Page 71 of Shadowkissed

We’re almost there.

Almost—

And then the floorsplits.

The wallsscream.

And Seraphiel descends like a shadow made flesh.

He doesn’t walk. He glides.

Spectral wings unfurl behind him, flickering in and out of sight like ghosts too old to hold their shape. His black armor smolders with veins of lava, and his gold eyes shine with something crueler than wrath?—

Amusement.

“Going somewhere, little star?”

Liora freezes beside me.

I step in front of her, blade drawn, power burning hot in my blood. “Get out of our way.”

His smile cuts across his face like a scar.

“Oh, I could,” he purrs. “But then I’d miss the best part.”

Liora tries to hide the tremble in her hand. I feel it anyway.

“Don’t,” I whisper to her. “You don’t owe him anything.”

Her voice is tight. “He thinks I’m his.”

“You’re not.”

“Not anymore,” she breathes.

Seraphiel tilts his head like a predator about to pounce. “You feel it now, don’t you? That fire in your chest? That bloom of power no cage could keep? You are more awake than you’ve ever been.”

I snarl. “She’s nothing to you.”

Helaughs.

Not just a sound. A tremor in the air. A dark, rising hum that feels like the moment before a dam bursts.

“Oh, wolf,” he says with a smile sharp enough to gut. “She’s everything to me. Or she will be.”

Liora steps forward—just enough to grab my hand tighter.

“You don’t control me,” she says, voice fierce. “And you never will.”

His gaze doesn’t falter. “I don’tneedto control you anymore.”

That sends a cold shiver through me, even in the heat of hell.

Liora’s shoulders tense.

“What the hell does that mean?” I growl.

He steps back, wings stretching—eclipsing the light above us. His voice is velvet and venom all at once.

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