Both the ancient angelic and vampiric powers inside me stirred, spitting out violet and black warnings against the creature in the dark.
I’d never visited the sea because sandcastle bonding hadn’t been a priority at Jerusalem Children’s home and Hackney wasn’t a neighborhood where you held a knife in one hand and an ice-cream in the other. This first trip to the ocean wasn’t winning me over to the swimming camp. Plus, I’d never tried doggy paddle with wings dragging me backwards before.
Where the hell was Mischief?
When I dragged Mischief out of the Lower Vault’s watery tomb, I’d didn’t know whether I wanted to kick his Fae Angel arse or kiss him. Maybe both. I’d missed him with an intense pain because I’d known that he’d been shut away, whilst at the same time he’d abandoned me to a world of magic that was less Harry Potter’s style and more Voldemort’s…if he’d had wings.
Yet it’d still burned through me, singing wild rhapsodies of knowledge: a realm just behind a door, if I could only push through with the new mental powers that were being taught to me.
Free myself.
I shook, scrabbling to touch my feet to the bottom of the vault. When my head ducked beneath the waters, I choked. Shards of lava-hot pain shot through the back of my skull. My new magic wove through my brain, pulsing behind my eye sockets, whilst I struggled not to sink, punishing me for breaking the Brotherhood’s sacred Phoenix Code and the First Reformer, Kunel’s, order.
I battled against the inferno melting my mind. Mischief had once warned that his magic was alive, squirming inside him. In the Legion’s cult, your mental powers were conditioned (and that’s a fancy word for brainwashed), in line with their Code.
It was like chivalrous medieval knights but without the chivalry.
In the last four weeks — and I’d tracked the days by scoring my nails through the rotting wood of the whipping post in the Bailey of Drake’s castle — I’d rebelled so many times that I’d finally collapsed under the torment of the magic. I’d been isolated from my family: even Drake had been banned from speaking to me. The magic had cleaved to the deep ache inside, where they should’ve been.
It had hollowed me.
Sighing, Kunel had finally given in and cooled the new magic, until it’d done nothing to me anymore but slink snake-like, coiling cold and heavy around my throat.
Epic fail on taming the Queen of Chaos.
Now it was back to torching me, however, just as the water froze.
Someone wasn’t happy.
I smirked, even through the agony. The bastard shouldn’t have trusted me out alone: newbie mistake.
A shrill shriek.
I howled, as my eardrums throbbed like they’d been pierced by needles. When I raised my hands to protect my ears from the high-pitched wail that pulsed from the shadows, I sank under the water, swallowing briny mouthfuls.
Thrashing wildly, as my wings churned the waters, I dragged myself back to the surface.
Burning eyes scrutinized me…hovering just above my head.
A slender beak, sharp and hooked, sizzled against my cheek. Curved talons carved into my shoulders, lifting me out of the water and up into the air, whilst wings of fire feathers cocooned around me: their heat shimmered, blistering.
A phoenix.
Hell, I’d been waiting on discovering one of these Mage Traps.
I grinned. “Come on, fire-bitch, flame me.”
Another shrill shriek.
I howled.
Time to arm your knight, J, so that I can ride on my white horse to save the fair damsel.
You’re the one offering yourself up as the princess sacrifice to the fire breathing bitch with feathers.
I’m revoking your squire status. Light my violet fire before — knight or princess — I’m a chargrilled special.
The Lower Vault? Phoenixes? You’re showboating, Violet-love: who’s the audience?
I’m on a rescue mission. My family is trapped down here.
Lie to the Legion, but I’ll whip you sweet as apple ass if you lie to me.
If you shake your thing at the Mage, you’d better be certain that it’s his knee you want to sit on.
There’s no way Rahab will ever be my sugar daddy.
Oh, girl, every boy here wishes that he was special enough to be noticed by Rahab.
Chosen.
You’ve spent your life seeking someone to raise you up. Can you resist if this shady dick sees the extraordinary in you? Who will you sacrifice? And where’s the righteousness in that?
I wriggled against the talons that were digging into my shoulder. ‘J’ was the sassy voice in my head who’d both raised and controlled me, since I’d been discovered as a baby in Hackney Cemetery on a gravestone.
