Chapter 5 Escape Into Shadow
AZRAETH'S POV
The curse rips through my chest like claws made of fire.
I'm dying. Right here, in this abandoned building, with my new bond-mate staring at me like I'm about to disappear. Five hundred years of slow torture, and this is how it ends—collapsed on rotting wood while an angel hunts us.
No. Not like this.
I force my eyes open. Mireya kneels beside me, her hands hovering over my chest like she wants to help but doesn't know how. Through the bond, I feel her panic. Her fear. But underneath that, something else burns.
Rage.
Good. She'll need that rage to survive what's coming.
"You can't die," she hisses at me. "You just bonded my soul to yours! You don't get to leave me with this mark and no answers!"
I almost laugh. Even terrified, she's yelling at me. Morwenna would have been gentle, trying to heal me with soft magic and softer words. But this girl—this sharp-edged, angry survivor—she's furious at me for dying.
I like it.
"Listen carefully, little betrayed one." Each word costs me. The curse spreads through my veins like poison. "The angel... Seraphina... she won't stop hunting us. We need to keep moving."
"You can barely breathe!"
"I've survived worse."
That's only half true. The Obsidian Prison was worse—five hundred years of endless torture designed to break my mind. But this? This curse eating me from the inside? It's close.
Through the bond, I feel Seraphina getting closer. Her divine power burns at the edge of my awareness like acid. She's tracking the soul mark, following its signature through the city.
We have minutes. Maybe less.
I grab Mireya's arm and pull myself up. My wings hang limp and useless. The teleportation from the archive drained too much power. I can't do another jump like that—not without killing us both.
"We need to move," I growl. "On foot."
"Where?" Mireya helps support my weight. She's stronger than she looks. The demon-touched blood in her veins is already strengthening her body. "Where can we go that an angel can't follow?"
Good question. Seraphina can fly, has an army of Celestial Guards, and knows this city better than I do. I've been imprisoned for five centuries—the world changed while I was gone.
But some things never change.
"There's a place," I say. "Old magic. Older than the angels. They built over it, but they couldn't destroy it. If we can reach it, the cathedral's wards might hide us."
"A cathedral?" Mireya stares at me. "You want to hide in a holy place? You're a demon!"
"Angel propaganda." I start moving toward the door. Every step feels like walking through fire. "Demons don't fear holy ground. We fear angel magic, yes. But true sacred places—the ones built on ancient power—those recognize all supernatural beings. Even us."
We stumble into the night. The blood moon bathes everything in crimson light. Perfect. Blood moons make magic stronger, which means Seraphina's tracking will be more accurate.
But it also means my remaining power burns hotter.
I pull shadows around us like a cloak. Not teleportation—I don't have strength for that. Just darkness to hide us from normal eyes while we move.
"Why does she hate you so much?" Mireya asks as we hurry through empty streets. "That angel. Seraphina. What did you do to her?"
"I didn't do anything to her." The words taste bitter. "I loved someone she wanted. So she killed that someone and blamed me for it."
Through the bond, I feel Mireya's shock. Then understanding. She knows what it's like to be blamed for things you didn't do. To have everything taken because someone else wanted what you had.
"Morwenna," she whispers. "The woman you said I'm the reincarnation of. Seraphina killed her because she was jealous?"
"Partly." I pull Mireya into an alley as angel wings flash overhead. We press against cold brick, barely breathing. "Seraphina loved Morwenna. Wanted her to join the angel crusade against demons. When Morwenna chose me instead, chose to bond with a demon... Seraphina couldn't handle it. She called it corruption. Claimed I'd poisoned Morwenna's mind. The other angels believed her."
The wings pass. We keep moving.
"So she murdered her," Mireya says flatly. "And blamed you."
"Yes. Then trapped me in a prison dimension where time moves differently. Five hundred years for me was only a few decades for the outside world. Long enough for everyone to forget the truth. Long enough for angel propaganda to become history."
We reach the cathedral grounds. It's massive and old, built from gray stone that's weathered centuries of rain and magic. The front doors are chained shut, but that doesn't matter. I blast them open with a burst of shadow.
We stumble inside. The moment we cross the threshold, the soul mark on my chest flares with sudden heat. Not painful—protective. The cathedral's wards recognize the bond magic and wrap around us like armor.
Seraphina won't be able to sense us here. Not clearly. It'll buy us time.
Mireya collapses against a pillar. Her whole body shakes. "This is insane. Yesterday I was shelving books. Today I'm running from angels with a dying demon king bonded to my soul."
"Welcome to the supernatural world, little scholar." I sink down beside her. The curse burns worse now. Black veins crawl up my arms—visible signs of the magic eating me alive. "It only gets stranger from here."
She looks at my arms. Her eyes widen. "That's the curse? It's killing you right now?"
"It's been killing me for five hundred years. Just faster now." I lean my head back against stone. "The soul bond was supposed to break it. Morwenna's soul returning, the bond reforming—that should have shattered the curse completely."
"But it didn't."
"No." I look at the mark on her chest, visible through her torn cardigan. "The bond formed, but it's incomplete. We connected our souls, yes. But the final ritual—the one that fully fuses us together—we didn't finish it. We were interrupted."
Mireya's face goes pale. "What happens if we don't complete it?"