Ash grimaced. “They’re not hobbits.”
I stared at the Halfling, who’d hunched back amongst the clothes.
Pet 19: Tiger.
Tiger’s sapphire eyes peeped out at me, as his ears twitched, and a shamed flush spread down his neck. Even though he struggled not to drop his gaze, his hands clenched in Rebel’s jacket like I’d burn him the same as the witches.
Tiger: where had I heard that before?
My eyes widened, and I snatched Tiger by the scruff of the neck, dragging him closer. His wings beat frantically; his heels kicked.
“You’re Misrule’s boy,” I breathed. “His missing Blood Lover.”
Hell, the leader of the Under World’s first Blood Lover, before he’d taken Harahel to be his, hadn’t gone missing as Misrule had thought: he’d been here, stolen as a Blood Familiar.
All along, he’d been the Head Coven’s slave.
“You know Misrule?” Tiger’s hope was painful.
I nodded.
“But you’re…” He glanced between us, whilst his brow furrowed.
“As I told the psycho witches, everything’s not about sides anymore. The Underworld’s changing.”
“Figured,” Tiger muttered. “But it’s not like I’m going back.” He thrashed his tail. “I’m a…Halfling. A disgrace. Nothing.”
“Hey, hold the shame bus, this is our stop.” I tilted up Tiger’s chin; brimming blue eyes met mine. Mischief was right: he was adorable. “You’re not the same bitch that you were, but then neither am I. I’ve already birthed one species — Blood Angels — and they’re epic. Whatever you are now, it doesn’t matter because you can be and do whatever you choose…”
“Look out of the window, Violet,” Ash said, quietly.
I leapt up, staring down at the stable below and the Halflings breaking out into the golden dawn, which kissed across the horizon. Vampires with the ears, claws, or tails of squirrels, red pandas, ring-tailed lemurs, chimps, badgers, and wolves escaped into the light. A new species born of Blood Familiars and freed from the witches.
My mouth ached with my grin: joy tingled through my wings, as the Halflings spread over the lawns, beating and pulsing in the thrill of united liberty.
“There’s not a chance that we’re giving them up to the Legion,” Rebel’s voice was low, vibrating with a remembered grief that ghosted across the bond. “I won’t make them slaves again.”
I twirled to where he hung, still in bondage, tracing down his cheek with my knuckles.
How in the ecstasy of my magic or the buzz of discovering a new species could I’ve forgotten the stakes? That losing the Mage’s Challenge meant losing Rebel and Ash?
How could I’ve saved my family from the witches, only to sacrifice them to the mages?
“You’ll die,” I whispered.
“Then I’ll die,” Rebel’s gaze was soft, yet laced with steel when it met mine.
“And I’ll play at being a good pet,” Ash added.
I hugged myself, staring at the Halfings emerging into the dawn.
You can’t save everybody…
Yet why did the birth pangs of a new species have to be so agonizing?
Why did it have to cost my family?
I lurched at a sudden pull, which tugged at the shadows inside. Startled, I fell towards Tiger, wrapping him in my arms, as the room shook.
“Naive, little apprentice, did you imagine that I wouldn’t feel the breaking of my spell? The death of the Head Coven? The creation of new creatures, almost as if you believe yourself to be my equal…?” Rahab’s fury burst telepathically into my mind.
I flinched. “They’re not Blood Familiars now, so there’s no souvenirs left to bring back from our trip. The Mage’s Challenge is broken, rather than failed. Let’s call it even,” I shot back at him.
Please, please, please…
Rahab’s chuckle was dark and not indulgent. “I allow no disobedience, yet still you rebel as if there’ll be no consequences. I shall stop one punishment only for overcoming the Wynters. Yet the other you’ll face. You demanded a chance to free your brother. You requested to take the Challenge. And you accepted the cost. Who truly is to blame here?”
I bit back bitter tears, as the room darkened and was sucked towards Castle Drake. Tiger squirmed in my arms, yowling. I’d failed the Mage’s Challenge, and now my family faced the retribution.
17
What do you do or say on the last hour before your lover’s execution? A death that you’ve caused by playing with your family’s lives in the same twisted way that your mum and dad always had? As if there were no consequences?