Who the hell knew if J was real…? But when I was staring into the swirling vortex glare of a mythical creature, in the bowels of a castle whose walls thrummed with magic as if alive, on a hidden island in the middle of the Atlantic… I wasn’t going to disrespect on the real front.
Plus, I loved J as much as my angel and vampire lovers. I just wished he’d believe that.
Since my segregation with the apprentices, I’d faded to a shade and nothing seemed truly real anymore. Sometimes, I even doubted whether my own wings were authentic or would drop off back to the blood that’d birthed both them and an entire species of Blood Angels from the Broken slaves on Angel World.
I still twisted my wings, however, swinging them in blazing arcs at the phoenix.
Hiss — my wings surged through the phoenix…and out the other side.
I screamed at the searing of my delicate feathers, whilst the phoenix stared back at me, unruffled.
Fire doesn’t beat fire: check.
Instead, I reached inside, tugging at my magic. It scorched me in punishment for breaking three of the Codes. “For real? Get your magical mojo sorted.”
It hiccuped in agonizing flames, before cooling, looping out towards the phoenix and noosing its neck.
The phoenix jerked backwards, flailing, as its shrill call became nothing but a strangled squawk. I held onto the magic, tightening and freezing.
Death. The end. Destroyer. Is this what you are now, Violet-death? What your magic is?
It’s a phoenix. It’ll come back to life, yeah?
So, resurrection means that death no longer matters…? Or the resurrected don’t…?
Bam! You’ve become an asshole Lazarus Mage already. Or tell me this, hooker, is it life that doesn’t matter?
I gritted my teeth and yanked.
Golden sparks sprayed in the black. I yelped as I tumbled backwards, and the phoenix exploded, blasting me against the wall of the Lower Vault with a wave of shadow babies born on death.
The shadows shimmered; their eyes glinted like rubies.
I backed against the unexpected brick wall in the steel cellar. I traced my fingers across the wall and the holes between the bricks.
Why the hell had this been built and what was behind it?
“Good little creepy freakshows. Fly away home to your magical master…” I edged out a loose brick by my head, and it tumbled into the water below with a loud smack. I winced. “…If you don’t mess with the cold, wet, and currently Queen of Nothing who killed your…” I looked down. “Then I won’t mess with you.”
The shadows circled closer.
I peered into the gap in the wall.
Mischief slumped, bricked up underwater. A silver gleam illuminated his head. His eyes were closed, and his long silver hair bobbed around him like sparkling seaweed.
I gasped, as my eyes smarted with tears.
Four weeks walled up beneath the water…
Now just cool it, Feathers-fear, before you choose the Fae Angel over the cult leader with the keys to the castle and your freedom.
Rahab killed Mischief. There’s no bastard choice anymore. No one hurts my blokes.
No one but you…
My heart thundered: Mine, mine, mine…
How
hadn’t I sensed Mischief’s death…?
I reached out; my magic trailed towards Mischief’s. Wouldn’t I have known, if one of my family…? I choked on a sob. How had Mischief been elevated, even though he wasn’t a Marked or bonded like my punk angel Rebel, and I didn’t love him, not like my vampire geek Ash, to mine?
But if Mischief wasn’t, why were my cheeks wet with tears and not seawater?
I growled: I’d take down the Legion and his cult, just like the phoenix. There’d be nothing left but shadows.
When the phoenix babies nudged at my nose, undulating across my boots, I shooed them away.
They flashed dangerously. Then they swarmed, covering me head-to-toe in a tar tide of blackness. I yelped, before swallowing the shadows too: they were bitter and thick down my throat. My eyes were soaked in stinging darkness. I shuddered, as the new power, crackling and nipping, twined with my other warring powers already inside. I convulsed, splashing further down into the water in violent jerks.
I tipped back my head, as black seeped from my eyes, clouting the wall with my fist. The masonry crumbled.
Hiss.
Water snakes, disturbed by my pounding, swam through the holes in the wall, eel-like. Another impossible in the freezing waters of the Atlantic. But there was nothing…real…in the shifting Castle Drake.
