Hurt me, kiss me, burn me…
Rebel had submitted to me. Only me.
I wanted him back.
At last, Drake lifted his hand from Rebel’s neck; he forced Rebel to meet his intense gaze. ‘Nod if you understand now?’
Rebel raised his middle finger.
‘Wallad,’ I muttered.
Drake glanced at me with detached curiosity, before he noticed the offending digit. To my surprise, he almost smiled, before he stopped himself and scowled instead.
It was a glimpse of a bloke like Rebel, rather than the cold creature that burned you to your knees.
Why was the true Drake hiding?
‘I’ve missed these sessions,’ Drake trailed his hand down Rebel’s chest. ‘Why have you left me alone so long?’ When he stroked his fingers through Rebel’s feathers, Rebel quivered. ‘I should pluck out each of these grey feathers one by one.’
‘You know, at first I thought maybe you were the top boy angel on a power trip,’ I called over. I was paralyzed but I could still shank with words. ‘But now? I reckon you’re just the harem boy messenger.’
Drake’s shoulders hunched; his curls fell over his face. ‘You know nothing of our lives.’
And the angel was shanked.
‘I’ve met blokes like you before. The bullies at school because at home they’re hiding under their beds from the monsters that hurt them.’
Drake’s head snapped up. He eyed me suspiciously, as if he reckoned I’d read his mind. ‘Monsters?’ He sneered, but with a weary despair. ‘We all serve monsters.’
‘Yeah, but some of us get off on it more than others.’
‘Shall we see which of us it is who gets off on it?’
Hell, I was the wallad.
When Drake caressed Rebel’s wings, circling the feathers and massaging, Rebel squirmed and bucked. Drake’s gentle kisses on the remaining violet feathers, like veneration, were familiar and intimate.
I quaked in outraged jealousy at the touch, yet also at Rebel’s excited response.
How old was Rebel?
Drake looked like he was the same age as Jade, but he was a Commander. He could’ve been battling in these supernatural wars for centuries. And playing these games with Rebel for just as long.
I wanted to look away, my mouth so dry I could barely swallow, but I couldn’t.
Drake watched me closely, whilst he stroked his hand over the hardness in Rebel’s trousers, then worked his pulsing wings again, before backing down to soft kisses once more.
Rebel thrashed his head from side-to-side. At last I saw the tears, silent down his cheeks.
Drake was edging my pretty punk, and it was as much a torture, as the pain Drake had inflicted before.
Yet if Rebel was shaking, so was Drake. ‘Have you no idea what you’ve done to me, Zachriel?’ He wiped Rebel’s tears away tenderly. Then he glared at me, and my breath was taken by his hate. ‘Why are you always to be protected? Whilst we…’ He twisted the tip of Rebel’s bent wing, and Rebel howled silently, ‘…suffer?’
Drake dived to kiss Rebel on the lips, yet this time it was hard and impulsive, as if a forbidden touch.
Then he drew back, and once again was beautiful but cold slave plays at Commander.
I outstared the bastard.
Yet he shook his head. ‘Why would you weep for a son of the Fallen?’
I looked up sharply. ‘Why would you?’
Drake blinked. He raised his hand in confusion. Tears trembled in the corners of his eyes, spilling when he wiped his hand across them. The glare he cast me was deadly. When he spun to Rebel, he was nothing but cool detachment. ‘Remember, Addict, return to me soon.’ He swept his fingers down Rebel’s chest. ‘You didn’t think I’d miss spending Christmas together?’
When Drake stalked towards me, his wings beating, I fought not to flinch.
‘Bounce, pretty genie, your Master’s rubbing your lamp,’ I taunted.
Drake dragged the indigo silk trousers up his hips, where they’d slipped down, self-consciously. ‘You know, I have also met people of your kind before. And they are the monsters from which I hid.’ I winced. ‘Inside you’re keeping something…. extraordinary…from me. No one does that.’ He leant closer. ‘Not even you.’
Then I was falling forward on my face onto the springy moss, Rebel was howling, and Drake had vanished.
