Where the hell were we?
A stone castle, battle weary and rugged, loomed above us: Winterfell met the grimmest of Grimm. Precarious, on three sides it perched on crumbling cliffs. The fourth, where we lay under the eye of a smiling Mage, was nothing but a strip of coral rocks, leading to a gatehouse.
Because this was a bastard island in the middle of an ocean.
“Balls,” Rebel muttered, pulling Ash up next to him, before grudgingly offering Mischief his hand as well.
Mischief studied Rebel, before clasping his hand and allowing himself to be swung to his feet. Then he turned and ducked to help me up. Gray no longer dappled Mischief’s wings; they shone with a glittering violet, which was pale enough to shade to silver on their tips.
Mischief noticed my stare and blushed.
Blaze and Spark whined. They tottered, sniffing at the air.
I swayed, as the salt breeze flayed my cheeks. I’d been…teleported…to a freaky arsed magical island, leaving behind Jade and the other Hackney kids. I gasped, clasping at the pouch that held Jade’s necklace. Yet they weren’t kids anymore, they were Blood Lovers. And I had to trust Jade, just like I trusted Misrule and Harahel to lead the Under World that we’d liberated.
I was apprenticed to the Mage, but the world was safe. Key and the vampires — my followers — were free.
I couldn’t help the grin.
Mischief sought out my gaze with a sudden earnestness. I didn’t understand what he meant; except, I could read his apology.
What the hell did he have to be sorry for?
Drake hung behind the Mage with his head bowed. Why hadn’t he arrived, caught in a tangle of limbs with me? Had he chosen a side…and it wasn’t mine?
My grin faltered. I tore my nails into my swollen elbow because that pain was less than the thought that I’d lost Drake. When I’d left Drake behind in Angel World, he’d still been mine.
Yet what if he never had been? What if he’d only saved us to rescue the Lightning Angel from the cells?
I forced myself to swagger towards the Mage. “You want a dragon apprenticed with your knights…? Then let’s lay siege to your castle. Because I’m no damsel.”
The Mage gave a deep laugh, catching me in his wings. Creamy sandalwood enveloped me. “What would I do with a damsel? And I already have my boys to enjoy.” His lips quirked. “It’s the monster that I crave.”
I snorted. “Everybody has their kinks.”
Drake hissed, “Princess, be silent.”
“I’m a queen now. This bitch has a crown.”
The Mage, however, only waved a lazy hand. “Naïve, little apprentice, you’ll learn. You have exceptional powers, but your rage and lust control them. Aren’t you intrigued to discover the mental strength that I could unlock?”
“I’ve had enough of being used as a weapon. I’m not some magic bomb.”
The Mage shoved me away with a pat on the head. “Do you believe that I’m a bad father, like Lucifer?” I winced. “Of course I shan’t use you. I’ll set you free.”
I stared at him in shock, but he’d already whirled to Drake.
“Take these…creatures…” The Mage’s gaze cooled, as he pointed at each of my family in turn like they were a line-up of schoolkids waiting in front of the headmaster for a caning. “Seducer, Addict, and Blood Familiars—”
“Fam,” I hopped onto a boulder, staring across at the hulking castle. “And they’re mine.”
“They’re the Legion’s,” the Mage corrected, “and in case you were unclear, so are you.”
“Please, queen, obey,” Drake begged.
I hadn’t noticed the tremors through Drake’s wings before, or his anxious glances between the Mage and me.
The Mage’s long finger finally pointed at Mischief, before crooking at him. Mischief shuffled closer; his expression was schooled to blankness.
“Is the deserter, traitor, and whore family too?” The Mage asked.
Why couldn’t I read Mischief’s expression? I knew a loaded question when I heard it.
“He’s one of yours, yeah?” I shrugged.
The Mage backhanded Mischief hard enough to knock him to his knees and split his lip.
Wrong answer.
Blaze growled, and Spark nudged his head against Mischief’s hand.
Mischief’s hair hung over his face, whilst his shoulders slumped. He didn’t look up.
I wished that I could tell Mischief I’d only been trying to cover for him. Did he believe that I meant it?
“Take her family to the barracks.” The Mage wiped his hand down his shirt, as if disgusted to have been tainted with Mischief’s blood.
Drake nodded, still not meeting my gaze.
“Seducer,” Ash whispered, waggling his eyebrows and throwing a mocking glance over his shoulder at the Mage. Then he snogged me, and I was caught in his aromatic embrace…safety.
When Ash followed Drake down the pebbled path, Rebel dragged me close, touching our foreheads. “Addict,” he smirked.
Then he patted his thigh, and the familiars chased after him. They paused to rub their heads against my ankles, gazing up at me and winking.
I laughed. If we’d been alone, I knew that they’d have been saying Blood Familiars.
That was why I loved them all: funny, brave…misfits like me and they owned it. I forced myself to look away…and not think about what would happen to them at the barracks.
The Mage rapped his fingers against his palm, deep in concentration. “Now you’re joining the Legion, you should know that I reward with the truth.”