How do you say goodbye to the first bloke you’ve ever loved?
I shivered, clutching Rebel close in the quiet of the Mirror Lodge. We lay entangled in each other’s wings on my Sleeping Beauty bed. I rubbed my cheek against the sheets, as if that could make any of this feel more real — one hour before the dawn execution in the Bailey — whilst the violet fire orb flared, casting its specter glow, repeating endlessly cloned across the glass walls.
When I’d been dragged back to the Legion with Tiger quivering in my arms, Rahab had kept his promise: Ash had been turned over to the Undeserving, rather than the mages.
And that’d been the signing of Rebel’s death warrant.
Tonight, alone in my chambers, Rebel and I spent our last night together.
Rahab hadn’t softened his tough love parenting towards me, but he’d caved to Rebel’s quiet request.
Rebel had knelt before Rahab. “Please, grant me some time with the queen before everything I am — Zachriel and Rebel — is gone. I know that I’m saying it all arseway but…you’re murdering me.” Why had Rahab flinched? “Don’t you owe me this favor?”
Rahab had cupped Rebel’s cheek, before nodding. “Tonight only. By the light, Zachriel, what I do is for your own good.”
I laid my head on Rebel’s chest. His heart beat, slow and steady; it was as right as his copper candy scent that shrouded me.
How could it be stopped in less than an hour?
Both ancient powers inside me screamed in tribal despair at the threat to my bonded and Marked Blood Lover: a protectiveness that burrowed to my core, fogging the world to nothing but a whining chant of Rebel, Rebel, Rebel…
When Rebel and I had first burst into these chambers, with me storming whirlwind ahead, I’d raged, promising to sacrifice the world to save him.
Yet Rebel had simply shaken his head. “For ages, I’ve made a woeful number of bad choices; now let me make a good one. Can’t tonight just be you and me, Feathers, bollocks to the rest?”
So, even though I’d thundered inside, craving to smash the glass and rip the ropes from the roof, I’d buried the grief and pain instead. I’d laid down with Rebel, hugging him in silence, on his last night alive.
At dawn, he became nothing but a number: A Phoenix slave.
I blinked away the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes, winding my arms tighter around Rebel’s waist like I could hold onto him forever that way, stroking along his wings.
Rebel’s ornate emerald shift brushed stiffly against my skin. Intricate gold gilt was woven into its sleeves, and a phoenix blazed on the front.
Expensive. Formal. Ceremonial. His bastard burial clothes.
It’d booted me in the gut the way Rebel had first picked the shift off the covers, where it’d been left out for him. Then how, without a word, he’d stripped off his leather jacket, folding it neatly on the floor, each item joining the first with a final loving stroke. Until he’d only hesitated at his collar. The sorrow had torn through our bond, when he’d unbuckled it, placing it carefully on top of his clothes.
Naked, Rebel had met my gaze. And I’d known then: the ritual had prepared him to die.
He’d been ready. It’d been me who hadn’t been ready to let go.
When Rebel had pulled on the emerald shift, I’d hungered to snatch it by the collar and rip the screwed-up death robe to shreds.
Rebel
had chosen this, however, so I didn’t have to make the choice: sacrifice him, or sacrifice…everything. At last, I’d got how painful it was to watch powerlessly, whilst someone else took the lead.
I traced upwards, clasping a handful of Rebel’s feathers: warm and soft.
Hell, I couldn’t bastard do this.
In an hour’s time…less…less than an hour now… How could Rebel simply no longer be here? At my back, willingly kneeling, shadowing me with feelings… It was sacrilege, the same as the binding of Mischief’s magic. And as devastating.
“Talk to me, Feathers.” Rebel’s breath was warm, as he nuzzled into my hair.
I fought to stop my voice wavering, “What, bro?”
“A story,” he whispered. “My ma…when I was nothing but a cub…before she died, she’d tell us tales. She wasn’t like my da; she was a good woman and she’d sit with Briathos, Haman, and me and weave these stories from your world. About humans. Here’s the thing, I don’t know how much was true — things that she’d seen or heard — and how much imagined or legends. But I never forgot.” He laughed, soft and fond in a way that I’d never heard before. “Sweet Jesus, I haven’t remembered that since… Maybe Addict runs in the family, so it does. But I’d like…” He kissed the top of my head. “It’s been so long, see, since someone held me, and I knew that I was safe.”
