He did not understand them. This year was their last chance, too. They had just as much to lose. Shouldn’t they seek his favor?
“Now?” Thane asked eagerly, his voice more smoke than substance. Once upon a time, his throat had been slit…and slit and slit until scars had become a permanent necklace.
“Not yet. I mean it.”
“If you fail to sound the battle cry soon…”
They would act anyway.
“Does no one care that they will suffer my wrath?” he groused. He peered down at the Moffat County Institution for the Criminally Insane, which was hidden in the mountains of Colorado. The building was tall and wide, with a barbed, electric fence, and armed guards walking both the parapet and grounds. Halogens shone bright light into every corner, chasing away the shadows.
What the guards couldn’t see, no matter how intense their lighting, were the demon minions crawling all over the walls, desperate to slink inside.
But like the guards, the demons could not see the threat surrounding them. The twenty soldiers under Zacharel’s command remained hidden. Their wings, usually white threaded with gold, were now a star-pricked onyx, a mirror of the heavens. The effortless change was made with only a single mental command. More than that, their angelic robes were now shirts and pants fitted to their muscular bodies, black and combat ready.
“Why would demons choose to overtake this place?” Zacharel asked. And they had attempted to do so for years, apparently. Other armies had been sent, but none had made any real progress. As soon as one set of minions was taken care of, a new crop would arrive.
There were only two reasons no other army had thought to find out why. One, they had not cared to aid the humans inside the building. Or two, their job had ended with the battle. Either way, Zacharel would not make the same mistake. He couldn’t.
Golden hair curling innocently around a face somehow more devilish than saintly, Thane cast a wicked sapphire gaze his way. The contrast between innocent and carnal could be mesmerizing, or so Zacharel had heard. Human and immortal females alike threw themselves at Thane—who made no secret of his sexual desires when he revealed himself to those who were not supposed to know he was there. Especially since his desires skirted the edge of dangerous…of acceptable.
Most angels belonging to their Deity, whether they were of the warrior class or among the joy-bringers, were as immune to the passions of the flesh as Zacharel. But then, most had not been captured by a horde of demons, trapped and tortured for weeks, as Thane had been.
When you lived as long as they did, he supposed, especially when those years were spent at war, you were more likely to learn the true meaning of pain and to seek refuge in whatever pleasure you could find.
Xerxes and Bjorn, Thane’s equals in terms of strength and cunning, had been trapped and tortured, as well. The three were now inseparable, the trauma and horror of the experience bonding them. Warping them—yes, that, too, as proven by their place within his army’s ranks, but bonding them nonetheless.
“Evil craves the company of other evil, desperate to destroy anything worth saving,” Thane said, wisdom replacing his earlier irreverence. “Perhaps someone inside summoned them.”
Perhaps. If so, the battle had just become a dilemma. The summoning of demons was strictly forbidden, a crime punishable only through death. Death that would not be collateral damage but intentional, and yet, Zacharel was not sure how the Deity would react to such a slaying.
Humans, he thought, shaking his head with disgust. Nothing but trouble. They had no idea the dark power they danced with. A power that might seem exciting at first, but one that would merely eat away at their humanity.
“None of the demons have actually entered the building,” he said. “I’m curious as to why.”
Thane’s head tilted to the side, his study of the demons intensifying. “I hadn’t noticed, but I see now that you are correct. Majesty.”