Dark Angel Box Set

by Hanna Peach

  The witch froze, then turned slowly to face him. Her face was etched with a cold anger.

  “I get it,” Israel said. “I understand. You hate this part of yourself, so you’ve separated her from you, this part of you who let the demon in, that part of you that did things you hate and you regret. I understand, Adere. I’ve done things I regret too. And there are parts of me that I used to hate too. But you can’t let what’s in your past define your future.”

  “It’s too late, Israel,” the witch said.

  “No, it’s never too late. All parts of you deserve to be loved, by yourself and anyone who loves you. Both of these parts of you make up who you are.”

  The witch howled. “I don’t deserve to live, Israel. I don’t deserve love. Because of the things I’ve done. You don’t understand how many lives I’ve taken.”

  “You do. You deserve it.” Israel turned left and fixed his eyes on the caged-Adere still slumped against the wall. “You do, Adere.”

  “Lies!” the witch screeched.

  “I’m not lying,” Israel said. “Do you remember the exchange between us and Samyara? He wanted to trade me for the lives of my friends and you.”

  From her spot in the cage, Adere peered at him through her fingers. “Samyara wanted to kill me. He wanted me dead.”

  Israel nodded. Yes, she was remembering. “Then what happened?”

  Adere’s hands slid from her face as her head rose. “Then…the knife. You…you pushed me out of the way. You…took that knife?” Her face softened. “For me?”

  “Yes. Even if you don’t believe that you deserve love, I do. And I will believe it for you, until you can learn to love yourself.” He reached out to her through the bars. “Take my hand. We can leave here. You don’t have to be imprisoned by your past forever. We can help you to forgive yourself.”

  The witch hissed as she tore at her hair. “Lies. Lies. I don’t deserve anything but pain and death and to be kept in here away from everyone. In here forever alone.”

  “It won’t be easy. But you can forgive yourself. And one day, you can learn to love all of you.”

  Adere glanced between Israel and the witch, the glimpse of hope peeking through her features. Yes, Israel thought. You see it. You understand it.

  “Take my hand. And let us out, Adere.”

  Slowly, Adere pushed herself up to standing. Israel’s heart swelled with pride as she walked towards him and lifted her hand. But she stopped just before Israel could touch her.

  “Show me,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Show me where he stabbed you.”

  Israel turned and he lifted his shirt up to the back of his shoulder. As he did so his fingers brushed up against the puckered skin where the knife had entered his flesh. He couldn’t see it but he knew the skin would be pink and new. He did heal fast. Faster than a mortal should. He always had. But now it made sense. Part demon, part mortal, part Seraphim. But unlike the full-blooded Seraphim, he scarred. This wound, his selfless act, would leave a scar.

  He heard a small gasp from Adere behind him and he felt her delicate finger across the scar, still sensitive from the newness. “You took a knife for me.”

  “Yes.” He turned to face Adere as he dropped his shirt. He lifted up his hand. “And I would do it again.”

  For the first time that he’d seen in a long, long time, Adere smiled.

  She took his hand. The bars between them began to dissolve. The witch began to cry, as her black cloak disintegrated off her body, leaving behind the same pale yellow sundress that Adere wore. Israel pulled Adere towards the sobbing witch and gave her an encouraging nod.

  Adere stepped forward to wrap her thin arms around the witch. They erupted into a light so bright that Israel had to shield his eyes with his arm. Even so, the darkness inside his closed lids flared with white. Then it faded.

  When Israel pulled his arm away from his eyes, there was only one Adere standing there. The cauldron had gone. The tower was no longer closed in. Around him a wall circled the edge of the tower at waist height and the roof was open. The sky was bright and blue and cloudless above him, the sun shining to the west. Beyond the wall he could see the stretch of the land disappearing off into the horizon. The black, thorny forest was now green and lush, and from up here it looked like a soft green carpet.

  “You did it, Adere.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “Now I need your help. I need to know where Samyara is so we can stop him. The world is in danger. I need to know what you know.”

  She flinched and pulled away from him. She shook her head violently. She clutched at her bony upper arms with her hands crossed over her chest. “I-I can’t tell you. He said if I tell you he’ll kill me. He’ll find me and kill me.” The fear was evident in her voice, her eyes tearing up.

  “What if you show me? If you just let me into your memories…then you won’t have told me anything.”

  “But…”

  “Samyara is looking to destroy Earth. If we don’t stop him, he’ll kill us all. But we can stop him with your help.”

  Adere nodded. But her face still twisted in fear.

  Israel gripped her chin and tilted her face up to look at him. “He won’t hurt you, Adere. I won’t let him.”

  She blinked. “Promise?”

  Israel pulled her in for a hug. “Promise.”

  She nodded against his chest, and he felt her hair brush under his chin. The world around them shifted once more, and Israel felt the sense of vertigo.

  When the ’Scape stopped changing, they were standing on a pavement, a tall fence edged with pruned bushes making a green wall broken only by a driveway and a large gate with the golden initials DW. Red iron roses dotted the black vine-like gate. Through the gate the driveway stretched towards a large opulent mansion. The gates swung open as if pushed by invisible hands.

