Daughter of Souls & Silence

by Annie Anderson

  Daughter of Souls & Silence

  Rogue Ethereal Series - Book 2

  Annie Anderson

  DAUGHTER of SOULS & SILENCE

  Rogue Ethereal Book 2

  International Bestselling Author

  Annie Anderson

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2018 Annie Anderson

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system without the prior written permission from the author. You must not circulate this book in any format. Thank you for respecting the rights of the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Emily Maynard & Barb Shuler

  Cover Design by Danielle Fine

  Formatted by: Tattered Quill Designs

  www.annieande.com

  Official Annie Anderson Newsletter

  For my baby sister - even though this isn’t the book she wants me to write. Suck it up, buttercup. This is what you get.

  Contents

  Books by Annie Anderson

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Lady of Madness & Moonlight

  Ashes to Ashes Series

  Shelter Me Series

  Seek You Find Me

  Are You a Member of the Legion Yet?

  About the Author

  Books by Annie Anderson

  THE ASHES TO ASHES SERIES

  Scattered Ashes

  Falling Ashes

  Rising Ashes

  Smoldering Ashes

  Ashes to Memories

  THE ROGUE ETHEREAL SERIES

  Woman of Blood & Bone

  Daughter of Souls & Silence

  Lady of Madness & Moonlight

  THE SHELTER ME SERIES

  Seeking Sanctuary

  Reaching Refuge

  Seek You Find Me

  (A Romantic Suspense Newsletter Serial)

  “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”

  ― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

  Chapter One

  MAX

  There are some things I’d have hoped to never experience. Being eaten alive by carnivorous ants, missing a shoe sale, being forced to watch Gomer Pyle re-runs – you know, the really evil stuff. There are other things I didn’t even think to put on the list. Being dragged by the arm by a bitchy Angel into a room full of Ethereal Elders probably should have been at the tippy-top. Had I known it was a thing, I probably would have written it down or something, but alas…

  “You know, that never harming the other side shit goes both ways, Ruby,” I warn my captor as she drags me through the hidden halls of a club the pair of us are very familiar with. Her definitely more than me.

  One could say Aether was where everything started, and they’d be right, in a way. This underground Witch club was my first real introduction to my kind in a very long time.

  But they weren’t all my kind, now were they? Witch DNA only accounted for half my makeup. The other half was a bag of cats even I didn’t want to get in the middle of. And truth be told, if Ruby Sinclair wasn’t dragging me through the place, I probably wouldn’t even be allowed to grace these halls with my presence.

  From what I’d gathered in the weeks following my parental reveal, Demons weren’t welcome most places. In my case, being half Demon made it so I wasn’t welcome in my own family.

  Go figure.

  “Oh, please. It’s no worse than you throwing me across the room, Max, and you know it,” she snarls, which is a feat considering she’s about as menacing as a tabby cat. Blonde hair, big boobs, porcelain skin. I had a feeling she wasn’t just an Angel. I also figured she was probably a bit more threatening to people who weren’t me.

  But Ruby had a point. I did toss her across the room like a rag doll, and keeping the smile off my face as I recall the memory is harder than I thought it would be.

  “Yes, but you landed in a very comfy chair with exactly zero bruises, and that stunt helped suss out a black-market dealing asshole. This right here,” I return while tugging my upper arm out of her grip, “is just you being a dick.”

  More like it was her way to push the limit of the law as far as it would go. I couldn’t harm her without starting an all-out Angel-Demon Armageddon. But then again, she couldn’t harm me either. I wonder how much leeway she could get, since she was essentially taking me to jail or to a judge or whatever. All she’d said after she broke into my home was that she was taking me to the Council.

  Not that I really knew what that meant.

  “Fine,” Ruby snarls, turning down a hallway I’d yet to traverse, “Follow me and stay close. I don’t have time to hunt you down if you decide to rabbit on me. I have shit to do.”

  What shit exactly she had to do, I had no idea. As far as I understood it, Ruby was Caim’s bodyguard, bounty hunter, lap dog, and all-around gofer.

  Rather than roll my eyes, I follow her down a shadowy hallway away from the revelers and music – away from the safety a crowd of that size provides – and step closer and closer to a place I have no desire to be.

  They say I broke the law by killing Micah, the Incubus who branded me. Maybe I did, but deciding between killing a man or becoming a slave to him for the rest of my long life, well… it was really no decision.

  Too bad I didn’t read the fine print on the bone blade my mother gave me.

  Ruby stops at a door that seems to have popped up out of nowhere. The wood is an ornately carved mahogany. In the dim, it takes me a minute to recognize the words etched into the frame. Numera omnes qui ingrediuntur ad iudicium.

  Judgment comes to all who enter.

  Well, that isn’t ominous or anything.

