Through Flame and Blade

Ch. 42 Destruction of Wrath

But she did the last thing he expected. She ran. Towards him. Her lips found his. An echo of the burning pain from the Fountain water tore along his nerves, down into his chest where the poison still ate at him. As fast as she had come, she was leaving him.

She turned. She ran for the arch.

Logan's daemonium roared free of its confines.

***

*Chiara

She was in a fight to the death with the hordes of hell.

But somehow, she felt only the enduring strength and peace of the Fountain's garden around her. Demons screamed in her face—she heard the sigh of wind in the trees and hidden birds singing.

She swung her blade and it was like dancing in the sun.

Warmth. Life. Peace. Strength. Pure, healing light shone through her body, enveloping her in its arms. She was in the Garden, the Fountain murmuring at her feet. The Fountain was in her, a part of her flowing through her, suffusing her with life and healing energy.

Logan had given her a single drop of water, but in her heart it became an ocean.

A single drop of the Fountain's water had knitted broken bones together. Her wings stretched out behind her and she reveled in every shiver of air that brushed her feathers. Bruises and cuts continued to ease and stitch together while she fought. Every pain lifted, leaving the delicate perfume of the Fountain lingering in her nose and its taste in her mouth despite the whirling dust, the spray of blood.

But little by little, her arms grew heavy. The blades were harder to block, her reactions a fraction of a second slower.

Logan kept pushing them closer and closer to the arch and finally, his daemonium roiling beneath the surface of his skin and a shift beginning in his form, he ordered her to run for it.

She was going to lose him. There was no place in Hell or Heaven or the Midlands they would ever be safe. She was going to lose him and it hurt worse than her wings being snapped to pieces by the river's current. She grabbed him in a kiss.

A small hiss of pain escaped his throat, but his lips crushed hers in an echo of that pain. In a kiss that was less than a heartbeat, she lived a lifetime with him. It lasted less than a second, but she ran her hands down his arms, the cords of his muscles popped under the burning heat of his skin. He breathed into her mouth, hard chest against hers lifting and falling.

And she was running for the arched opening to the Halls of Lust, Logan staying behind. A roar filled the air, a rumbling thunder of fury. She hacked her way forward until no one stood between her and the next hall.

She hesitated. The sky darkened. A heaviness lay on the arena. Then, black flames exploded from where Logan stood.

He had shifted fully. The Dark Flame. The Wing Cutter.

This was how thousands of angels saw him before he ended them. If the angels ever knew what she and this demon had done together, how she felt about him, they would cast her to the pits with their bare hands.

This dark thing—this was the last sight of countless demons in the arena.

She shuddered. So much death.

So much destruction. Demons wallowed in wrath, letting it consume them, spewing it back on everything around them, killing and destroying, endlessly. Logan, in the center of the arena was destruction itself.

She stepped backwards, a wracking sob rising from her gut.

Not now. Do not shed tears now! There was no room, no space for weakness in Hell.

She knew it to be true, but her heart wouldn't stop breaking. A sob burst free from her throat. She ducked down, into the darkness of the Hall of Lust, just past the arch way and out of sight of any survivors in the arena.

It was because of her tears that she didn't react fast enough when she heard a whoosh falling towards her. A heavy net pinned her to the ground, her wings tangled in its ropes.

*** Never let weakness get the better of you in Hell. Chiara should know better! Thank you for reading!!! Hit the star! ***