I pulled away from Rebel like he’d burnt me. Hot and cold flooded through my body in shivering waves. When I caught Gwyn’s desperate, bewildered gaze, however, as he stared between us like a kid watching his parents fight, I was buoyed on a bubbling fury.
I loved Gwyn, and I hated that Rebel had brought such chaos to the cozy routine that I’d created here, when I’d reckoned he could be a part of it.
“Submit or dominate?” I spat, hooking Rebel’s collar from his pile of leather clothes, which were next to his sword, Eclipse. “Then you know which way this is going down, bitch.”
“That’s mine,” Rebel snarled, wrenching the collar away from me and buckling it around his own neck.
Screech — the crystals darkened to indigo, pulsating.
Gwyn wailed, backing against the ledge, before he curled into a ball.
I lunged at Rebel tumbling him to the floor.
Bang — Rebel crashed against the cupboard.
The iron latch sprang open, and sixty-six feathers rained down on us — one for each day that Rebel and I had both spent prisoners in Angel World.
Rebel in the dark, and me in the light.
Rebel rolled to the side into the stream of sunlight. He hesitated, panting as it hit his wings. How long had it been since he’d fed?
I dived on top of him, pinning his hands over his head. Unlike Gwyn, he struggled for real, bucking against me. He tried to knee me, but I dodged, pressing harder on his balls with my own knee in retaliation, until he yelped. When we’d played these fighting games in the woods behind the witches’ house, Rebel’s cock had always been pleased to see me.
But not this morning.
I closed my eyes, savoring the sensation of Rebel’s body thrashing under mine and the way, weakened by his ordeal, I could hold him down. Then I opened my eyes and studied him, as at last he slumped, turning his head.
“What do you want, princess?” He asked wearily. “No games, please. I can’t—” He bit his lip. “You’re treating me like a Broken and getting off on it.”
I shook my head. “Not a Broken. My Imperfect.”
When Rebel twisted back, his gaze was sharp again. “What in the Jesus…? You blessed me by naming me Custodian. But now you reduce me to Imperfect?”
“The Matriarch said—”
“Away with you, don’t hide behind your ma’s skirts. I see how you’ve been living.” He glanced at Gwyn, who shrank back, even though Rebel’s expression softened. “Using a Broken. Seduced by the dark beauty of this world and your position and power. To be sure you’re now Princess Violet. Why wouldn’t you prefer that to being a huntress?”
Zing! Your crazy sweet thing just read you for filth. And that steaming pile of reality he shoved under your pretty nose? Don’t say—
You didn’t warn me? Cheers for the support.
I’m not here to support you. Truth hurts.
I dropped Rebel’s wrists, pushing myself off him. “I’m still a huntress.”
He rubbed his wrists, before pushing himself up on his elbows. “Been controlling the monster then? Killing only to save, like I taught you?”
I was the hero of the kid’s army. I didn’t answer to my Imperfect Wing.
An Addict.
Even as the thought surged, bitter and toxic, I didn’t know how it’d wormed inside.
Was the Matriarch still controlling me?
“On your knees,” I barked.
Rebel gaped at me. I gripped his hair, wrenching up his head, and he gasped.
Gwyn stared at me, startled.
“I said, bitch,” I repeated, “on your knees.”
Rebel’s tongue swept across his lips in one quick swipe. “Cop on! I don’t care what you think, I won’t be your pretty toy. And you’re… I’m no good with blathering. But this is the Matriarch’s Angelic power: corruption. Can’t you see…?”
“You’re the one who blathered about submission.” I yanked harder on Rebel’s hair, and he gritted his teeth. “Now on your knees like a good little sub.”
Rebel’s mouth tightened, as he remained motionless. “I knelt for you once, princess.” I’d never heard it sound such an insult. “But never by order.”
I backhanded him.
Slam.
His lip split, and the sweet tang of his blood burst through me with an intensity that I’d forgotten.
Slam.
I shuddered, craving to lick up the line of scarlet, as it trailed down his chin.
“Kneel.” I raised my hand to clout him again.
