Chapter 20

When Ylena and I came back to our hotel room, I could barely stand. It was like all the energy had been sucked out of me. I guess I had a big day and I hadn't stopped once. I was bound for some crash and burn.

While I took a shower, Ylena went to the shopping center across the street and bought us some burgers from a fast-food place.

I stared at her while she ate.

"What?" she asked.

"I have only seen you eating at formal dinners," I said. "Never in a million years did I think I would ever see you eating a burger."

"I'm hungry. Right now, I'll eat anything."

I knew what she meant. When I was first stuck on Earth, without money or resources, I almost starved to death. I had to fight with my moral compass to finally steal food.

Things went downhill from there.

While eating, I checked my phone. I hadn't paid attention to it while training and now I saw a handful of calls and texts from Queen Thea.

Where are you?

You were supposed to arrive hours ago.

Ari, I'm worried. Pick up your phone.

Shit. I had been so excited about Ylena, I totally forgot about going to DuMoir Castle and meeting Zadkiel.

I sent her a text.

Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you. I had a change of plans. Thanks, though.

If she answered, I didn't see, because soon after, I went to bed. Ylena sat on her bed and turned on the TV, with the volume turned down. She said she was going to watch the news, then would sleep.

"We have a big day tomorrow," she said.

Right. The dagger. I almost shuddered at the thought of getting close to that weapon again, but I was too tired for that.

I closed my eyes.

It felt like I blinked, but when I opened my eyes again, the room was dark, except for the TV, which was still on. Ylena was half seated, half laying down on a pile of pillows, sleeping, the remote control near her hand.

I reached for my phone on the nightstand to look at the time. It was just past one in the morning. By the light, I'd slept like a rock for four hours. Maybe five.

I was about to set my phone down again and try to go back to sleep, but I saw there were several notifications.

I sat up in bed, unlocked my phone, and checked them—it was several calls and texts from Levi, and the last one had been a few minutes ago.

Frowning, I texted him.

Me: What happened? Why aren't you sleeping?

Levi: Use one of your coins and open a portal.

Me: What is this about? Is it the bond?

I felt it too. His absence weighed heavily inside of me, but we had been apart before. We could do it again.

Levi: Open the fucking portal.

Me: Why? I'm fine, you're fine.

I didn't want him here distracting me from my goals.

The phone vibrated with his call and I pressed the side button to stop it. The phone was silent at this time of the night, but the vibration alone could wake someone.

I went into the bathroom, closed the door, and called him.

"This better be good," I said, my voice low.

"Gwen had a vision a couple of hours ago," he said in a rush. "You need to open the portal and let me through."

I frowned. "What vision?"

"Sweetheart …"

"Tell me!"

"She saw you being stabbed in the back, literally, and she said that would happen soon."

I processed that for a second. Then, Gwen saw me in a fight? With Rhodes? And he or someone stabbed me? And soon? That meant I would get control of my magic tomorrow, get the Scarlet Hex Blade, and go to Elysium soon!

"Levi, I appreciate the warning, but now that I know, I can watch for it, and?—"

"Ariella, open the fucking portal now, or I'll leave this place right now and follow the bond, even if I have to scour Boston and the surrounding areas inch by inch."

Holy shit, the man was persistent. And of course, Abbie had told him where she had dropped me off.

Knowing he wasn't kidding, I said, "Hang on a minute."

Then I tiptoed out of the bathroom, grabbed a coin from my bag, my jacket from the armchair, and my boots from beside the door, and exited the room, careful not to make any noise when closing the door behind me.

I slipped on my shoes and my jacket, and walked to the inn's first floor, on a small path that cut below the building, where the vending machines were located. I glanced side to side, listened for a second, then I used the coin.

The moment the portal opened, Levi crossed over. Hands in fists and eyes full of murder, he looked around, making sure the danger wasn't right behind me.

"As you can see, everything is fine," I told him. "Whatever Gwen saw, it won't happen in the next two days, I think."

He finally stopped and looked at me. Even at this time of night, he was dressed in black slacks and a perfectly smooth dark blue button-up shirt that made his eyes pop—and right now they looked like two fiery stones.

"It won't happen in two days," he said, his tone low, harsh.

"What?"

"What Gwen saw, she said it was soon. As in, a few hours."

