Rebel Angels: The Complete Series

by Rosemary A Johns

  “What in Crazy Cat City, bro?” I stared at Lucifer, suddenly numb.

  “The deal,” Ash hissed. “You swore to me…”

  Lucifer stepped in front of Ash, as if protecting him, even though he looked tiny in nothing but his shorts and without a single weapon in his upturned hands. “Burn me,” he howled.

  Lucifer’s desperation and self-hatred shanked me.

  Yet I understood it.

  I met his gaze, as tears trembled on his eyelashes. Then I threw down the leashes. Why had I ever wanted such power? “Not if the world toppled.”

  Lucifer screamed, launching himself on me in a whirl of feathers. Ash tumbled after him, dragged in his wake.

  “Fight me,” Lucifer whispered, clinging onto me more in an embrace than an attack. “Burn me.”

  Ash and Mischief grabbed my dad’s wings to pull him off me, but he wrapped himself limpet like and whimpering around my shoulders.

  The only way to end the battle in this searing hot Abyss was for one side to lose. Lucifer was offering himself up as a sacrifice, just as he’d once used his own spark to force the Fallen to offer themselves and their loved ones up to him and his light.

  Was this atonement?

  But why did I have to be the one to deliver it?

  I swallowed; the back of my throat ached. My fingers trembled, as righteous violet fire sizzled along my arms, bursting across my palms.

  Crack — I backhanded Lucifer.

  The blow blistered his cheek, yet he sighed like I’d kissed him. I struck him again, splitting his lip.

  “Burn, burn, burn…” he muttered like a benediction.

  I hit him once more, swelling his eye and knowing that he was giving this to me — victory and freedom from the Games — through the price of his flesh.

  Lucifer whined, before biting his swollen lip to hide the pain, even as his eyes half-closed.

  The rubies flared, before the lava cooled to rock, and the ground stilled.

  Lucifer had won, by losing for me. I refused to let my own tears fall. The Seraphim had witnessed enough of my pain.

  Then Ash was dragging Lucifer away from me, shaking him back to befuddled consciousness. “You promised,” Ash snarled. “You owe it to every single Fallen that you killed.” Lucifer flinched. “You don’t choose to die.”

  How many times had Lucifer been reckless with his life, hoping for death?

  This time, I couldn’t stop the tears. Let the bastards have their screwed-up fun.

  Once I was free, I’d take this realm apart.

  Lucifer fell to his knees, bowing his head. “Remind me.”

  Mischief gasped. Lucifer had never knelt: he’d been King of the Under World. Ash had knelt to him. What the hell had changed?

  I scowled. “Not to sound greedy on the whole kneeling thing, but that’s usually my deal, Mr TridentPants.”

  Ash ignored me, stroking over Lucifer’s hair. Then he wrenched back Lucifer’s head. “We had a deal. You’re a tyrannical Big Bad but you never break bargains.”

  I frowned. “I thought that we were clear on not making deals with the devil?”

  Lucifer shifted, struggling to stay still with the same energy as a toddler in timeout. “Yikes, you’re so strict. What’s with the Dom voice? I didn’t save my daughter from the Legion of the Phoenix, and this was my chance to save her. You can ease up on the hair pulling; it’s not one of my kinks.”

  Ash only pulled more firmly; Lucifer yipped. “Don’t ever pretend to be the hero.”

  “How could I…after I broke my perfect dark Brigadier?”

  “I. Am. Not. Broken,’ Ash gritted out, shooting white beams of electric light from Devil into Lucifer on each word.

  Shocked, I watched as Lucifer arched in agony, juddering on his knees.

  Devil screeched in delight. “Pain, pain, pain.”

  “You’re only half way through your sentence: you won’t die before that.” Ash’s voice was hard and flat.

  Mischief marched towards Ash with the same determination as me; his jaw was clenched with rage.

  Yet Ash had stopped his assault, and now ran the tips of his fingers down Lucifer’s bruised cheek with surprising tenderness. “Is this enough for now? Are you sorry?”

  Lucifer’s eyes were bright with tears, as he shuddered. “I wish that I could lie…”

  Ash’s eyes became flinty, as he stepped back. White hissed along the trident again.

