Starbright (The Starbright Series)

by Higginson, Rachel

  “Oh right, how forgetful of me,” Aliah murmured, his gaze softening. It wasn’t as though he looked at me with less hatred or malice, it was more like there was a purpose behind his words now that somehow altered the unfiltered line of loathing he had been pouring into me. “I got so caught up in reminiscing that I neglected to introduce myself.”

  Sometimes when an Angel was old, like really old and had spent a significant amount of time in Heaven they would have an accent. It wasn’t a strong sound and didn’t affect words obviously, but the gentle strain to each syllable reminded the listener that English, or any Earthly language was not their first. Aliah had the accent, which made his betrayal, his conversion to the dark side much more tragic.

  “I know who you are,” I said evenly, although his name and intimate knowledge of one of his assumingly long list of misdeeds hardly counted as anything.

  “But I don’t know who you are,” he spat, his features energized with the accusation.

  I laughed in response. “Of course you do,” I sneered. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  “For you?” his eyes followed every line and feature of my body from the top of my hairline to the tips of my toes and back up again, slowly, intimately. I willed myself not to shift under his hungry eyes, but I felt naked in his gaze, completely exposed and it was possibly the most uncomfortable I had ever felt in my entire life. I cleared my throat in a gesture to regain his attention but he was not someone easily affected by others. “Not today, Stella Day. I’m here for you,” his eyes fell to Seth and I had the instinctive urge to step in front of him, to shield him with my body and protect him from whatever Aliah was going to say.

  “That’s a good thing, Aliah, I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” Seth clipped his words carefully, making sure to enunciate everything.

  “So you’re ready to come with me now?” Aliah asked, knowing full well that was not what Seth was implying. “It was unfair of me to ask you when you were so little, when you had so little experience. But now…. now you are a big strong man with the ability to make his own decisions. I’m giving you another opportunity. Give in to the whispers that have threaded themselves around your heart, give in to those desires that keep you up at night…. come with me. Join me.”

  Aliah’s voice was like velvet, floating over every word, seducing the listener with his fluidity and promise. I waited for Seth to snap at him, to shout at him or attack him, but instead Seth shifted uncomfortably next to me, before simply shaking his head. It wasn’t the crushing verbal response I was hoping for, but the gesture seemed to provoke the same kind of concrete absolutism.

  “You want to, Seth, why not just give in?” Aliah asked, prodding Seth’s patience. “If not for yourself then, how about Seven? She misses you, you know. She often asks about her little brother and wonders if he’s alright. Don’t you hate to disappoint your sister?”

  My mouth fell open at the mention of Seven.

  Why I expected Aliah to play fair was beyond me, but still, bringing up the beloved sister that

  had betrayed your parents and left you to fend for yourself was a little harsh…

  “Don’t say her name, don’t ever say her name,” Seth growled, his words low and so menacing I had to look at him to make sure it was still him speaking.

  “Why? Is it too soon? The wound still fresh?” Aliah asked, humor returning to his voice.

  “Enough of this,” Seth warned. He stood perfectly still, no muscle moving, not even a tick in his jaw. His skin glowed brilliantly in the dark alley, but instead of comforting me this time, it almost frightened me with the intensity of his inner light.

  Unlike Angels that still held goodness inside of them, Fallen shone with a different light, their inner goodness having been corrupted. Both Aliah and Saul emanated a dark light that was lighter than the night sky, but had to still be described as darkness. A grayish hue encompassed both of their figures, as if their evil essence seeped out from their skin and infected the innocent air around them.

  “Tired of reminiscing already? We just started our walk down memory lane, let’s not give up yet. It might be healthy for you to work through your…. issues. Possibly come to terms with the nightmares? The dark, haunting thoughts….? Maybe even embrace them?” Aliah’s voice had turned sickly sweet and my stomach churned violently against his meaning. Was Seth really struggling against the Darkness?