Mischief’s head shot up. He stared frantically between us. “Mage Drake, I’ll be useless if—”
“More useless than you already are?” The Mage inquired. Mischief flushed. “I punish, as well as reward. This is your chastisement, Zophia, for defying me. This boy, little apprentice, is a—”
“Spy,” Mischief burst out. His fists clenched on his lap, and his eyes blazed with a burning mix of defiance and shame. “After all, am I not useless? Good for nothing but being invisible, as I always have been?” He breathed hard through his nostrils, calming himself. I shivered, crossing my arms to trap my hands under my armpits and stop the violet from bursting out. How could I crave to hurt and hold Mischief at the same time? “When you were in Angel World and the first vampires attacked, secretly to the rest of the Legion, the Mage decided to sacrifice me by allowing Lucifer to make me his captive. The others believe that I played traitor.”
The Ossuary and Charnel House… The cruelty of the FF to the angels, and Lucifer’s play with Mischief…
The Mage had ordered that because of me…?
I leapt off the boulder, prowling closer. “Why the hell…?”
“So that you’d have an ally if you were taken.” Mischief peered from underneath his eyelashes at me. “Who could then rescue you, tricking you into the hands of the Mage…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Even if that meant staging a rebellion.”
My legs buckled. I fell to my knees next to Mischief.
The Mage chuckled, but I didn’t care about him. I couldn’t look away from Mischief’s bruised face.
Because nothing had been real.
“Architect and hero of the Bone Revolution,” I sneered.
Mischief’s gaze was level. “An illusion. I warned you.” I flinched. “You were never in control, but then, neither was I.”
When I reached up to touch Mischief’s bleeding…lying…lip, he winced. “If you were whoring yourself out to the enemy for info and spying on me, why are you returning the whipped dog?”
Mischief’s tongue swiped across my finger, as if for comfort. “What high standards you hold others to. The Mage told me that I’d be trapping a brutal beast. Yet when I discovered that you were…something else…” His cheeks pinked. “Let us simply say that I went off script. The revolution became real, and I swapped loyalties. Spies are rewarded, deserters become the whipped.”
“Why did you desert?”
He met my gaze. “And I imagined you cleverer than a beast.”
My heart thundered, and my fingers shook as they stroked Mischief’s cheek. The powers inside raged to spit out their fury at his betrayal and beat him, just like the Mage had. Yet I’d learned in the Under World to control Devil’s whispers and the call of my vampiric side. I might not always win the struggle, but I was bastard trying.
Instead, I sucked on Mischief’s lip, as he bucked in surprise. His blood zinged through me, sparking with desire and magic. When I drew back, his eyes were wide, and he was panting.
My claws slid out, raking down his chest, and he hissed. “A beast has claws.”
“Excited, are we? Such big talons you have. One could almost think that you were showing off.”
“If you ever trick me with illusions again…?” I rested my steel nails over the fluttering pulse in Mischief’s neck; he didn’t pull away. “I’ll behead you, traitor, with these talons.” When Mischief cringed on the traitor, a claw nicked his skin. I bent to lick up the blood, and he shuddered, but this time with pleasure. “You chose to stand at my side, however, and I won’t forget that.”
The Mage snorted, snatching Mischief by the hair and dragging him to a boulder on the edge of the path, before pressing him over it. “Stay. The queen may choose not to punish you, but you’ll be contemplating your behavior in the Lower Vault for betraying me.” Mischief struggled, but the Mage pinned him. He cast a glance over his shoulder at me. “We shall have a good while without the Matriarch’s interference; she’ll be too busy playing with her favorite Wing now that she has him finally.”
I stared at the Mage in shock.
Had everything…from the moment that I’d been taken to Angel World, to when I’d been snatched to the Brotherhood of the Phoenix…been a plan by my mum to steal back my dad?
To force him to conceive another child like me?
I shook, pulling in my claws, before pressing my knuckles across my mouth.
The Mage thrust his thumb into the base of Mischief’s neck, and Mischief howled, convulsing across the rock. “Never play games with those who’ve been weaving webs for centuries, little apprentice. Lucifer was paying for…unbalancing…the status quo. His punishment was darkness, yet he thirsted for the light. And love. He had no right to either.” The Mage cocked his head, at last lifting his hand from Mischief’s neck as he assessed me. “Your tears are fruitless. Why weep for a Fallen monster?” Surprised I swiped at my cheeks. Wet. I turned away my head. “Lucifer wished to turn you into an assassin: a devil to win the Devil’s Trident. Tell me, was it worth it? Or are you ready to turn to the Legion?”
Everything had been an illusion?
Despite that, Misrule’s rebellion had saved the Bones, Shadows, and Bloods. He now ruled in place of Lucifer.
So, I was stuck here, apprentice to a fascist spell caster. But who said that it had to be as a prisoner? The Mage was the power behind the Matriarch and Angel World. He’d taken out Lucifer with a single spy and our power combined. There’d be no true freedom, whilst the Mage reigned: the shadow with the magic. And now he’d invited me in. Mischief wasn’t the only one who could play the Mata Hari.