  Devil wriggled, eager to feast on Lucifer’s agony. “Make him sorry…”

  I banged away the trident, hissing as it seared across my hand. “Not a chance. Slow down the torture train because I’m blasting the bitch off the rails.”

  Ash sighed, shrinking the Devil’s Trident, despite his wail of protest, and slipping him back into his pocket. “Your dad asked for this, Violet. It’s what he needs.”

  Black blasted tsunami through me, tingling my gums. “My bitch of a mum twisted him to think that it’s what he needs.” I surprised myself at how tightly I clutched Lucifer as I fell to the floor next to him. He flushed, before melting into the hold. But maybe it was the way that Mischief mirrored me, like we were still connected, wrapping his wings around Lucifer on the other side, which made Lucifer start to purr.

  Lucifer needed love, as much as pain: cycles of revenge and reward and punishment had kindled the civil war between the vampires and angels for centuries. If I was going to stop it, I had to try something new.

  “Wow, I have to say, I never thought that I’d hold you again, pet…” Lucifer nuzzled closer to Mischief.

  Mischief raised an imperious eyebrow. “Not your pet.” Then he added more gently, with a teasing smile, “After all, I am royalty.”

  Lucifer spluttered, before gaping at Mischief. “Now I know that you didn’t go bonding some other king…” His hands tightened around Mischief’s wings.

  Mischief’s grin tipped over the line into Smugsville: but then, he had waited his entire life for this. “Why would I want to do that? I’m already an Archduke.”

  Lucifer paled. “You’re the Emperor’s son…?”

  “You always were quick.” Mischief tapped Lucifer on the nose. “How interesting that I now outrank you, pet.”

  Lucifer shuddered, but didn’t draw back. Instead, he burrowed closer into Mischief’s wing. “You always were a sassy brat.”

  Boos and hisses.

  I started, staring up at the Seraphim hordes, who’d materialized in fluttering fury. They glared down at us, jeering taunts.

  Love clearly wasn’t as popular as suffering in the Angel Games.

  “Let’s crack on with the show, bitches,” I snarled. “You want blood? Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.” I bounced to my feet, dragging Mischief with me, as I swiped shadows in a phoenix spray at our disappointed audience.

  They howled, covering their faces, as the shadows stuck to their cheeks, or crawled down their flowing satins, until the Seraphim knocked into each other, desperately trying to shake them off their private parts.

  Lucifer giggled, until a single Seraphim soared out of the Abyss, landing in front of us. Then Lucifer blanched, recoiling.

  “I believe myself hard enough.” That cultured, arrogant voice…whilst the Seraphim raised his eyebrow over eyes that blazed silver and pursed his pink lips, and I knew that he was the Overseer.

  I took a step backwards. My shadows faded, just as the Seraphim melted back to invisibility.

  So, the Overseer did have a body — and a prick — after all.

  The Overseer slunk towards us in richly embroidered indigo satin trousers and tunic; his eyes sparked against his dusky skin and lustrous hair, which glistened with woven sapphires. A large sapphire pendant hung around his neck like a collar.

  If I’d had a lamp to rub, he’d have been the perfect jinn.

  With all his trickery, why should I trust him that he wasn’t?

  Yet I hated the way that my pulse quickened, my palms sweated, and a blush crept up my neck
. When the Overseer’s gaze met mine with a tentativeness that I hadn’t expected, and he smiled with such radiance that I couldn’t help my own lips curling into a smile in return, I almost forgot the nightmare that he’d put me through in the Angel Games.

  Almost.

  Slow clapping.

  The Overseer slouched against the wall, scrutinizing us. “Do you know why your audience calls for your blood?”

  “They’re not nice?”

  The curl of the Overseer’s lips betrayed the smile that he was fighting to hide. “By His wing, you worship the Emperor through your battle, but the Games must always end on high drama. The Matriarch’s whore was snatched to ensure a stunning climax. I’d imagined that the bastard or the Fallen whore would’ve killed the father.”

  I stiffened. The Seraphim had planned this final showdown…? Lucifer hadn’t been playing the martyr because he’d had the smarts to know the score: he’d been the sacrifice.