Four weeks walled up underwater with snakes…
I flinched, as my bleeding nails caught against the bricks, whilst I demolished the wall brick by brick.
I wasn’t bastard crying: I wasn’t.
Then I was snatching Mischief out of his grave and soaring up, clutching him to my chest. I landed on the edge of the Lower Vault, laying him out, whilst I knelt over him. The gleam gilded his entire body. He lay still and silent. Hell, I even missed his snarky insults. I tidied his silver leather trousers and tunic, pulling my fingers through his hair to detangle it, as if somehow that would help.
Bring him to life.
Yeah, like it’d make up for the fact that I hadn’t fought harder to save Mischief from this punishment. That I’d dived into freeing my mind to magic because despite the torment, Phoenix Code, and the First Reformer’s rules, being part of the Legion was the closest to a family — where I fitted — that I’d ever experienced.
When I bent over Mischief, my tears dripped onto his cheeks. Then even though in the Under World I’d shattered all fairy tales, making an enemy of my Blood Lover sister, who was deluded by the romance of vampires (Fallen angels caught in an epic war with Angel World and angel mages), I tried for Sleeping Beauty.
I kissed my princess.
Magic: it crackled like popcorn. Sparks lit Mischief’s cold lips, as answering static danced against mine. My eyes widened, whilst my arms tightened around him.
Please…using up every ounce of karma that I’ve earned for saving the world…please…
Mischief’s eyes fluttered open, as the gilt gleam faded. I grinned against his mouth; my fingers trailed down his warming arm. Mischief’s confused gaze met mine, as our snog continued, swapping our magic between us like our tongues with an electric hum.
Coming around from four weeks of torture to being molested… It put a whole new spin on Prince Charming.
I flushed, pulling back. Our magic fought to hold us together: silver and violet spiraled in the air between us. I dragged in my angelic power with an embarrassed snap.
Awkward.
I’d expected Mischief to puke water. Instead, he blinked at me, studying the Legion’s adapted uniform for its one and only female apprentice: bronze ribbons wrapped around my thighs, tiny bronze skirt, and shirt and scarf in rich velvet like an aristocratic anime.
Mischief sniffed. “Oh, I shan’t call you beast anymore,” his voice was raspy but not like he’d swallowed water into his lungs. “You shall be my Sailor Moon.”
I blushed, pulling at my shirt self-consciously.
Maybe I hadn’t missed those snarky insults.
“You were dead…” I pointed a shaky finger at him. “I just brought you to life.”
He caught my hand, brushing his lips against the back of it. “My hero.” His lips quirked, mockingly. “What diversion would Mage Drake have if I was dead? He walls you in…then the water creeps up inch by inch…” Mischief pulled himself up on his elbows. “Finally, just before you drown, he allows you to paint yourself in protective magic. You still feel the dark, fear, and isolation but you don’t drown. My, what a shame for the Mage: he doesn’t have a new Brother with equal imagination.”
“Don’t try me, Gandalf, I’m imagining you, me, and a snake right now.”
Mischief moaned, frantically scrabbling to back away from me along the sharp edge of the Lower Vault, shaking his head as if to deny the image…him, me, snake…
I was a wallad.
“That was my Thoughtless-1000 moment, all right? I’d never do that to you.” I held out my hand, but Mischief’s fingers tremored, as he clawed at his pale chest like he could still feel the snakes coiled there. I bit the inside of my cheek to hold back the raging of the powers inside. “I’m the Monster Princess: the other monsters may think that they’re the Big Bads, but I’m the bitch who slays them. And I promise, I will.”
Mischief huffed, but he stopped ripping his skin. “Insufferable arrogance. Has it taught you nothing?”
“That I’m kickass?”
This time, Mischief spluttered with laughter, before collapsing onto his back; I sprawled next to him. “When I was a child, snakes held no terror for me.” He swirled the blood on his chest into letters: VIOLE… He peeked at me. “Yet since I was brought to this castle, Mage Drake has shut me in with them. It’s remarkable how fear can be cultivated because where there’s magic, there’s nightmares.”
“Way to bring down the mood.”
