Rebels and Realms: A Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Heather Marie Adkins

  ‘Aren’t you just itching to taste me with your nifty Angelic Power? See, I recognized you, Memory Boy. And I can feel your violet tingling over my skin.’ Asariel touched her nose to mine; she studied me as if searching for something. It wasn’t as if I was busy bleeding dying or anything. ‘Come on, let’s get naughty.’

  She clutched one of my thrashing hands, forcing it over the back of her neck but only lightly. I struggled to push my fingers more deeply, but she tutted at me.

  My lungs burned, and I struggled for breath as I grasped for it: the tendril that’d pull open the rush of memories. Then with a single yank, it did.

  Nothing but a violet roar; it carried me away on a flood of memories like the centuries of Asariel’s life were lived again in minutes, rather than years. I hung above an abyss with her and I witnessed her glory — battling as an angel against the Fallen crimson-slicked in her own blood — and my Angelic power judged her.

  Juddering, I blinked back to myself.

  Asariel had loosened the chain, although it was still looped around my bruised neck. She was scrutinizing me, and I didn’t know if the concern was for me or my judgement.

  ‘You’re righteous, so you are,’ I muttered, unable to meet her gaze. ‘I’ll tell the witches, and they’ll let you go.’

  Asariel snorted. ‘I hear that. But also, get real!’

  I bristled. ‘I promise, I’ll find a way to save you.’

  Suddenly, her gaze became serious. ‘Never make promises you can’t keep.’

  When fangs shot from her teeth, I didn’t know who was more gobsmacked: her or me.

  I tried to pull back, but she jerked me closer. ‘See? This is who I am now. And you’ve tasted me, so it’s only fair I taste you, angel.’

  ‘Stop, Asariel, don’t…’ I swept her feet out from under her, and we fell to the floor together.

  Growling, she tightened the chain, pushing her knee into my balls, as she clambered on top of me.

  Asariel’s lips sucked kisses along the line of bruises patterning my neck, before her fangs grazed their own crisscrossing designs. Then she grinned wickedly and bit.

  3

  When Ma prowled around me in the small stone ceilinged library — sniffing — at the fang marks on my neck, I fought not to flinch.

  What was wrong with my idiot self? I’d never flinched from her before…

  But the wounds burnt because Asariel hadn’t killed me, she’d forced a bond with me as her Blood Lover. I didn’t know yet what was worse because that freedom I’d been blathering about was gone now. I was hers. She slithered inside me, singing submission: the dangerous love of an angel for the Fallen.

  She’d enslaved me to free herself.

  Ma rubbed away a tear I didn’t know had rolled down my cheek; I stared unseeingly at the ranks of faded books. Until Ma snuffled along the bite itself.

  I jerked back. ‘What in the name of Jesus, woman?’

  Ma caressed her fingers up my chest as if in worship. ‘Why did you allow that wicked thing to touch you?’

  ‘Allow?’ My eyes sparked. ‘Cop on! Because you trapped me with a Fallen intending her to tuck me in and read me a bedtime story…?’

  I froze. It was like my muppet mouth was trying to get my arse booted.

  Ma blinked. Then she drew her hand back, and I waited for the slap across my cheek, only for Da’s calm voice to command, ‘Enough, Louisa, these last weeks have been hard on all of us. The boy has himself had a shock.’ Ma hissed, sweeping away to hang over the lip of the sofa behind Da, sweeping her fingers through his hair. Da peered up at me, one eyebrow raised, from the chocolate leather sofa beside the bookcase. He placed down the book that he’d been reading, and I swallowed. ‘On your knees.’

  Crack — I hit my kneecaps as I hurriedly dropped to the oak floor.

  I peered up at Da from underneath my eyelashes. ‘Don’t you love me?’

  Da looked down, fidgeting with his cufflinks. ‘Too much. I fear we shield you from the true dangers, and I won’t have you alone and defenseless because I truly understand how that feels. Look at the consequences if I do not teach you to protect yourself.’ He waved at my neck, and I flushed. ‘It shall not happen again.’

  ‘I’m a woeful powerful warrior.’ I clenched my fists on my lap. ‘I’m not some sprog who can’t take care of himself in a fight.’