And that, my Feathery-sweetness, is why you should never have called out to the heavens for the angels to save you.
I stopped calling, J, and they still fell. And now one of them is mine.
I scrambled up, diving to Rebel.
Rebel pulled away, as far as he could in the bonds. His wings pulsed. His body quivered.
When I gently unchained his bruised wrists, he wouldn’t meet my eye. He pushed himself staggering to his feet; I struggled not to grab him by his shoulders and support him.
I knew when a bitch didn’t want to be touched.
Rebel slumped to his knees next to Eclipse.
‘So, son of the Fallen, huh?’ I said, quietly.
Rebel rested his head against the statue’s stone wing, stretching out on the moss bed. He sighed, as if fibbing took more energy than Drake’s session had left him. ‘A Human Addict and a son of the Fallen makes me almost the worst angel. You after punishing me now for that too?’
‘I reckon Genie of the Lamp already had that covered.’ When I sprawled next to Rebel, he shuffled away. My lips thinned. ‘Who was that bastard?’
‘Commander Duma Drake…’ Rebel hesitated, before he muttered, ‘My gaoler for forty years.’
A birdcage prison in the dark.
I swallowed, before crawling over to the bottle of water I’d dropped and the box of painkillers, which had been knocked into the bracken. Then I knelt next to Rebel, raising two pills to his lips.
He didn’t take them, as if it was a test.
‘I’m not one-man band playing good cop, bad cop. Swallow the happy pills.’ I massaged Rebel’s temples with my other hand. He opened his lips, and his pink tongue flicked out for the painkillers. He raised his arm to take the bottle, but sank back down again with a sigh. ‘Here,’ I held the water up for him. He swallowed, although he watched me guardedly. ‘I guess being a chocoholic wasn’t causing my migraines then.’
When I sat back, he grasped for the hilt of his sword. But exhausted by the movement, he sank down. ‘Balls…’
‘I’m not going to fight you again. Let’s agree you’ve a hell of a long Pinocchio nose, and I’ll snap it off if you grow it any longer. But are you broken because of what Drake did to you or because you’re Falling?’
Rebel’s glance was sharp. ‘I’ve been banjaxed for so long, but with you…? Sweet Christ, I was flying again.’ His shoulders drooped. ‘But now I’m in tatters. And you’re a huntress who’s rejected me as Custodian.’
‘I rejected being a prisoner.’
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Any ape can see you don’t need me anymore.’
My heart beat, a deafening roar, sweeping me up, until I trapped Rebel beneath me, my hands pressed either side of his head.
A goodbye.
No way was the wallad making this a goodbye.
‘I won’t let Drake take you again.’ Rebel could try and hide his fear but it was written in the tension of his wings. ‘No need for the I’ll only slow you down hero dramatics. You’re not returning with Drake, no matter what he threatens. Look at me,’ reluctantly he raised his gaze; the fragile hurt he usually hid was breath-taking up close, ‘I’ve got your back. I won’t let you Fall.’
‘I’m bad, but I’ll never allow myself to be one of the Fallen.’ His fingers tightened around Eclipse.
Slap — I’d smacked his hand away from his sword, like a schoolmistress whacking the back of a naughty kid’s knuckles, before I’d even realised I meant to.
Rebel cradled his scarlet hand, but his gaze was thoughtful.
Violet and black spun webs round us, furious and possessive,
cocooning us together.
‘Killing yourself doesn’t make you the noble knight,’ I pulled back, balling the snow between my fingers, ‘but the bloke who gives up, rather than battles to the end. Or do you just want to copy your family?’
‘Don’t talk about my family—’
‘We’re fighting this. And your punk arse isn’t leaving me when my sister is still missing. We made a deal. What if the Hackney kids were taken by angels? Our next move is to take this beef to Eden’s turf, rather than letting him hunt us. I need you.’
‘You need me?’
I froze, shocked by Rebel’s hushed awe. He stroked one shaking hand down my arm.
I did need Rebel. To find my sister and the other kids. To fight beside me against the Pure…
Because he was mine.
Yet unless he healed, we’d be targets for Eden when night fell. And I’d be alone to protect us both.