I hungered to split him open and free more of that candy blood. To make him submit and make him mine.
I shuddered because I didn’t know, as yet again Rebel shook his head, if I could calm the violet, before it was too late.
And I’d finally break Rebel.
I warred with the powers, screaming inside, whilst they struck, spraying angel blood across the crystals.
Stop…
Because if I didn’t? What would that make me? Just another Glory like my mum?
Another bastard.
11
There are bastards who defeat with pain, and bastards who destroy with pleasure.
But the true bastards of the world?
Break with a toxic mix of pain and pleasure.
Drake whimpered, sprawled facedown over the Matriarch’s lap. The Matriarch circled her fingers half-soothingly and half-warningly through Drake’s curls.
I crouched in front of his blushing face, as the Matriarch had instructed, trying not to glance up at the curious stares of the other Glories. Because this wasn’t another kinky punishment session in the beetle heart of my mum’s chambers.
The Matriarch lazed on a pile of iridescent otter skin cushions that were heaped on a ledge, which circled the high cave.
Merlin’s Grotto, she’d called it.
The Grotto was flooded with a clear light and the fresh scent of freedom.
The outside.
When I tipped back my head, I couldn’t see the roof, only the tunnel of light, filtering down in smoky shafts, along with hundreds of streaky-brown Merlins who circled with chattering calls. And the Glories who flew, in joyous swoops, sunbeam to sunbeam, their feathers glowing with a perfection denied to their sun-starved Wings…Glories who dived lower for a rubberneck at Drake’s squirming naughty boy embarrassment over my mum’s lap. All because I’d been less than stealthy about being unable to force my own toy to kneel…
Why wouldn’t Rebel kneel for me? And why did it burn me that he wouldn’t?
“You must think like a leader, baby bird. Angel World needs you in these days of shadows.” The Matriarch’s voice was strained; her hair had been braided, as if she couldn’t bear for it to hang free.
I frowned. “But I bitch slapped that battle.”
“My daughter, that’s a teardrop in an ocean of grief. The war grows worse. That is why you need to learn power and control.” Her hand tightened in Drake’s mane. “Wings are fighters and breeders; we harshly subjugate them for their own good.”
Their own good? Was she for real?
Rebel had told me why the angels had Fallen. But why hadn’t he been waving the flag of revolution?
The Matriarch ran her fingers down Drake’s shivering spine. “And the two most effective controls? Pain and pleasure.”
I sat back on my heels. “Don’t spoil me. Another mother and daughter sadism session already?”
“I’m offering something much sweeter. But it is passed down, mother to daughter, you’re right.” Her fingers trailed back to Drake’s golden curls, and he stiffened. “Do you wish to know the secret to control an angel? To force Rebel to his knees? Always?”
My nails bit into my palms, slicing crescents. My mouth was dry. But I couldn’t hear the shrill call of the Merlins or feel the hard stone under my aching knees because one thought had chased everything else out: the secret to control Rebel.
Until Drake’s hand shot out, snatching my wrist. I glanced at him, startl
ed.
“No,” Drake mouthed at me, “don’t.”
My breath quickened. But I was already lost to the uncoiling of the powers who claimed Rebel but didn’t trust him. At least, not the angel who’d awoken in my nest and rejected me.
Changed, like J had warned he would be.
Except, why did a prickling sense, somewhere far back, scream that I was the one who’d changed?
When I nodded to the Matriarch, Drake let go of my wrist, casting me a look of cold contempt. Why was that so much harder to take now that I knew the way that he could smile, hug, and even snuggle with me in my nest?
Ki-ki-kee — a broad chested Merlin dove through the sunshine and Glory eddies, landing on the ledge next to the Matriarch, before shuffling closer.
With the hand not pinning Drake, the Matriarch stroked the Merlin’s head. “Good girl, Caron.” Then she caressed Drake’s curls, and he sagged. She smirked, “Good boy, Duma.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’m not down with the treating blokes as pets, and I don’t reckon that it’d tame Rebel. More like I’d have a spitting wild cat biting my arse.”
