And then he touched my face. Ice pressed against my cheeks as his eyes went completely white and then shockingly red. My red.
“Keeper of souls… guide them,” a voice rasped. “Trapped.”
Was that me or inside me?
Cassius swayed and then all of his feathers erupted in a frenzy from his back pointing like razors in my direction. It was his version of a kill shot and he wouldn’t let me go.
I was a threat.
Somehow.
I was bad.
I’d always known that, though, hadn’t I?
This was on me.
I was worthless; it’s why I wanted a soul in the first place.
His feathers slowly descended and pressed against my chest. They drew no blood. They didn’t even scratch me.
“You protect this body… why?” Cassius demanded another answer.
The voice erupted from within. “Because it has always been mine… loved, I risked…”
Cassius released me in disgust. I’d never realized a demon could feel shame until that moment.
“Greedy fool,” Cassius muttered. “You are split in half!”
I looked down.
He muttered a curse. “Not literally!”
I felt a swirl of power behind me. Alex. They were surrounding me because I was the bad guy—again. Hell, and things had been going so well, hadn’t they?
I would walk away from them. From this.
This was beyond them. This was bad if it was beyond Cassius.
“Release!” Cassius yelled, shaking the foundation of the earth beneath my feet.
Suddenly I could talk again, even though it felt like I’d been choked from within. “I’ll leave.”
“Not so fast.” Cassius held his massive hand out. “There’s an ancient text… older than—well as old as Sariel. You need to read it.”
Oh good, we were taking orders from his dead archangel father now. Perfect.
“So reading it is going to magically cure me from this?” I pointed at my winking tattoo, at the way it pulsed on my arm. And then I just lost it as frustration raged through me. I let out a roar and fell to my knees.
The sun disappeared, immediately followed by the appearance of clouds of darkness and then a shadowy mist wrapped itself around me.
“Stop calling the shadows!” Cassius gripped me by the arm, then cursed and yanked his hand back. A wicked burn had formed across his palm.
“What the hell did you do, demon?” Alex roared. “Sell your soul to the devil himself?”
“No.” Everything felt heavy as I stayed on my knees. “I never had one to begin with.”
Cassius’s eyes turned silver white as he tasted the air and whispered, “Lie. Try again.”