  ‘Indeed? Then it was your teeth in her throat last night…? Or are those marks on your neck merely love bites?’ Da leant closer. ‘It’s not about strength, it’s about understanding others. You must learn to play them: lie, betray, and hide secrets.’

  I shuddered. ‘I don’t have a problem with fibbing. Bad angel, remember?’

  Da’s lips curled. ‘Right now?’ Bang – he slammed his book to the floor in front of me, and I jumped. ‘You’re as easy to read as that book. In a month’s time, when I’ve trained you, it’ll be as if it was written in Ancient Greek.’

  ‘But you can read Greek.’

  Da smiled. ‘So I can.’ He linked his hands behind his head, and Ma embraced her arms around his neck. ‘Now, please do enlighten me on what the true lesson was from last night?’

  I shifted on my aching knees, shivering, as Asariel quested through the bond, stroking me intimately inside. ‘The thing of it was that it could have been me if it wasn’t for your wards and spells. She’s an Addict who Fell and idiot flits like my one risk...everything.’

  ‘Good boy, Zach.’ Da’s expression softened.

  ‘So, what do you want with a Fallen anyway?’

  ‘Have I in any way given you the impression that my business is yours?’ Da’s frosty tone made me shrink back.

  I shook my head. ‘Never, Da.’

  Ma straightened, slinking towards me. ‘Yet you’d risk asking about this wicked vampire?’

  ‘She’s righteous. And I promised to save her…’

  Muppet mouth…arse booted…

  Da arched his manicured brow. ‘I’m delighted you also see yourself fit to answer as to my promises.’

  I shoved myself up, vibrating with sudden fury. ‘I’ll obey in the rest. But not this. You’ll let her go.’

  Ma dived over the sofa, her silver knife slipping into her hand. I raised my arm to shield my face, as she struck.

  The cut was shallow, but the pain was lava-hot. It blasted through me like I’d been burnt from the inside out. I shrieked, curling to the floor.

  Ma was carving words into my arm: thin feathered strokes along my forearm. Each one turned up the inferno’s heat. Lost in the agony, I stared up blankly at the ceiling.

  Sweet Jesus, help me…

  Then someone was cradling me to their chest and brushing their hand through my hair. I whined, nestling closer to the comfort, as the blaze died down.

  Russet wool…an embroidered waistcoat…and Da’s uneasy gaze. ‘Back with us?’

  Unable to swallow past my swollen tongue, I nodded. Then I glanced down at my sliced arm: except, there was no blood. Only the scarlet glowing words: BAD ANGELS ARE PUNISHED.

  I gasped, drawing back from Ma who crouched over her spell as if a high priestess at an offering.

  ‘You imagine you can play at being our angel or — dream on — become another’s. I would spend the rest of my life adoring every feather, but only once you learn your place. Now, with my spell, you must say these words etched on your skin every day, or else they’ll burn out the reminder.’ I stared at her, horrified. She’d marked me with my sins. ‘Say it.’

  ‘Bad angels are punished,’ I gritted out.

  The words faded, leaving behind unmarred flesh. But I knew it was under there, and if I didn’t say the words, it’d burn me.

  As I sobbed, Da held me closer. ‘I wished to train you with gentler methods. Believe me, I learnt harshness at the Head Coven, and I would’ve had it different for you. But you’ve forced our hand, and we no longer have the luxury of time.’

  I shook, both terrified and comforted in the arms of my family. Because I d
idn’t know how to save Asariel or if I could become the creature the witches wanted, yet bad angels were punished.

  4

  I booted my heel against the cobwebbed wall of the cellar, shivering in the dank.

  Clink — I pulled at the shackles around my wrists.

  When Asariel chuckled, I pouted, but she only assessed me from her crouch in the corner. ‘So, how’s your plan to save me working out then?’ I growled, rubbing at the burn singing my shoulder. ‘Only, it’s almost a month and it’s been real…OK, that’s me yanking your chain: it hasn’t been real. And what happens when you’re a fully-fledged hunter? Am I the sacrifice at your initiation?’

  I startled, dropping my guard enough to edge towards her, before remembering the slice of her fangs through my neck and slamming against the wall again. ‘And am I just your feast?’

