Read URIEL: The Price (The Airel Saga, Book 6) (Young Adult Paranormal Romance) for Free Online Page B

pavements.
    As he fell to one knee and wheeled around, searching for his attacker, she circled and advanced upon him again from his blind side. The blood was already beginning to pool at his feet, pouring from the artery she had sliced clean open. As she approached the angel Veridon, she watched his body language. He fell slightly forward into a slump, and she could tell that he knew he was dead.
    But I’m not finished with you. Not yet.
    She moved quickly in the darkness. Her left hand swept around his head and pulled it backward as her right moved in a flourish, a slicing circle that struck at his exposed neck. She melted back into the shadows before a single drop of blood could stain her. Her back to the wall of the keep, she observed calmly as Veridon began to drown in his own blood.
    Next.
    * * *
    KREIOS REACHED OUT IN his mind and heart, looking for the captain of the watch, looking for anyone, looking for Veridon. Although he was drawing near to the City of Refuge, he still could not make contact with any of the thoughts of the angelic remnant. This worried him, and he was not prone to worry.
    A burst of blackness then came up out of the ground from beneath him, and he narrowly missed a collision with it by virtue of the speed he was carrying. More dark shapes rose upward toward him. I am getting closer. He marveled at the size of the enemy army. The Brotherhood means business this time. More morbid sectors within his brain began to sound off in alarm that Ke’elei couldn’t help but fall.
    “Yamanu. Zedkiel.” Kreios spoke their names into the air as he slowed, the city wall below and before him. “Where are you?”
    The scene displayed before him was not encouraging. Brotherhood soldiers walked the battlements of the city wall freely, their hateful swaggering in this place like blasphemy.
    The sky was red with the ominous light of the Bloodstone. It hovered over the action like a watchful eye, seeing everything. Then there came a furious, ugly blast of battle horns and the attack changed. The men charged, yelling, and the sound of tearing flesh broke through their battle cry. Wings filled and demons roared as they broke free of their brothers.
    “Grant us mercy, El.”
    The already massive horde instantly doubled in size, blackening the air with their wings. There was no light, no cry from the angels, no horn of El sounding commands. There was only death and the screams of the dying.
    * * *
    BENEATH THE GROUND, URIEL began to convulse. The Bloodstone was manipulating her, forcing her to do things with her gift that she would never do of her own volition. She didn’t want this anymore, yet she also found it to be irresistible.
    As she convulsed, the bedrock began to vibrate and split upon its seams. Granite, veins of quartz and gold and coal and diamond, began to crack and move apart. Into these new cracks, she invaded as light pierces shadow. It behaved like light, but it was in fact darkness, and it spread itself into each void like the invisible radiations of the sun. As she worked herself in deeper, more cracks were precipitated, and than more.
    The bedrock was becoming very unstable.
    * * *
    ABOVE GROUND, Uriel moved swiftly toward the angel Zedkiel. He was engaged with a large tusked demon Brother in a contest of swordsmanship. She watched and waited for an opening. It presented itself immediately.
    Zedkiel faced away from her. As he crouched to his right to avoid a sweeping strike from his enemy, he prepared his blade for an unthrusting counterstrike in the wake of the demon’s movement. When he stood and extended his blade, his ribs were exposed all along his right side.
    She struck quickly with the dagger, stabbing deeply between his ribs into his torso, burying it to the hilt. She left it embedded there and spun away, observing the effects.
    Zedkiel cried out in pain, reaching instinctively across his body toward the wound. The tip of the blade had no doubt pierced his heart, for he then froze in