  Ruby’s corn silk hair falls in a sheet down her back, highlighting when she fidgets, hesitating before opening the heavy door. Ruby doesn’t fidget, and she doesn’t hesitate. Not ever. Her pause makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I don’t like it one bit.

  She shoves it open, revealing a bright room, nearly blinding after immersing myself in the dark pockets of the nightclub. She steps aside, waiting for me to enter. Just like Caim’s magical portal of an office – which skeeves me the fuck out – this room seems to be here, and then again not here. We’ve all done it – made a temporary portal when we don’t want to bother with something so pedestrian as actual travel – but permanent portals like this one are on my long list of things that are probably not so good for the balance of magic.

  I look back down the long hallway, catching glimpses here and there of club-goers living it up, and I wonder if I’ll ever be like them.

  Carefree.

  Accepted.

  Doubtful.

  “Any day now,” Ruby gripes and I have the distinct urge to put my fist in her face. I don’t, but I really want to.

  I heave a longsuffering sigh and step into the room. The snick of the latch closing just behind me doing absolutely noth
ing to help my rising trepidation at what is a huge, honking unknown. Immediately, I feel underdressed. The space is wall to wall marble, the bright white of it threaded through with waves of gray. To my right is a room that seems to go on forever, the shadowless whiteness reaching on and on in a vastness that my eyes just can’t seem to comprehend. To my left, is a raised dais with what looks to be a judge’s bench.

  Only there isn’t just one judge.

  There are eight seats, but only six are filled. Large expertly carved wooden thrones each with a totem above the headrest. In the first seat is Caim, his blue eyes blazing as he grinds his teeth. He is a bit less poised than I’m used to, which doesn’t spell good things. The totem on his seat is a pair of spread wings.

  Next to him is a tiny, fine-boned blonde. On the street, I wouldn’t put her past thirty. On this dais, with her eyes assessing me in the way that they are, I’d say she was ancient. Her rosy lips quirk into a half smile that isn’t comforting at all. Her totem is a Dragon, its mouth open in a snarl.

  Beside her is a giant, thin in the extreme, his expressionless face seeming to see me and see through me all at the same time. His totem is an hourglass. Next to him is an open seat, the wood of the totem molded into the fluid form of a Phoenix.

  Down the line is a quite attractive but scowling man, his sable brown hair brushed from his face in an artfully messy way that is made to look effortless but in no way actually is. His totem is a pentagram. Next to him is my grandmother, Bernadette – or Lilith if we want to get technical. She’s wearing a white suit jacket with pearls. I can’t tell what is behind the bench, but I’d lay money on her being in a skirt. Her totem, frighteningly enough, is what looks to be a gargoyle’s head, its mouth open in a screaming hiss, fangs bared, tongue lolling. But Bernadette’s face is carefully blank.

  Not good.

  Beside her is a gruff-looking man with silver eyes and weathered skin dressed in flannel and looking like he’d rather be drinking a beer at a pub than be within a hundred miles of here. His hair is long and shaggy, falling into his eyes. The hair on his chin is three days past scruff and entering scraggy beard territory. His totem is a wolf baying at some unseen moon.

  Next to him is the other empty chair, the totem on it a haunting version of The Scream only with less abstractness and too much abject realism.

  Angel, Dragon, Warlock, Phoenix, Witch, Demon, Shifter, Wraith. The heads of all the Ethereal factions sitting in one place. Well, almost all of them. I knew the two that were missing personally, but my in with the leaders of the Phoenix and Wraith faction would probably do little to help me now.

  Especially since the remaining six – well, except for my Gramma – were all looking at me like I was a puppy who shit on an heirloom rug.

  Fuck a duck, I am screwed.

  They don’t start with pleasantries, no one introducing themselves to me or even attempting to be civil. The brown-haired Witch snaps his fingers and a hard-backed wooden chair springs up out of nowhere. I assume he wants me to sit, but I ignore the chair out of spite and cross my arms, my bravado hopefully hiding that I feel mighty underdressed and at a loss. Had I known I was going to meet what was inherently Ethereal royalty, I would have at least done my hair.

  As it stood, I was in black, skinny jeans with the cuffs rolled up, electric blue Converse, and a hot pink semi see-through tank that said ‘Adios Bitchachoes’ with a lacy black bra underneath and a messy bun on top of my head. Yep. I probably should have asked Ruby for a timeout so I could at least put on something presentable.

  Why didn’t Bernadette tell me, warn me? Why didn’t Caim? Did I mean so little to the both of them that they wouldn’t give two shits about me sitting – well, standing – right where I am?

  “Do you know why you’re here?” the blonde Dragon asks. Her accent is thick, maybe Russian or Ukrainian perhaps.

