Firebird whined as he was netted and pulled to his brother’s side, but he giggled at his brother’s ruthless tickles. I nibbled at Mischief’s neck, and his tail thwapped in warning across my hip.
I’d forgotten that Mischief was ruler in the water. Why hadn’t he wanted this fleeting chance to escape from his new role as my slave in worship?
When Mischief met my gaze — the crimson whorls bleeding from his body like he was already my sacrifice — I read the truth behind his melancholy: I’d brought him to life, but he still doubted me.
I bit at his lip. “Looks like you’ve won, Sparkles.”
“My, you almost sound honest in your defeat.” Mischief sniffed. “Except, you’re conspiring even now, aren’t you?”
I tangled my fingers through his hair, drawing him in for a deeper kiss. His candyfloss fizzed through me in silver bursts. I longed to tell him everything, but instead I had to hide behind the same glittering masks as Gabriel.
Except, Mischief had guessed anyway. He’d taken after Jahael as much as his brother, and if anyone knew about scheming it was him.
When I drew back, I shrugged. “That depends. Are you still in Sulk Mode?”
To my surprise, Mischief shoved away, tumbling Firebird into my arms. His tail thrashed violently. “How many times must you risk your life to save me?”
My gaze hardened. “How many times must your damsel life need saving?”
“Damsel?” Firebird blinked at Mischief, before reaching for him. “My apologies, Glory, I had not realized—”
Mischief swatted away his hand. “What do you believe this is: Touch Up Mischief Day? I am not…a Glory or feminine or…and I only needed saving because my brother…”
Mischief let out a growl of frustration, before stalking to the edge of the pool. He transformed back into his angelic self in a silver spray, before pulling himself out onto the edge, and kicking the water off his soaked trousers with a grimace.
Wet leather? That was going to stick in all the wrong places.
Firebird hugged his arms around himself; his lashes were matted with tears.
I stroked my hand across Firebird’s shoulder, whilst sending a calm reassurance across our bond that relaxed his muscles. He sank into it like a kid after a scare at the movies.
“I distressed the Defender,” Firebird muttered. “Please punish me for my failing.”
“That tempest tantrum was all on me, bro. You didn’t do anything wrong; you’re my good Firebird. Stay out here and play, and I’ll go cheer up Mr GrumpyPants.”
Firebird smiled, stroking the water until it sparkled neon pink, then dived under the surface. I waded back to the marble shore, dragging myself up next to Mischief, who pretended to ignore me.
Finally, Mischief glanced at me from underneath his eyelashes. “You’re good with my little brother.”
“What did you reckon I’d do to him? Shut him in the dark? Burn him to ash? Feed him with—”
“Hurt him.” Mischief stared out at Firebird, as the Phoenix laughed in the rainbow pool. “As Glories have always hurt me.”
“Cheers for the vote of confidence.” I swallowed down the pain of Mischief’s shanking, until he caught my hand between his.
“But that’s my mistake because you’re not merely a Glory.” Mischief slid his fingers between mine. “You’re much more. Although, I shan’t allow you to become insufferably big-headed. Already, I’m astounded that you can walk around with the weight of your ego balanced on your neck.” I bumped his shoulder, and he bumped mine back. “Thank you for taking care of my other…arrogantly alpha…brother as well, whilst I was on my knees adoring my father. I imagine that you had to save his damsel hide during your test…?”
I stiffened. “You’ve no idea.”
Two shadows darkened the sky, as Gabriel and Ash swooped over the spires of the pavilion, looped over the pool, and then landed in a whoosh behind us.
Just for a moment, I thought that I saw the words LOVE ME picked out in midnight blue across the surface of the pool, before they faded.
When I startled, the words lingered in the intensity of both Gabriel’s flush and gaze, as he folded his wings, cocking his head as if assessing whether I’d caught his message.
I forced myself to look away. When I glanced up again, there was only lingering pain in Gabriel’s eyes, which he hid by crossing his arms and glowering.
“Peacocks.” Mischief rolled his eyes. “It makes one wonder what they’re hiding under the ostentatious fanning of their tails.”
