Bump, bump, bump.
I sprawled in a dirt splattered heap.
Past the sound of my own quick breathing, the fast thump of my heart, and the heavy drum of rain against my face, I could hear how silent London Fields had fallen.
They’d stopped hurting Ash and hadn’t violated Rebel then.
A bitch could get used to this positive thinking.
I stared up at the bearded Supreme Commander, who scrutinized me back. The corner of his coat swung against my face like seaweed. Then he tangled his meaty hand in my hair and wrenched me up onto my knees.
I hissed, stumbling to crawl after the Supreme Commander, as he dragged me forward through the parting ranks across the battlefield. When he stopped, I looked up through panicked eyes — straight into Rebel’s.
Drake held Rebel on his knees by a hand at his neck, inches from where the Supreme Commander gripped me. This time, Rebel didn’t even try to smile. Terror vibrated from him in shuddering waves.
“We both have something that the other wants.” Drake shook Rebel, like he was a sewer rat. “So, I propose an exchange: the princess, for your son.”
The Supreme Commander’s hold tightened in my hair. “Tactical error, Commander. Maybe because you were raised… broken? You never did understand emotion, Duma. You see, I already have my true son.”
The Supreme Commander glanced at Wings, who stole to stand at his dad’s shoulder, leaving Ash curled in a ball with his left arm shattered. Wings’ face was a swollen bruise, but he didn’t look as satisfied to see his brother a prisoner as I’d expected. Instead, he glowered at me.
Rebel snarled, wrestling to break free from Drake. “Da, please, I’ll prove—”
“The traitor chose you when the battle lines were drawn.” The Supreme Commander’s hand wound even tighter in my hair. “Keep him. We only have room for true rebels.”
Whoops and catcalls.
Wings didn’t join in.
Rebel slumped to the mud, and Drake didn’t stop him.
“You know what will happen to me if I leave without the princess,” Drake’s voice was low and careful.
The Supreme Commander nodded but his grin was feral. “Now to win her, boy, you’ll have to fight.”
The leader of the Fallen Armies launched me to the side, at the same time as Drake flung Rebel. My forehead banged with Rebel’s in a star blinding crack. Then Rebel’s arms flung around me, pulling me against his chest, as if he could still save us. But it was too late because we were the winner’s trophies.
The angel and vampire armies circled. Wings passed the Supreme Commander a giant two headed ax. The Supreme Commander swung it from side-to-side. It hissed through the air, as he tested its weight.
Drake paced forward in nothing but silk harem trousers, which slipped down his hips. Then he stretched out his glorious wings, their beat loud in the hush, and rose into the sky. The Supreme Commander rushed Drake like a bull, lifting up at the last moment. They clashed mid-air, battling across the dawn-tinged heavens; the ax sliced and gashed, whilst Drake’s speed was mesmerizing. Drake slipped under the swing of the ax, booting the Supreme Commander bloody.
I gasped when I realized that these supernatural creatures had only been playing with us before, like a cat does with a mouse that it’s already caught.
The ancient forces inside me rose up, greedy and thrilled, thirsting for this power. If this was what I could learn in Angel World, then I wouldn’t be the one helpless on my knees.
Yeah, power, it’s an addiction.
When Drake’s wing slashed down across the Supreme Commander’s back, crashing him to the ground like Zeus’ thunderous fall to earth, I grinned.
Then I heard Rebel’s sob.
Rebel’s dad was a bastard, but Rebel was about to witness…
The angel with the braids lobbed a huge sword with a hilt built out of violet feathers to Drake. He laid the blade, fizzing with fire, over the Supreme Commander’s neck.
Then sliced it down.
“Christ, no…” Rebel hurled himself to his dad.
At the same time, Wings staggered to his knees next to Rebel. Both their flame red heads bowed over the fallen vampire. Their backs shook with silent, united grief.
How could I’ve wished for that?
The shadow of Rebel’s grief shrouded me through the bond.
In the veil of the rain swept park, less than an hour before dawn woke over London Fields, two armies stood in shock over the death of a leader.
Drake threw down his sword, before prowling towards me. Both sides quailed before him.
