Mists of Velvet

chains.
    “Did you think her still alive? Oh no, Brother. It was from her grimoire that I first learned of death and sex magick. Its power to control others—to aid me in my cause. Her body was my first sacrifice. I drank her blood and infused all her powers. And do you know what?” he whispered menacingly. “I can still taste her.”
    Camael went limp, and Uriel watched as the angel before him crumpled. Pulling the hood over his head, Uriel walked around the still form of his brother. “There will be an offering tonight. You will listen to it. Just as you have all the others. But this time, in your mind you will hear your beloved’s scream.”
    Uriel’s boots scraped against the stone. He reached for the heavy door, but Camael’s voice made him pause.
    “Do you know why I won’t die, Uriel? Because I’m not the one without a flame.”
    “Fuck you, Camael.”
    The door slammed tightly, and Uriel bolted it. It unnerved him to know that Camael had discovered his secret. An angel without a flame was vulnerable to death. Anyone could kill him, even a lowly mortal. How had the blind and imprisoned Camael discovered his innermost secret?
    “Well?” spoke a deep voice. “Do you have what I asked for?”
    Uriel turned to see Gabriel move out of the shadows.
    “You promised me Suriel!” Gabriel snapped. “I want him now. And I want him with his powers intact. Do you understand?”
    “You will have Suriel.” And I will have the Sacred Trine, the flame and the amulet , he silently added— and all the power to rule the mortal realm and Annwyn.
    Gabriel’s eyes blackened, but Uriel felt no fear. His brother might be one of God’s favorites, but he was as corrupt as Uriel. Both were ruled by greed and lust for power. “Patience, Brother. My apprentice is not yet ready to embrace his preordained fate. There is still considerable resistance to the dark path.”
    “Then find a way to illuminate the path.”
    “It isn’t that easy.”
    “Do you even know who this Destroyer is?” Gabriel sneered. “I’m beginning to think you’re full of lies. And this Sacred Trine you speak of. Have you found it?”
    The Oracle, the Healer, and the Nephillim. The trine was the most important part of the prophecy. He needed all three to control both realms. But something told him that Gabriel wanted the trine for his own purposes. For what, he would have to discover. Until then, he must distract Gabriel by giving him Suriel. That was Gabriel’s most pressing concern.
    “My investigations have led me closer to them,” he lied.
    Gabriel towered above him, glaring down into his face. He was searching for the lie in his eyes, but Uriel had been blanketed in sin for so long that his conscience no longer shone in his eyes. There was only blackness there—a deep well of unrelenting hatred against everyone in the mortal realm, and the goddesses in Annwyn. He was so close. He could smell it; taste it. Soon he would have the trine, and his apprentice.
    Gabe was a tricky bastard, but Uriel was smarter, more devious. He would have what he wanted, despite what Gabriel decreed. Suriel would not be handed over to Gabriel. No, he had something else in mind for Suriel and his gifts .

CHAPTER FOUR

    Scanning the crowd, Rhys let his gaze slip to a silver-haired woman. The color wasn’t real—most likely it was a wig—but it would make the fantasy that much better. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking of the woman in his dream, and suddenly he was consumed with the thought of taking a woman who looked just like her to bed, to finish what the dream had so teasingly started.
    Normally, he didn’t treat the women he took to bed like sex objects. He pleasured them and enjoyed them while they were together. The women he knew sexually were after the same thing he was—sex with no strings, one night of pleasure. There was no drama, no desire to keep seeing each other.
    Tonight, though, he felt like a user, because of that damned dream that wouldn’t leave him alone and because he was still taut with sexual need. He needed to get off, and why bother with his hand when the woman was staring at him that way?
    “She’ll do.”
    Rhys glanced over his shoulder to where Keir was standing behind him. He was used to the way Keir could appear and disappear in a shadow or a shaft of moonlight. He wasn’t surprised to see him come out of the darkness of the corner. “You need to feed?”
    “Yes.”
    Rhys sensed the desperation within the