by C. S. Wilde
Cursed Darkness
Angels of Fate - Book 2
C.S. Wilde
“We are the monsters.”
Copyright © 2018 by C.S. Wilde
ASIN: B07HB9DXFB
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialog are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover image by Mirella Santana
Edited by Christina Walker and Sara Mack
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1
Liam
Liam rushed through cold streets. His heavy footsteps hit concrete and splashed across puddles, soaking the bottom of his jeans, but he didn’t slow down.
It had rained before he’d left the Legion, and by the fresh dewy scent hanging in the air and the dark-gray clouds rumbling above, it would rain again soon.
Fuck Jal and the rest of the Legion. He needed to be alone, and he needed out of that godsdamned mansion.
A danger to others, they said.
He scoffed. Liam was a Selfless, or at least he used to be. He could never harm an innocent.
A cruel laugh akin to his own rumbled from deep within his essence. This was why Jal and the others didn’t trust him: the darkness. It took over newly turned demons with a vice; a mad juggernaut that infected Liam’s essence and taunted him constantly.
“Shut up,” he told the void inside him.
The mocking laugh rumbled louder as he ran. It roared in his eardrums, and when it was done, the sheer power that mocked, challenged, and punished him every single second of every single day whispered, Fool.
Maybe the darkness used Liam’s voice because it was also a part of him. He couldn’t tell for sure; this entire mess didn’t make any sense.
“Fuck you,” he growled at the darkness—no, at himself. They were one now.
Chilly wind whipped against his body, but the cold didn’t bother him. Underneath his skin, he was burning. His legs hurt and the night air pricked his lungs, but he didn’t stop.
The darkness silenced when he ran; Hells knew why. So Liam kept at it.
He regretted becoming a demon the moment he came back from the dead. As soon as he’d regained consciousness, a swarm of darkness swallowed him whole, piercing in and out of him, gutting all that made Liam who he was. That was the funny, if not cruel, thing about the darkness: it took his greatest fears and insecurities and slammed them against him, driving Liam to the edge of madness.
No wonder third-tier demons, or baby demons as Jal called him, often lost their minds.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Jal once said with a shrug.
Bullshit.
The darkness feasted on Liam. If this was a battle with himself, he was losing. And Jal, Jophiel, and Lilith, they couldn’t do shit about it.
The priests and priestesses of the Gray tried meditating with him, but how could they teach Liam to dominate a monster they had never faced? After ten minutes he had to leave the room, because the darkness threatened to burst out of him and engulf them all.
The chaotic force spinning inside him was impatient, but so was he.
Weren’t they the same in the end?
Right now he could barely sense the darkness, so running definitely helped.
His lungs felt like sandpaper, maybe from exhaustion, maybe from the storm raging inside him. Maybe both. He wiped sweat off his forehead and kept going.
He couldn’t understand why in all the Hells he’d chosen to become a demon. Temporary insanity was his best guess.
You know why, the darkness whispered from somewhere bottomless inside him.
“I don’t,” he grumbled.
The darkness didn’t reply or argue. This thing inside him wasn’t forthcoming or particularly clear.
Liam kept running, pushing himself until he couldn’t anymore. He heaved one last desperate breath before his legs buckled and he fell chest-down in an alley.
He grunted as he rolled over and laid on his back, watching the low clouds looming over the buildings that resembled black monoliths. His shirt was soaked with sweat, but it had already started drying—the perks of blessed fabric. Or was it damned? He couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
His frantic breathing was the only sound he could hear, which meant a lot considering this city never slept.
What was that thing Jal had told him?
Make the darkness what you want it to be.
As if that was easy.
“It’s why demons are a lot tougher than angels. Well, those of us who don’t succumb to the darkness that is,” Jal told him on a gloomy Sunday morning. “The dark rewards the strong, punishes the weak. If you control it, its gifts will go far beyond your imagination.”
Liam knew an empty promise when he heard one, but he didn’t have many options.
All we had is gone, the darkness crooned, its tentacles squeezing and poisoning everything that made Liam who he was.
This time, it was right. The entire Nine-five had been slaughtered; the Cap, too. And Archie was nowhere to be found. Kev had been assigned to a new precinct, but the kid was a double agent for the Legion now. He came to visit Liam once, but when Kev saw the cloud of buzzing darkness that swarmed around him and heard Liam’s desperate cries, he left.
Liam recalled hearing a croaked, “I failed you, mate,” but he couldn’t be sure. The memories of his first days as a demon were a blurry mess.
He touched the tips of his pointed teeth. Hells, he became a monster.
“For what?” he bellowed.
You know, the darkness answered.
“For fuck’s sake!” He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
A part of him was glad Ava hadn’t come to see him, even if her absence hurt.
She doesn’t care about us, the darkness whispered with Liam’s own voice. She’s mated to the Messenger, the angel she has loved from the beginning. It’s always been him. We were an indulgence.
Swarms of darkness clouded his thoughts.
She never loved us. She was never ours.