“My mistake, I hadn’t imagined that we’d hit the candlelit romance stage. Now,” he raised an imperious eyebrow, “put me back.”
I spluttered, straightening my wings to their full intimidating glory as I stood. “No way, bro.”
Mischief merely tilted up his chin: looked like my swag had deserted me. “At once, queen.’
That was how to burn with a single inflection.
I flinched, and Mischief suddenly looked wary and lost, before his expression shuttered.
“I disobeyed three Codes, ganked a phoenix, and became infested with shadows, just so that I could haul your ungrateful arse out of the sea,” I growled. Why did it hurt so badly to imagine Mischief being punished again…or that he wanted to be? “What’s an escape attempt if the prisoner won’t leave their cell?”
“One where no one dies because of their stupidity.” Mischief rolled sideways back into the water.
I pounded my fists against the steel, peering down into the freezing black.
Was Mischief truly more terrified of Rahab than the snakes? What did he fear would happen if he didn’t wall himself back into the tomb?
What did he know that I didn’t?
Arf, arf, arf.
I leaned forward, staring at a silver Harbor Seal, which wiped a front paw over its whiskers. It batted its long eyelashes, curling its mouth into a smile. Then snorted water straight into my face.
I yelped, batting away the spray.
Mischief’s voice mocked from the seal’s cute mouth, “That’s seal for be off with you, sailor. Don’t you have treasure to be plundering?”
“More like a Disney pirate.” I narrowed my eyes. “What’s seal for help, she’s about to kick my arse?”
The seal’s V-shaped nose flared in panic, but it was too late. I’d dived into the water, clutching Mischief by his furry neck, before he could propel himself away.
Except, he could still shift.
Finding myself holding nothing, my heart spiked with the same panic as when I’d thought Mischief dead.
I couldn’t lose him. Not after he’d come back to life…
I burst my magic through the rippling water, netting Mischief in the cold, which ha
d blackened now in the tar of the shadows, then I trawled him towards me. I ignored his chattered name-calling, cupping my hands around him instead and raising him to eye-level.
I glared at the tiny equine seahorse, which glittered iridescent silver. Somehow Mischief still managed to look regal. And how could a seahorse pout? “Will you stop…trying to stop me rescuing you?”
The seahorse did all but shrug. “Only if you stop trying to rescue me.”
“Not in the land of yodeling werewolves.”
“Why?” He sounded more fragile than before. And suddenly Mischief was transformed back to his angelic self. Except, his arms were wrapped around my shoulders, and his lustrous scaled tail wound around me.
My merman.
When Mischief’s tail rubbed against me, I shivered. Was it as sensitive as my wings or claws?
“Come back to land,” I whispered.
“So you can gut me?” Mischief shook his head. “You would sacrifice for Rebel, Ash, or your Blood Familiars, but not for me: the spy and traitor.”
“You learned about me in the Underworld and you’re right: I’m no hero. I wouldn’t sacrifice for a traitor.”
Mischief’s eyes closed, as he shuddered. He gave a tight nod.
“But you’re not a traitor: you’re fam. And I’ve learned that I’ll sacrifice everything for fam. You chose to stand by my side; I told you that I wouldn’t forget.”
Mischief’s eyes snapped open. He pulled me closer, tentatively touching our lips as if I’d be the one to pull away, then he snogged me hard, caressing me with his tail in time with the strokes of his tongue. I quivered, caught in his hold. He was strong, I suddenly realized, as he spun me in the water, and if he truly wanted to get away, I’d never stop him.
He had to want to be caught….or surrender.
Why did he hide his strength?
He chuckled against my lips. “The water is my land. Here? I’m the king.”
“Then I’m the Kingslayer.” I shot the shadows around Mischief, catching him in their sticky embrace.
Mischief cast me a panicked glance. “What happened to you?”
“I became strong too. Enough to do this…” I dragged us both out of the water and into the air, before tumbling us onto the ground. Mischief’s challenge had awoken something dominant and dark inside me: it growled to force Mischief to his knees. He alone of my blokes had never called me princess or queen and meant it: had never knelt.
Rebel Angels: The Complete Series Page 78