Time to fake it with the best of them.
I strutted to Mischief, brushing past the Mage. Then I hauled Mischief up by his tunic. “This is one queen who’s learned her lesson. Vampires and Glories are bad. Check. Ask Mischief, he’ll tell you just how much I wasn’t down with the Under World.” I grinned. “This bitch is for turning.”
The Mage rose up into the night-time sky; his wings beat in flaming arcs. “How kind, thank you for permission to torture Zophia.” Mischief rolled his eyes at me, and I shot him an apologetic glance. “Until then, let’s get you settled. The sooner you accept your life as an Apprentice Mage, the better.”
I beat my wings, rising up with my hand clasped in Mischief’s; he soared next to me. “The barracks?”
I’d reckoned that it’d be like a Hogwart’s dormitory, rather than a military barracks. Was the Mage building an army?
The Mage swooped towards the gatehouse. “Why would I place a queen amongst riffraff? You shall live with your brother, the prince.”
Mischief caught me, before I could fall from the sky.
I had a brother?
Was he a captive here, or an enemy member of the Legion: A Mage? And was he like me? A monster?
Dizzy, I spun, beating my wings frantically, but Mischief held on, whispering soothing nonsense into my ear.
Suddenly, everything cleared; violet and black peeled back.
I had a brother: I wasn’t alone.
I peered at the castle ahead. Then I broke free of Mischief’s hold, as my wings flared in glory, and I soared towards the stars, swooping beneath the shimmering moon.
A royal brother and sister monster team…? We’d be kickass…and dangerous enough to destroy the world.
I flew towards my family, brother, and new home.
Towards magic.
The End…For Now
Continue Violet’s adventures in VAMPIRE MAGE, Book 4 in the Rebel Angels Series.
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Author Note
You’re legends for reading and reviewing! Word of mouth, recommendations, and even one-line reviews is how my books reach others, so I’m totally thankful for everything you do.
I’ve always had sympathy for the anti-hero, rebel, and outcast. I want to read - ansd write - their story.
The Underworld is a setting that I’ve been excited to go wild with and reimagine…as well as Lucifer, of course!
I hope you enjoyed it too.
The BIG secrets are coming up in the next book, and I can’t wait to reveal them to you!
Thanks, you’re awesome - my Rebel family :)
Rosemary A Johns
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Vampire Mage
VAMPIRE MAGE: REBEL ANGELS BOOK FOUR © copyright 2019 Rosemary A Johns
www.rosemaryajohns.com
First edition 2019
Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Fantasy Rebel Limited
Vampire Mage
REBEL ANGELS BOOK FOUR
We’re all born to love, but only the Chosen are also born to magic…
Nothing could’ve prepared Violet for initiation into the Legion of the Phoenix. Perilous. Nightmarish. Deadly. When three wishes offer her deepest desires, she should’ve known better than to trust them. Now she must face the vicious Mage’s Challenge. If she doesn’t, the seductive vampire geek she loves will be kept forever as their pet, whilst her snarky angel lover will be executed, only to be resurrected as a slave.
Violet must fight beside her monstrous half-brother, the prince, who hungers to force the world to kneel…or battle against him to become a hero to those she loves. Either way, dangerous magic is unfurling inside her, a
nd new realms are about to open that threaten them all…
1
Vampires? Angels?
I ruled the bastards as both angelic princess and Queen of the Under World. Yet now I’m trapped with Lazarus Mages on a hidden island of resurrection and magic.
And that makes me their bastard.
Half vampire, half angel, I still lived out a human geek life, until my powers arose phoenix-like on my twenty-first birthday.
To escape Lucifer, my dad, and an apocalypse, I sacrificed one father, only to be welcomed into the deadly arms of a charismatic mage who played at being a new dad to his lost boy cult.
When I dived into the waters of the Lower Vault, I shivered. Spluttering on the salty seawater, which burned down the back of my throat — the ocean crept inside this dank cellar below Mage Rahab Drake’s castle — I beat my black-and-violet wings, flaring fire down their feathers. Then I peered into the gloom.
Burning eyes blinked back at me.
Mischief was the brat of an angel, even if I loved his snark and admired his intelligence, who’d tricked me into making a deal with Rahab to become the first female mage apprentice in the Brotherhood of the Phoenix. The Brotherhood dedicated themselves to the Legion and the Mage (or Rahab, as I pissed off the apprentices by calling the angel who they’d elevated to godlike leader).
Yet Mischief had also plotted the revolution to save the Under World and stop an apocalypse. So, the chance of it being easy to save him from his punishment in the steel Lower Vault for choosing my side over Rahab’s, was less than those burning eyes belonging to a tap-dancing unicorn.
Come on, wishing up a tap-dancing unicorn…
I swam backwards; my ash-blonde hair and the ribbons on my bronze uniform — with added violet knee-high boots — coiled like snakes.
The crimson eyes narrowed.
Rebel Angels: The Complete Series Page 77
