Son of the Devil - Book I of The Higher Order

Chapter Fourteen: Something's Missing

Ever since we left Purgatory there was this nagging feeling inside my chest, where my second heartbeat no longer pulsed. It was an odd feeling, one that I couldn't quite describe. It was like somehow knowing that something's wrong with your body. When you get hurt or sick, you know that something is wrong almost immediately. And that's what this felt like. Not the 'Damn, I forgot something at home that I need for a trip' wrong, but like an 'I accidentally ran into a chair and it hurts like hell' wrong.

Something was just off and I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I asked Raziel about it—which was, admittedly, a bad idea—and he said that nothing was wrong. He never, ever says that because something is always wrong and he somehow always knows about it—it's kind of annoying, actually. So for him to say that nothing was wrong was a complete lie and I knew he was lying to me.

My ungrateful good-for-nothing little brother was lying to me. I was the First, I was the strongest, I was the fastest, I was the most respected. I would show him the consequences of lying to me.

I flapped once, gaining a slight bit more altitude before closing my left wing and spiraling down over Raziel before snapping it back open and landing on his back. I grabbed his wing joints and stilled them, immediately making us plummet. "How dare you lie to me?"

I knew Raziel had a fear of heights exactly because of situations like this and I was using that to my advantage. Well it wasn't a fear of heights, more like a fear of falling. I was so going to make him pay for lying to his older sister!

I closed my wings and allowed us to plummet toward the ground, we were pretty high up so it would take a few minutes to hit it. "Now tell me the truth or I'll let you drop!" I threatened.

He let out a scream, too terrified to react. He might've been an angel born to fly but he could never stand heights of any magnitude. I unfurled my wings slightly, slowing our descent somewhat. "Last chance!" I growled.

Raziel cried, "what do you want to know!?"

"Why did you lie to me?" I shouted, feeling Matthias's eyes on me nearby just in case but not interfering, not yet. He didn't get involved in sibling quarrels unless father asked him to or someone was about to die.

"I can't tell you." Raziel whined.

I cocked an eyebrow, "then I guess I can't keep you from falling." I tucked in my wings and we dropped, not even bothering to tango with gravity.

He flailed his limbs as he yelled, "Wait. Wait!"

I shot my wings open, which instantly freed us from our battle with gravity. "Tell me what I want to know!" I shouted in his face, my voice ringing strong and threatening over the empty plain of the sky.

Raziel panted as he caught his breath, "I dissolved your lifemate bond." I could feel a rage building inside of me that was only partially my own, my power hated the angel in front of me with everything it had. "It was necessary. Father said that unless your bond was dissolved, you would turn against us. It was an order!"

My lip curled in a snarl, "you're damn right I would." Tears filled my vision at the betrayal, "how could you?" I asked quietly before I absolutely lost it, "how could you do this to me!?" I felt the heat of my anger pick up into an inferno, my power demanded to be set free against him but I held it back, wanting an answer.

"It was father's orders. His word is law, I could not disobey." Raziel said, trying to shield himself from my wrath by directing it onto another. I knew he was telling the truth and it broke something inside of me. My discipline? My loyalty? My familial bond? All of it. The simple fact that I no longer had a lifemate, a second heartbeat, a partner to share my eternal life with, the pain of it broke me into pieces until I no longer wished to existed.