  For a moment, her gaze became fragile, before she smoothed down her now stained mauve dress. ‘Look, shall we just skip to the part where I jump your bones because you parading around naked to get me to notice—’

  ‘You hold it there now.’ Why was I blushing and wagging my finger at her? She blinked back, the picture of innocence. ‘The witches took my clothes because—’

  ‘They’re perverts?’

  ‘Because I—’

  ‘Discovered the human hippie philosophy and no longer want to be a slave to pants?’

  ‘Because I bolted, and they don’t trust me,’ I burst out, my fists clenched; Asariel’s smirk slipped. How could she vex me like shards of glass slicing with every word? But even though the witches had been training me to hunt her, I still couldn’t hurt her like she hurt me. ‘It must be a fine thing to find this all so funny.’

  Asariel slunk to her feet; her black eyes narrowed. ‘This month I’ve been about to die from laughter: Addicted, Fallen, captured and hunted. Would you like to laugh as well, angel?’

  Faster than I could back away, she’d darted across the cellar, pinning me against the wall. I shuddered, tears prickling the corners of my eyes: shame and impotent rage.

  Her fangs traced across my Adam’s apple and then down the length of my neck, as I held myself still waiting for their slice…

  Except, instead she licked me, followed by the hot whisper thrumming against my skin, ‘I can feel you…wriggling inside me… Nothing but pain. Why when you’re mine, am I the one leashed?’

  * * *

  Slam.

  * * *

  We jumped apart at the metal clank of the trapdoor being thrown open. Our gazes met, however, as we shared the tightlipped smile of the soon-to-be punished.

  Earlier, during the cold clear night, whilst the stone and blackened Tudor mansion had risen above the terrace, and the ancient woods had trapped us on the lawns, we’d fought: trainee hunter and hunted. Thrilling with the battle — power surging through Eclipse’s hilt in electrifying waves — I’d bounced on the balls of my feet, before shooting a violet firebolt from the tip at Asariel.

  Asariel had leapt away from the sizzling arc, flicking her wrist up towards the bone white moon, summoning her Angelic Power. Wisps had swirled down through the sky, freezing into a milky spear. When I’d raised my sword, she’d hurled her moon spear, summoning it again with a raised brow, even as I ducked.

  Breathing hard, I’d blasted my fire at her feet, until she’d dodged back, hissing into the thorns of the rose bushes. Her wings glimmered silvery, as she struggled to flap them, weighted down in magic.

  I’d taken my chance to peek at Ma and Da, who’d lain out cradled in each other’s arms for a picnic of hot tea and chocolate cake in the center of a giant stone chess set that was behind the house: our favourite spot. Humming crystals pinned the corners of the rug as if for decoration, but I knew they contained powerful wards.

  Why had everything changed? How had I been stuck on the wrong side of those wards, fighting rather than eating cake?

  Oh yeah, the fighting…

  The first moon spear had grazed my shoulder…just enough to tell me it could’ve been my idiot head if Asariel had wanted it to be.

  Why hadn’t she?

  The second one had launched towards Ma and Da.

  Ma had hissed, dropping scalding tea in both their laps; they’d frantically beaten at each other’s crotches.

  Asariel had smirked. ‘Now doesn’t that make the prettiest picture?’

  ‘Mind yourself,’ I’d muttered.

  She’d examined her nails. ‘I thought you weren’t supposed to talk to your prey?’

  ‘And yet,’ when Da had stiffly pulled himself up from the ruined picnic, holding his hand out to Ma like a courtier, I’d quivered under the steel of his glare because I’d felt like the prey, ‘here you are talking. How many rules are you intending to break tonight?’

  Asariel had cocked her head. ‘And how many secrets are you intending to keep? Why are you really training his Irish La Laness as a hunter?’

  ‘We’re not training him, brat.’ Ma’s smile had been all teeth, as she’d slid her arm around Da’s neck. ‘We’re training him to hate you.’

  * * *

  Click, click, click.

  * * *

  I tensed as Ma’s high-heeled boots rapped in a quick skip and then jump down the final step into the cellar. Da’s footsteps were a louder tap of his leather Oxfords. After this month, I’d grown better at masking my fear of their footsteps than avoiding their punishments.