  “Holy hell, you are such a conniving bastard!” The words and accusation slipped out before I could stop myself. Although I meant every word I said, it was definitely not Star-protocol to engage the enemy, especially when I was just calling them names.

  To my surprise Seth let out a bark of laughter that rang scornfully in the air.

  “Well aren’t you something special?” Aliah’s expression had turned to something like surprise mixed with respect, which scared me more than any of his threats combined.

  “I’m tired of this conversation,” I scowled, drawing a short and thin but unquestionably deadly sword from the sheath strapped to my thigh. Skirts had definitely become part of my every day wardrobe now that I needed to carry weapons around. While maybe impractical for the actual battle portion of the evening, they still made access to weapons super easy.

  “Now, now let’s be reasonable,” Aliah patronized us patiently after Seth had quickly drawn his own sword from his back strap, hidden beneath his worn leather jacket. “We’re not here to fight, not yet anyway. We just want to talk to you. Besides you might want to wait until your cavalry arrives before you start pulling out the big guns, you kids aren’t quite up to speed to fight at this level just yet.”

  “We’ll be the judge of that,” Seth replied, and I could tell he was just as amused as Aliah was. I shook my head slowly at the two mortal enemies practically laughing their way through this confrontation.

  Aliah’s white teeth glinted from across the alley and I watched his lips curl into a taunting snarl. “You’re not going to get your revenge tonight Seth, but it’s been so fun catching up. Let’s do it again soon.”

  Saul barked a laugh next to him, and I began to wonder if the evil had made them deranged. This was the craziest, least productive conversation I’d ever had.

  Before I could even contemplate the night too closely though, the sky above our heads was lit up with an incredible light that uncovered every space in the narrow alley. Saul shielded his eyes against the blinding brightness, but Aliah stared straight on, unblinking and unflinching.

  Seth and I never took our eyes off the two Fallen however, our training wouldn’t let us. I felt them as they landed around us, Serena and Nate, Jupiter, my parents. They had joined us, gotten here as fast as they could to fight this battle with us. I felt more than saw their surprise that we weren’t engaged in fighting yet, although I also knew they would be relieved. Fallen were difficult enemies to begin with, put it to test with our inexperience and young age, and the likelihood of victory had looked bleak.

  “Welcome ladies and gentlemen, how good of you to finally arrive,” Aliah held out his hands cavalierly, his smile turning to a seemingly genuine gesture. He was perfectly handsome, almost so much that it hurt to look at him. And even with the dark glow of evil casting dark shadows across his masculine features, he still seemed to retain some of the light from heaven, as if once upon a time he had been so good and so pure that no matter the amount of Darkness poured into his soul, it would never erase the light he once lived in.

  The thought made me sick to my stomach.

  “Aliah,” Serena hissed. I felt the Angels around me bristle at the sound of his name. “What would bring you out of the pits of Hell to grace us with your presence?”

  “Hell doesn’t hold me yet, Serena,” Aliah’s eyes narrowed angrily.

  “It’s only your master then? Not yet your home?” Serena’s fiery antagonism punched through the night and my respect for her instantly grew in large amounts. I couldn’t deny the sinking, drowning feeling of fear I felt as Ali
ah reacted to her words, yet she stood behind me unflinching and proud.

  “I serve no master,” Aliah promised in a deathly calm voice. “That is why I chose this path, or don’t you remember? There is no authority to order me around or send me to my death. I am my own god.”

  “So Lucifer holds no authority over you?” Serena taunted. “The Elders must have lied to us as children then.”

  “Enough,” Aliah snarled. “We are not here to fight you tonight. My only purpose was to reunite with an old friend and make a new one.” He gestured his hand towards Seth and then me.

  “You might not be here to fight tonight,” my father announced with the strong voice of an Angel Warrior, “but we are.”

  “I wish I could oblige,” Aliah replied wistfully and then two things happened at once and so quickly I didn’t have time to react.