"Unless another group of supernaturals finds us again, or angels, then I don't think we'll encounter anyone to harm us."

"Us?"

"Yeah." I smiled at him. "My mentor found me earlier today." Then I remembered it was after midnight. "Or yesterday. Whatever."

"Your mentor?"

"Yeah, I told you about her. She's the most powerful archangel in Elysium. Her name is?—"

"Ylena." His eyes shifted to a point above my shoulder.

When I turned, Ylena stood a dozen feet or so behind me, near the path's entrance.

Then I realized he had said her name. "You know her?"

"Hi, Leviathan," Ylena said.

My brows curled down. "You know each other?"

Levi slipped his big hand into mine and tugged me closer to him. He pointed a finger to Ylena. "Stay back." Then he took a couple of steps back, taking me with him. "Do not move."

"Levi, that's my mentor." I tried taking my hand from his, to stop moving back, but his grip only tightened. "What are you doing? Stop this."

"It has been so long, Leviathan," Ylena said, her tone almost eerie. "I heard you were helping Ariella."

I snapped my head to her. "What?"

Levi turned to me and grabbed my shoulders. "Remember I wanted to tell you something a couple of days ago?"

I nodded, confused. "What does that have to do with this?"

"Everything!" he almost shouted. "Fuck it. You'll hate me again anyway. Ariella, Ylena is?—"

"I'm his mother," Ylena said.

I blinked, I shook my head, I almost fell back. What? That didn't make sense. Ylena was an archangel and she was thousands of years old. She went through the academy when she was young, and she had become sterile then …

But Levi was twenty-eight.

I took a step back. "It can't be."

"I know what you're thinking," Ylena said. "That I can't have children. It turns out, I can. I am the only angel who went through the academy who still can." She took a couple of steps closer.

Levi retreated, taking me with him. I was too numb to protest. "Stay back!"

"You see," she went on, ignoring him. "I created that rule over a thousand years ago when I had my first child. He had become one of the most powerful angels I had ever seen. One day, we went on a mission together, but we underestimated our enemies. I got distracted, trying to protect him, and let our enemy win. Adona almost stripped me of my rank. Not long after, he died in battle while I was benched."

"So, you proposed the sterilization process," I muttered.

She nodded. "Adona and the other archangels thought it was a marvelous idea."

"But you didn't go through the process."

"I should have, but I think I was too distraught. I felt like … if I went through the process, then it was like I never had my son." She swallowed hard. "That was when my hatred for Adona gained roots."

My jaw slacked. "What?"

"You're the one behind it all, not Rhodes," Levi said, sounding as stunned as I was.

"I shouldn't feel pride for your intelligence, alas …" She shrugged.

Levi snarled. "You don't feel anything, bitch. If you did, you wouldn't abandon a baby minutes after he was born."

"When you were in my stomach, I could feel you were ninety-nine percent demon and almost nothing angel," she barked back. "I wanted nothing to do with you."

Levi tried to hide it, but he flinched. "How about not sleeping with a demon in the first place?"

"As if you haven't slept with the wrong person before."

I stared at them, trying to process what they were saying, what was happening here, and I felt like I was drowning in molasses.

It was Ylena who started all of this. She was the one who wanted to take over Elysium. She had recruited Rhodes and the others.

And to top it all, she had slept with the enemy and had his child.

Levi knew Ylena was his mother, but he hadn't known she was the one who had?—

I gasped. "You sent me on that mission to die!"

"I didn't!" Ylena shouted. "I had sent Cyan, but he couldn't go so you volunteered! I told Soren that you weren't qualified enough to go, a lie, to get you out of it, but Soren thought you were amazing, so he took you. Before you left, I was already mourning you."

I took a large step back, my chest heaving, my heart hurting.

"You're the one who wanted the dagger." I pressed a hand to my chest. "And now you are tricking me. Pretending to be at odds with Rhodes so I would take you to the dagger!"

"Smart and pretty," Ylena said, not amused.

"What does that dagger do exactly?" I asked. If she wanted it so bad, she knew.

"As if I would tell you." She scoffed. "Just know it's enough to kill Adona." She looked at Levi. "And any other supernatural. Isn't that right?"

I looked at Levi. "You wanted the dagger."

He pointed at Ylena. "To kill her."

But he didn't know about her rebellion. He wanted to kill her for leaving him and not looking back.

