Secrets And Sins Part 3: Happy ever after

Chapter 81

~Ava~

Bea.

She wasn't moving. She hadn't made a sound. Fuck, Ava couldn't even tell if she was breathing. She just lay there at Metatron's feet.

The power coursed through her veins, setting each alight with gold and knitting her broken face together. But it wasn't like any of her more recent transformations, she wasn't in control of it, and the energy the pulsed across her body was warped, tainted by the artefact freed of its flesh prison. The darkness wanted blood, and Ava leaned into the intoxication of it. These angelic bastards wouldn't die, she knew that, but she could hurt them, very much. Ava flexed her fingers, inch long golden talons forming at the tip of each.

First though, before she tore them to shreds, she had a job to do. Ava's glowing eyes lifted from Bea to the crucifix in Metatron's fist, something dark and liquid dripping from it. Her newly healed jaw tightened. Surely if Ava puts it back in its rightful place everything will be fine? It will do what it did all those months ago and put Bea back together again.

It will. It has too.

"Go." Michael's voice interrupted her train of thought, Ava had pretty much forgotten he existed. She half turned towards him before she understood what he had just said.

Fuck.

Ava dove towards Metatron but was too slow as his auburn wings swept downwards and he leapt into the air, taking the precious artefact with him. She went right after him, launching herself forward and up, her golden wings spreading wide, a beacon in the night. Until something caught her ankle, stopping her momentum completely. Just as Ava's gaze flicked down to Michael, his hand tightened. He dragged her back to earth with a vicious swing using gravity and his unbelievable strength to throw her onto the stones.

They cracked beneath her, and it should have hurt, bad, but Ava could barely feel it as the power roared at her to fight. She kicked back up to her feet with some difficulty. Her once ivory dress, now blood and dirt smeared, tangled around her legs, weighing her down. Knowing that there was no saving it, Ava used her claws to tear it just above her knees before lunging back into the fight with her teeth and claws bared.

Under the sheer barrage of strikes and speed, Michael was forced backward and Ava used the hint of space to once again try to get airborne.

She succeeded.

"Ava!" Michael snarled from beneath her. He was right on her heels quite literally, reaching for her.

He was so fast, the massive grey wings beating hard at his back. Ava felt his arms coming around her waist as he tried to wrestle her to the ground.

"Let me go!" She shouted, her own wings straining to stay in flight with their combined weight.

They were nearing Metatron now, close enough to see his expression, the cold disdain written all over it. The scribe watched them closely as he treaded air just above the roof of the Cradle.

"Never." Michael's face contorted as he squeezed.

Agony lanced through Ava's body, her wings stuttering as he effectively crushed her in his embrace. Ava felt the snap of bone beneath his bulging muscle, her ribs breaking one by one until the power surged, answering the pain. It blasted out from her in a flood of gold, shunting Michael away from her with so much force that he was sent hurtling through the stone wall of the Cradle with a sickening crash.

Ava sucked in a lungful of air, wincing at the grind of bone as her lungs inflated into her shattered rib cage. She was free but the tremendous blast had siphoned so much energy that her accelerated healing slowed substantially, and the pain ultimately beat her body's resolve to stay aloft.