9
Slash, stab, slice… A shank could carve your skin in a thousand ways. I was intimate with every single one but I’d never heard skin sizzle on the tip of a blade…smelt it sear…until it was my own.
And it was Rebel’s sword pressed to my throat.
Bad angel. Rebel had warned me. Why hadn’t I wanted to believe?
Shocked, I held my breath, resting my hands on the silky heads of the two foxes who’d leapt up in the shadows of the cellar. The Blood Familiars squirmed but didn’t attack.
‘Rebel,’ I entreated softly.
Rebel’s gaze was glazed, but there was a flash of recognition and pain. Then he twirled and drifted up the stone steps.
Lost, confused, and blitzed.
He was going to get himself hurt. Thrown in gaol. Or dead.
I curled to the concrete floor, wrapping my arms around the familiars.
Spark whined, nudging me. His green eyes, which were rimmed with thick black lashes, were thoughtful, as he rested his chin on my shoulder. His brother arched his back, on guard.
‘Still believe you can trust him?’ Da asked, shoving himself to his feet. He dusted off his suit with efficient flicks. ‘Actions have consequences, little girl.’
Evie burst up, like a rose sprung to violent life. Ma grasped her waist, holding her back.
‘Interlopers who hurt angels,’ Evie spat, her fingers clawed around the petals at her throat, ‘must face their own worst terrors. My wicked love has left you alone, who shall save you now?’
Ma smiled, deadly as a panther, loosening her hold on Evie.
I stiffened, pressing back against the wall.
Rebel had held me in the safety of his wings all night. We’d plotted how to both free and control my powers. But now he’d left me here with his family who wanted me dead.
Evie was right: Rebel had abandoned me. Like every other bastard man.
Da frowned, but his shoulders were stooped. ‘Go to your room. Now.’
I jumped at his urgency, glimpsing the savage fire in Ma and Evie’s eyes, as they prowled towards me.
I bolted.
There was no use pretending. I was still as much a prisoner as when I’d worn handcuffs.
Yet I was the wallad who’d freed Rebel. He wasn’t tame at my heel like the foxes. He was wild and free.
And he’d left me because of a sword called Eclipse and the call of the hunt.
When I heard the creak on the stairs and hurried whispers in the galley outside my doorway that night, I slipped out from under the wolf throw and crept to my bedroom door.
Rebel’s pained groan and stumbled step.
I hesitated with my fingers clutched around the doorknob, shaking with the effort not to throw it open and…
The question was whether I’d boot Rebel in the balls for burning and then abandoning me, or snog him for coming back, before chaining him to the bed, so he couldn’t leave me again.
I rested my forehead against the cold oak door, before slipping down onto my knees.
I frowned at the shock of Rebel’s emotions; his fear and shame spun a web around me, which I ripped down as fast it touched my skin.
Why the hell had Rebel kidnapped me and forced me to…feel?
I slipped out into the hallway, shuffling along in my bare feet to peer around the crack of Da and Ma’s bedroom, as if I was spying on a boyfriend’s parents.
Rebel was stretched bound across the bed. His wrists and ankles were strapped in hard leather cuffs, even if he lay on gold silk sheets. The air was thick with the scent of cinnamon, candles cast cavorting shadows, and the room was a sunburst of sensual velvets and damask.
Rebel had been stripped naked, except for his spiked collar, whilst Da and Ma in their dressing gowns crawled over him like he was a sacrifice.
When Rebel’s eyes screwed shut in pain, I clenched my fists.
Slashes.
There were scarlet gashes across Rebel’s chest, as if he’d been repeatedly knifed.
The memory shot through me of a blade at my neck, and then slicing Gizem’s cheek.
Who — what — had Rebel been hunting?
I’d been scorched by his sword. Yet someone — or something — had managed to knife him, like a bear’s claws raking his guts.
Had the other angels done this? The ones he hid from?
Rebel moaned, as Ma swabbed at the blood tearing from the wounds with balled cotton wool. Then as she kissed him, hard and possessive.
I stiffened.
Da circled one of Rebel’s nipples into a peak, before bending his head to the other and lapping. Rebel squirmed in his bonds but couldn’t move away.
I realised the Deadmans had stopped Rebel escaping, exactly as I’d imagined doing. But now I saw it…?
I wished Rebel was wild and free again.
Ma lay on one side of Rebel, Da on the other side, predatory and dark.
This wasn’t the same as when I’d seen Rebel shagging Evie.
It was a claiming. A possession. Ownership.
I shook to rip them from Rebel. Not only to save him, but to save him for myself. I’d never felt this…jealous…before. But then I hadn’t been part angel until six weeks ago either. At least, this new side to myself hadn’t awoken.
And I didn’t like it.
Ma and Da kissed and licked down Rebel’s chest and neck, worshipping him: their shackled god. Shocked, I realised I wished I could climb into those golden sheets with them.
I stumbled back, rushing into my bedroom. It was too much. These new…feelings.
Slam — I crashed the door behind me, satisfied by the bang.
The Bitch of Utopia didn’t do fear but I was trembling from the temptation to sink into the dark.
Instead, I climbed onto the bed — alone — unable to block out the image of Rebel stretched and bound naked, sweat glistening on his neck beneath his collar, before taking a swig of water from my goblet — alone — and burrowing back under the wolf skin — alone.
