Page 45 of Knight’s Dominion

Silas took the seat across from him. “I thought it had a certain charm.”

A waitress hustled over and put a glass in front of the angel and smiled. “Your usual.”

“Thanks, Mandy.” Silas took a sip and scowled at Zenon’s raised brows.

“Your usual?”

Silas shrugged. “The noise, the realness of this place, helps me think.”

“Isn’t there some place in Heaven you can hang out? You know, a room full of angelic assholes comparing dick sizes?”

“Yup.” His lips curled. “But the other angels got jealous, so I gave up. Besides, I much prefer humans.”

Zenon took a sip of his beer. Despite the bar and the light chitchat, there was no missing the urgency in his own voice or the sharp tension in Silas’s gaze. “You know why I wanted to meet?”

Silas lifted his glass and downed the rest of his drink, putting it back on the table with more force than necessary. He dipped his chin, jaw tight. “And I’ve been given strict instructions to keep my mouth shut.”

“Why?”

“The usual fucking bullshit.”

In other words, leave it to fate and butt the fuck out. “Do they get that Hell’s about to bust free and either wipe out humanity or enslave it?”

The glass in Silas’s hand exploded, glass shards flying everywhere. The angel jolted, looking down at his clenched fingers. He cleared his throat. “My hands are tied,” he rasped, still looking at his hand like he didn’t know who it belonged to.

Zenon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You know the outcome?”

The angel shook his head. “I’m too close.” He glanced back at Zenon. “Have become too…involved. They’re preventing me from seeing.”

“Can you at least tell me where to find Lucifer?”

Silas opened his mouth, then gasped in pain.

Zenon searched the angel’s gaze, his eyes were glassy, bloodshot. “They’re physically preventing you from helping us?”

“I’ll lose my wings if I disobey, if I help you.”

“They’ll throw you out of Heaven?”

Silas shoved his fingers through his hair again. “I’ve gone against them before. They have good reason not to trust me.”

They were keeping tabs on him, probably listening to him even now, to their conversation. Zenon didn’t understand any of this. “What did you do?”

Pain lined Silas’s face again. “I can’t say.” His fingers curled into a tight fist again and he snarled. “Follow your course…” he bit out and clenched his teeth.

“Find Lucifer, contain the beast?” Zenon asked, fury coursing through him when he saw the blood vessels in Silas’s eyes had all burst, the whites now completely red.

Silas stood suddenly, staggering to his feet, and held out his hand. Zenon took it, and the angel clasped it tight, giving him a subtle nod. “I have to go. Take care.”

Then he turned and walked out, swaying like he’d downed a bottle of whisky. Zenon cursed and stood as well. Something caught the light, glinting brightly on the floor. He crouched down.

A feather of spun gold, long and delicate, lay by Zenon’s feet.

The angels weren’t fucking around. Silas had done something to piss them off, and they were punishing him for it. They were punishing them all.

Grace was doing her best to ignore Chaos. He stood across from her in one of the training rooms, and the way he was watching her was making that extremely difficult.

She forced herself to focus on James and what he was saying. James, a demi as well, lived permanently at the compound and helped the knights train their people when they were brought here, freshly transitioned and desperate to control their powers. He was also one of her crew. Something Chaos and his brothers did not know.