“I’ve won you.” Drake held out his hand: it was shaking. “You’re my prize. Zachriel too.”
It was the shaking that did it.
So, Drake was dangerous? A killer of vampires? Yet how many had I killed in Tower Block B? Wasn’t I a huntress? And now Drake was scared of me?
If Drake meant to hurt Rebel and treat me like his property, then I needed to play the power card again.
I clutched Drake’s hand, surging up and crushing his fingers. “You haven’t won me, Commander.” He tried to pull away, but I squeezed harder; scarlet tears bled between where our hands joined. “You’re mine.”
Drake jerked. “But I didn’t believe you wanted…?”
“You bastard angels lost me twenty-one years ago.” Dark pleasure snaked at the alarm dancing in his eyes. “Now I’m coming home.”
Drake tossed his curls to control the pain. “As you like. Angel World, however, may not be quite as you hope. Remember that I warned you.”
The dark pleasure curdled to fear.
I dropped Drake’s hand — his blood sticky on my palm — at the anguish that’d flashed across his face, before he’d buried it.
Yet I’d been brought up in Jerusalem Children’s Home. I’d savored every flavor of trauma from the kids who’d passed through.
Drake wasn’t kidding: Angel World was no heaven.
I drew back, but Drake cradled his hand around my neck, before his thumb pressed into the base. “Allow me to escort you home, princess.”
Dawn over London Fields exploded into violet.
29
Vampires? Angels? All I know is that they’re both bastards.
And I hunt bastards.
The problem is: I’m both vampire and angel. So, what does that make me?
Monster? Princess?
When the violet fractured — jagged edges of a mirror reflecting my own dazed face back in an endless tunnel — I collapsed onto the cave floor into a crushing dark.
I shivered. My breath puffed in painful frozen wheezes. My knees bruised on the icy rock. A dank foulness caught at the back of my throat, and I gagged.
I staggered up, feeling along the cavern’s wall. Hell, I thought that it was vampires who didn’t like the light?
Rebel had hated…
Rebel…
Weak violet pulsed from someone huddled in the corner. If it was Rebel, then he hadn’t Fallen. His wings were restored again.
I grinned, shuffling towards the light, but yelped when my foot hit something hard. I groped around testing the rock.
Bars speared from floor to ceiling. Rebel’s cell: a birdcage prison.
I dropped to my knees next to Rebel. He looked small. Toy-like. Broken.
I paled, and unsure what to do, gripped the bars.
Rebel didn’t even look at me. He was bent over with his hands clutching his head, whilst he whimpered, “Bad angels are punished. Bad angels are punished. Bad angels…”
He was naked. His punk clothes had been stripped away. Even his collar had been taken, and I flinched at that, remembering his distress when I’d touched it. My sister’s necklace in the pouch around his neck — my gift to him — stood out stark.
And Rebel’s wings…
Yeah, they were violet. But his broken, bent left wing had been bound down with stiff leather straps against his back.
…The gits strapped it down…You do that? It’s the
worst pain an angel can endure…
I’d have fought battles right then to see Rebel’s wings outstretched and whole and for his freedom to fly.
Yet Rebel had betrayed me for his family.
I shouldn’t care. Vengeful joy should’ve been spiraling through me to see the bloke who’d played me, kneeling back in his cell.
Then why was it despair howling through me instead?
The pretty boy fell into your lap for a reason. Plus, you chose to bind him to you by blood.
So, what? Next step wedding dress shopping?
You shouldn’t be alone, girl, not in Angel World. Some of these angelic assholes can worm into your mind like Drake. If they find me? We both die.
But I am alone.
Are you listening? The punk needs an ass whipping for what he did. But his daddy died today, and he’s the only one, despite everything, that you can trust now.
I thought I was home.
Who said anything about home being safe?
I hesitated, before reaching my hand through the bars to stroke Rebel’s soft hair.
“Bad angels are punished. Bad angels are punished…” Rebel hunched over.
I tilted Rebel’s chin, trying to focus his gaze on me. His face was scored with slashes, where his dad had struck him.