  “I have an idea,” I drawl, my left eyebrow hitching up without permission.

  Oh, I had more than an idea. I knew exactly why I was here. It probably had something to do with the Demon I’d killed.

  “Good, then we’ll dispense with the pleasantries. Maxima Alcado, born Maxima Christina Arcadios, Rogue Witch, denounced member of the former Arcadios coven, shunned daughter of the Demon Andras and Pacific Northwest coven leader, Teresa Alcado, sole heir to the royal seat, you are hereby accused of murdering your Master, Micah Goode, with a forbidden instrument.”

  A high-pitched buzzing takes over my hearing as a biting cold seems to seep into my limbs. I hate that name. Hate the way my body betrays me every single time I hear it. Both his name and the one I was given when I came into this world. Arcadios. I’d thought I’d buried that part of me just like my mother had. I guess not. And Micah’s. I hate the way just the specter of him makes it so I can’t go home, can’t even look at my house without my breath coming in these same short pants of an impending panic attack.

  It isn’t fair. I didn’t ask to be branded. I didn’t ask to be born in the family I was. And that’s why Micah wanted me. Because of who my family was. Because of the blood running in my veins.

  I guess the self-defense excuse was probably moot here.

  I open my mouth to say just that when I hear my Gramma’s voice in my head, her crisp English accent echoing through the edges of my brain.

  Don’t say a word, Maxima dear. I’ll fix this. I swear to you. I’ll fix this.

  I meet her warm brown eyes, knowing she means it, but also knowing that if it came to it, I might be beyond saving.

  “Have you nothing to say?” the Witch asks, his tone snide as he sneers at me.

  I shift my gaze from Bernadette to him, keeping my face impassive, looking him over. Yes, he’s attractive, but his sneer sours his looks. My assessment must unnerve him because he shifts in his seat.

  Probably used to a bit more groveling, I’d bet.

  “So be it,” he pauses – probably for effect – taking over the speaking for the Dragon, a little upward crook of his mouth. “The sentence for your crimes is death. Do you have anything to say now?”

  It turns out I didn’t.

  Chapter Two

  MAX

  I felt a hysterical giggle bubbling up my chest as I utilized the wooden chair to take a load off. I’d stopped my bestest friend on this planet from killing one fucking Demon – which prevented the goddamn Apocalypse, I might add – and this is the thanks I get?

  A death sentence. Were they fucking high?

  Bernadette’s crisp voice echoes through my brain again, and I wonder if she’ll teach me that trick in the few minutes I have left on this earth.

  My guess is probably not.

  I want you to remind them of a little thing called consent. It isn’t just for prom dates, pumpkin. Even Demons require it.

  Consent. Is that going to be my saving grace?

  “Really? A death sentence. And may I ask, can you prove that Micah was my master?” I ask the silent panel of judges. “I don’t think you can. Because I don’t see any brands on my arms, and I know for a fact that his death would not erase them. If he were my master, then his death would have meant my own. And I’m still breathing,” I snarl, my arms open wide to show them the smooth, tattooed skin.

  “All I see are tattoos. Maybe you covered the brands,” the Witch offers, his snide slipping a bit when I call him on his bullshit. What am I, a rustler trying to cover up a horse brand?

  “You know good and well I can’t cover up those marks. You can’t prove he was my master, can you? And if you can’t prove it, then you can shove your death sentence up that tiny little pinprick you call an asshole.” I’m addressing them all, but my eyes are focused on the Witch who gained so much pleasure from announcing my death sentence and my Rogue status as if I was slime on his shoe. I get a little thrill when his face turns indignant as he sputters.

  I don’t think anyone has ever talked that way to him probably ever. I love being the first to do things.

  That was not what I meant, Maxima, and
you know it.

  I shrug at her, giving an unrepentant smile.

  It takes precisely two point five seconds to come to the realization that if they wanted to kill me, they would have done it already. There would be guards or something. My magic would have been suppressed.

  I snap my fingers to test my theory, watching as the green of my power slides like a molten fire over my fingers. I snap them again and an ottoman springs up under my feet. I cross my ankles and my arms at the same time as I level them all with a hard look.

  I’m tired, I’m pissed. It’s been a long day, and this bullshit isn’t making it any better.

  “There is also the issue of consent. Micah for damn sure didn’t have it, and I was under the impression it was required for one to be enslaved for all of eternity. And you’re telling me, he branded the next in line to the royal Demon seat or whatever against her will and I’m the one sentenced to die? As far as I’m concerned the only one here who broke the law is Micah, and I cut out the middleman and took care of him for you. You’re welcome. Can we just cut the shit already? You all want something from me. So instead of bullshitting me with this asinine death sentence that I know for a goddamn fact you will not carry out, why don’t you just tell me what you want?”