Violet Eden Chapters 04 - Endless

strong,’ she said to Olivier, tenderly.
    ‘I am,’ he hissed, failing to disguise his contempt for her. Despite what he may be willing to do to destroy the Grigori, he was stillonce an angel of light and Lilith would always have been an angel of dark. They were not friends.
    ‘You told me you were the best of the light,’ she said.
    ‘I am.’
    Lilith took a deep breath, closed her eyes briefly and began to walk away from him slowly. Without turning back, a breeze began to stir around her, lifting her long golden hair out into needlepoints. She paused and suddenly, as if working like an extra limb, her tresses flew backwards and whipped Olivier across the face. His body flinched at the contact, his face turning a ghostly shade and sinking in on itself, as if a hundred plagues had infiltrated him in a matter of seconds.
    Lilith smiled at me, secretively. My stomach turned.
    She spun round – arm out and fingers extended – and drove her bare hand straight into Olivier’s chest and out again, just as fast, clasping his heart. Seeing Lilith, the bringer of death and disease, in action at any other time would’ve scared the crap out of me.
    Now? Not so much.
    ‘Phoenix, my son,’ she said, once Olivier’s body had disappeared and she had resumed her place on her throne. ‘You surprise me, again.’ She nodded in approval.
    Phoenix moved away from me and bowed before Lilith. ‘My place is to stand by you, always.’
    Lilith seemed happy with his answer and motioned for her son to take his place behind her. He did.
    ‘Violet, I confess you astonish me – for a mortal. Quite remarkable that you have found a way back to the living so quickly, but I am glad you have returned. I so wanted for you to see your love again.’ She tugged on the chain she held like a leash, connectingher to Lincoln, yanking so hard that his head jerked up.
    I didn’t move.
    Lilith sighed, looking over his body appreciatively.
    I gritted my teeth.
    ‘Alive. But not. The soul has more power than anything else. Wouldn’t you agree?’
    I focused my attention on her and not on the man I loved more than life itself. ‘I would. Now I have a question for you.’
    She laughed. ‘Yes?’
    ‘Did you really think you could beat me? Did you really think, even with all your power, that you could match the power of the Sole?’
    ‘I’m yet to see anything that proves to the contrary,’ she said, condescendingly.
    I smiled, the action showed only the emptiness that filled me. Lilith flinched. Closing my eyes, I delved deeper into my well of power than I had ever done before. I called it forth. Then I used my Sight, knowing now that it was so much more than its name implied. I lifted my consciousness from my body and, for the first time, took my power with me.
    Then I released it onto the room.



CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
    ‘Adam’s wife, his first. Beware of her. Her beauty’s one boast is her dangerous hair. When Lilith winds it tight around young men she doesn’t soon let go of them again. ’
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    D ozensof exiles were instantly trapped by my power. I felt a surge of energy; it was intoxicating to know that each one was rendered motionless under my command. Every exile was now at my mercy. All but two.
    I deliberately left Phoenix untouched by my power, though he remained stock-still like the rest of them. Even if I hadn’t, I suspected he would be immune to it now, due to our new … relationship.
    Lilith, on the other hand, revelled in proving I could not disable her with my abilities. She walked through my amethyst mist, chuckling. But despite her boldness, her steps were slower; she was not as invulnerable as her angelic ego would have me think.
    ‘Impressive,’ she said, looking at my physical form and then to the ceiling, tracking my incorporeal movement easily. ‘You are indeed of the Sole. But you and I both know you cannot holdthe room like this for long. You certainly cannot strip every unwilling exile of their powers.’
    It was true. It took all of my concentration to hold so many at once. But just to make a point, I honed in on one exile – one of the ones who had been so keen to beat Lincoln earlier – and stripped him of his angelic power, reducing him to only-human status, against his will. He dropped to the floor, screaming hysterically. With a look of disgust, Lilith flicked her wrist and sent out a gust of wind so powerful he was thrown into a nearby wall. He stopped making any