Among Aniels

by Quinn Blackbird

  GODS AND DAEMONS

  BOOK 2

  AMONG ANIELS

  QUINN BLACKBIRD

  BLURB

  CONTENT INFORMATION

  GLOSSARY, TERMS, PLACES & OTHER THINGS

  GODS AND DAEMONS

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  BLURB

  Koal: A Daemon, a cruel creature from the Underworld.

  Silver: An ancient and cold aniel, a powerful child of the God, Prince Poison.

  Keela: A sickly mortal who lives on borrowed time.

  Keela faces being stolen away from her ordinary life in the Capital. Her health threatens to kill her with every passing day, but she has greater threats to worry about.

  A Daemon has claimed her as his mate.

  To escape Koal and find the answers to sever their bond, she pleads with Silver to help her. But Silver’s mysterious interest in her blossoms in to a deadly promise. He will take her deep into the Wild Woods to find what she’s looking for if she agrees to return the favour. Only, Silver keeps tight-lipped about the exact nature of this repayment.

  And, with a deadly Daemon assassin on their tail, Keela might never live to learn exactly what Silver wants from her.

  A dark fantasy mini-series set in Quinn Blackbird’s GODS AND MONSTERS world. You do not have to read Gods and Monsters before reading Gods and Daemons.

  See inside for content warnings.

  Paperbacks available on the box-set page.

  CONTENT INFORMATION

  Gods and Daemons is a dark-themed fantasy romance mini-series. There will be dark romance, twisted relationships, explicit sexual scenes, explicit language, angst and betrayals.

  GLOSSARY, TERMS, PLACES & OTHER THINGS

  Don’t be discouraged. This is for reference only. All will be explained in the series!

  GLOSSARY

  Divine Ones - Gods

  Malis - a malevolent God

  Beniyn - a benevolent God

  Aniel - a hand-crafted offspring of a God

  Vilas - a mortal

  Scocie - land of the Gods

  Capital - Scocie’s city

  Commos - isles of the common vilas

  Skripta - religious texts

  Daemons - evil entities that rule the Underworld

  FIRST GODS

  Prince Poison - malis, lover of Princess Monster

  Lover Lust - malis

  Gaia - beniyn

  Blaze - malis

  Keeper of Lost Souls - beniyn

  Mistress Mad - malis

  Swordsman of Scales - malis

  Loki - malis

  Trident - beniyn

  SECOND GODS

  Aphrodite - beniyn, deceased.

  Zealot - malis

  Syfon- beniyn, deceased.

  Father Fettle - beniyn

  THIRD GODS

  Princess Monster - beniyn, love of Prince Poison

  Phantom - malis, deceased.

  SCOCIE:

  Wild Woods

  The Capital

  Mist Creek

  Palace of the Gods

  God’s Gardens

  Twisted Wood

  Place of the Daemons

  The Capital

  East Side:

  Shadow Quarter

  Lost Square

  Scholar Square

  Merchant Market

  Textile District

  West Side:

  Emporium Quarter

  The Port

  Worship Street

  God’s Gardens

  Spa Square

  First District

  GODS AND DAEMONS

  AMONG ANIELS

  BOOK TWO

  GODS AND DAEMONS

  The Gods came in two waves.

  The Firsts—the most powerful and ancient of the Divine Ones—were made with the world. They are as old as the dirt, the grass, and the stars.

  The Firsts are our creators. They fashioned mortals—the vilas, as they call us—from the life surging through this earth. And we were created as nothing more than toys, entertainment in a bland newborn world.

  Next, they created aniels. The aniels are unlike the vilas—they are the children of the Gods. They are magical and powerful and wicked and immortal. It is said that to create an aniel, a God must peel away a sliver of their ancient power, fashion a hand-crafted marble statue of a child, and bond the magic to it. Then, the marble turns into flesh and blood and hair and true eyes and power, all under the full moon on the starriest night.

  The child grows, fast. Within a year, it is a fully matured aniel, a dangerous child of the God who created it, and bound to its God for all eternity.

  In creating the aniels, the Gods rectified the errors they made with mortals—they cannot breed.

  But the vilas bred, multiplied fast, and spread too quickly.

  It took centuries for the First Gods to tire of us mortals. When they did, they split the land into isles and pushed them out to sea, separating us from them. As the land was broken into pieces, new seas were created and, out from the cracks, crawled the Second Gods. Less powerful than the Firsts, mostly less malevolent, but Gods all the same.

  The Gods kept some mortals close to them on the largest isle, Scocie. It is on this most magical, haunted isle that the Gods live. Their stardust palace sits on a bone-white hill that looks over the whole of the world.

  We, the vilas, worship them from the city built on the shore, the Capital. Every day of our lives, we are reminded of the Gods with that midnight-blue, glittering palace looming over us.

  1.

  I should leave right now.

  Hidden in the shadows of the trees at the path, I have just the moment to turn my back on the Tribute of the Daemons—and the unwelcome guests themselves—and flee back to the heart of the Capital.

  Silver has all but dismissed me already. I can flee without any consequence. But there’s a slight problem.

  Father has the coin purse. I need the coin to pay the carriage fare.

