And still I swallow, gulping in as much of this life-blood as possible, my teeth still finding no presence. My arms reach out to hold something, but find nothing. The liquid seems to be raining down on me from the heavens. I bath myself in the blood as it cascades out of my mouth, unable to be swallowed quickly enough. I sigh as the warmth spreads between my thighs, across my stomach, and over my breasts. My hands massage it into my skin, like a thick moisturiser. My lips greedily lick away the last drops of this life as the flow recedes to a drip, and then to nothing.
“Go tell the Queen, she’s ready.” A male voice, edged in anger.
“Do not damage her, she is not ours!” a female voice shoots back as it retreats.
The footsteps leave the room. I open my eyes and focus. Everything is so bright, so sharp and clear. The smell of blood is rich in my nose. I suck on my fingers, like a child with an ice-lolly.
I look around and see that I am still in the large kitchen. The walls and floor are splattered with blood and ash. I see the body of a girl next to me. But I don’t care. There is only one thought that holds precedent in my mind.
I hope that he’s dead. I hope that it was painful, and he suffered. I saw his face moments before I had closed my eyes; he was a broken man, his heart crushed. I hope he’s burning in hell now. I rub a hand over my face, and grimace. My skin is still too sensitive, and painful to touch, and I pull my hands away.
Donovan is standing, leaning against the wall. He watches me, but doesn’t move. I look away but feel his eyes continuing to bore into my skull.
“What?” I look back at him. He’s still expressionless. “I said what? Why are you staring at me?” My words catch in my throat. It’s still irritable and dry.
I push myself up harder, forcing my body to sit, and then stand. I sway- the room spinning wickedly. My movements are ungraceful- like a lamb standing for the very first time. Donovan throws a blanket to me, and I cover my body with it. Raising my chin in the air, I force myself to meet his gaze.
I have no fear of him. I don’t fear anything anymore. My teeth grind together tightly, and I’m about to say something else to the brute when sounds in the corridor alert me that something or someone is coming.
The door swings open widely as Ava enters. She stands to one side, holding it in place. The air grows colder the skin on my arms tightening, the hairs rising. There is no sound of footsteps, nothing to make me aware of her presence, but I know she is here.
Ava bows her head, and I look to Donovan and see him doing the same. I consider for a moment that perhaps I should do it also, but then I don’t. Why would I? She’s not my queen. I owe her nothing.
She enters. Her movements fluid and graceful. She is both beautiful and hideous at the same time. I take in her image as she takes in mine.
She narrows her opal-coloured, elongated eyes at me. Her skin is like polished marble, glistening as if damp. Her dress is tight, and pearlescent, split to the thigh. Her hair, pure white, is tied high upon her head.
I feel pathetic stood in front of her, a blanket covering my pink, raw skin. I brush a hand through my hair, suddenly nervous. It feels short and rough—dirty, even—but as my fingers trail the ends, I feel my scalp twitching and it begins to grow. Steadily, faster and faster, until I feel its soft tips stroke gently down my back. I should be anxious, but I only feel anger now. I don’t care that I am alive, or that my hair is pretty. I don’t care that I have healed. I didn’t want to heal.
I wanted to die!
“Finally we meet, Mia.” Her voice is soft, and melodious. She moves towards me, stopping just short of arm’s reach.
“You say that like it’s a good thing,” I huff.
She smiles, her head tilting to one side as she continues to watch me.
“Stop staring at me.”
Her smile widens, but there is nothing genuine in it. She walks around me, looking me up and down. I feel even more paranoid now.
“What? What are you looking at?” I snap, my anger rising by her nonchalance. I watch Ava and Donovan move towards me.
The Queen breathes deeply, shaking her head lightly at them. One hand sits delicately on her hip. “You’re very beautiful.” Her words are cool. She reaches out a hand to touch my hair, but I shrug away from it.
“Don’t touch me.” I look to Ava and Donovan. “Any of you.”