“Is that an offer, angel?” Ash smirked, leaning down to steal a kiss on my cheek. Mischief drew back, wrapping his wings around himself. “You’re not leaving much to the imagination yourself in those kinky trousers; they suit you.”
Mischief reddened.
Ash sprawled across the floor, resting his head in my — naked — lap.
I cleared my throat. “Comfortable?”
Ash wriggled his arse. “Getting there. All I need now…? Cup of tea. Game of Shadow of the Colossus. Bed.”
“Like we don’t know you’d actually be shooting your way through Call of Duty,” Mischief huffed.
Ash grinned. “And you’d be right there next to me.”
“As if you don’t die as fast as you spawn.”
Ash shoved up from my lap, affronted. “As if you don’t—”
“Sorry to break up the geek fest.” I grabbed Ash by the hair and clamped my hand down on Mischief’s thigh. “Yeah, not sorry. This isn’t gametime, and Jahael isn’t a second-rate Big Bad.”
“Not arguing on the Emperor, but why’s Lucifer still shut up?” Ash’s charcoal eyes sparked. “Lucifer swore that he’d see through his sentence and he needs me. The Matriarch broke him into little pieces, and I could rebuild him, back to how he was before the pressure of trying to save every Fallen—”
“Turned him into a genocidal tyrant?” Mischief offered.
“Free him,” Ash commanded, “and he’ll never be the Wing that he was, but he could become—”
Gabriel shook his head. “He’s too notorious a Fallen.”
Even though I’d known Gabriel’s answer, I hated the thought of Lucifer alone in his imprisonment. It was as agonizing as the hope that Ash truly could save Lucifer.
Ash twisted his hair out of my grip. “What? And the dark Brigadier isn’t, mate?”
Gabriel tried to hide his smile behind his richly embroidered sleeve. “Your infamy is equally renowned, Fallen whore. Shall I lock you up as well…?”
Mischief arched his brow. “Now doesn’t it look better to be cloaked in shadows?”
“So, you were dead then?” Ash asked, softly.
Mischief’s mouth tightened. “Astute.”
“What was it like?”
My breath caught in the back of my throat: that was the question, which I’d been desperate to ask, but hadn’t been able to bring myself to because it was too flaying.
Did I even want to know the answer?
Yet the wistfulness in Ash’s voice calmed the bubbling black inside me because I knew that he was thinking of his murdered little sisters, just as I was.
At first, Mischief didn’t answer. Finally, however, he replied, “Dark.”
In the silence, Ash’s face looked as stricken, as I’m sure mine must’ve done.
I never thought that I’d be thankful Rebel wasn’t with me but I’d lied to him that death would be like rising into the light and if there was one lie that I never wanted him to learn the truth to, it was that.
“Brother,” Gabriel crouched down, “I swear, I shall never forget the debt that I owe you. No one has ever valued my life more highly than their own who was not enslaved to me.”
“I didn’t judge your life more highly,” Mischief shrugged. “I beg temporary insanity.”
“Of course,” Gabriel patted Mischief on the head, “as you say.”
Mischief scowled, but I looped my arm around his neck, pulling him closer. My chest was tight; my throat
as raw as if I’d been sobbing for hours. “You’re in the light now, and we’ll none of us let you slip into the dark again.”
Gabriel wrapped his wings around Mischief on one side, whilst Ash enfolded him with his on the other.
“Unless you suffocate me,” Mischief protested.
Yet as Mischief squirmed out of the feathery embrace — blushing down to his chest — he had to duck his head to hide his smile.
Gabriel slipped a single violet feather into my palm. “Diniel insisted that I play messenger boy. Does he risk so much for prattle or is he wiser than I?”
Rebel’s love burst in hot waves of longing from the magic feather, whilst I stroked along its length. I sank into the bond, sending back my devotion and aching need: that I hadn’t forgotten Rebel even for a bastard moment.
“Your brother’s a brave kid,” I murmured. “And he’s an epic judge of character.”