  Adere whispered, “This is Darkwood Mansion.”

  Chapter 13

  When Israel opened his eyes, Jordan and Alyx were peering at him.

  “Oh thank God,” he heard Alyx whisper.

  “Did you get what we need?” Jordan asked.

  “Are you okay?” Alyx asked. “What happened? You didn’t look like you’d wake up.”

  Israel sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “For a moment there, I didn’t think I would.” He remembered being trapped in that tower and shuddered. “But we made it out. She gave me everything that she knows about Samyara, including where he is now.”

  There was a soft groan that startled them all. Their faces turned towards the frail doll-like girl lying next to Israel. Adere’s pale eyelashes were fluttering. Was she actually waking?

  “Israel,” she croaked out. It was her first word since she had the demon exorcised from her.

  “I’m here,” Israel said, pulling himself to sit beside her.

  What happened in there? Alyx’s eyes seemed to ask.

  “I’ll tell you later,” he mouthed. He glanced back to Adere. “Can I be alone with her for a minute?”

  “Take your time, boy,” Jordan said as he stood up, brushing down his dark pants. Israel glanced at Jordan, but for some reason he wasn’t offended by the term “boy” anymore. It just didn’t seem important enough for him to get angry at. Israel smiled at himself. Maybe the Elder was rubbing off on him.

  “Alyx?” Jordan held out a hand to help her up.

  Alyx was clearly hesitant about wanting to leave him alone with Adere. She took her time getting up, and she hung around the cell door for a second before she finally walked away. He watched her walk down the tunnels towards the main station.

  Israel helped Adere sit up and pulled her over to the wall so she had something to lean against. He sat next to her and for some minutes, they just sat in silence. There was so much he wanted to say… No, that wasn’t right. He only had one thing to say, but they would be some of the hardest words.

  “I’m sorry, Adere.”

  Her mouth flinched in what h
e hoped was a tiny smile.

  He continued, “I never wanted to hurt you, although I know I did. We both did. Hurt each other, I mean. I always cared about you, Adere. I hope you know that.”

  She didn’t say anything. He wasn’t even sure that she could hear him, but he kept talking anyway. “I can see why you’re hiding. And it’s okay. You can stay there for however long you need. Just know that I’ll be here when you come back, okay? You’ve got me as a friend.”

  He brushed the hair from her face. She had always been beautiful. A frail beauty like thin glass, but still beautiful.

  He was about to leave her so she could rest when he thought he heard her whisper his name.

  He quickly moved back to her side. “I’m here.”

  “Do…” he leaned his ear down to her mouth so that he could hear her raspy voice. “Do you think we were ever really in love?”

  “We always cared about each other, Adere. I know that is true and always will be. But, love? I think we need to love ourselves before we can love someone else. Otherwise what we have is just a need for someone to be in our lives to give us the love we don’t have for ourselves. We didn’t love ourselves then…but maybe now we can love ourselves first before we can truly love someone else.”

  Her eyes were unmoving and she stared forward at nothing. He wasn’t sure if she had heard him. He laced his fingers with hers. To his surprise, her fingers closed back. He smiled. She would get better.

  Inside, he felt this old wound smoothing over.

  * * *

  Alyx stood in the tunnels, looking back around the corner, staring at Israel and Adere sitting side by side in her cage. She no longer looked upon Adere with suspicion or mistrust. She no longer saw Adere as an obstacle between her and Israel’s relationship that needed to be pushed aside or dealt with. She no longer saw Adere as a means to her ends. After witnessing the scene between Israel and Adere, and now understanding why Adere turned, Alyx could no longer look down upon her or judge her as she had previously.

  Alyx swallowed the pity down in her throat. And guilt. She had been so hard on Adere. Xiang was right. Adere needed love and care and understanding to heal. Something that she had not been able to understand.

  “Alyx,” Jordan said quietly. “You okay?”

  “I just feel so horrid. I’m supposed to be a protector to the mortals and with Adere…”

  Jordan placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. His thumb rubbed back and forth with what she supposed was meant as comfort. Instead the awareness in her body heightened.

  “But you’ve learned from this,” he said. It was more of a statement than a question.

  “Yes. ‘First, seek to understand.’” She had read this somewhere once. She hadn’t really understood what it had meant until now. She had thought herself so open-minded, so independent of thought…but it turned out, even she had her prejudices. “I should have been more understanding, less judgmental.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “Even you?” she said lightly.

  “Especially me.”

  They stood watching Israel and Adere in silence. She could see his lips moving, but she was too far away to hear what he was saying.

  “I can’t believe he used to be that way,” Alyx admitted softly.

  She heard Jordan shift behind her. For a moment she felt guilty that she was admitting this to Jordan.

  “We all have things in our past we’re not proud of,” Jordan said. “This is something in Israel’s past. He can’t change it, but he’s a different man now from then. You shouldn’t judge the man he is now because of who he was.”

  Alyx smiled and turned to look at Jordan over her shoulder. “Are you defending him? I would have thought that you’d take this opportunity to agree with me.”

  Alyx gasped when she found herself being spun around by her shoulders.