‘Better get you fixed up.’ I shoved Rebel against the fallen angel, snogging him hard in the wet snow.
When his hands weakly pushed at me, I pulled away.
‘A fib,’ Rebel bit at his full lower lip, ‘remember? Angel kisses don’t heal.’
I swooped on his lip, taking it between my teeth instead of his…and then I sank in my teeth.
Hell, if I was honest…? The vampiric power coiling and snapping inside had wanted to do this every time he’d torn his lip between his teeth.
Rebel stiffened, as I sucked.
Slam.
Sugary copper hit me in a sweet wave.
But it was even sweeter, when I drew back and bit my lip, before forcing my own blood into Rebel’s mouth.
This time, when he struggled under me, I didn’t allow him to escape.
Instead, I fed him the trickle of blood.
Slam.
I juddered, snow patterning behind my closed eyelids, as every atom danced alive on the sensation of our shared blood.
Slam.
Better than the moment a shank sliced…
Slam.
An explosion of life: I was flying.
‘If Angel kisses don’t heal, how about their blood?’ I murmured. ‘Word on the street is mine’s powerful.’
Rebel turned away his head. It booted me in the gut to see the…disgust…and tears in his eyes.
Yet when I shuffled back, he snatched my arms. Then he was snogging me fiercely, sucking at my lip.
Gently, I pushed him back, before holding out my palm and pulling out Star.
He blinked, before baring the long line of his throat above his collar, as if he expected me to cut his head from his shoulders even now for his sins. Instead, I curled closed my palm, his trust tempting me to pay him back in kind.
And I’d never trusted a bloke before. Not after Phoenix.
Don’t do this. The pretty boy is one step from fangs and claws.
I bared my neck, as Rebel had; Rebel watched me from underneath his eyelashes. Then I sliced a thin cut down my throat.
You’re feeding an Addict. If you bind the eyeliner punk to you with blood, you’ll have to kill him to free yourself, else he’ll kill you.
We’re the same, J, he understands.
And we both know your choices…feathers and bones…violet and black. Do you trust another monster?
Rebel snarled, before leaping onto me and knocking me back onto the moss. The small amount of blood from my lip had already strengthened him. He held me down by my shoulders, his hard body heavy against mine.
Had I saved Rebel or birthed a vampire?
I gasped, when black flecks sparked in Rebel’s eyes, before he lowered his mouth towards my bleeding neck.
19
Death had suckled at my neck every day on the Utopia Estate, so the question of where I’d bleed out lullabied me each night.
Still, I’d never reckoned I’d die in Hackney Cemetery, where I’d been abandoned as a baby, whilst the snow wept, in the arms of a Falling angel.
When Rebel thrust me back harder onto the damp moss, I cried out.
My cheek rubbed in the frozen snow as I twisted away my head. I gulped; sticky blood dribbled down my neck. Rebel clawed at my shoulders: a wolf holding down its prey. His tongue flicked out, tasting the air.
This wasn’t how I’d imagined Rebel feeding from me, and yet if he’d offered me his neck, I might have taken his blood with the same brutality.
I was only half vampire and I already knew what happened when I lost control.
Did that mean I had no choice?
Rebel panted, his teeth bared; he lowered his mouth to my throat.
Hell, I’d bitten and burned Rebel and I hadn’t asked all pretty first.
You’ve awoken a vampire. Look at him. The idea of feasting on you has him salivating.
I froze.
Rebel sniffed at my neck, before he licked the long line of crimson, which had snaked down to my collar.
Death isn’t noble, remember?
When I writhed, Rebel growled, yet he didn’t bite. Instead, he licked down the cut again, slow and gentle, before sucking.
I gasped, my body arching.
The thrill. Joy. Calm. As if Rebel was inside me, on each intimate lick and suck: his emotions and mind.
The cold snow feathered my face in ice fairy kisses.
Slam — coppery sweetness spun me to a silent world, where there was nothing but blood…and Rebel.
No Hackney, supernatural world, or land of bones and feathers.
Instead, there was only us: two monsters trapped together.
