Rebels and Realms: A Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Heather Marie Adkins

  I aimed for the fluttering lashes saintly look but might have pulled it off too well.

  Asariel’s gaze darkened. ‘Because you wanted to see the humans? Because you’re different? Or because you won’t submit to the witches?’

  I shrugged, looking away. See? Every word a shard of glass.

  ‘That’s wacked. You have to fight or else the true wolves of this world will tear you bloody.’ She tossed the single feather floating towards Ma, who snatched it. ‘It’ll totally still work for a coat if you lose a few pounds: you can afford to.’

  Ma snarled, launching herself at Asariel, but Da let go of me and grabbed her around the waist instead, hauling her back.

  Asariel sniggered, lounging back against the wall.

  When Da turned back, however, his gaze was flinty. ‘I’d hoped I could spare you, Zach, but you persist in resisting every method. You simply won’t learn.’

  ‘You’re tripping,’ Asariel snorted. ‘So, your great plan was that I mutilate his wings, and he hates me? Except, it’s not about hating the Fallen...or Fallen Addicts…you get me? It’s about making him hate himself. What he’ll be without the perfect brave heroes who swoop in and save him: the poor naughty Addict who can’t even save himself.’ Her smile was bitter as she pointed at the witches. ‘You’re good. The only problem is this angel is a killer but he’s not like you: he won’t control, enslave, or hate.’

  I jerked: how did she know so much? All the saints, it was like she understood me more intimately than anyone ever had. My eyes burned, as I struggled not to let tears fall. Then I remembered: the bond.

  Asariel had no problem controlling or enslaving Blood Lovers: or violating their secrets.

  I wrapped my arms around myself, as if I could hide my emotions when I’d been stripped as bare inside, as my naked flesh on the outside.

  ‘He’s our angel,’ Ma’s voice hitched, ‘what right have you, brat, who’s known him but a heartbeat, to talk of him so?’

  Asariel cocked her head. ‘Your angel? And what about if he Falls? Because this House of Rose, Wolf, and Fox?’ She shook her head. ‘It’s like Hell anyway.’

  ‘Is this the truth?’ Da stroked down the back of my cheek with his knuckles. ‘Are you unable to control or…be what we need? To save yourself?’

  Desperate suddenly for the easy touch, comfort, love we’d had before Asariel, I rubbed my cheek against Da’s hand.

  Could I transform myself into a hunter? Could I become what he needed and remain part of his family? Safe here inside the witches’ wards from Commander Drake and the angels?

  My shoulders slumped. ‘It’s like this see, I’m trying. And I know I’ve ballsed things up, but Asariel has it bang on: I won’t hurt her. I can hate though, and I do hate the Fallen. I’ve fought them for centuries. But I can’t hate an angel who’s Fallen just because they’re an Addict. I bleeding won’t. I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you.’

  ‘Disappointed me?’ Da’s voice was soft, and I didn’t understand the way Ma grasped at his sleeve, trying to tug him back, as he strode to Asariel. He dropped to his knees in front of her; his back was ramrod straight. My eyes widened; my stomach roiled because I’d never seen Da kneel before: it was bollocking wrong. Asariel watched him with a cool gaze. ‘You have destroyed me.’ I jolted, my chest tight at his despairing tone. His tumble of hair had fallen forward over his bowed head, and I was suddenly desperate to see his face. ‘I wish to save you, Zach, because I was myself saved. You have no comprehension that my life is in your hands. I too am adopted, you see.’

  He bowed his head further, parting the hair high on the back of his neck. I peered closer and then gasped.

  M had been branded in a snake pattern.

  ‘The Head Coven…’ I whispered.

  Ma whined, closing her eyes.

  ‘I’m a male witch,’ Da spat out: and now I knew what it looked like to hate yourself. ‘Witches and mages are as much at war as angels and vampires. When my family discovered my dishonourable magic, they should have, in the literal sense, fed me to the wolves.’ I shivered, but Da still didn’t look up. ‘Louisa’s family adopted me. They also allowed the Head Coven to…train me.’ This time it was his turn to shiver. When he looked up, I wished he hadn’t: his shame, pain, and despair spiked through me as if we were bonded. ‘Where do you think I learnt my methods? Yet I’d never use the worst of the…unnatural cruelties…they visited on me. This M?’ He scrubbed at the M so hard, I winced. ‘It stands for mage, male, misfit, monster…’ He breathed harshly, his nails digging into his thighs. ‘And for my continued…survival…there was a price that the House of Rose, Wolf, and Fox had to pay.’

