Page 164 of Wrath

SIXTY-TWO

Z

Ididn’t know how long I stayed there, kneeling over a woman I despised with the entirety of my being, when arms wrapped around me from behind.

I didn’t stiffen, knowing innately who it was, even before Ryland breathed, “Thank fuck.”

Then my mates barraged me from every direction, and I allowed them to hold me in a baking, pervasive heat.

Aaliyah was dead.

It was finally over.

We were all together and safe and alive.

Then a voice sounded from behind me—a somewhat familiar voice that had the hurt marinating until it turned into anger.

Peter.

My angelic father.

“This is rather touching, but I’m afraid it doesn’t change anything. I want what I’ve come here for.”

I stumbled to my feet and whirled towards the asshole standing before me, looking utterly immaculate in his three-piece suit with his hair slicked back. There was not a speck of dirtor blood on him. Definitely no indication that the entire capitol building had just turned into a brutal, bloody battle.

He barely spared his dead daughter a glance, his gaze fixed on me. Power thrummed in the air between us, trembling like a live electric wire.

“What the fuck do you want?” I snapped, aware of my mates pressing closer on all sides.

Peter’s lips curled like he thought he was being cute. “You can’t kill an angel—even one that’s trapped in this…less-than-preferred body.” A scowl briefly broke out on his face before he forced a neutral expression. “I suppose that’s what I get for trusting my bitch of an ex. She agreed to help me come to earth, then trapped me in the body of a prisoner.”

“Lilith?” I blinked at him in alarm. “Lilith helped you come here?”

“Only hell spawn can create portals between the planes of existence. Those up above wish to remain out of earth’s…politics, so to speak, especially after sin ran amok on earth.”

“Why the fuck would you want to come here? What do you even want?” I asked again.

I felt both agitated and exhausted—a bone-deep weariness that made me sway on my feet. All I wanted to do was disappear into my room and process everything that had transpired. Was that too much to ask?

“I want my weapon,” Peter hissed, his mask falling, shattering like it was nothing but papier-mâché.

Beneath it, I saw a man driven by anger and violence, a man who wanted nothing more than to watch the world burn.

“I was supposed to get it centuries ago when we first created you and your sister. But alas, it never came to be. One sister embodied darkness; the other embodied light. Together, the two of you would’ve made the perfect complement to each other. The perfect weapon.”

“I won’t let you take my mate,” Lupe snarled, his eyes glowing.

Peter sneered at the shifter. “I don’t want Z.” Then his gaze dropped very pointedly to my stomach. “I want what's inside of her.”

“What?” I stumbled back a step as if he’d physically shoved me.

Fear and disbelief ran amok inside my chest.

What the hell was he implying? It couldn’t be what I thought it was. That was impossible. I would know if I was?—

I couldn’t finish the thought.

Instinctively, I brought my hands to my stomach as the last few weeks played on repeat in my mind.

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