Liam crouched on the ground, smacking his forehead against the wet concrete as he clawed at his face. “Shut up!” he bellowed.
Gabriel flashed in his mind. He held a woman’s severed head. His pitch-black eyes glinted, his saw-teeth sharp as blades. “You’re one of us now, brother.”
“No!” Liam shouted, pressing his skull harder on the ground. Maybe his forehead would crack and that would be the end of it, but a demon’s body wasn’t easy to maim.
His mind spun and he thought he would hurl, but he never did. The darkness was cruel in that way: even if his body tried to get rid of it, it couldn’t.
I’m not leaving. I’ve always been here.
“Liam?”
He froze, falling within himself. He looked up to see Ava, standing before him, her features too sharp, too pointy, and yet fogged on the edges. Like she was a dream or a memory.
“You’re not real,” he told himself. Or her. Maybe both.
“I can’t be with you,” Ava continued. “You’re of the dark now. I’m light, and so is Ezra.”
The Messenger materialized beside her. He had one hand wrapped around her waist and a smug look stamped on his face. They both flung their heads back as they laughed ice daggers.
The darkness co
uld be a cruel asshole sometimes—scratch that.
All the time.
“It’s not real,” Liam muttered, but he wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Be patient,” Jal’s words rang in his mind. “You used to be an Archangel. The transition to demon will hit you like a wrecking ball.”
It certainly did.
Ava and the Messenger disappeared. The Captain now crouched before him, her empty eye sockets crying wine-red blood. “The dark has always been strong in you. With your father, too.” Her grin spread unnaturally wide, more a monster in a nightmare than the Cap he used to know. “Give in, Liam.”
“You’re not real!” he bellowed, spit forming at the corners of his mouth.
Furious flames spilled from his skin, but they didn’t burn him. His demonic fire was just as hard to control as the darkness, but at least it was soothing—a fiery breeze that danced all around him.
He was lucky Jal had given him these blessed, damned, black shirt and jeans. Every time Liam’s flames surfaced, he burned all the clothes he wore to ashes. Eventually, Jal handed him a pile of garments and grumbled, “Here you go. Watching your dick literally on fire isn’t my favorite pastime.”
Liam chuckled at the memory, and the flames sunk back into his skin.
When he lifted his head to face the Cap, she was gone, replaced by an old lady with a pink hat who stood at the entrance of the alley. Worry and fear took turns on her face.
Was she real?
“A-are you all right, sir?” She gave a fearful step forward. “I called 911. You were burning not a moment ago.” She kept approaching, but when she saw his face, she screamed in horror and almost stumbled back.
Liam growled a beastly sound that rolled up in his chest, a snarl all darkness and nothing like him. Well, maybe a little like him.
The old lady made the sign of the cross before hurrying out of the alley.
A laugh rumbled in Liam’s ribcage, he and the darkness aligned. At least that had been fun.
He peeked at a rain puddle to his left, and a demon stared back at him. Black, beady eyes, pale skin, and saw-sharp teeth. His once kempt hair now reached the lower side of his ears, almost curtaining his eyes.
This was him now. Lost. A monster.
A mess.
Liam was tired; so freaking tired of fighting this void, this madness, through every waking moment. Perhaps he should give in and become one of those third-tier demons he abhorred so much. A monster possessed by the dark.
Would he become a fog of darkness or turn into a toad-monster?
“You fucking sissy,” a voice grumbled from the mouth of the alley.
Liam didn’t need to turn; he knew Jal stood there. Somehow, he was sure the demon wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
“Leave me alone,” he barked, pressing his forehead against the cold ground. His heated skin hissed against the rain water.
“Baby demons are worse than teenagers. Everything is a Shakespearian drama with you.” Jal’s steps tapped on the concrete until he halted by Liam’s side. His black boots almost mingled with the darkness of the alley. “Come on. Off we go.”
A furnace burned inside Liam’s ribcage, an unending fire that craved to scorch everything in its path. His flames rose from his core and whipped at Jal like angry fire snakes.
Make me, the darkness challenged.
“I’ll remind you that I’m a Drakar, the evolution of the puny Terror you are now.” The demon raised his hand which quickly became a torch. “Kicking your ass, on the other hand, has become one of my favorite sports, so I’m game.”
We’re alone, the darkness whispered in Liam’s ears. He’s no friend of ours.
A cry broke through his throat. “Stop!”
Jal rolled his eyes, unfazed. “You chose to become a demon to face the dark, but now it’s consuming you.” He shook his head and crossed his arms. “It’s about time you got over it.”
The words echoed through Liam’s essence, a command he forced himself to follow. Slowly, the fire waned, settling back underneath his skin and bones.
He glared at his own hand. It looked ashy and pale, but at least it wasn’t burning.
For the first time, Liam sensed a quiet hollow inside him, an abyss he couldn’t quite access. Yet it was there, quiet, peaceful. Inviting.