I trembled, as the feather’s message floated into my mind, “Reasons Why I Should be Off Your List of Asses to Kick: Number Two. You love me. Now, that isn’t the same as me loving you. Sweet Christ, you have no idea how long I’ve loved you. But you — my Feathers — loving me…? I’m bad, banjaxed, and my bleeding wing doesn’t even work, but when it’s dark, you still hold me, until I can believe that we’ll make it to the light. That I can be your light. No one’s ever made me feel that. Love has always meant pain. Your love could mean death. But I’m not afraid of death because you freed me. By all the saints, you know that I’m not awful good with this blathering. I just need you to…let me die for you this time. If it saves you…let me die.
Mischief caught my hand, as the feather tumbled from it. Ash leaned closer on the other side. When I glanced between their concerned faces, I realized how much they loved Rebel too.
When I saw Rebel, I’d kick his arse just to show him how much he was still on the list for suggesting that I’d ever sacrifice him.
The ancient powers seethed at the threat to my Marked Wing. “I’ll be guarding Rebel as soon as my shift starts. What if he thinks I’m working for the Big Bads now? That I’ve—”
“He’s an overly possessive angel who needs a serious lesson in pop culture, but he’s not stupid.” Ash nestled closer in comfort, whilst I tangled my fingers in his hair.
In my grief, Ash’s aromatic scent drove the black spiraling higher, whilst my gums itched.
I wrenched back Ash’s head, sniffing at his throat.
Thump, thump, thump.
I could hear the blood pounding through Ash and smell the citrus spice of his blood; I licked up his furiously beating artery.
Ash was hollering something, but I couldn’t hear him over the rushing in my ears, the burning across my skin, and the sudden tearing in my gums.
I howled, my steel nails shot out, and my fangs were birthed.
Then I sank them into Ash’s throat.
14
Citrus blood fragranced my mouth; I rolled the last drops around, tonguing at them and sucking at my fangs. I traced the outlines of my canines, still high on the fresh transformation and the heady surge of Fallen blood, as well as the desperate need to taste Rebel again and mix our bloods: three united at last.
Lucifer, J, and Gabriel…they’d all been right. Hell, who hadn’t urged me to welcome both sides of my nature and feast on both vampire and angel?
Ash…he bastard hadn’t.
I retracted my fangs with a growl. Quinn frowned at me, nudging my shoulders straighter, as we stood on duty in the Forbidden Court.
I struggled through the thrill of Ash’s blood to clasp my hands behind my back, just like Gabriel beside me, who was in perfect toy soldier mode. We were both dressed up as Knights of the Seraphim; our gleaming uniforms didn’t look half as badass as Quinn’s, who having adjusted our military parade positions, lounged against the pink wall of the Forbidden Court, twirling his scimitar.
Yeah, he was now top boy: message received.
I rolled my eyes, sinking into the cloyingly sweet scent of rosewater, which curled from the bathing pools around the court. My boots sank into the silk-cushioned floor, as if Beloveds couldn’t possibly place their bare feet on anything harsher than silk. The walls of the Forbidden Court blossomed outward into rounded archways around a sunken middle like a wilted rose, whose petals were falling away in the throes of its dying. And under each archway on a pile of satin cushions lay a naked Beloved — male and female — and I couldn’t tell if they writhed in agony or pleasure.
Quickly, I looked away.
There were no windows in the chamber: for all its opulence, it was still a gilded birdcage.
If Rebel wasn’t here in the central court, where the hell was he? And how could I rescue him, if all I could do was stand to attention, listening to the moans of the Beloveds?
I elbowed Gabriel, but he stared straight ahead like he was guarding the Queen of England. “Aslan, don’t you think that you’re taking the method acting too far…?”
“Silence,” Gabriel hissed. “Did stealing your Fallen whore’s blood without permission to bond addle your mind? We’re knights in Istafil’s kingdom, and wisdom dictates that we do not draw her attention.”
I recoiled.
Even though I still shook with the power of Ash’s blood, it smarted that Gabriel had shanked where the guilt lurked in my belly: without permission to bond.