  The first was that I felt an evil presence surround us. My head whipped around to find the source, but nothing seemed out of place except for our group gathered in the alley. My eyes quickly fell to the Angels surrounding me but all eyes stayed forcefully glued on Aliah and Saul, no one seemed to notice anything else out of the ordinary. The presence was strong though, strong enough to send a chill shuddering over my body and the hairs on the back of my neck pricking painfully with fearful anticipation.

  The second thing that happened was when I turned my head back to warn the Warriors standing with me about a rear assault the words were taken from my mouth in a violent swoop. Aliah had wrapped his arms around me and taken off for the skies before I could even decipher what had happened. We flew upwards faster than any Angel I had ever heard of, eating up the space between Seth and those who had come to save us and wherever Aliah was planning on taking me.

  Saul had kept pace for a few short seconds, just long enough to rip the sword out of my shocked hands before he took off in another direction. Aliah had wrapped his hands and arms around me in a very intimate, caressing way, his hot breath irritated my neck as he held my body close to him in an iron tight grip. I felt violated and nauseous. His suffocating evil seeped into my skin, leaving a chilling paralysis. I struggled against him, but the harder I fought, the more Darkness he injected in to me.

  I had let myself get kidnapped and now I was weaponless and in the mercy of the worst evil on Earth.

  Awesome.

  “You’re different than what I expected,” Aliah whispered indifferently in my ear. I shouldn’t have been able to hear him with the whipping, violent wind as we careened through the sky, but his words sunk into my skin and slithered over my body, grating themselves deep inside my bones. I would never forget this conversation, I knew that instinctively, it would haunt me for the rest of my life, however long that lasted.

  “What did you expect?” I asked, simply to take my mind off where we were going and distract him while I concocted a plan.

  “A rigid, uptight bitch,” he laughed. I began to wonder if we had an actual destination as North America disappeared beneath us and I found myself somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. “Don’t get me wrong, you definitely have that goody-goody Heaven’s minion side to you, but Stella there is something undeniably saucy about you.” He moved against me, his hands yanking me closer to him, and I had to swallow back the bile rising quickly in my throat.

  Instead of responding, I let my inner light heat quickly, hoping to blind him into letting me go. The warmth of my light fought against the icy, debilitating chill of his Darkness, warring inside me for life. Instead he just chuckled in my ear and held me closer, the sound was low and melodic.

  “Relax Stella, I just want to give them a little scare, show them what I’m capable of. I’m not going to get Seth’s allegiance if I kill you off today, am I? But it was very important to let you all see what I’m capable of. This is a useless struggle on your part, but I do appreciate the hundred and ten percent effort.” Aliah reassured me soothingly, although there was hardly anything to be reassured about.

  “He will never join you,” I shouted, loud and piercing, right in his ear. My voice was lost in the expanse of the sky. My limbs felt slow and sluggish as his Darkness worked itself through every vein and blood vessel, my breathing had become labored as my heart tried to pump against the frozen death taking hold of my body.

  “We will see,” he laughed like the sinister villain that he was, the fear inside of me growing to dangerous levels. I knew this was death, no matter what he said, I knew this would end me. He pulled away from me, meeting my terrified gaze and looked at me, really looked at me. His brilliant green eyes seemingly reading my very soul, his hands brushed at the wild hair that whipped around my face and then he let me go.

  I fell out of his arms completely disoriented and for a moment I was silent as the air rushed against my ears and the world gave way around me. There was nothing touching me except the angry wind that pushed against every limb of my body, the frozen temperature almost identical with the temperature inside my dying body. The ocean that had turned into a deadly platform rose to meet me and the night sky full of my compatriots faded away as instinct took over.

  An angry, determined scream ripped through my lungs and in that desperate moment they shattered the ice that encapsulated them like glass broken into a million pieces. The blood in my veins stuttered for a beat and then pumped furiously against the evil death, my light burst forward and I lit up over the deep, dark Atlantic like a supernova.