  My breath caught, as I glanced between Ma and Da. ‘What price? Ma? Da?’

  ‘Don’t,’ Ma breathed. ‘Please.’

  ‘I only wished to save you and not…’ When Da wiped his sleeve across his eyes, the world tumbled to ash because I’d never seen him weep before, not even at his adopted Ma’s funeral. ‘This House has always rescued Addicts but now because of me it must pay a debt to the Head Coven. And if I can’t save you, you’ll pay it too.’

  ‘I might be a bad angel but I’m no sap. If these gits have been playing gangster, then I’ll battle their arses. Didn’t you train me to be a hunter?’

  Da’s smile was sad. ‘Your sentiment is admirable. But nobody’s ever succeeded in taking on the Head Coven. And they’ve tried. So, I offer you a choice.’

  His gaze flickered to Asariel, and she lifted an eyebrow, before nodding. Then she dived on Da, wrenching back his head and wrapping the chains between her manacles around his throat.

  ‘What in the sweet Jesus…?’ I leapt forward, but Asariel tightened the chains in warning, and I stilled, panting.

  Asariel licked over the M, and Da quivered. ‘Let me give you the skinny since your daddy here can’t chat.’ She twisted the chain tighter, and Da gurgled, struggling weakly at the chain. Ma slumped against the wall, but she didn’t whirlwind attack like she normally did: why wasn’t she saving him? ‘The witch here has come over all sacrificial and thinks he’s testing you by offering you the impossible it’s her or me decision. Because you can’t save us both. But it’s simple, I’m leaving. Do me a solid, don’t stop me, and I won’t throttle him…I’ll just take him with me for a magical snack once I’m out. Later.’

  She jerked Da to his feet, dragging him towards the steps.

  ‘Zach,’ Da gasped, ‘please.’

  I bounced on the balls of my feet, fisting my hands.

  Da had lied to me. Secrets and betrayal. Add in hate and that was the potent brew they’d forced me to swallow. But there’d also been love. In his own twisted way, wasn’t Da proving it right now?

  If I saved Da, however, then I was condemning Asariel to whatever dark deal Da had struck with the Head Coven. I was stealing her one chance of escape and choosing the side of the witches.

  Yet if I didn’t, my Da would die, I’d lose my family, and protection. And I truly would become the worst of angels.

  6

  I jittered from foot to foot, furling my wings around myself in the cellar’s shadows, as Asariel hauled Da up one step, two, three…

  Da’s gaze was lost, as his throat purpled from the chain biting into it; the sleeve of his immaculate suit had ripped.

  * * *

  …four, five…

  * * *

  Ma rocked against the wall, her arms clasped over her head. Why wasn’t she saving him? Sweet Christ, I knew why: Da had put this all on my head. He’d live or die only if I chose it.

  * * *

  …six…seven…

  * * *

  I’d been wrong to think I was the prisoner. My family worshipped me; their love trapped them in sacrifice. And they’d die in my name.

  I was a muppet.

  I was loved, but it wasn’t dangerous to me: it’d kill those who drowned in their obsessive adoration.

  * * *

  The final step.

  * *
*

  I could only glimpse Asariel’s grimy bare feet and Da’s leather Oxford’s. I forced myself to swagger to the base of the stairs. ‘Here’s the thing Asariel: this is a test for me. And seeing as I’m not taking part, what do you think Da will do to you?’

  Asariel hesitated. ‘You gone bananas? I’m the one with your daddy,’ she twisted the chain, and Da choked, ‘on a leash.’

  ‘Away with you. You think a witch can be leashed? The things I’ve seen this bad bastard do would scare you back to hide shivering on that moon of yours.’ I stalked up the stairs; Asariel shrank back. ‘He’s melted eyeballs in idiot heads, sizzled skin flayed from Fallen’s backs, raged infernos across oceans, and poisoned our enemies into madness with a look, all before he’s even out of his pajamas. And that,’ I shoved her in the shoulder with my finger, and she flinched, ‘was to gits who hadn’t threatened to feast on him as a magical snack.’

