4. Orion

Lily doesn't need any more Virtues!

We are enough.

I am enough.

But was I, really? It wasn't about being "enough." It was about being what Lily needed.

And what did I know about that anymore? I wasn't even with her.

The last time I had seen her, I'd knocked her unconscious so she wouldn't have to watch me kill the men she loved.

So she wouldn't hate me forever.

You did the right thing. Killing this asshole? That would definitely be the right thing to do.

My voice was shouting in my head, angry and furious at the words coming out of this idiot incubus's mouth.

But my voice had been wrong. I wasn't supposed to be listening to it.

Which meant…

Asher might be exactly what Lily needed to set things right. He could be the missing piece and the reason we had all failed up until now.

My dilemma was the only thing keeping me from ripping off the male's head. With Samael's help, we had wrapped the chain around his neck and our combined weight was enough to snap it taut in place.

Samael didn't seem to be suffering an internal struggle like I was. He pulled, groaning as he flared his wings, attempting to take the male's head clean off.

Asher grappled at the chain, sending sparks of magic flying in all directions as he worked through each link. Magic popped through the air as he delicately ripped through them one by one.

How was he breaking them?

This wasn't just an incubus. A lower-level lust demon wouldn't have that kind of power.

He was something else.

The chains withered away in a matter of seconds, leaving Asher's chest heaving as he glared at me, clearly irritated. "Did you get that out of your system, big boy?"

Sunlight flared underneath my skin, desperate to burst out and scorch him into the sand until he melted into a prison of glass. Samael had fallen to the ground and a vein had appeared on his forehead, looking ready to pop.

"Lily is—" Asher began, only for Samael to cut him off with a snarl, immediately jumping back onto his feet.

His wings stretched to their full length, the sight impressive enough to make even me pause. I was slightly taller than him, but his wingspan easily went over my head and blocked out my light, casting the incubus in shadow. "Choose your next words carefully," Samael instructed.

The incubus rolled his eyes. "No wonder she's still unconscious. Do all her Virtues fight the bond like this?" He glanced at both of us, then settled his attention on Samael. "Not your brother, though. Hmm? He's already bonded her, hasn't he?" Samael's lethal silence said that she had. I knew it, but I echoed the wave of jealousy that emanated from him. "So that leaves me to figure out what's keeping you from accepting her."

"I'm going to kill you," Samael said flatly. It was a statement, one he breathed out with that conviction of his that could make anything true.

It was dangerous magic. If this really was one of Lily's Virtues, we couldn't kill him.

Unfortunately.

"Prove it," I interjected. "Prove you're one of her Virtues." That might be the only thing to convince the voice screaming in the back of my head not to join Samael in a little murder.

Asher smirked, then curled his fingers as if grabbing something in midair.

My heart stopped.

It was as if he'd reached inside my chest and squeezed the vital organ, making it work for each pump of blood. I slammed a fist against my lungs, trying to get them to take a breath, because they had stopped working, too.

"See?" Asher said, keeping his hold on me. "I'm a bonded mate, pretty boy. Don't any of you understand what kind of power that offers? Don't you understand the gift that Lilith gives her mates?" He released me with a disgusted look on his face, rolling his eyes when I wheezed in a breath. "I'm going to leave you two to figure it out. With a little gift of my own, that is, because even if I don't feel like you deserve her, she chose you. And unlike the two of you, I respect what our mate wants and needs." He snapped his fingers, sending the grains underneath my feet heating up until they stuck to my boots.

Samael had been watching, obviously not opposed to me dying in front of him, before he growled in pain. He wasn't wearing any shoes, so the grains melted into his skin.

The flash of heat was gone in the next moment, and so was the incubus.

Or whatever the fuck he was, since there was clearly more to that asshole than met the eye.

Because whatever he had done to the sand wasn't a fire to brand us.

It was a portal, and a poorly made one at that. Fire scalded my sides, ripping a scream from my throat as I sank through to the other side.

I found myself in a realm I'd been to before.

One that my inner voice called home.

And just like the last time I'd been here, I found Lily waiting for me in a meadow framed by bright stars. She wore a silky dress that clung to her curves, and she smiled at us like she'd been expecting us for a long time.

Except when I looked up, I realized this sky didn't just have stars. There were winged creatures silhouetting a dark sky, their forms perpetually falling with their feathers drifting behind them like shooting comets.

"Lily?" Samael asked, surprising me that he had followed me here.

She smiled and her shoulders relaxed as if she was relieved. She had her angel form here, meaning that I knew she wouldn't remember this encounter, just like last time.

Which was probably a good thing, because I didn't want her to remember this.