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If I see Michael again, he will have to die.
By your own hands
, screams a repulsed voice in my head.
You will destroy him.

Deep within me, I hope he hides during the fighting, that he was telling me the truth that day in the trees when he said he wouldn’t fight for either side. I wish for him to stay out of the war so hard that it turns into a kind of prayer. My last prayer.

Stay safe.

***

The sound of snapping branches outside of the cave breaks me from my thoughts. I open my eyes and sit up straight, looking out of the cave towards the trees that spring up around the pond. Another loud crack reverberates into the cave and I see a body fall out of the sky and land solidly on the hard ground, bringing a few large branches down with it.

Whoever it is—a man, I notice—must be dead. I don’t know where the person fell from, but after hitting the ground with such force, I’d be surprised if his neck hasn’t snapped or his head cracked open like an egg.

I run to the front of the cave and look out over to the motionless figure.

Lying on the rocky shore of the pond is a lean boy, golden hair pushed in front of his eyes. Two large silver wings are opened below him, spreading wide across the Earth. One of the wings reaches into the shadows of the woods while the other rests on the frozen surface of the pond. A dark red stain spreads slowly over the abdomen of the figure and mats the shiny feathers of the wings, darkening them.

“Michael!”

I’m by his side so quickly my head spins. I kneel down next to him and see he has a bloodied sword gripped limply in a scarred hand. It’s the archangel sword, and I gasp loudly, my breath as shaky as my hands that flutter over him nervously, unsure of what to do. I’m not entirely sure this isn’t some horrible nightmare again.

Gold hair, silver wings, and red, red blood. The blue of his eyes is hidden beneath his eyelids and I want so desperately for him to open them and see me, maybe smile and tell me he’s fine. But he’s not fine. I can tell by how much blood there is.

Please be a nightmare.

Carefully, I peel up the fabric of his shirt, sliding it up to his chest and exposing a deep gash in his ribs. The wound is positioned just above his heart. I press my head down on his chest, his warm blood slicking my cheek, and I listen anxiously for a heartbeat, holding my breath.

Silent.

He’s gold, silver, and red. A wishing well filled with blood.

I wait, squeezing my eyes shut against this waking nightmare.

“I would wish for you,” I say gently. “If I had a wish, it would be for you.”

His chest is silent and still for so long that I’m convinced he’s dead.

And then, miraculously, I hear one solid beat.

Thump.

Whoever attacked him missed his heart. I’m flooded with relief so overwhelming I struggle for breath. His heart beats again.

Thump.

Thump. Thump.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It beats once, then twice, and then three times, slowly picking up speed again until it beats normally, without hesitation, without a stutter. I feel his heartbeat echoed in my own chest, and I’m so happy I could cry.

“Michael.” I rest my cool hands on his face, leaning down to kiss his lips.

His eyes open slowly, searching through a fog of confusion, and he winces in pain. “Pen?”

I sit back and hold my hand on the gash in his side, pressing his shirt to him to stop the blood from spilling over his tan skin, painting him crimson. “What the Hell happened to you?”

“Is this real?”

“As far as I can tell, yes,” I sharply suck air in through my teeth as I feel his hot blood start to slick my hands, rolling between my fingers before sliding down his side faster. I always seem to be covered in someone’s blood. “Are you going to tell me what the Hell happened?”

His breath is shallow and labored. “They tried to kill me,” he wheezes slowly.

“Who?” I ask angrily, turning away from the wound to look at his face.

His eyes start to lose focus and I press my free hand to his forehead, the cold of my palm acting like an icepack on his hot skin.

“Who attacked you, Michael?”

He takes another shaky breath before he can answer. “The angels.”

Chapter 31

Rage boils in me, hot and unbridled. “
Heaven did this to you?
” I spit.

He nods and closes his eyes, his eyebrows furrowed in agony. All of his muscles are coiled tight and beads of sweat slip down his chest, mixing in with the blood.

“Why?” I demand.

He doesn’t answer. His forehead becomes clammy and I feel him go limp, losing consciousness in my arms. The color slips from his skin and he turns white under me, his skin becoming even paler than my own. I need to stop the bleeding long enough for him to heal himself or he could still die. I position myself on top of him, straddling his ribs with my legs. I hover above him, not letting any of my weight rest on his abdomen, and squeeze my legs together to keep the fabric pressed to the wound.

Without having to apply pressure to his ribs with my hand, I am able to rest both of my hands on his face and cool him down. I run my cold fingers over his brow, down his cheek, and across his lips. After a moment, he opens his eyes again, looking confused and dizzy, and tries to talk.

“Shh—shut up for a second,” I tell him. “Just breathe. You passed out.”

He watches me quietly, shaking under me as his face twists again in pain.

“It’s okay. You’re going to be fine,” I reassure him. “You’re just losing a lot of blood. You have to heal yourself.”

I take one of his hands in mine and guide it down to his ribs, letting it rest over the balled fabric. I keep my hand against his, making sure he is pressing down hard enough to stop the worst of the bleeding. But his hand doesn’t become warmer like it usually does when he heals. It remains cool, clammy, and very still. I look back up at his face and see he is frowning.

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t? Of course you can.” I look at him, confused. “Just concentrate.”

“I mean that—” He shudders again. “I won’t.”

My eyebrows draw together. “Why the Hell not?”

“I left you,” he says pitifully. “I didn’t trust you. What Heaven did to me… I—” He breaks off with a ragged breath. “I deserve this.”

“Shut up and heal yourself, you idiot!” I snap, pressing his palm to his side harder.

His hand still doesn’t move.