  Asariel paled, before carefully removing the chain from around Da’s neck. ‘We’re cool, yeah?’

  Da caught her wrist. ‘Far from it, vampire.’ Then he raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Melt eyeballs? Madness with a look?’

  ‘Wait… that was…?’ Asariel spluttered.

  I gave a brilliant smile. ‘A fib.’ Ma sniggered, pushing away from the wall to wind her arms around my waist. ‘Wise up! As if Da would ever wear pajamas!’

  Asariel roared, diving towards me, but Da wrenched her back.

  ‘No more games,’ this time it was Da dragging her up and out of the cellar, ‘it’s dawn. And as you refused that test, Zach, regrettably I must show you the truth. No more lies.’

  I rushed after him, down the oak corridor, with Ma at my heels. ‘What…?’

  ‘The secret of the House of Rose, Wolf, and Fox,’ she whispered and then pushed me into the Great Hall.

  Heavy gold curtains blocked out the light through the high windows: Da had said it was dawn but we were hidden in the dark. Asariel trembled in the far corner where Da had flung her beneath the black wolf skins and white-tipped fox brushes that hung on the walls.

  The door slammed, shutting us in together.

  I wrapped my arms around myself as I paced. I was a ball-bag because whatever happened next was my choice and my bleeding fault…

  ‘Sit your Judas arse down,’ Asariel growled.

  I gaped at her. My righteousness curled, murmuring she’s a Judas too… ‘You were after abandoning me. And murdering my Da too.’

  She flushed, turning away her head. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ I stormed towards her, yanking her up by her arm. ‘That’s not good enough. I want to know—’

  ‘You don’t,’ Asariel’s look was soft and sad, ‘leave it.’

  ‘We’re the same: rebels.’ We were so close that our mouths could’ve touched.

  I leaned closer, but she pulled back. I fought not to drop my gaze.

  ‘Drop it, Casanova.’ She tugged her arm away from me, backing to the wall.

  I followed her, boxing her in. She gasped. ‘Why? I’m your Blood Lover: yours.’

  ‘Yeah, right, dream on.’ But her sneer shattered, as she grasped my shoulders and dragged me close, digging her nails into my wings and sucking on my neck. I juddered at the intensity, my knees buckling. Yet she held me up, slicing her long nails down my back on the knife-edge of pleasure and pain.

  At last, she drew back, her breath ragged. ‘Whatever…this…is…it won’t save me from the witches. And yeah, we’re the rebels…the Addicts and the Fallen…that’s why we’re punished. You still don’t have a scooby what they do to wicked wolves like me? You want to know why I ran?’ She nipped at my chin. ‘You’d run too if you were going to be transformed into a familiar.’

  I stared at her in shock.

  A familiar? The magical animals, who were slaves under the control of the witches, were actually transformed Fallen?

  Sweet Christ, I needed to puke again.

  I clutched Asariel’s shoulders as tightly as she was clutching mine. I’d condemned her to this? And my family were involved in something so unrighteous?

  Asariel stroked my cheek. ‘If you don’t obey them, the wankers will transform you as well into a Blood Familiar. That’s what Da’s been trying to save you from: becoming a slave.’

  I shook. I was a blind git: the training hadn’t been just to save me from being an Addict but from becoming another victim of their Blood Familiar trade.

  But why did I deserve to be saved, whilst Asariel was transformed?

  ‘I promised to save you and I bleeding will.’ I broke away from her, striding to the windows.

  I ripped down the gold curtain, throwing it to Asariel; sunlight didn’t burn the Fallen but it gave them a woeful migraine. The thin dawn light trickled into the Great Hall’s gloom. When I fiddled with the latch, I discovered it’d been locked with Da’s magic.

  Smash — drawing back my fist, I shattered the glass instead.

  ‘Wait, you doofus,’ Asariel hissed, ‘what about…’

  Crimson and gold sparks booted my brain in a powerful electric current that arched me onto my back in jerking spasms; my eyelids fluttered, as my toes curled.