  So I stay in the shadows, leaning against the thin and crooked trunk of a dark tree, my nails digging into the bark.

  And I watch.

  For a long while, the Daemons do little else but wander. Three of them, shrouded in their cloaks, hoods drawn far over their mysterious faces, gather around the decapitated body of the sacrifice and the bloody heart that sits on a tree stump. They consider it in silence.

  And now that I think on it, the Daemons have never asked for sacrifices. I can’t imagine where or when or why that tradition began, or how it’s supposed to appease them, keep them away from us, but I’m realising in this moment that our sacrifice notion is just a little bit silly.

  What good is a volunteered soul to the Daemons, the Daemons who sweep all over the world in their otherworldly forms to collect all those who die anyway? The Daemons who guard and protect and feed the Underworld with mortal souls? The Daemons who have more souls than any one person could count?

  Some of the other cloaked figures have found their way over to the aniels. I shift my focus to them—how they stand, like shadows, with lashes of darkness gnawing at the hem of their cloaks, around the faintly glowing children of the Gods. The contrast is striking enough to steal my breath.

  Silver greets them, and it surprises me. Never seen an aniel bow their heads for anyone before. But then, I suppose the Daemons are far above the aniels in the hierarchy of the world. And the aniels might be desperate to keep some semblance of peace.

  What strikes me most is the silence.

  Daemons move like shadows, not even the sounds of
their boots on the dead leaves and twigs to crackle in the air. They don’t speak, they only wander and observe, faint curiosity clinging to their movements.

  The vilas all around the clearing are now statues. Stony, stiff and unmovable. I don’t hear a single breath escape any one person.

  All eyes shift, wider than full moons, around the clearing, ever watchful of the cloaked figures.

  A breath of fright escapes me. Out of the corner of the clearing, a long and dark silhouette rushes towards me. I swirl back around the tree trunk just as the shadow spills out onto the path and whirls to face me.

  Mikhael’s face gleams at me under the moonlight, round and flooded with fear. “Leave,” he hisses and snatches my hands in his. “Get out of here, Keela—now.”

  I know why he’s so desperate to rid this clearing of me. It’s the reason my heart skips beats in my chest, and I lean on the tree for support. It’s why my head is starting to spin and my breaths are coming out choppy and short.

  The Daemons could sniff me out in my poorly state among the mortals—and no one could stop them from sending me to an early grave. If that’s what they want to do. I wouldn’t know for sure what the Daemons would do to me, since before now, I have never seen one before. All I know of them is from their stories.

  “I need coin,” I whisper, my hands frail and clammy in his. “For the carriage. I can’t walk the way back to the Capital.”

  “Here.” He drops my hand. I watch as he fishes deep into his pocket and pulls out three bronze coins. “Go, now. If they find you...”

  “I know.” My voice is a quiet mutter as I scoop the coin from his palm.

  Before I can walk away, Mikhael snatches out for my arm. He holds it tight, his wide eyes drooping some, and he throws a wary glance at the clearing before turning back to me.

  “Keela,” he starts, his voice pained. “I never meant for this to happen.”

  It takes me a heartbeat to realise what he’s on about. My mind is so wrapped up with the Daemons that I completely forgot all about Mikhael’s engagement to my sister.

  “It’s honestly the last thing on my mind,” I say. I try to pry my arm out of his grip, but his fingers are like wild-vines around the small of my elbow. “Mikhael, I must go. Leave me be.”

  “I’m sorry,” he insists. “Keela, there is no other way for us. I always wanted ... You know what I wanted, but it can never be. I found the true reason that my father does not want us together.”

  Our whispered voices carry like the sounds of the trees rustling. We snare no attention from the clearing.

  My interest piques. I hike an eyebrow and take a small step closer to him. “Has it got anything to do with that odd note you left for me?”

  “Yes.” His voice matches his urgent stare.

  He looks back at the clearing once more, long enough for us both to see that the Daemons have moved away from the sacrifice. Some stand with the aniels, others torment the vilas with simple gestures—stroking someone’s arm, forcing a weeping woman into a dance. Small tortures, but wicked nonetheless.

  “My father—” Mikhael cuts off before he can even truly begin.

  A twig snaps nearby.

  Mikhael’s hand drops from my elbow and we both, with starts, look to the mouth of the path. A shadowy figure moves towards us, and I know it’s a Daemon. The way it moves, like it simply glides over the scorched earth, boots never touching the dirt, shadows snaring around its feet.

  The shadow moves between us.

  I stumble back into a tree. Mikhael staggers further onto the path.

  And the shadow turns towards me.

  The hood is drawn so low over its face that I see nothing but a swirl of pure darkness where a mouth and nose should be, and I wonder, fleetingly, if that is its true form. Darkness and shadows.

  Ice-cold fear starts to trickle down my spine, like light rain spatter down a window. Air traps in my chest, tightened into a stone ball that weighs too heavily, and I grip onto the thick skirts of my dress.

  The Daemon takes a step closer to me.

  My fingers dig so tightly into my dress that I faintly hear the tear of threads coming undone.