The Queen eyes Ava and Donovan up herself, turning to each of them and watching their reaction to me. Apparently satisfied, she returns her gaze back to me.
“How was the blood, Mia?”
“Fine. I would have preferred you let me die though.”
“Really? Is that what you want? To die?” Her voice is hollow.
“Yes. That’s all I want. Is that too much to ask for, or are you going to torture me some more?” I pull the blanket round me further.
Donovan steps forward to say something, but the Queen holds up her hand to hush him, and he returns to his original position. I notice then how her movements are stiff. Her joins not moving as they should, her face almost hard.
She raises an eyebrow. “Torture you?”
A sigh leaves my throat heavily in response. “Don’t play dumb. You’ve taken everything from me.” I gulp as her eyes narrow once again at me.
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Well no, not you, but…Mr Breckt.”
She laughs, a high-pitched, shrilling laugh, which reverberates around the room and makes the others and me jump unexpectedly.
“You mean Robert?”
“Yes, I guess so. He works for you though. So this is still…” My words die out. “Your fault.” I add quietly as her laughter ceases.
“I suspect you’re right, Mia. He does work for me, as you said. So this mess is therefore mine to clear up.” She tuts with a click of her tongue but I can see the action is difficult for her.
She circles me again. She has no aura. I look to the other vampires and see that theirs are present. That part of me is finally back to normal. I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It’s very distracting.
I search my head for any signs of Oliver, but there is nothing. He has gone. He has finally gone. My anger leaves me. I feel hollow, the world muffled. There is a cavernous gap where my heart should be. It will never be filled again. I crumble to my knees in front of her, my blanket falling from my shoulders.
“Then please, please Queen, let me die,” I sob, tears breaking free from my eyes and trailing down my cheeks. I cover them with the palms of my hands.
“Is this really what you want, Mia?” She moves forward as she speaks, until her shadow falls over me.
I nod numbly. “Yes. Please, just let me die…” I weep, my eyes closed tight. “Yes. I don’t know why you saved me in the first place. Just end this misery, please.”
“Very well then. If that is really what you want.” Her footsteps come closer.
“Is there anything else that you want to say, Mia?”
I shake my head in a no and she continues. “Keep still now. This will only hurt for a moment.” She reaches out a pale hand to me, her nails long and dangerous.I stiffen at the sound of her voice so close to me, both grateful and frightened.
“No, don’t. Please, my Queen, please don’t take her from me!” Mr Breckt’s voice shouts out, and my head looks up sharply.
I feel a prick on the back of my neck and realise that it is the Queen’s fingernail. She looks down at me with a twisted smile.
“I said keep still.” Her eyes shimmer with dark glee as she watches the emotions pass over my face. The horror as I realise that he is still alive.
I push away from her and climb up from my knees and look to where I had heard his voice. “Why is he still alive?” It’s Mr Breckt, but not as I know him. His face is twisted, melted away in parts, bone showing through. His hair flakes away from his skull in chunks, blood and gore drip down what is left of his face. My breath catches in my throat and my eyes widen. “How is he alive?”
His eyes widen in brazen lust at the sight of my naked and blood covered body and I reach for the blanket once more, covering myself from him.
“Don’t look at me like that, Mia.” He pleads and looks away, lowering his chin to his chest. Skin slides from his cheek, exposing more bone underneath.
“Why? I don’t care what you look like. I just want you dead.” My hands clench and un-clench by my sides.
“Don’t say that. I only ever wanted you to love me.” His voice cracks and his eyes stray to the floor, unwilling to look me in the face.
“Love you? Love you? I hate you…Mr Breckt!” I bite my words out. I hope that he feels every painful word. I charge at him, but am grabbed just short of reaching him. “I hate you, do you understand that?” I spit at his feet, and his face cracks in anguish.
“Well, it seems that we have a problem, doesn’t it? You want to die, Mia, but Robert wants you to live. You want him to die, but I need him to live. Quite the conundrum.” The Queen steps between us, eyeing Robert up. “You see, Mia, Robert is very important to me. He’s a very powerful member of my army. However…” She turns to look at me. “He has been very bad. Perhaps we can come to some agreement on his life?”