“Bad angels are punished. Bad…” He faltered, like he was only just noticing me. Then he flushed with bright shame. “I’m sorry. I didn’t protect you.”
I couldn’t stop the tears slipping down my cheeks.
Rebel’s head tilted, as he watched the tears, before raising his trembling hand to touch them. I knocked him away harder than I’d intended; he cried out, as his wrist hit the bar.
I scrubbed my eyes harshly with the back of my sleeve. “We’re not dead, which means I’m waiting on your best apology with begging. If not, you’re number one on my List of Asses to Kick.”
I wished that I hadn’t made the weak joke, the moment that Rebel uncurled with difficulty and pulled himself onto his knees.
Crimson gashes bloodied his chest and a band of bruises swelled over his broken ribs. “I’m kneeling, Feathers, and if it’s begging you want: please forgive me. I’m not good. I never was. I never fibbed about that but I tried, for you, to pretend that I could be a Custodian…and give you the choices that I never had. Even if you don’t understand yet. I don’t expect you to forgive me.” Rebel’s hands clenched into fists, and I remembered the way that they’d pounded into his brother’s face when Wings had refused to forgive…what? What terrible sin had Rebel been trying to make up for by sacrificing me? He hung his head. “I don’t deserve it.”
“And what do you deserve?”
“This,” Rebel whispered. It was so haunted that I shook. “Alone. In the black. Never escaping…”
His breath came in short panicked gasps.
I thumped back on my heels. “Harem boy doesn’t plan to leave us both here…?”
The shadows…cold…clawed at me.
Rebel’s laugh was short and bitter. “Away with you, you’re the guest of honor, not an Addict. You’ll be showered in light, not shut in the dark.”
Yet I hated the thought of Rebel here in the silent black without me, as much as the thought of being anywhere in Angel World without him.
“We’ll both be alone.” I slipped Jade’s iPod out of my pocket. It was my last connection to my sister if she’d died…
Rebel and I had been connected in her search. It bound us as much as the blood. The hunt for all the missing kids of Hackney.
I gripped Rebel’s hand, slipping him Jade’s iPod. “Your punk arse needs educating. Something more modern than the Buzzcocks.”
Rebel’s look, as the iPod rested on his open palm, was one of shock, awe…and love.
My cheeks were suddenly hot, whilst my eyes burned. It couldn’t truly be love…? Why did I hope so desperately that it was?
The wallad must be playing me again.
I reached to snatch back the iPod, but Rebel clutched it to his bare chest with quivering hands like it was his salvation. Then he bottom shuffled to the corner of the cell and hid the iPod in the shadows.
I licked my dry lips, forcing myself to smile. He relaxed, cautiously crawling back to the bars.
Frankincense burst in a rich woody cloud. Violet light flared through the cavern with the beating of wings. I surged up, backing against the wall and resting my hand on Star’s hilt.
The purple glow lit up Rebel’s petrified face, before he scrambled as far back in the cell as possible. He clutched the pouch at his neck, rocking and muttering to himself.
“Be still and silent, Addict,” Drake’s voice was predator sharp and harder than even the time he’d played with our minds in Hackney Cemetery, when I’d chained Rebel up for him like a Christmas gift. “Good. Now, come here.”
When Drake crouched beside the bars, his creamy back curved in unmarred beauty: no welts. Except, when he tipped his head forward to hold his arm through the bars to Rebel, his golden curls tumbled forward, revealing bruised bites down his neck.
Kinky bastard angels.
When Drake clicked his fingers, Rebel shuffled towards him, avoiding his gaze.
“Genie boy,” I booted at Drake, “you didn’t drag me to my new home, just to watch you break one of your toys.”
Drake’s glare was cold. “Zachriel isn’t a toy. He’s my prize.”
“Psycho definitions are a bitch. Whoever it is who rubs your lamp? Take me to them.”
Drake smudged the kohl underneath Rebel’s eyes, before mock tenderly wiping the blood from his injured cheek. “It’s time for a reminder of who owns you, son of the Fallen.” His fingers circled lower, down Rebel’s throat. “You left me here. Alone. To suffer.”