“That’s not the trick. My Wing hates it, which is why it’s so delicious, but here’s the secret. You Mark them.”
She swept Drake’s hair aside from the base of his neck.
Drake twisted away. “Please…”
The Matriarch slapped him on the side of his hip, pulling him back into place. “How do you think I control him?”
I pushed myself up, leaning over Drake’s neck. My skin tingled: A vibrating, buzzing static. Then I gasped, as I stared at the tattoo of two scarlet initials, which were entwined in the shape of pluming feathers: MD.
Dillon’s fingers pressing into the back of my neck had been like shards of ice, ripping me apart.
What the hell had it felt like to be tattooed there?
I reached out to trace over the skin, but the Matriarch caught my hand. “Only the Glory who Marked him with her blood may touch him in such an intimate place.” The freaks used their own blood to tattoo; I reckoned otherwise it wouldn’t take with their accelerated healing. “Once Marked, they’re bound by both pleasure and pain because their sensitivity increases a thousand-fold.”
“Why drain the juice from your soldiers?”
“Only on the Mark and only to their Glory.” The Matriarch’s serious gaze met mine. “See?”
Hell, no…
The Matriarch lightly swept her little finger over the M, and Drake yelped, whilst the tattoo glowed. Then she pressed her thumb into the D, and he sobbed. Finally, she scored her fingernails across both initials. And he screamed.
Drake’s wings flamed, before blackening like they’d been seared.
I recoiled. “Stop it, I get the idea. Curb stamp a bastard through the pretty pictures on his neck.”
Drake had never hurt me, only lesser angels. And now, I knew why. The Mark was an invisible leash, tying him to the Matriarch.
How many of the angels were controlled like this? Was Harahel?
The Matriarch pursed her lips. “You see only the crudest use. I may punish with a thought and not even need to touch. Love, pleasure, and passion…sung to make your Wing dance as you please. Emotion forced through the Mark is as potent as pain.”
She circled the feathered initials.
Drake squirmed and panted; his face flushed as he tore at his lip with his teeth. His wings, which hung down in sad shivering points, pulsed, whilst he whined.
Titters — a gang of Glories, barely in their teens, had swooped lower to watch the show.
The humiliation of their Commander.
I launched towards them. “Get lost, angelic brats, or are you waiting for your turn over the Matriarch’s knee?”
The teen Glories did the flying equivalent of backpedaling with outraged squawks. When I turned to Drake, he was glassy-eyed and humping the Matriarch’s lap.
The Matriarch arched her eyebrow, every bit as smug as the Glories that I’d chased away. “You have the power. Isn’t that what you want?”
Was it? I didn’t bastard know anymore. Yet I hated seeing the cool Commander reduced to…this.
“Stop,” Drake begged, as sweat dripped down his back and he writhed. “Please, stop—”
“If you wish them to know how far they’ve fallen?” The Matriarch’s expression darkened. “Bad,” she hissed, pressing on the M. Even I shrank back at the intensity of her displeasure, which she projected through the Mark. “Never tell me to stop.”
Drake’s desperate desire was drenched as if in ice-water. He keened in terror, tumbling off the Matriarch’s lap and falling to his face at her feet, like the Wing in the throne room.
Drake was in agony from a scolding.
I stared at him in shock.
When the Matriarch nudged him with the toe of her stiletto, I craved to ram it down her throat.
Drake quaked, weeping. Unlike all those times when he’d come to my room with lash marks, and I’d held him, stroking his curls, this time I knew the identity of the monster who was hurting him.
There were no masks or games to hide behind. Yet still I couldn’t save him from his tormentor.
The Matriarch gripped my elbows dragging me so close that our noses touched. My breath hitched. “This is the secret. Rebel will be yours in every way.”
On earth, Rebel had rejected me. He’d betrayed and abandoned me. Why not take charge now and keep us both safe?
After all, I was the princess who was risking my arse in the Warrior Trials…
Then Drake’s weeping dragged me back into the land of Saneville. If I couldn’t save Drake, then at least I could save Rebel.
I shook my head. “I’m not even dating the punk. Getting him inked in my blood...? It stinks of eau d’bunny boiler.”