Needing each other.
Bound.
Rebel kissed along the cut, savouring the last traces of blood in worship. When he pulled back, his loss was shank sharp.
He smothered a yawn with the back of his hand, rolling next to me onto his back with a sigh. ‘Fair play to you, that was brilliant!’ He muttered sleepily, his eyes already half-closed.
Then his head lolled back and he was gone.
Asleep.
Typical bastard bloke.
I pulled myself up against the angel statue, pressing my fingers to the cut; I gasped at the pain, but my fingers came back unstained, as if the gash had been sealed.
‘Sleeping beauty, I’m excited it was good for you too but wake up.’ I shook Rebel’s shoulder, but his face was as still as the time I’d bitten his neck. What if my…impure…blood had killed him? When I backhanded him, his head rocked to the side. I stared at the red mark over his cheekbone. ‘Don’t just lie there, it’s almost night. The Pure will rip off your wings and purify the hell out of me. We have to go.’
Rebel slept undisturbed. The snow settled on him, shroud-like.
I howled in frustration, cradling him in my arms.
It’s your blood, Violet-juice. It’s fabulously powerful.
You said he’d turn on me and tear out my throat.
He could’ve…and he still could. Don’t kid yourself, you’re playing with dangerous toys now.
Come on, lighten up. The little punk just needs some sleep.
And if nap time doesn’t end before nightfall…?
Then you’re on your own. Except for me.
I glanced at the angel sleeping in my arms.
An angel with a bruise, purple and swollen, blossoming on his cheek.
The sky above the wide branches of oaks and Abney Park Chapel’s spiked spire was a steely grey, low with snow clouds.
I couldn’t protect us both.
I shoved Rebel towards the marble statue, scraping the bracken over him and masking the red of his trousers, until only his face showed between the prickly brown and the green of the moss.
And his face could’ve been a statue’s.
Rebel still had the effigy on the chain of his trousers. He hadn’t crushed his.
I’d crushed mine.
Sharing my blood with Rebel had transformed…something. I’d already had a small taste of Rebel; I could feel the shadow of him inside me. But now he’d fed fully from my blood.
My responsibility. Both sides of my nature chorused it in unison. Rebel was mine to hurt.
And protect.
When Eden and his soldiers came for us, they’d discover only one monster to purify.
Cold.
Dripping cold dribbled onto my lips.
My tongue flicked out.
Water: fresh and purifying.
I jolted to my knees; they sank into a thick blue carpet. I blinked against the bright light of a chandelier and suffocating warmth. My shoulders ached because my arms were wrenched behind me.
Steel handcuffs bit into my wrists.
I launched myself on top of the bastard who was hovering over me holding a crystal glass.
The vampire eeped and struggled, before stilling like a bird in a cat’s claws, when I shoved my knee between his legs.
Two black eyes, in an elfin face too young to be in Jade’s class at college, scowled at me. His jet curls trembled; his wings beat, their tips pulsing violet.
Wings…?
I sighed, pushing up from the kid. He warily shuffled onto his bottom, patting at the spilt water with his palm. The vampire wasn’t the Pure: he was the Fallen, like Ash.
A prisoner, the same as me.
I’d hidden in Hackney Cemetery all Christmas Day, alongside Rebel, but he hadn’t awoken. When night had come, I’d climbed onto the tallest stone cross monument and waited for Eden to cut me into a fine red mist.
The Pures’ eyes had sparked in the dark. A hundred fallen stars on earth, when at last they’d found me. No one had spoken. Eden hadn’t even been there.
I’d called for J, but the violet rage hadn’t been righteous, it’d barely tingled down my arms.
I’d drawn my dagger, the question of where I’d bleed out, finally answered.
Yet knowing I’d saved Rebel had steeled me.
Except, when the Pure had swarmed over me, as if I’d been no more real than an avatar, they hadn’t slashed or burned, but had knocked me out by pressing my neck.
And now I was here: in Eden’s lair. A grand Victorian wedding hall, with tables and chairs in ivory silks and high sculptured ceiling.
Vampire Huntress Page 17
