height. For a moment, I was afraid he was going to strike me dead on the spot. I had no doubt of his ability to do so.

“Be careful making threats to the Princes of Hell,” he said in a grumble. “You might not like the outcome.”

Before I could reply, he shoved me with the palm of his hand. The brief contact caused a pain to go through me unlike anything I’d felt before. It felt as if my very skin was going to explode from the pressure building within. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. My blood was boiling and my bones turned to liquid. Everything inside of me begged for death. It would’ve been kinder than this pain. Still, it seemed to last for a lifetime. When it was finally gone, I didn’t have the strength to pick myself off the ground.

“We are done here,” I heard Prince Arawn say. He shoved something roughly into my hands. “Do not call on the Princes of Hell again. For next time, your reward shall be death.”

I couldn’t be sure that he and his brother had gone. My head spun with the effort just to keep me alive. All I could do was breathe and hope that I’d done the right thing.

And that the war was over.

Chapter Twenty-Five

By the time I was able to lift my head from the ground,

the forest had returned to life. Birds chirped in the trees and insects hummed on the ground. The happy chatter of a squirrel came from somewhere nearby. I hadn’t realized before how dead the forest had become in the presence of the Princes. It was as if it had known that an evil had invaded and it was holding its breath for their exit.

Something inside of me had changed, too. Not just the absence of another being inside my head. It was as if the rot had finally been cut away to reveal new growth. A painful pruning process that had cleared away the thorny branches so that I could finally breathe. I took a deep breath of air and reveled in the simplicity of the action.

Prince Arawn had freed me from my demon. Mona and I had both gotten the happy ending we desired. No matter how conflicted I felt about her very existence, I could feel at peace knowing that she’d found her place and I’d found mine. My body felt lighter. Free. As if I were feeling the sunshine on my skin for the first time.

But not everyone had their happy ending yet. There was one more person waiting for his ending. I looked down between my hands and gazed upon the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It was Gabe’s soul—a small ball of cool light no bigger than my thumb. It pulsed with an urgency that had me racing to my feet. Gabe needed his soul back. There was no time to waste.

Cradling it softly between my hands, I sprinted back to the manor with all the Nephilim power I had. I’d been fast before, but it was nothing compared to now. Without Mona, I was a brand new creature. An angel warrior without inhibitions. My muscles flexed with new strength and I flew past a herd of deer without even spooking them. My heart soared higher with every mile. The manor was within sight now. Soon, my Gabe would be returned to me.

The battle had been finished. Warriors were busy cleaning up the field, caring for the injured, and wrangling up the demons who’d been trussed and left to struggle against their bonds. I flew past them with hardly a word, too intent on my goal. Many tried to stop me for a word, but with Gabe’s fragile soul in my hands, I needed to get to him first.

“I need to get through,” I warned, rushing into the medical ward. It was overflowing with patients in various states of bandaging. “I need to see Gabe.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” Georgia Cael was bent over a hospital bed, in the midst of cleaning a wound. She scowled at me and stood tall. “I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

“You have to let me see him,” I replied in a huff. Her hatred wasn’t going to disarm me today. We could deal with it later, as soon as Gabe’s soul was returned to his body. “I can fix this.”

“You’ve done enough fixing.” She marched toward me as everyone in the ward grew silent, their gazes flickering back and forth between us. “You brought this war to us. You released the Princes of Hell. You will not take one step closer to my son. It’s because of you, he’s dying.”

“The Princes have returned to Hell,” I replied, lifting my chin. “The Hell Gate is closed. The war is over.”

A murmur went through the patients and their nurses.

“Lizzy, is it true?” My Aunt Esther came beside me to place a hand on my elbow. “Are they really gone?”

“They’re gone.” Tears welled at the corner of my eyes. It felt so good to say it aloud. “It’s all over.”