I bit my lip; blood beaded. My throat swelled up, as I battled not to sob. I forced out, “I can’t…”
How could I pretend? Just spin tales like I always had in the children’s home, creating fantasies to hide the reality: Jerusalem’s Jinn. But no number of wishes would save Rebel.
He’d been a kid on his ma’s knee listening to stories of the human world: a curiosity that’d led to his shame and punishment as an Addict. Yet bitter jealousy shook me because he’d lived all those centuries without me. Other angels had known him — loved him — whilst I hadn’t even been alive.
We could’ve grown up together.
I gripped Rebel’s wing tighter, as the fantasy deepened, weaving into a multi-color, all singing and dancing musical production. I could’ve known him before his forty years in the bird cage prison. He’d only been mine for less than a year: it wasn’t bastard enough.
Both sides inside me sang that Rebel’s blood belonged to me, but Rahab planned to shed it for the Legion, whilst resurrecting Rebel as a shadow of himself. And he’d never remember his ma again.
My Rebel would be dead.
I couldn’t even trick myself with the lie that the angel I loved would be raised again.
Rebel stiffened. “I’m mortified that I asked like some babby—”
“There was once a foundling. No one knew who’d left her in the human world. But she was powerful and swore one day, when she was all grown up, she’d take her rightful place in the magical world and take her vengeance…”
“And did she?”
“She went medieval on the bastards who hurt her and her fam. She curbed stamped every single supernatural prick who’d messed with them.”
Rebel’s mouth curved into a smile against the crown of my head. “I’m blessed to be avenged by such a bloodthirsty foundling.”
“It’s just a story, bro.”
When he nipped my ear, I yelped. “And I’m just a fellah with wings.” He settled back, gazing at me intently. “Will you look after Eclipse for me? If…when you free Haman, he’ll need our da’s sword.”
“Screw it, why would you even have to ask?”
“Do you think…?” Rebel tore at his lower lip with his teeth, worrying at the tender flesh. “Do you think it’ll hurt much?”
My stomach lurched.
Rahab, Mr Sadist in Shiny Packaging, had detailed how Rebel would be killed, of course: hung by the neck until dead. The raised platform, wooden gibbet, and electrified noose for the modern touch.
I swallowed. “The psycho says that he doesn’t want to cause you pain. He’ll just…”
Snap your neck.
Rebel’s breath quickened; the steady thud of his heart sped up. But he shook his head. “Not the being hung.” He wet his torn lips. “Death. After.”
It was my turn for my pulse to thunder, alive and alien in my ears — boom, boom, boom — because how did I answer that?
Ash’s sisters had walked to their deaths in Lucifer’s Light. And they’d gone joyful and filled with hope based on the lie, which I’d told them because hope had been the only way that I could save them. It’d sliced me to ribbons, but I’d survived. The living had to take on the guilt and suffering, because to die in fear and despair was too cruel.
There was no way I’d let that happen to Rebel.
“I think,” I said, gently, “you’ll be safe, after.”
Rebel’s breath hitched. “But where do you go?” Centuries older than me, he suddenly sounded so young and already lost. “What if it’s dark? An eternity of being alone in the dark?”
“Listen, my Irish bondage angel,” I bit my tongue to stop the tears, “you’ll fly in the light. The Legion say rise in it. So, dying here on their island, you’ll never be in the dark again.”
At last, Rebel sobbed, sagging against me. “Thank you,” he murmured, like a blessing.
I slipped an iPod out of my skirt’s pocket, which Mischief had smuggled to me, before he’d been dragged away. It’d been my sister’s iPod. When she’d gone missing, it’d united Rebel and me in her search. I’d thought that Jade had taken it from me as another way to kick my arse for daring to believe we’d still been sisters, even if we’d landed on different sides of the war’s divide. Yet Mischief must’ve stolen it back.
Why had he been holding onto my music like a relic?