My eyes stay glued to the nightmare before me. Even now, my hatred grows for him, building up into a volcano of rage.
“If it means he dies then I’ll do it. Whatever it is.”
Mr Breckt looks up sharply to me. One eye is cloudy and hanging out of its correct place, the bone that holds it in position exposed. His good eye fills with blood whilst his lips turn up in a snarl.
The Queen eyes us both up. “He dies…”
I nod eagerly. “Yes…”
“But you live…”
My shoulders slump. Will I never get to be with Oliver?
“And you work for me…forever.”
“No!” Both Mr Breckt and I shout in unison. Our eyes meet.
Why doesn’t he want me to work for her? My eyes narrow at him. He’s still trying to control me, control my life. I swallow, my throat parched from the fire and fear, and I turn to the Queen. “Fine,” I reply. The word comes out a whisper.
I would rather work for the Queen—and whatever that entails—than let him think that he has any control over me. That he has any hand in the choices that I make. I know that the Queen is evil and I feel something leave—the final piece of my humanity slipping away as a darkness builds within me.
What else can I do? I want him to die. I want him to pay for what he’s done.
“No, Mia. You don’t know what you’re saying.” He pulls his arms from Ava’s grasp. Even with his injuries, he’s still stronger than she is. He comes towards me in a rush, his aura swirling around him angrily. The Queen holds out her arm, gracefully pushing it against his chest and sending him flying to the floor. He lands in a heap, crying out as he clutches an arm to his side. The sound of bones breaking is unmistakable.
“She has chosen, Robert.”
The Queen turns to me with a smile. If I thought Mr Breckt was depraved and merciless, he is nothing compared to her. Pure evil emanates from her.
I look her in the eyes, my stare deadpan. “You don’t scare me.” My body is feeling stronger by the second—from adrenalin, anger, or a blood buzz I don’t know.
A smile spreads slowly across her hard porcelain face. She knows me, who I am becoming, and she likes it.
“I have one condition.” My words come out flat.
A fingernail rubs along her plump bottom lip, and I see for the first time her teeth. They all seem to be fangs, a mouthful of tiny terrifying teeth. Every one of them is sharp and dangerous.
“What is it?” Her eyes gleam.
I look at Mr Breckt. He’s watching me pitifully from the floor. He isn’t healing; the gore and bone still protrude from his face and body. His eyes are a sad, painful reminder of everything that he has taken and destroyed for his own selfish benefit.
There is nothing left of the former me to stop the hatred that free-flows through my veins now. Mr Breckt has taken it all from me and destroyed the Mia that I was. All I have left is the shell of the person I used to be.
“Make him suffer.” My voice is cold and heartless and the blackness explodes inside me. A new me being born.
She smiles slyly, each tiny pointed tooth glinting under the bright lights. “With pleasure, Mia.”
Epilogue
Mia
You know that scene in a movie, where the incredibly hot-looking girl walks into the coffee shop, bar, or whatever setting it is. She is beautiful. So, so beautiful. Her legs go all the way up to her armpits, her hair like a long black mane of silk down her back. It shines like a deep black ocean as she sweeps it off her shoulder. She has eyes that sparkle as they scan the room, looking for what she wants. For whom she wants.
Her chest moves from the swell of her breasts, and her hips sway with every graceful step that she takes. Someone even drops a cup, and it smashes unceremoniously in the background. For this woman—this goddess—has beauty that is so unparalleled to anything that they have seen before.
And she knows it. I mean she really knows it. She knows that everyone is looking at her, and she doesn’t care. She’s so badass that it doesn’t even blip on her radar.
Well, that’s me. I am that girl.
Mia Lawrence.
Trapped forever in time by my now deceased maker, Robert Breckt. What should I do with my life? My Un-life? Re-life? I’m not sure what to call it. I don’t know much anymore. Everything I thought I knew has gone.