Rebel raised his gaze then. “And you murdered…”
Drake froze. “It was an honorable battle, and I was following orders. Your father was once a great man, before he Fell. I had no wish to kill him. But don’t you see, Addict, Supreme Commander Flynn died because of you.” Drakes fingers swept lightly over the base of Rebel’s neck, as he whispered, “Tell me you had a reason? Explain now, so that I can save you.”
When Rebel caressed Drake’s wrist, Drake gasped. Then Rebel raised his shaky middle finger.
“Wallad,” I muttered.
Drake hissed, pressing into the base of Rebel’s neck. Yet the moment Drake touched Rebel, a howling fury surged up inside me. I launched myself at Drake, catching him around his slight waist and hurling him against the cavern wall.
Drake let out a startled oomph. Yet he didn’t struggle, as I pinned him with my arm across his neck to the rock.
‘You’re mine,” I growled, “My toy.” The words weren’t my own. I fought against them. But here in Angel World, my angelic power whispered louder, flickering across my skin. It snaked in brutal rapture at the fear in Drake’s gaze and the tremble running through him. “Where’s my sister?”
“Dead.” Yet the waver in Drake’s voice and the pearl tremble of tears matting his eyelashes, told me that he was lying.
When I backhanded Drake across the cheek, I didn’t miss his darted glance over my shoulder at Rebel. “Try again, bro.”
Drake spat blood on the floor. “It was never my intention to kill her.”
I raised my fist.
The beat — beat — beat of my heart entwined with Drake’s own panicked breaths. When Drake glanced down, his eyelashes curved pale on his cheek, like Rebel’s always had, resigned to my…
I lowered my fist, falling over my own feet onto my arse, as I stumbled away from him.
Why was Drake letting me treat him like this? And why did I crave to? If he only hurt lesser angels, what did that make me?
Drake watched me guardedly; I breathed hard, pushing down the snaking rapture. When he held out his hand to help me up, I stared at it. His knuckles were still tacky with blood, where I’d crushed them.
The pull of Drake’s smile was softly dangerous. “This is the
deepest level of Angel World, for only the worst sinner. You need never come here again.” When he pulled me to my feet, I flinched, as his hand tightened over mine, but then his thumb only traced tingling circles over the back of my hand. I quivered. “I understand your fear. Why would you trust us? After the deceit of the Addict—”
“No, please, Commander Drake…” Rebel dragged himself onto his knees, clinging to the bars. He shot anxious glances between us like we were two boxers sparring. “Belt me, burn me, use me…” His cheeks flushed, and he bit his trembling lip. “I’ll be good, but please don’t tell her.”
“Pretending to care for you and whoring himself, I expect. My Zachriel is talented.” Drake’s smile broke — just for a moment — and then it was back, more dangerous than before. “Lying, however, he excels over us all. What was his story? Guardian Angel? Escaping my evil clutches?”
“What…? That’s not… I don’t…” I pulled my hand away from Drake’s confusing caress, clutching Star’s hilt like a comfort blanket.
“We all follow orders,” Drake’s voice was cool, amused, and deadly. “As an Addict, Zachriel knew your world better than most. He didn’t escape: I allowed him out. His job was to watch over you and bring you back safely to Angel World, but he was too weak. You’re his addiction. He couldn’t give you up.”
I twisted away.
I wanted to hurl, weep, and gag Drake just so that I wouldn’t have to hear his poison.
Rebel’s betrayal.
I’d been wrong: Drake could fight back. He shanked with words.
Rebel slapped his hands against the bars. “Sweet Jesus, woman, will you listen? I changed, and you saved me. When we—”
“No more lies.” Righteousness at Rebel’s betrayal, from the moment that I’d met him, kindled spitting sparks across my skin. “Keep your bitch mouth shut.”
I’d trusted the wrong bastard bloke.
Yet Rebel had protected and trained me, had my back, and believed in me, until I’d burst into my new powers. Had it all been a play because of orders or his addiction?
When I stalked to the cell with violet flames ghosting me, Rebel cowered like I was his executioner. But then he edged forwards. His face was turned up to mine; his gaze was intent and searching. He licked his lips with painful hope.
Rebel Angels: The Complete Series Page 27