“That’s the true darkness,” Jal said, clearly guessing what Liam felt. “Everything else is bullshit your body comes up with.” He pointed at Liam’s head. “Think of it as an autoimmune system. The fact that you were an Archangel once doesn’t help, of course.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been through what you’re going through, but my transition wasn’t as bad. My guess is that whatever is left of your angelic essence is rejecting your new demonic side.”
As if on cue, the darkness showed him Archie shaking his head in disappointment, followed by the Cap’s lifeless corpse forever gaping at him with missing eyes. Then flashes of Ava and Ezra tangled in bed. The Messenger thrusted inside her, and Ava moaned the way she’d moaned underneath Liam.
He slammed both hands on his head and screamed as he tried to push the darkness away. “Let me breathe!”
Our Guardian abandoned us. Our father, too.
The darkness silenced immediately, almost as if it knew it had gone too far.
One deep breath, then another. “Is Ava really in love with Ezraphael?”
Jal winced and clicked his tongue. “This is how we got here, remember? Thinking about Ava isn’t helping.”
“Is she with him?” Liam barked, the darkness pulsing in unison with his burning heart.
“Yes, of course she is! You knew she would be from the start, you idiot!” Jal flung his arms up. “You were okay with it!”
“I didn’t think she would become his mate,” Liam croaked. “She’s in love with him, always has been.”
“Maybe. But she did kill another angel for you. Literally chopped his head off.” He let the words hang there for a moment, just enough to make Liam feel guilty. “If we had lost Ezraphael, we would’ve lost the entire Order. Ava knew that, I knew that, everyone knew that except you. You have to get over this, otherwise your pointless penitence will never end.” Jal ran a hand through the long silky hair which cascaded down his shoulders. “Ava has a duty. You both do.”
“A duty? To the fucking Messenger?” Liam snorted. “To the Gods?”
Jal stepped forward and crouched before him. “To yourselves.” He poked Liam’s chest, right on the spot where his heart drummed. “This is the only faith you need, remember?”
Yeah. It’s how he’d gotten in this mess.
Sirens wailed from a distance, and Jal let out an exasperated sigh. “The human police will soon be here. You’re not exactly being discreet.”
Liam gritted his teeth, accidentally biting his bottom lip and drawing blood. “I need to see her.”
“You can’t.” Jal rested his elbows on his knees. “So, what else do you want to do?”
“I-I don’t know.” His voice was more of a whisper. “I don’t know who I am anymore, or what to think …”
Jal scrubbed his hand down his face, looking tired all of a sudden. “Yeah, I assumed this would be the case.” He nodded to someone behind Liam. “Jophiel let me call in the cavalry.”
At the entrance of the alley stood a demon hidden by the darkness, his draconian wings coiled behind his back.
A second-tier, like Jal.
He stepped closer, and his features came to view under the faint city lights. Liam noticed a squared chin and tousled sandy hair. A dark-blond stubble peppered his jaw, and his kind gray eyes glinted with a mix of worry and sorrow.
Liam gaped, unable to think or even breathe. Without meaning to, he cried. Tears streamed down his face, and he couldn’t make them stop.
“You’re here,” he mumbled.
Archie smiled down at him. “Hey, kid.”
2
Ava
Ava peered into
Justine’s brown irises as they sat cross-legged and facing each other. The training room’s padded white floor might be softer than hard ground, but they’d been here for so long that Ava couldn’t feel her bottom anymore.
Beads of sweat bloomed from her friend’s forehead, but instead of giving up, Justine shot Ava a victorious smile. “You’ll eventually cave, you know.”
Invisible hands brushed Ava’s mental wall, teasing, prodding. None too surprising, since Justine was a powerful Erudite. Ava didn’t doubt her friend would ascend to Virtue sooner than expected.
“You’ve been trying to break my barrier for a whole hour now.” Her lips twitched into a smug grin. “You said we’d be done in ten minutes?”
“Can’t let a Guardian beat me at my own game, can I? Ugh, sorry. I meant Dominion. I keep forgetting you’re not a Guardian anymore.” Justine nodded to Ava’s wings, which hung from her back like sleeping willow branches and sprawled on the floor behind her. “Look, you’re not a daughter of the God of Knowledge and Logic. You shouldn’t have such a strong mental wall.” This with a certain bitterness in her tone. “It’s a matter of honor now.”
Ava rolled her shoulders. “All I hear are excuses.”
“Oh, give me time, dear. I broke it once, didn’t I?”
Ava’s concentration wavered. “Only because I had returned after …” She didn’t need to complete the sentence. After Liam’s death. “I hadn’t expected my best friend to invade my privacy and learn about the Legion. I know better now.”
Justine gave her an exasperated sigh. “I was worried, Ava. You came back different. It wasn’t just the Dominion change; you were harsher, less—”
“—amiable?”
Justine shrugged. “Patient, I’d say. But yes, that too.”
Ava had wanted to run away the minute she stepped back in the Order. She couldn’t wait to be in Liam’s arms again. But Ezra needed her and so did the Order, so much so that she hadn’t had time to visit the Legion or the man—well, the demon—she loved.