A little extreme, but Levi was extreme.

"Listen, Ariella, I never wanted to kill you," Ylena said. "I never wanted to hunt you and put a reward on your head, but when you ran with the dagger, you gave me no choice." She extended her hand to me. "Come with me now. Let me show you why we need to eliminate Adona and all these old, ridiculous rules, and start our society anew. I know you'll understand, and once you do, you'll join me."

I stared at her, appalled. "Even if Adona is wrong and the rules should be changed, killing her and her supporters isn't the answer."

"That's how every revolution starts!"

I took a step back. "I'll never go with you, and I'll never give you the dagger."

She growled, light magic enveloping her hands. "I almost had her. I almost had the dagger, but you had to show up and mess with everything." She threw a light bolt at Levi.

He was quick and deflected it with a darkfire bolt. "Let us go," he said. "Let us go and I won't kill you."

Ylena laughed. "You can't kill me!" She threw a huge light bolt at us.

Levi lifted his arm, creating a thin wall of shadows, as he reached for my hand and grabbed it. He turned to the portal, but the shadows parted and Ylena sent her magic toward the portal. It started small, like a tennis ball, but it grew as it got to the portal, and stretched like a net, swallowing the portal. It returned to ball size and then sizzled away in the air.

"Fuck," Levi muttered. Holding my hand tight, he sent a cascade of darkfire darts toward Ylena—his freaking mother!—and ran with me toward the back of the inn.

"Wait," I said, unsure we should wait. I felt like hitting pause on all of this. I needed time to think, to process.

"We don't have time," Levi said, squeezing my hand. "Just … let's get out of here. We can talk, argue, or whatever once we're safe."

Safe. From Ylena. The angel I had looked up to my entire life.

Levi's mother.

I should be mad at him for this, for not telling me sooner, but this time, it was on me. I was the one who didn't want to talk about our lives—even though he knew almost everything about mine.

We ran to the field where Ylena and I trained earlier. "Do you know where we're going?"

"No. The plan is to run until we can hide, or until we find a car."

There were cars at the front of the inn, but if we stopped and turned now, we would come face-to-face with Ylena.

"You don't have another coin, do you?"

I shook my head.

We were halfway through the field when the targets made of light appeared before us, but this time, it wasn't six. It was at least fifteen and they moved, with weapons made of light, closing in around us.

Levi suddenly stopped and pulled me closer to him.

"You have nowhere to run," Ylena said as she joined the line of her light soldiers. "And you can't possibly win against me. Just surrender."

She was right. We couldn't win a direct fight against her. But there had to be another way.

"And then what?" I asked, trying to gain some time while thinking how we could escape her.

"And then I promise to take you in and put you in a good house in Elysium with your family, after you tell me where to find the dagger."

"So like a prison."

"A comfortable prison."

"What about him?" I asked, pointing my chin at Levi. I couldn't read his thoughts, but I knew that like me, he was running several scenarios in his mind to find a way for us to get out of this one without any fatal wounds.

She stared at Levi. "I promise to let him go, as long as he doesn't interfere in any of this anymore."

"I can't do that," he said through gritted teeth.

"Aw, because of an accidental bond you two share?" she teased. I suppressed a gasp. "I know almost everything, Ariella, don't be so surprised."

"It might have been accidental, but it's real," Levi said. My eyes became two huge balls. He shifted his gaze to me. "I won't let anyone break it."

My heart stopped for what felt like an entire minute, before kicking it into high gear.

"Foolish demon, stupid angel," she hissed. A huge bolt of light formed in her hands and all of her light soldiers pointed their weapons at us. "Last chance. Surrender."

Levi continued looking at me. "Sweetheart, wish for me to take her to the fiery pits of the underworld."

Oh, I liked that idea. "I wish you to take her to the fiery pits of the underworld."

He offered me that lopsided grin that was starting to grow on me, brought my hand to his lips, kissed the top of my hand, his lips warm and soft.

Then, he let go of me and ran toward Ylena.

Taking her by surprise, he threw a darkfire at her, making her lose the grip on her bolt, and lunged at her.

The moment his arms closed around her, both of them disappeared.

Even the light soldiers faded like sparkly smoke.

I stared at the spot where they had been a second ago, despair clawing at my chest.

What had I done?

* * *