Page 37 of Even Angels fall
“Sorry, Little Devil. I’d hate to disappoint you, but I heal too fast to bleed to death.”
I take a few steps until she’s pinned to the wall. There’s a cross just behind her, and I know I should be ashamed about what I’m about to do, especially since we’re in a church, and it’s part of the belief of the men and women who come to pray here every Sunday morning, but I don’t hesitate.
By the time the blade is stuck into the wood, right through the palm of her hand, the blood from my chest has stopped running out and her eyes are wide with disbelief.
I expected a scream, or at least a flinch, but no, disbelief is the only thing I can see.
“I can’t be killed,” I say as I place my free hand at her throat. I’m not squeezing, just holding her in a way that shows thatI could.
The truth is, I can be killed. With a blade to my heart, or maybe by being burned. But I’ve never known of any fire hot enough to burn through dragon skin. There probably are other ways, but they haven’t been documented, and dragons just heal a lot faster than any other shifters. All of these things make people think we can’t be killed. It also helps that our heart is not on the left side of our ribcage, it’s full center, and I don’t think anyone has ever revealed that.
It’s a good thing, because the Little Devil’s daggers didn’t plunge deep enough to get through the other side of my body, but they were deep enough to have hit my heart if it had been where everyone else has theirs.
As it is, Angélique not so sweetly framed my heart with steel.
“Can’t be true.” She spits the words at my face like they’re venom.
She’s so far from the vixen who moaned in the room next door all week, and even more from the doll I thought she looked like when she arrived.
And she’s so far from breakable.
I still should send her back to her father.
Wait.
This attack is even more of a reason to send her back to her father.
“What? Disappointed you couldn’t kill me?”
She looks me straight in the eyes.
“Yes.”
Her voice doesn’t waver.
I remove the hand that is under her armpit, and she’s now balancing between the dagger through the palm of her hand and my hand around her throat.
She tries to turn herself to grab the handle of the dagger, but my body is wedged in between, and she’s too far to reach it.
I withdraw the second blade from my chest, and I see the resolve in her eyes as I twirl it and bring it to her other hand.
She doesn’t flinch. She looks me directly in the eyes, as if she doesn’t want to show how much pain she’s in.
She’s so prepared for the blade to go through her skin again that she’s shocked when, instead, I plunge the blade into the wood and force her to grab it.
“I’m sending you back, and that’s final,” I say, fire in my eyes.
And I leave her there on her cross without a second look.
22
Angélique
I’m screwed.
I’m so much worse than screwed.
What felt like my last resort turned out to be what is going to break me.