  Finally I was back to myself. I could breathe again. I could fly again.

  My shoes brushed against the isolated waves as I pushed upward and back into the sky where I belonged. I hovered for a moment, relishing being alive, enjoying every easy breath and thankful that I could feel my light again. The loneliness and suffocating Darkness that exists without my essence is nothing I ever want to feel again.

  Ever.

  Aliah was obviously going to have to die.

  I took one more moment to be alone before I flew up into the cloud cover and burst forward toward home.

  Not home.

  Toward Seth.

  I could feel him in the distance and everything revived inside of me demanded that I get to him.

  I flew fast and furious through the night sky, the wind whipped against my face, the atmosphere determined to slow me down. I pressed forward, glowing with an intensity that would set every human scientist and most alien enthusiasts into fits about what I could possibly be. Protocol demanded I stay discrete, even in instances like this, but I couldn’t slow myself down or will myself to be careful.

  This was not supposed to be my life. This was not how Darkness and Light fought. For thousands of years the Fallen have hid from us, they’ve cowered in the dark places of planets and concocted their schemes and chaos in secret until there is nothing left of planets except to fight in the open.

  Earth is not nearly on the verge of collapse.

  And yet, why I am the one fighting on the defensive?

  They should be cowering in fear of us.

  I felt the anger and frustration at being violated, at being taken prisoner, furl and contract inside of me. A fierce, consuming hatred spread through me, like the Darkness only minutes before, eating up my veins, taking over my movements. Aliah had obvious, ill intent for Seth and no matter what my Counterpart was going through, I refused to let the Darkness win. Not this planet. Not Seth.

  And then I saw him.

  Seth.

  We met in the air, colliding into an embrace. His light warmed every inch of my skin, basking my face with the warmth of him. I sank into him, relieved and exhausted. He clutched me against his chest, burying his face in my neck.

  “I thought I lost you,” he breathed, his breath floating over my skin like a balm on an open wound. “I thought he took you from me.”

  “Never,” I croaked, choking on the confident ferociousness of my words.

  “We should find your parents,” he offered responsibly but neither of us made any effort to leave each other’s arms.

  We ho
vered in the middle of a black sky, surrounded by clouds for a long time. Seth held me against his body so tightly it was almost crushing, but I hardly noticed. There was a fear surging between us about what could have been and a deep, breathtaking relief that we still had each other. Our emotions were too intense to realize fully, too acute to move on from, and so we stayed, holding each other, knowing deep inside our beings that neither one of us would ever allow that to happen again.

  Just when I decided my parents also deserved to know I was fine, they joined us. Nate, Serena, and Jupiter were there too, everyone glowing but Jupiter, who stayed back from the group, watching us calculatingly.

  “There you are,” my mother breathed as she yanked me from Seth’s arms and into her own. I felt her shivers of relief as she held me close. My father joined us, his strong, titanium arms wrapped around us both.

  “I thought….” my father trailed off, not able to even finish his thought.

  “I’m here, I’m fine,” I assured them, giving them one more confident squeeze before pulling away. It was more of a show of assurance than an actual desire to be out of their embrace.

  My eyes immediately went back to Seth, and his were there to meet mine. He held me anchored in the sky as his golden eyes refused to break our gaze. His arms were crossed against his chest and if anyone else would have noticed his pose it would have looked confident and intimidating, but I could see beyond that, see how he was still trying to hold himself together.

  I wondered if the Elders had known what Seth would have to go through in order to protect this planet. I wondered if it was his past that made him eligible, and despite his seemingly fragile state right now, if it was that past that fueled a revenge so deep, a purpose so thick that his only option in this life was to succeed. Because as I took in his desperate eyes and clenched jaw, I knew without a shadow of a doubt there was nothing that would have kept Seth from finding me.

  Nothing.

  “We should go,” Jupiter announced authoritatively, his voice cutting through a silent sky.