Page 49 of Falling for Famine
When my eyes opened, I realized I’d fallen asleep. I never slept. I’d never found a reason to. It was a disorienting few seconds as I searched the room for Nomi. Had she gone to the kitchen? I didn’t hear or feel her.
Ignis swayed into view, but for once, it wasn’t accompanied by Glacies. I swept the room with my gaze, its alarm setting off mine. Without effort, I was dressed and in the living room where the phone I’d given Nomi was on the ground, dropped. My eyesflicked up to the wall where I felt the distinctive signature of Hell.
“Fuck!” I cursed as Ignis retraced the symbol and it became uncomfortably clear who was at the helm of her disappearance.
Lucifer.
The only reason she’d be lured away from me was for Felix. He was all she cared about in the world, and I didn’t doubt he was used to persuade her to leave. My contact wouldn’t have stood a chance against the first fallen angel. Few could.
I blinked into the bakery café the older human ran, invisible to all the humans moving around. Blue and red lights flashed outside the windows, and someone was bent over a prone form. The hum of voices of shock and awe centered on the person left in the middle of several tables.
A woman with blue hair.
My chest seized and fire blazed into my throat. The reality of what I saw crashed into me like I’d taken an angel’s blade to the heart. I didn’t feel the cold, but there was ice in my veins. I stumbled closer, death having already taken hold of her beautiful mortal body.
“Nomi,” I breathed my mortal’s name, praying it, begging it.
An intense but familiar sensation hit the room, and my eyes rose, fierce and demanding. Thanatos was there with his Counter Soul. His eyes went to the woman on the floor and then to my face, surprised to see emotion twisting it.
The mask was gone. My emotions blazed as ferociously in my eyes as they did my expression. My wrath was so overpowering that it would’ve burned the place to cinders if not for it being the beloved space of my Nomi.
Thanatos was in front of me, his voice gentle. “Was it—”
“Lucifer,” I confirmed, my own voice unrecognizable.
“Fuck,” he growled, thrusting a hand into his hair in a rare moment of candid emotion.
My hands fisted at my sides as I straightened. “I’ll go collect her myself.”
“That’s suicide,” he rebuked, and I had half a mind to punch him.
I’d never wanted to hit anyone for the things they said, not even Zelus. Their barbs rarely registered. But yesterday I’d been close, and today I was itching to throw a fist at someone.Anyone.
My Nomi had been taken by the King of Hell himself.
“We’ll talk with Zelus and figure out a plan. If he’s after her like his brother was his Counter Soul, then he’s likely under the impression she has power he can use. I suspect that was why he was so eager to let us go last time. He had two others to go after and wanted it to appear as if his knee was bent to the threat of telling Heaven. I should’ve guessed there was more to it when he acquiesced too quickly.”
My rationality had fled me the moment I laid eyes on Nomi’s dead body, knowing what it meant, knowing that if I’d just listened to them, she’d still be alive. Though, they’d suggested the only way to keep her was for her to die, so perhaps not.
My eyes jerked up to his as the woman he brought with him wandered over to his side, her expression twisted with grief. She’d barely known Nomi, but it was clear my little wisp made a strong impression on her. Both women had fought to intervene when I took her yesterday.
“She had a human she was protecting,” I started to say, remembering the man she loved and searching the café. “He’s not here.”
Thanatos nodded, his eyes going to the woman next to him. “We’ll check and see, though I didn’t register another death in this immediate area around the time hers took place. It might be he was taken to the hospital if Lucifer hurt him.”
I nodded, wandering closer to where Nomi’s body had collapsed. The human police would likely rule it natural despite suspicions. Humans killed by us didn’t leave signs unless we intended for them to.
My throat seized at the sight of her, the pain in my chest expanding until it consumed me. Rage was a vicious pound in my head as I crouched and touched her pale face, her eyes left open and unseeing at the ceiling. Mortals bustled around, but they didn’t see me, and they wouldn’t feel me even if they were to bump into me. I wouldn’t care if they did, anyway.
“If he does anything to her—” I started on a growl.
Thanatos had a hand on my shoulder, the most contact I’d ever allow of anyone who wasn’t Nomi. “If I have to get Heaven involved, I will, Limos. He and his brother made it clear they have no regard for the rules the two sides agreed on, so we’ll bring the archangels if we have to. The sooner we leave, the better.”
I wanted to storm my way through the Gates of Hell. I needed my little wisp back in my arms. It was everything I could do not to bring the rage of Famine on the king they so loved. But like he said, I was outmatched. It was suicide.
Closing my eyes, my jaw locked around the rage burning in my throat. “Very well.”
I’m coming for you, little wisp. Even if I have to make Hell freeze over to do it.