  Oh yeah, the spell to ground me to the house…

  * * *

  Slam.

  * * *

  When the door swung open, Asariel growled, sweeping open her wings as she circled away.

  Yet I could only watch, frozen as tremors still tingled through me, unable to move let alone save Asariel, as Da threw his golden lasso around her waist.

  How could I watch her taken and not stop this?

  I tried to speak…say anything…but my tongue was swollen and dry in my mouth…and even the power of words had been stolen from me.

  ‘Don’t let the Man change you,’ Asariel shot over her shoulder at me. ‘Fight them. You’re a rebel, remember. Catch you later, La La.’

  Then Da hauled her out into the corridor.

  * * *

  Slam.

  * * *

  And I was left alone amongst the shattered glass, shadows, and the tears streaking my paralyzed cheeks.

  By the time Da slammed back into the Great Hall, grey drizzle was blowing through the broken window, and I’d recovered from the spell. I’d pulled myself to sit with my arms around my knees, beneath the window because the spitting rain cooled my feverish shivering.

  Da, however, wasn’t alone.

  I shot up, unable to hold back the sob. ‘Asariel…’ I wept.

  A pitch-black wolf scrutinized me with amber eyes. She padded next to Da, who petted her large ears as he held her on a choke lead like she was a tame dog.

  ‘Her name is Moon now, if you please.’ Da patted the wolf’s head. ‘She’s our familiar and as such she’ll be loved. But what I believe we must establish in our little family,’ Da’s smile was tight, ‘is your role. We have no more time. And Moon is the beta female, as I am the alpha male. You? Well, shall we discover your place?’

  He gazed down at Asariel — no bleeding way was I calling her Moon — and I could’ve sworn by the way her eyes met his that he spoke to her through telepathy because then her lips drew back into a snarl and she was swinging to me.

  Da bent down, unsnapping the leash from the chain collar around her neck. Then she pulled herself up onto two legs, towering over me.

  My pulse pounded in my throat; I wiped my sweaty hands down my thighs. ‘I won’t battle you,’ I forced out shakily.

  Da’s thin lips twitched. ‘Interesting. Because she’s hunting you.’

  Asariel snarled; she lunged towards me, baring her fangs.

  7

  There were times, amongst the humans, when I forgot I was an angel. And others — like when a bleeding wolf leapt for my throat — when angelic instinct took over, and I remembered the glory that set us apart.

  The violet flared wonder of flight.

  I beat my wings in a violent tornado, spraying the grey rain that blew through the shattered window like
bullets at Da, who stumbled backwards, shielding his face with his arm. But Asariel’s eyes didn’t even blink against the cold. I rose up towards the high ceiling of the Great Hall, just as she lunged for me.

  * * *

  Snap.

  * * *

  I howled, as her jaws caught my ankle. Bone crunched against bone. White exploded thorn-like across the back of my eyes.

  ‘Fight,’ Da hollered, ‘be the hunter.’

  I bit my lip, so hard blood dribbled down my chin. ‘If I were mad, I would! I’m a hunter, but she’s not free. And I’ve made a balls of my life, but I’m not hurting a slave.’

  With a roar, I tore my leg free from Asariel’s crimson fangs; flesh ripped, but I battled through the wave of nausea to swoop across the room like a bird escaped from its cage, hunted by the cat.

  Asariel prowled after me; her fur stood on end, and her ears were flattened.

  ‘Take it easy,’ I gasped, as I hovered in the far corner, ‘we’re rebels, remember—’

  ‘I’m her Keeper now,’ Da snapped. ‘She can no longer rebel. And if you wish to survive, I suggest you also learn to submit.’

  When Asariel sprang, I soared over her head to the gold chandelier that blazed in the centre of the hall. Perching on the crystals, I panted like a pretty but bloody gargoyle. Hobbled by the wound in my ankle, I spun on the hazy line of blood loss.

  Holy Jesus, she was coming for me again…

  Asariel circled the chandelier; the rumbling growl in her throat rose to a spine-tingling howl. I jumped and then yelped, as Asariel batted the chandelier with her large front paws. When it swayed side-to-side, I was showered in dust, before the chandelier’s chain jolted.

  * * *

  Crash.

  * * *