  Mikhael lingers on the path, his wide eyes flickering between me and the Daemon, but he’s as dumbfounded as I am—neither of us know what to do. How could we?

  The Daemon’s hood tilts to the side, as though the creature cocks its head, as though it’s studying me.

  Then, a hand raises up from its side. Slender, beige fingers reach for the hood. A frozen moment seizes us, and it simply holds the edge of its hood.

  The moment shatters as Mikhael suddenly turns and bolts back into the clearing. My wide eyes follow him, tears starting to sting me, as he races into the thin throngs of mortals.

  I’m torn for a moment. Maybe he’s run to fetch my father, tell him where I am and that I’m cornered by one of the beasts in cloaks. But then, Mikhael knows my father well enough to recognise he would not come for me. Father would simply hope I’m done for to save him the trouble of keeping me.

  The Daemon snatches my gaze. It peels back its hood and, in the shadows of the trees, it takes me a moment to adjust to what I’m seeing.

  It ... It has a face. A face just like mine, or an aniel’s, or a God’s. It looks just like us.

  He—the Daemon—is beautiful. Handsomer than any vilas I’ve ever seen. Handsomer than most aniels. His skin looks a sunkissed, smooth beige, and his eyes are a deep black, like two pools of spilled ink. Hair to match his inky eyes is tousled around his face like a coal-black halo of death.

  I swallow back a breath of fear.

  The Daemon runs me over with a vacant gaze before his face twists with blatant disgust. “You,” he growls at me, and the sound has me sinking back into the tree. My shoulders tense and my hands shiver.

  I toss a look at the clearing, my eyes wide with unuttered pleas. Some gazes are on us, locked tight, and watchful. Among the meagre audience we have is Silver, his eyes gleaming like dark moons, and his lashes lowered into something dangerous. Father watches, paler than a fresh sheet, and Olivia stands with Mikhael, her hand pressed against her mouth. Surprising me, her eyes glitter with unshed tears as she suspects—alongside me—that this moment is my final one.

  And yet, no one comes to my aid.

  I am left to be a victim of a Daemon.

  Loosening a strangled breath, I turn back to the Daemon, to the disgust warping his face, and I shut my eyes tight. I brace myself for the strike of death.

  But no strike comes.

  After a few choked heartbeats, I pry my eyes open. Tears spill instantly, wetting my cheeks. And the Daemon still simply watches me.

  “You,” he repeats, his mouth twisting with his grimace. “A weakling.”

  The Daemon reaches out for me with his tanned hand, and I flinch. He grazes his fingertip down the tear-streak on my cheek to my thinned mouth.

  “So close to death,” he mutters, as if speaking to himself.

  I cry out.

  The Daemon snatches my arm in a death-grip and yanks me away from the tree. I stumble into him, and he makes no move to catch me before I slam into his solid chest. Too solid for a creature I thought to be made of shadows and death.

  I right myself and, shivering with choked sobs, slowly look up at him. Hatred gleams in his black eyes.

  “Take me to your father,” he growls at me. “Mate.”

  2.

  Mate.

  That dreadful word rings in my ears and echoes through my aching bones. The word is whispered in the rustle of the trees and spoken in the gazes that cling to us.

  And yet, though I hear the word, I don’t truly process it.

  Disbelief is etched onto my slack face. It’s in the limp droop of my arms by my side, the parted set of my mouth, and the skipping beats of my heart.

  Daemons have mates.

  It doesn't happen often, not nearly enough for me to know anyone who was stolen away by a Daemon, and so long ago that the stori
es have faded to whispers, mostly forgotten over time. As I recall, each Daemon to exist forges an instant and sudden bond with someone, and no one is safe from that—not even the Gods. When a Daemon realises its mate, it’s game over. They will drag their mate down to the depths of the world and cage them away to live a horrific life of confinement and agony.

  There’s nothing pleasant or loving about these creatures.

  The word catches up to me and it packs a punch hard enough to make me stumble. The only thing holding me up is the Daemon’s grip on my arm.

  He speaks something, fleetingly I hear the word ‘father’ again, but his words warp around me into something indecipherable. All that I can clearly hear is the pounding sound of my heartbeat against my eardrums. It’s a dizzying sound, and I suddenly feel on the verge of fainting.

  I almost do.

  I’m limp against the Daemon’s hold, my knees bent, half drooped to the ground. My eyelids are starting to fall, the earth is twisting around me, whispers grow to murmurs. But then, I realise I’m moving—the Daemon is dragging me into the clearing.

  Distantly, I’m aware of a booming voice; “Whose girl is this?”

  And then silence.

  Suffocating, deafening silence.

  All I can do is stare down at my drooped body, the rips and dirt staining my pretty skirt from being dragged across the Wood floor. I ache to rise up, to run into the treeline and disappear forever, but it takes all my strength just to keep my eyes open.

  Then, I’m dumped on the ground. For a beat, I just lie here while voices boom above me.

  I force myself to sit. My arms shiver against my weight.

  I look at the daze engulfing me. Familiar shoes surround me. My father’s pointed-toe boots, Mikhael’s brown ones, Olivia’s crystal-embedded slippers.