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The small room hummed with so much power that Venom’s bones ached with it

“My love” Holly’s low of her eyes locked with Michaela’s “You betrayed me”

Michaela’s hair blew back in a wind that affected no one else in the room “You are not hiile note sang underneath

Need? Want?

Was it possible the Archangel of Budapest had truly loved the archangel who had taken over Holly’s body? The sae part of in the aftermath of his death?

Holly responded in a language Venonize Michaela clearly did, her cold expression cruly naked that it could only be real

Sire Venom reached out to Raphael with his mind

Do not intercede, Venoaze focused on the disturbing tableau being played out in front of them We must understand what this is to kno to end it

Veno would ever understand, but he’d trusted Raphael with his life for centuries Now, he trusted the sire with Holly’s She would rather die than live as Uram’s puppet, he said If that is the only choice, we lass in his throat

I have proet

Because this was Raphael, an archangel forged in honor and tempered by a love that had shoved back the ice of immortality, Venom held his silence And forced hi from the mouth of the woe that she would soon break it

• • •

Raphael had killed Ura after building falling during their battle, the wreckage crashing to litter the streets below He knew the archangel was dead But the man Raphael had once called a friend had also been six thousand years old and had spent over half of those years as an archangel

Ablown into a million selfire utilized by another archangel

Raphael’s angelfire had obliterated Uram His heart His ’s body, it wasn’t Uram But as he’d told Venoht that, he knehat he was asking from this member of his Seven In all the years that he’d known Venom, he’d never once seen the other man look at anyone as he looked at this small woman Raphael had first met as a brutalized victim

It was the same way Raphael looked at Elena

“Are you certain?” Uram’s voice asked froaze to the crib “You kept a part of me safe until I could retrieve it”

Michaela shook her head, her wings spreading and beginning to glow “You are dead”

“Then why do you keep this piece ofthe power lattice without being affected by it “Why do you protect it?”

Raphael’s healing gift had confirnant the time she’d tried to fool hi in the crib at sonized what Venoaun to growpower of the Cascade

“You are dead!” With that shaken shout, Michaela raised a hand ringed with deadly energy Before she could release it, however, Holly spoke again in a language Raphael didn’t inize It was old Very old And had been used only in a small area of Europe over a thousand years earlier Raphael hadn’t spent enough time there to have learned it well, but he’d picked up just enough during his friendship with Uram to translate the words

“We danced above Szeged the first time”

Michaela’s fire died

Tre, she stared at Holly “Uram?” The whisper held so much hope it was a keen of sound

Raphael was near certain it was Michaela’s poisonous whispers that had either encouraged or pushed Uram to make the decision that had led to his madness But at that moment, he was also sure that part of Michaela had loved the fallen archangel hom she’d been for five decades