  Because they could whip my arse, but I’d never been any good at hating.

  When my arm glowed in the dark, I doubled over with the red-hot words etching themselves once more across my skin. Yet still I fought them.

  Until Asariel flicked my nose. ‘Give the wankers what they want. Or is this another round of Burn the Rebel?’

  ‘Bad angels are punished,’ I recited, and the agonizing words bled back into my forearm.

  Panting, I sank to my knees; Da’s thick fingers ghosted through my hair. Why couldn’t I stop myself leaning into his touch?

  ‘We’re all of us rebels,’ Da’s voice was softer than I’d been expecting. ‘Different. But we do not all have the luxury of rebellion, not when I must protect you…’

  I stared at Da, shocked at the fear threading his normal cool. I forgot sometimes that these were kids playing in our ancient world. ‘From what, Da?’

  ‘Nightmares,’ Ma swung open a safe on the far wall, her mouth twisting. ‘Just because you know the worst of your own world, doesn’t mean you know the worst of mine.’

  I shivered, before scrambled up when I noticed my coal-black sword, Eclipse, wrapped in my gold-threaded leather harness and scabbard, being bundled between Da and Ma…and into the safe.

  Clang — the safe locked.

  I banged on it with my shackled hands, my pulse pounding, before twisting back to Da. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t… ‘Give me back my sword.’

  ‘You don’t deserve it.’

  I wished Da had clouted me.

  An angel’s weapon is as precious as a fellah’s prick: if you steal it, you steal his power. I knew I was bad, but I’d waged war with Eclipse for centuries before my adoptive family were even born. And now I didn’t even deserve to hold her?

  I swallowed. ‘Please?’

  Da cupped my cheek. ‘I’m delighted you remember your manners, Zach. Such a shame it takes a threat to prompt them.’ He lifted my chin with the tip of his finger; his gaze gentled. ‘You have only tonight left to prove my faith in you. When dawn comes, it’ll be too late. My wife wishes a coat of grey feathers.’

  Asariel snarled, furling her wings around herself.

  I blinked, staring between them. ‘Get on with you, you can’t buy coats made of…’

  Ma rolled her eyes, even as her fingers rubbed along the peaks of my nipples until I squirmed. ‘Then you’ll have to pluck them from some ugly creature and make something beautiful for me.’

  ‘I love you,’ I shook, sickened by the image of Ma wearing Asariel’s wings, ‘but
I can’t hurt her like that.’

  Da spun, clutching my wings and stretching them wide in a blazing arc. When I panicked, flailing, the words branding my arm shot a warning, and I stilled. ‘Then violet will suit her just as well.’

  My breath hitched, and my terrified gaze met Asariel’s. Her expression was shuttered, however, as she swaggered towards me.

  ‘Do you hate her now?’ Da shook me, his cheek feverish against mine. ‘This vampire you protected? Do you wish you’d carved out her feathers before she’d had the chance to carve yours? This is what you’ll become if we do not save you. This is why you must hate.’

  I whined, as long black claws shot from Asariel’s nails and sliced into my wing.

  5

  When an angel falls, their violet wings transform to grey: a marking of shame. Yet even worse is the stigma of feathers ripped from your wings.

  My skin had already been carved with my sins, and as Asariel’s claws sank into my wing, I steeled myself to have my disgrace complete.

  Da gripped me tighter, holding me up in the gloom of the cellar. When Ma slunk closer, I was wrapped in her cinnamon scent. Her smile, as she stroked my wing tips, sang with deadly triumph: she was imagining swanning around in a violet coat.

  I was going to puke…

  ‘What are you waiting for, divine inspiration?’ I booted at Asariel, and she hooked her claws deeper in retaliation. ‘I’m sure you’ll get a bleeding gas out of doing a number on me now I’m the prey, Fallen.’

  Asariel frowned. Then she twisted her claws, and I hissed. She only plucked, however, a single feather, before holding it in front of my nose with a smirk. ‘Is this some kind of doofus convention? I’m not defeathering your pansy arse because I’m not a psycho.’

  I sagged, trying to smother my grin. ‘Brilliant! I mean—’ When Da shook me, I scrambled for the fibbing they’d been teaching me. ‘Will you get on with it? I deserve it.’