“Your choice.” Still the Matriarch didn’t release me. “But if you don’t control the Addict properly, then I’ll put him back in the dark. One rebellious Wing may cause others to Fall. I cannot allow one to shadow the path of others.” She smiled slyly. “Have you considered it’s what he wishes? The vampire, over you?”
I flinched, looking away because despite Drake’s frantic no and his agony, I knew that I’d Mark Rebel because it was the only way to save him from returning to the dark…and being taken away from me.
“Let’s get the punk inked,” I sighed.
The Matriarch kissed my cheek. “Baby bird, you’re learning.”
Then why was I trembling?
I could use the Mark to flood Rebel with only pleasure and never pain.
Yet the ancient powers growing inside, howled to bring Rebel to his knees.
Rebel hung, naked and blacked out, from the leather bonds strung between the fang-like rocks in my chambers.
Gwyn had tightened the ones that stretched Rebel’s wings taut, working fast in the plum crystals’ light, but his gaze had been cast down, caught between an anxious and furious scowl, as his lip had trembled.
And he hadn’t said a word to me.
I’d missed his happy twittering.
Gwyn’s shoulders had slumped with relief as soon as I’d told him that I didn’t need him for the evening. A Glory’s first night with her Marked wasn’t for sharing.
Exhilarated, I soared. Our blood was mixed; Rebel was mine. And I was no longer alone.
I scented along Rebel’s chest, snuffling up his collar bone and into the hollow of his throat. Our sweet blood woven together was rainbows, unicorns, and candy world heaven.
I craved to lick, taste, and bite.
I sighed, draping my arm around Rebel’s neck to play with the flame-red strands of hair tickling the tattoo, which stood out tender, high on the back of his neck above his spiked collar.
VZ: the skin was still raised and inflamed.
…Rebel howling, scrabbling to shy away from the tattooist… The gag rammed between his teeth... His pleading gaze…
I blinked back tears.
What is this? String Up a Punk Day?
/>
I’m not hurting him. Instead, I’ll take away the pain. What the other bastards did to him.
My slutty mistake. It’s Tell a Whopping Fib to Yourself Day.
First you bond with the Irish angel. Then you Mark him.
When should I prepare the baby shower ready for you to pop out a red-haired bitch baby?
It means nothing. It was the only way my psycho mum would trust him in Angel World. Or trust me.
This nothing ties you together. Always.
Hands you the reins. Always.
Let’s you make his pretty ass scream. Always.
Then he’ll be screaming with pleasure, hooker.
Oh girl, the Ice Commander didn’t sound like his dick was on Paradise Highway.
I know you’d never have let the queen pull your puppet strings into Marking Rebel if he’d knelt for you.
What if I do want power? What if it’s the best way to beat the other bastards? Save Drake’s Kid Army? Escape? Find my sister?
Then the question is, whether you’re ready not to abuse that power?
I smiled, circling my initials, which were knotted with Rebel’s in crimson feathers. I knew that I could make this work and show Rebel that this had been the best way to keep him safe…and mine. I wasn’t my mum and I’d prove it.
At last, Rebel stirred, weakly raising his head. When he blinked, his gaze was unfocused and lost, just as it’d been from the moment the gag had been thrust into his mouth and the needle had lanced his skin. He studied me like he didn’t even know who I was. Then he tried to pull down his wings to shield himself. Startling, when he discovered that he couldn’t move, he moaned at the pressure on his bad wing.
I shushed him, spider-walking the tips of my fingers down his chest, whilst my other hand continued the light circling of the Mark.
Rebel squirmed, wide-eyed.
I hadn’t expected it…to be like this.
Did it even count if one of you didn’t know the other’s name?
“It’s me, wallad. The bitch with the List of Asses to Kick?” I smirked, but Rebel whined. “I’ll make this better for you, I promise. I’m not my freakshow mum.”
Emotions burst through me and into the bond. Everything that I wanted to say but didn’t have the words: A beam of caroling joy, vibrating with a silky edge of possession.
Rebel Angels: The Complete Series Page 37