Sitting here on the bank of the pond with a dying Michael is too familiar. We’ve been here before, but he wasn’t red. He was gray and his lungs were filled with water. I didn’t let him die then, and I’m not going to let him die now.

I turn on him angrily. “Dammit, Michael! Heal yourself!”

He watches me in silence. The blood flows out of him so quickly it slips through both of our fingers and drenches his shirt. It continues to spill across his wings, washing down his feathers and onto the ice. A fissure in the ice fills with his blood and it looks like a frozen vein.

This is what Hell is
, I think. Torment—pain I’m helpless to stop—follows me like a shadow, ensuring I’ll never be entirely alone.

He still won’t move, refusing to heal himself.

I roll my eyes. “For the love of—we can talk about us later, but if you die, then that’s it. You are leaving me again.” I shake my head, my voice strained. “Don’t you dare die here in my arms. You can’t leave me like this. I will never forgive you.”

For a moment he looks like he is going to blackout again, and I slap him across his cheek, keeping him lucid.

“Do you hear me? I will
never
forgive you!”

Michael grits his teeth and my palm becomes warm. I look down and see that his hand is glowing a soft gold under mine. When he pulls his hand away from his chest, the gash is gone and his skin is unmarked. The blood stops spilling and the color begins to return to his face. It’s like he was never hurt.

I let out a relieved sigh, unhitch my leg from him, and sit back on my heels. He sits up stiffly and tucks his wings behind him, hiding the red and silver feathers.

“What the Hell happened to you?” I know I’ve asked him already, but I don’t understand. Why would Heaven try to execute Michael?

“Heaven happened,” he says quietly. “They heard rumors that I had a connection with Lucifer. They told me that a small piece of me was left in Hell when I was resurrected. It was a careless mistake they hadn’t even realized they made. But this mistake tied our lives together. If I died, Lucifer died.”

I shake my head. “No, that was severed a while ago.”

“Tell them that.” He rolls his shoulders and his face contorts in pain.

The cuts that slice his cheek and curl around his neck slowly fade away, his skin glowing gold as he continues to heal what is broken. I go to reach out and touch him but pull my hand back to me. I won’t touch him unless he wants me to.

“So they tried to kill you, to kill Lucifer?”

“That, and they think I’m a traitor. They saw me with you.” His voice is bitter. “They thought that my time in Hell had changed something in me. That maybe because I left a piece of myself in Hell, a piece of Hell was in me. That’s why they didn’t trust me, why I made them nervous. They assumed that you…”

“Were trying to take you back to Hell with me,” I finish for him and shrug. “In theory, they weren’t too far off. That was what I was supposed to do.”

He looks at me for a long while before speaking again. “But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” I repeat.

“Why?” he asks.

“Because I don’t believe in Hell anymore. I told you, you changed something in me.” I look away from him, embarrassed.

“I didn’t believe you,” he says sadly. “And neither did they.”

I glance back at him and wait for him to go on.

“They assumed the worst of you and me, and I was sentenced to death.” His eyes grow distant. “Ariel and Sablo found me in my room and led me to this great, marbled hall. There were thick, carved columns lining an aisle that ended at an empty golden throne.”

I nod. God’s throne room. I’m unfortunately very familiar with the space.

“The room around the aisle was crowded with angels, like everyone came to watch me die. Some were even smiling…” He shakes his head, like he’s trying to erase the image from his mind. “There were cheers as I was forced to my knees in front of the throne and read my sentence by the executioner. But I had already known. I knew I was going to die by the way the others were watching me.”

I bite my tongue. I remember Heaven’s executions. They were grand affairs, celebrated with banquets before and dancing afterward. Wine as red as the spilled blood flowed from fountains as we drank to the heavy hand of Heaven’s justice being served.

I hated the executions, would bury my head in Azael’s shoulder when the sword would come down on its victim. But the others didn’t. Azael didn’t. They all watched with greedy, excited eyes, breath held only to be exhaled with the falling of the sword.

When Heaven sentenced death, no one questioned it. Heaven can do no wrong, right? If it was Heaven’s will, then every death was just.

I remember what Michael told me that first day we met.
No deliberate deaths are just.
I wonder if he still believes that after everything he’s now seen.

Michael continues. “I didn’t have my sword. One of the angels did—the executioner. All I had was my knife.”

“The one with the black handle,” I prompt.

“Yes. They didn’t see it hidden under my belt. The angel—I didn’t see his face—had a white hood drawn low. When Ariel and Sablo stepped back, he struck out at me with my sword. I tried to block the hit like you taught me to, but my blade was too short. He missed my heart, but not by much. He was holding my sword low, so I stumbled to my feet and I rushed towards him. He never saw it coming and I was able to grab the handle away from him. And then I ran. Or fell, rather.”

“What did I tell you about never charging someone holding a sword?” I ask angrily.

He chuckles once, wincing slightly at whatever pain still remains. “Of course that is the one part you would chose to focus on.” A small, guilty smile spreads across his face.

I soften. “They tried to kill you with your own sword? An archangel sword?”

“Yes.”

“And they think
Hell’s
filled with vindictive bastards.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“And that’s when you…” I wave my hands up at the trees, motioning to the broken limbs. “You know.”

He nods.

“A fallen angel, in every sense of the phrase,” I say under my breath.

We both lull into silence. I shift uncomfortably, trying to look anywhere but his face. My pendant hangs heavily around my throat, the sharp stone carefully balanced over my collarbone. Every small movement I make sends it swinging, thumping against my chest. It’s my cold, inanimate heart, reminding me of where my loyalties now lie. Where they have to lie now that I have made my choice.
Azael. Azael. Az—