Angel of Fire - Chasing Destiny - Book Three ***COMPLETE!!!***

New Beginnings Have Deadly Endings

Chapter 27

Vycandor leaned away, his lips stained red with my blood as the tips of our wings reached skyward in earnest. The expression on his breathtaking face a haunting mixture of intensity and sobering braveness.

Almost like he knew what was about to come next.

I heard a scream. It came from somewhere deep inside me. Thomas. It was Thomas! He screamed in pure, tortured agony; his pain at losing me rippling through my mind.

In that moment, I was transformed. The screams faded away and I heard the sounds of angels singing instead. Devastating in its simplicity, the beauty of their voices overwhelmed me. It conjured feelings of hope and misery all at once, casting aside distant memories of the past and promising visions for the future.

All I had to do was accept the gift that was being offered to me.

Sensing my hesitation, Vycandor gave me a reassuring squeeze. "Chaos, this is to be the moment of our union. An undying love that will last forever."

Something about those words sparked a memory.

I was once again reminded of the promise I'd made to Thomas...and had subsequently broken. The words he'd said to me pierced my soul like an arrow. If you promise to wait for me, I will be the one who loves you until the end of time.

Part of me, a really, really big part, wished that things could have turned out differently. There was no denying the fact that I still loved Thomas. The vacancy hidden in my heart was a space that only he could fill. Together we shared a bond on an emotional level that rivaled anything I'd experienced so far, if only temporarily in the short amount of time we had together. Like looking into a mirror, he was the other half of me. Even now as I contemplated an eternity with Vycandor, I wished Thomas was the one I would be spending it with.

Despite a deep ache that came from being separated from him, I knew I had to follow the path that had been carved out for me by fate. I had to make a choice between duty and my own selfish desires.

Or, as I liked to call it, I had to choose destiny over happiness.

And worse...much, much worse...I had only mere moments to make my decision when in a sudden, highly coordinated tactical flight maneuver that was as shocking as it was ballsy, the Angels of War went from circling like vultures, to descending straight out of the sky in a precision diamond formation that told me one thing with any certainty. They planned to go hammerhead on our asses.

I went on the defensive and decided to whip up some nice ground-level winds as a nasty surprise for them when they arrived.

"That's you're big apocalyptic survival plan?" Vycandor shouted at me over the continuous wind gusts. "What do you think this is, The Wizard of Oz?"

"No. This is going to be so much better," I admitted, unable to wipe the grin off my face. "Stretch your wings above your head as far as you're able."

He looked at me like I was one french fry short of a happy meal, but thankfully managed to obey without further argument. Stretching my own fiery wings until the tips were almost touching his, I felt blood rushing through my body, felt myself being pulled impossibly closer to Vycandor, and felt the searing heat emanating off our wings as two prepared to become one.

We craned our necks back at the same time to watch as the Angels of War propelled directly toward us. At best, we had seconds left before they attacked.

"Ah, what are we waiting for again?" Vycandor asked, voice raw with emotion. The ends of his long black hair chased across his face to hide a frown. It was clear to me that he thought I was stalling.

I glanced up at him, avoiding his eyes. "Have you ever heard of a Firenado?"

He didn't answer. He didn't have to.

I did.

My attention returned to the inbound death squad. "Welcome to the party, fellas."

Vycandor hugged me tight. Well, tighter than he was already with both arms wrapped firmly around my waist. Our wings intertwined in a wordless greeting as if the delicate feathers spoke a sacred language known only unto themselves. Frosty blue flames shooting skyward from his wingtips collided with the bright orangery-red flames shooting from mine to form a violently rotating column of deep purple fire. The ground-level winds I controlled moved across the water and combined with the spiraling inferno to create a lake of fire.

Unable to escape being swept up by the massive firenado hovering over bubbling hot water, most of the Angels of War exploded on impact, while the bodies of others simply ignited in mid-air. You could hear a whistle-like whooshing sound a split second before they hit the water at terrible speed by the thousands, sending a horrendous vibration that ran along the entire expanse of the beach. When it was finally all over, broken and badly battered bat wings jutted up out of the flames at extremely odd angles as far as the eye could see.

I let go of Vycandor in the aftermath and waited next to the shore in case any managed to escape.

They didn't.

Not that I could see through the blinding smoke, at least. It was too soon to claim our victory, but I felt proud as hell.

Though the sight of watching the creatures being boiled alive like giant lobsters was repulsive, not to mention gagging on the persistent odor of sulfur, I just stood there reeling from it all when something involuntarily contracted inside me. My body shook, spasms ripped through my flesh. I wasn't sure if it was caused by all of the adrenaline, or our recently formed union. Overwhelming power surged inside me, through every cell of my being that left me gasping for air.

I turned toward Vycandor to see if he'd felt it too. He had a blank look on his face and his bare chest was covered in blood. It took a few frozen seconds for my mind to make sense of it all. I peered past Vycandor at the creature standing behind him with its fist protruding through his chest and holding onto his still beating heart. It seemed impossible, but somehow this lone Angel of War had managed to escape the flames unharmed in order to claim its trophy.

I screamed and the creature bolted, taking Vycandor's heart with it. He slumped forward, eyes wide with panic. I caught him in my arms and gently lowered his limp body to the ground, whispering that everything was going to be alright now. The worst part was over.

Truth be told, this was the other moment I'd dreaded. I didn't know when it would happen. I didn't even know how. Call it a hunch, but in order for us to unite our powers Vycandor needed to die. I just didn't want to be the one to have to do it.

Courtney asked me once to explain how I became immortal. This was it. Plain and simple.

In order for the offspring of fallen angels to become immortal, the human side of us had to die first. Just like when Doctor Drool killed me and I was reborn to rise like a phoenix, Vycandor needed to die so he could be reborn.

Made perfect sense to me.

Except I hadn't exactly planned for Courtney to go all MIA on me. I mean, I pretty much expected her to give up her eternal light in order to save Vycandor just as Thomas had done for me. Instead, she'd given up her wings.

Not that I was complaining, of course.

"Do you have any other brilliant plans up your sleeve I should know about?" Vycandor choked, spitting up bright scarlet blood that proceeded to dribble down his chin.

The site of him sitting there and bleeding like that made me want to hurl.

Before I gave him my answer, I plastered on a smile in an effort to appear more confident than I felt. It almost worked. "When I do, you'll be the first to know."

I decided to focus on the positive. The fact that he was conscious enough to be asking stupid questions after his heart had just been ripped out was a good thing, right?