“Why didn’t you ask?” Ash had gasped, as he’d laid pinned under me, and I’d licked over the fang marks in his throat. Tears had fallen down his cheeks, but he hadn’t noticed them, as he’d demanded, “A Blood Bond is never equal if it’s forced. I would’ve said yes…”
I hadn’t been able to answer him because I hadn’t known why, only that my fangs had grown in with an overwhelming force, amplified by the god-like Seraphim power that’d urged me to take.
And we’d both lost my chance to ask.
Would I truly be able to forge a new type of god? To become something different to Jahael, even though he was seeded inside me? Or would I take what I wanted, creating worlds, blokes, creatures in the form that I wished: playing with them, as I’d once created avatars for computer games?
Sobbing and howling.
I glanced over the Beloveds.
In a petal-shaped alcove at the back, a teenage Wing struggled in a heavy wooden structure; the lattices strapped down his wings. He shuddered with pleasure edged with pain, and his eyes were glazed like he’d been drugged. He thrashed as if he was being punished or trained in pleasure.
My hands clenched into fists.
The kid’s hair flamed as red as Rebel’s: he reminded me of Haman, who’d been caught by the Matriarch in Angel World. Did my mum put Haman through similar torments?
Don’t think it…don’t…
Cool your Violet-Hulk ass down. You made a choice to sacrifice the punk angel’s brother and the Seducer’s sisters too.
That’s the fluffy lollipop sucking end of leadership: if you want the shiny crown, then you make the dick decisions.
No more sacrifices.
I ripped away Ash’s choice; I stole his blood and bond, just like I stole Rebel’s.
I don’t even know if I’m behind the wheel of the Violet bus anymore.
That’s a hoot, girl. All this time you actually thought that you were…?
Violet flared on my fingertips at J’s chuckle.
Gabriel grabbed my wrist in alarm, until I suppressed it. Breathing hard, I shook him off.
Was the kid trapped in that torture device Sablo, who Rebel had mentioned in his first feather note? I couldn’t rescue Haman, but I could help all these Beloveds and not just Rebel.
Why did it surprise me that the Mongrel Witch was a sadistic bitch?
I choked, as a sudden waft of Damask rose caught in the back of my throat. A shadow peeled off the archway closest to Sablo with a swing of its hips, burning into Istafil.
A ripple of terror ran through the Beloveds, who scrambled to the back of their alcoves or covered themselves
with their cushions like that would be any protection.
My shoulders tightened, but I forced myself to stillness, playing the perfect knight, just as Gabriel was next to me. Even Quinn had slipped his scimitar back into its scabbard and paced behind us.
Istafil hovered over Sablo, who whimpered, shrinking down as far as he could under his restraints. Istafil clicked her tongue reprovingly; her ribbons weaved excitedly around her. “My Flame, why do you still fight against your chastisement?”
“P-please, I d-don’t.” Sablo begged; his words were slurred and confused through his drugged haze. “My apologies, Favored One.”
A single flame ribbon whipped across Sablo’s cheek.
Swish — crack.
The jeweled tip sliced a crimson gash; Sablo wailed.
I took a step forward at the same time as Gabriel.
Quinn, however, caught us both by the scruff of the neck, holding us in place. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t translate his sparking indigos: I understood now that guarding the Beloveds didn’t mean protecting them from Istafil.
The Knights of the Seraphim were the Beloveds’ defenders from the Damned, but the true monster was already inside the cage with them.
“I don’t believe you,” Istafil singsonged, stroking her nails through the scarlet streaming down Sablo’s cheek.
“In His g-glory, please p-punish me.”
Swish — crack.
The ribbon struck again, slashing open Sablo’s other cheek.
“I don’t believe you,” Istafil sang again, before sighing. “Don’t you want to become a good toy for your Emperor?”
Sablo nodded miserably.
Gabriel stiffened next to me; his hand clasped mine like he imagined he was no longer alone, as he had been throughout his childhood. How many times had Istafil played this game with Gabriel? Hurt him, until he’d begged with sufficient sincerity for his own punishment?
I squeezed Gabriel’s fingers reassuringly. My family had grown up separated and alone: Anael, Mischief, and Gabriel. Each one of us knowing that something was missing but not knowing how to find it…until now.
Rebel Angels: The Complete Series Page 116