  They’d always meant for him to die.

  “Sorry…yeah, actually not sorry to disappoint.”

  The Overseer fidgeted with the pendant around his neck. “It is the classic ending.” There was something rehearsed about his words.

  Was his trying to tell me a secret?

  The Seraphim had come for a blood sacrifice, but I’d given them a snuggling. Did they think that they could control the Queen of Chaos…?

  Lame.

  I was my dad’s daughter, after all.

  I shrugged. “What can I say, bro? I prefer a happy ending.”

  The Overseer cocked his head; the jewels in his hair jingled. I quivered with the desire to run my fingers across them.

  Why the hell was I so drawn to the bastard?

  “How unexpected: you mean that.” The Overseer tapped his fingers thoughtfully on his pendant. “Since there are now three whores…”

  When all of my blokes hissed in outrage, I bristled. “What is it with your whore obsession? Are you a eunuch or can’t you get a girl because normally you’re nothing but swirly eyes?”

  The Overseer straightened. Silver crackled across all six of his wings, dancing in electric waves.

  Dialing down the Overseer-taunting…

  “Owie, that prickles.” Lucifer rubbed at his arms. “You know, champ, poking the Overseer never ends in anything but spankings.”

  The Overseer smirked. “You can still burn through love. Perhaps another type of happy ending…?”

  He didn’t bastard mean…?

  “Not happening.” Ash hauled Lucifer up, pushing him protectively behind him; I didn’t miss that.

  “Seconded,” Mischief said, coldly.

  I raised my hand. “And this bitch is passing the motion of hell no.”

  Flames shot from the Overseer, dancing across my skin. My knees buckled, as I howled.

  “Desist,” Mischief commanded. “I hoped to find my family here but all I’ve discovered is petty tormentors.”

  The flames faltered.

  “You’ve no idea what lives in the whispers and shadows of this realm, brother, and the torment is far from petty,” the Overseer’s voice was soft, before it hardened again. “If you do not perform, then you shall all become my spoils.”

  My flames faded.

  The freaky Overseer had tormented us throughout the Angel Games: if my family didn’t obey, then we’d become his slaves. There’d been something about the way that he’d said spoils, however, as his gaze had flickered to mine, which hadn’t fitted with his cruelty.

  Who was he?

  “The Seraphim are watching,” the Overseer’s voice coiled through my mind again. “Play along.”

  But I was done playing. I wouldn’t sacrifice my family to save myself or humiliate them on the word of a stranger.

  “One,” I held up my middle finger at the invisible Seraphim — Rebel would’ve been proud of me for the rude finger work, “no kinky strip shows are happening for your angelic perverts.” I waved at the invisible Seraphim. “Two…” I raised a second finger, and Lucifer sniggered. “We won, so get us out of here already.”

  The Overseer prowled closer. “One…” The Overseer matched my rude finger work with an insouciant indifference, “…without the strip show you’re my spoils. And two…” He held up his second finger. “…If you won, then the Fallen lost, which means punishment: I shall wrap them in the dark and keep them as ornaments in my Gilded Cage.”

  Black oozed from the Abyss in a burning slick, which stuck to Ash and Lucifer’s feet, slipping up their legs and cocooning them.

  Ash had been blinded by the witches at the Head Coven. How could I let him be trapped again in the dark?

  Mischief and I moved at the same time, stalking to the Overseer and slamming him — crack — against the wall.

  The Overseer’s gaze slid across Mischief and then to me. “Foolish brother and sister…” He murmured.

  The Overseer’s wings hissed, before flares jumped into the base of my neck. His magic didn’t soothe mine, silky soft, like Mischief’s did. Instead, it shocked and jolted, until I screamed into an agony of silver.

  4

  The desolate land of feathers and bones, which had haunted my nightmares and waking visions, baked beneath the fireball sky. My clammy fingers tightened around the opal windowsill, as I leaned further out of the Gilded Cage’s window. When a cool breeze whispered across my skin, I shivered, despite the heat.

  How could my family and I escape, when the world outside was deadlier than even the Seraphim?

  I shuddered at the remembered sensation of ticklish feathers and the crack of wing bones snapping underneath my feet.