My old life has been stolen, destroyed. My family, my friends—they can never know of me. Of what has become of me. I’ve had to let that life go. My future died the night that Mr Breckt killed Oliver. My soul was crushed and my heart broken. My mortality has left me. I’ve had to let that side of me die. My past is gone, it’s nonexistent to me now. It has to be.
So what now? Now what do I do? I have an eternity to figure it out. But do I want to figure it out? Do I want to carry on as if everything is okay, as if everything is going to be okay? Can things ever be good again?
I’m a blood-sucking vampire for crying out loud—of course it can. And if it isn’t okay, I’m going to kill whoever tries to ruin it for me.
Because I can do that now.
I’m a vampire.
A hunter.
A temptress.
I’m not going to be the good girl any longer.
***
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Angel Grace
by J.E. Taylor
Chapter 1
I stared out the window at the horror in front of me; the shrill cry of the baby in the background couldn’t pull my attention away, not with the fight to the death unfolding on the snow-covered lawn. The battle between my father and Lucifer raged, dredging up a white flurry around the two angels. My heartbeat rammed my throat, drawing my breath in fast pants of anxiety as I watched each mighty blow.
Red splattered white and I bellowed at the vision of my father’s head in the demon’s grip. My palms banged against the cold windowpane as blood rained down on my father’s wings. Even my brother couldn’t break through the devastation layering my heart, and my inability to influence Damian’s actions just added to my frustration.
A second trembling cry broke through the blackness shrouding me and I glanced at my brother. Tom’s gaze was glued to the scene outside while tears slowly tracked down his cheeks. His lips pressed together and he grieved in silence, but I felt the darkness grip his heart as surely as it griped my own. Tom’s saving grace was the baby in his arms. The child tempered his reaction and the cry of disdain coming from the baby’s lips pulled both our eyes to the swaddled bundle; Damian’s first born.
I tore my gaze away and refocused on the macabre scene outside. Lucifer decimated three angels in a matter of minutes and I wondered how in God’s name
Damian would be able to conquer the bastard. Damian held the same vengeful expression my reflection carried, and my jaw clenched. My hands followed suit, and my nails drove painful welts in to my palms. When Damian’s hand shot toward Lucifer’s chest, I commanded it to smash through the angel’s unbreakable skin. I willed Damian the strength to shatter bone and rip the devil’s heart out.
Power leaped from the center of my being like a bolt of lightning and surprise raked through my form when Damian’s hand came into view holding a beating heart. And then Damian did the unthinkable, he took a bite of the bloody muscle. Disgust filtered through me, burning through the horror, and my hand shot over my mouth, clamping down control over my roiling stomach.
The moment the last piece of the bastard’s heart disappeared into Damian’s mouth, the heavens opened and a blinding light encompassed him, dropping Damian to his knees. I stared at the man in the midst of the heavenly glow, wondering if the angel grace effect would last. Tom gasped at the spectacle and I traded a glance with him before refocusing on the bloodied winter scene. The glow faded and Damian climbed to his feet. The fury etched into his features made me want to shrink away from the glass and I couldn’t imagine being the recipient of such wrath.
A blast leaped from Damian, enveloping Lucifer, leaving only torched earth where the devil had stood.
Damian took an unsteady step backwards, reaching for the gazebo post for support as he stared at the same blackened spot. His gaze met mine and he put the back of his wrist to his lips, paling under the bright moonlight. When Damian finally started toward the house, his gait was steady and he ignored the severed heads sprinkling his path.
As the former vampire passed by my father’s head, my gaze locked on the vacant eyes staring at the sky. Anguish encompassed me, numbing my body, and I drop my chin to my chest, ignoring the birthing process happening less than ten feet away.
I didn’t want to be here.
I didn’t want to know there were such dark creatures crawling top-side.
I didn’t want to experience this type of devastation again.
Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1) Page 206