  Jordan’s stare bore down on her. “I’m selfish, Alyx. I want you to be with me. But I’m not that selfish – if you decide that he would make you happier than I could, I would let you go. Your happiness is more important to me than anything, even if it means I have to give up my own.”

  Damn him. Damn him for saying that. Damn him for looking at her like that. Alyx’s heart thudded in her chest as her stomach tumbled with confusion.

  Kiss me.

  No, don’t kiss me.

  Before her heart could make any decisions, his fingers dropped from her shoulders and he cleared his throat. “That’s what I would say to you if we were talking about this right now. But we’re not, because, you know…push feelings aside, five days, fate of the world, etc. etc.”

  “Of course.” Alyx let out the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. “We’re not talking about this right now.”

  There was an awkward pause before Jordan said, “We should, um, let them have their privacy.”

  Alyx took one last look at Israel and Adere before walking beside Jordan through the tunnels towards the main subway station.

  “So…” Jordan said after a moment.

  “So?”

  “The thing I raised that I shouldn’t have raised back there…”

  “Yeah?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Am I going to be punished for it?”

  Alyx supressed a smile. “No.”

  Jordan hummed. “I’ll work harder next time.” He winked at her and hurried off before she could hit him.

  Chapter 14

  Israel paused at the door of the library compartment. He knew that Alyx was inside.

  He knew what he needed to say to her. He didn’t want to go on being only half of what she needed. He had always just accepted the scraps that life threw him, never fighting for more, never believing that he deserved more. But not anymore.

  He wasn’t going to cry or whinge or any of that pathetic feeling-sorry-for-himself stuff anymore. No anger, no tantrums. None of those things. Alyx needed someone to walk alongside her, not to trail behind her.

  So he was going to let her go.

  And if, no…when she came back to him, they would never part again. Their bond pulled at him, reassuring him. He was going to open up his hands and let her go.

  * * *

  “Alyx.”

  Alyx jolted up at the sight of Israel darkening the door. She had slipped into the small library compartment of the Saint’s Revenge to wait as Jordan and Tobias pulled everyone together for a meeting. She hadn’t expected to be disturbed, let alone to be disturbed by Israel. He leaned with one arm up against the frame, making his bicep bulge. He seemed to crowd out all the light from the door of the compartment.

  She put down the book she had been reading and sat up on the small couch, brushing down her shirt and clearing her throat. “How did you find me?”

  He gave her a slow dark smile. “We’re bonded, remember?”

  She frowned. “Usually I can find you but you’ve never been able to find me…”

  He shrugged. “Things change.”

  These two words carried such an ominous tone, she shivered even though she wasn’t cold.

  “We,” he waggled a thick finger between the two of them, “need to talk.”

  Alyx stood up, unsure as to whether she should move towards him. He stepped inside the little compartment and closed the door, locking it behind him. Oh God. This wasn’t good. When he turned back to her, his face revealed nothing.

  “You…want to talk?”

  “I realized something while I was in there, imprisoned. With Adere. Something that I had always heard but…never really ‘got’ until now. I need to love myself before I can love you. The love I had for you−”

  “Had?” Alyx swore that her heart stopped.

  He nodded. “The love I had for you was just a seed, not grown, not even beginning to grow into what it could be. It could never become what it could be until I became who I needed to be…first.”

  Alyx blinked at him. “What…what are you saying? Are you trying to tell me you don’t love me anymore?” Her v
oice trailed off into a whisper as her throat closed up. Oh God. Why should she be surprised? She certainly deserved to lose his love after how she handled the Jordan situation and after keeping all those secrets from him.

  Israel laughed softly. “How you would ever think I could stop loving you…” he stepped forward and placed his forehead down onto hers. With that single touch, she felt her heart restart as if anew, and a rightness soaked through her body. He took her hand and placed it on his neck at his pulse. She felt his heart thudding and she could swear it sped up. “Feel that?” he whispered.

  She nodded, her forehead rubbing along his. He reached out to her throat for her pulse, his whole hand dwarfing her neck so that it closed around her in a firm hold. She felt her heart stutter faster and by the smile that was creeping across his face, she knew that he felt it too.

  “Now,” he said. “Get inside my head.”

  “What?”

  “You still have doubts about how I feel about you. Maybe that’s my fault, maybe it’s not. But either way I’m taking responsibility for it. Use our bond. Get inside my head, angel.”

  Alyx took a deep breath, closed her eyes and reached out with their bond. She felt all the ways that Israel and she were connected. Physically first, through their foreheads touching and through their heartbeats under each other’s hands. She felt their non-physical connection, that beyond magic connection that joined their two souls together. Then she felt her mind fall into his.

  She felt her own heart beating under his hand. She felt his pulse kissing at her palm in his neck. She felt the overwhelming feeling of closeness through his body as they breathed the same air. She understood what he meant about their love; about how it was just a tiny flickering candle that was begging, begging to become a roaring fire.

  My angel. My savior. My light.

  You are my beginning and my ending.

  Then she felt his love overlap her own, and it traveled in an infinite circle through their bodies as their hearts slowly came together to beat as one thundering sound through them both. She realized that he was inside her head too.