  If this was the real realm of bones and feathers, did that mean that I’d embrace the darkness…? Betray my family? Trigger an apocalypse?

  Was I death, the End, destroyer? Or could I choose to be birth, the Beginning, savior?

  What if I was always meant to be both?

  I’d awoken fuzzy-headed that morning from the buzz of silver, which the Overseer had sparked into my brain with his magic whammy, in the indigo sheets of a chamber in the Gilded Cage. I’d stared around at the cool white lines and silver arches of Court Two: one step closer to the heart of the Temple.

  And Jahael: my creator.

  Except, had Lucifer and Ash been mummified in shadows and hung from the Overseer’s ceiling? I’d shaken my shackle free ankle, missing the familiar weight, clink, and connection to Mischief.

  I bastard wanted Mischief back.

  My skin tingled between my shoulder blades at a sudden movement in the bone valley below. Shadows stalked just out of sight beneath the too bright sun.

  Monsters, the Overseer had said.

  The Seraphim needed to watch their punk arses because they’d allowed a monster inside now too.

  I peeked at the sumptuous bowl, which perched next to me on the windowsill; it was filled with chili tortilla chips, peeled grapes like eyeballs, and rich dark chocolate slices in an unholy mix.

  When my stomach growled, I groaned.

  Hell, the Overseer wouldn’t even need to tell me no hands: I was going into this deliciousness headfirst…or I would be, if not for the two words that’d been traced in sugar next to the bowl: TRUST ME.

  And I thought that I was a demanding bitch.

  If the Silver Sultan wanted to hurt you, girl, he wouldn’t have freed your hoochie mama ass from the Angel Games.

  Claimed as spoils, J, not freed.

  Who’s truly free?

  Everything in the Temple of the Divine is politics, and everyone knows politics is all slutty lies.

  Even gods play that game? Ambitious bastards.

  They have nothing but time to play. The problem with the glorious assholes is that some of them ride it hard enough to break its dick.

  You have to choose who you can trust to bring the happy instead.

  Trust? The Overseer has already poisoned me. I’m not in the mood for an Alice in freaking Godland tasting session as well.

  Eat, or
don’t. But without Arabian Nights hooked on your spark, you won’t get an audience with the Emperor.

  Play the pretty boy and play the politics.

  What’s one more Wing kneeling at your feet?

  Uncomfortable, I tugged my hand through my ash blonde hair, which had been streaked with violet by the Seraphim.

  Could I play the Overseer — use my Angelic Powers to make him love me or at least loyally sacrifice for me — so that he’d submit?

  Should I…?

  I hated the thought that any of my family had followed me anything but willingly; yet they were now trapped in The Burning Temple, and the only way that I could protect them was to gain a position in the hierarchy.

  The Overseer offered that. He’d spoken secretly to me…unless, he was already playing me…?

  I took a deep breath, before I snatched up the bowl, stuffing a handful of tortilla chips into my mouth — crunch, crunch, crunch — and sighing on the taste explosion.

  Screw it, even if it was poisoned, it was worth it.

  I hesitated, before spinning around with narrowed eyes at the sound of quiet footsteps outside the archway.

  The grille whispered open.

  Two blurs of olive leather, silky red hair, and fox tails bundled me backwards onto the bed.

  Oomph — I grunted, winded, although I clung onto my bowl of treats.

  A bitch has her priorities.

  The two vampire fox Halflings slunk up my body. The brothers — Blaze and Spark — had untamed waves of red hair down to their waists, pointed ears and tails that stroked me through their slashed trousers.

  Spark licked along my neck, before feathering kitten kisses along my jaw. “Missed you, missed you, missed you…”

  I relinquished my hold on the bowl, placing it onto the floor, whilst plopping a grape into Spark’s soft mouth. “Even peeled for you, bro.”

  Spark purred, licking at my chili dust fingers and sucking, until I shivered. I moved my fingers in and out, until he released the last one with a pop. I flushed, quivering with elation that my family was with me — safe. Except, had they been, here with the Overseer? I remembered the Overseer’s coldness towards the vampires in the Angel Games: the cruelty of his punishments.