Yet the desperate glance, which Mischief had cast Rebel, had told me that he understood how much the iPod meant to Rebel. Even if to share the music with my punk angel again, knowing that it’d be the last time, would be agonizing.
I plugged one earbud into Rebel’s ear and one into my own. Eel’s grungy “Novocaine for the Soul” — our dark misfit anthem — wove its spell. We’d rescued the Broken slaves in the Hollow to this song, whilst I’d held him and soared up through the shafts on my newly birthed wings.
Just for a moment, we’d been united in joy and freedom.
Even though tears glistened in Rebel’s eyes, he linked our pinkies as he kissed me: a sweet revelation, which was also a goodbye.
I shivered, scoring my nails down the whipping post like at least that’d mark a memory of this: a private execution in the Bailey.
The sun glinted off the cobblestones: the world ablaze. The noose on the scaffold sizzled with emerald fire; the gibbet rose from a raised platform next to the cannon. Rebel marched to it with a steely dignity, even in bare feet and his shameful gilt-edged shift.
Then he hesitated, scanning the Bailey. “Where’s the Brigadier, Blaze, Spark, Mischief, Commander Drake…”
Rebel’s sudden trembling desperation shot adrenaline through my limbs, which had been numb with shock or denial.
Rahab, who’d been lounging next to the three steps up to the scaffold, huffed, “Enough. Do not make a scene.” Yet he tapped his fingers against his palm in agitation.
“You mean like this, bro?” I snatched Star out of its sheath, but Rahab blasted me to paralysis with a casual flick of his wrist.
I hung, reduced to one of the Legion’s statues, whilst Rebel placed his foot on the first step. “All I want,” Rebel whispered, “is to say my goodbyes.”
“Why?” When Rahab leaned forward, Rebel raised his head: this time, his expression was darkly righteous: it thrilled me with its terrible grace. It was Rahab who flinched back. “You shan’t even remember your companions…after. Hangings aren’t the same as corporal punishments: spectacles as examples. Do you imagine that I gain satisfaction from killing those I teach?”
“Then bastard stop this,” I hissed.
Rahab didn’t even glance at me. “Silence. Do you not think your presence a mercy? Or are you b
lind to all but your own suffering?”
“For the love of Christ, woman, I need you here with me.” Rebel cast me a troubled glance, only to be swung back to face Rahab.
“I’ve indulged you.” Rahab’s thumb stroked down Rebel’s neck. If he bastard touched the Mark… “But as my Phoenix, you’ll learn your place.”
“Cop on! My body’s not even cold yet,” Rebel snarled, wrenching himself free.
Then Rebel turned back to the platform, scaffold, and the noose. He squared his shoulders as he faced his execution.
18
The first time that I’d slipped a shank between the soft skin of another kid’s ribs in Hackney, a part of me had died, just as another had arisen phoenix-like. I’d spent my life, dying and rising again, simply to survive.
Now, Rebel would truly die on this scaffold in the Bailey, whilst pale dawn awoke, and be resurrected as a Phoenix. Yet he wouldn’t be the angel that I’d known: the one who’d fallen into my lap. And the hunter he’d awakened who could trust and love — who believed in family — I trembled that she’d die too.
Rebel took a step — one — up the stairs to the platform.
My pulse fluttered in my neck, but I was still paralysed by Rahab. Tears leaked from my eyes at my bastard helplessness.
Rebel’s bare feet shuffled up onto the second step.
Two.
How could I stop time? Where was the bastard pause button?
Rahab crossed his arms, watching Rebel’s ascent to the scaffold with an assessing gaze.
Rebel didn’t even pause on the third step…three.
Where was my last-minute miracle? The posse riding in to save the innocent from being lynched?
J, he’s almost… You have to help him… Do something.
Sorry, Miss Eleganza is not at home. The Big Bad Mage is here, so unless you want him rooting around your head like it’s chockful of fabulous prizes, we’re on silent running, girl.
I don’t care. Screw the visions, world saving, and crowns. This is my bloke, and I won’t watch him die for me.
Then close your eyes because that’s the next feature.
Rebel Angels: The Complete Series Page 92