I hadn’t abandoned Rebel, he’d abandoned me.
But why the hell couldn’t I believe that?
Suddenly, everything blurred.
I retched.
Clutching my stomach, I blinked, and the world pixeled.
I hugged a rose pillow, as the bedroom merry-go-round spun. The wolves snarled, howling out of the ceiling.
I whimpered.
What was happening?
Then I glimpsed the goblet. It meant something. A terrible truth.
Gargoyles… Face your terrors… Actions have consequences…
I giggled. Then my eyes rolled back, and I collapsed onto the bed.
I stood on the top of a mountain of violet feathers, above a land of bones. I reigned, even though below me was nothing but death.
I was death. The End. Destroyer.
A wind whipped across the desolate valley; sizzling energy coursed across my crackling palms.
No, no, no… Time to wake up.
Calm down, J is with you…because you’re inside yourself. Your own mind. That shady bitch poisoned you.
But it’s real as…
Oh, it’s real, Feathery-cakes. If you don’t slay your demons in here, you’ll be the one slayed. And I’m talking a fabulous new gargoyle for the witch floozy.
Where have you been?
They’re witches. If they discover me, then you’ll be in more danger than you’re in right now.
Take me back. Away from me. I can’t be trapped—
Only you can do that. Only you have ever been in control. And you can’t escape yourself forever.
My feet sank into the ticklish wave of feathers, and then I fell.
Soft and suffocating, I tumbled down until…
Crack — my foot snapped delicate wing bones. I tiptoed between charred skulls and femurs.
My legacy.
I’m bad, just like Rebel. I kill and I hurt, and the things I imagine are even worse. Not only since my birthday: always.
So, you need your ass shut away in a tower? We’re all demons. Perfection’s the lie.
I rose up with a roar, bursting through the feathers and casting them like violet snow across the land. The bones glowed
My land.
I was birth. The Beginning. Saviour.
I burned with power, twining in two whirlwinds furious around me, both ancient and possessive.
And I smiled as I became the monster.
My eyes blinked open, fuzzy from the poison. Yet it was still there: the power from the drugged nightmare.
It hissed one taunting word, ‘Rebel.’
I swayed, staggering out into the hallway and barging into Da’s room. Then I caught my breath.
Rebel was alone. Tied to the golden bed naked as before, his eyes were shut like he was asleep. But the wallad was pretending because his fists clenched at the sound of my footsteps.
I was part angel, but I was also something more.
Why was Rebel keeping it secret from me?
If I wanted to claim Rebel too, then he was mine.
Lost still in the sensation of the dream, I struggled to catch at the sense of wrongness tugging at me, but it slipped away.
I sidled closer.
The slashes stood crimson against the pale white of Rebel’s skin; they burnt livid, like the flame of his hair.
Fury surged that someone had dared hurt him. Somebody but me. I scored my fingers into a gash across his gut.
He gasped, his eyes shooting open. ‘I know I’m on that List of Asses to Kick, especially after what I did, but could you not leave off until the morning?’
‘You abandoned me,’ I purred. And when did I purr? ‘You allowed the bastard witches to touch what’s mine.’
‘Downed a few bevvies while I was hunting, Feathers?’ He eyed me warily, like he’d seen the Queen drink one too many sherries and muddle up her Christmas speech.
‘And what were you hunting? Who gave you these…?’ I traced over each slash, as if taking ownership of them.
‘I’m a hunter. I wasn’t fibbing when I told you gits were after you.’
I froze. He’d been wounded protecting me?
‘Who?’
When Rebel didn’t reply, biting his lip hard, I climbed onto the bed, straddling him. That’s what I’d craved to do earlier, when I’d seen the Deadmans crawling over him. Yet I didn’t want to worship him, I wanted his worship.
The angel was helpless underneath me.
I ground down, Rebel’s cock as trapped as the rest of him, and he groaned.
‘Not like this,’ he whispered.
I reached my hands around his neck, and he stiffened.
The collar’s spikes pricked my palms, as I teased at the skin underneath. Then I began to unbuckle the collar. Someone else’s mark of ownership, it incensed me. I’d mark Rebel with bruises, shank him myself, brand my own mark on him until everybody knew…
‘Stop it,’ Rebel’s voice was hard and yet trembled with tears, ‘it’s not yours to touch.’
I stared down into shocked eyes, the eyelashes matted wet. ‘If that’s not mine to touch, how about this?’
I dropped my mouth to Rebel’s, hard and relentless, as my hand found out his balls, squeezing just as hard.
Far back in my mind, I screamed and booted to be free. To stop my assault. But I wasn’t in charge anymore. The growling, dominant bad bitch inside had been freed by Evie’s toxin.
Rebel’s body thrust and arched, but he was struggling, wrenching his head from side-to-side.
I pinned him, fire coursing through me, tingling with the taste of stolen sugar sweetness and electric wings.
I’d force Rebel to make me fly.
But then Rebel bit.
My mouth flooded with my own blood; I pulled back.
‘No, stop, this isn’t… Take it easy, what’s the rush?’ He panted.
I backhanded him, jerking his head by the hair to nibble at the base of his neck.
‘I said no,’ Rebel repeated, ‘you’re not yourself. Is this to get back at me for…? I’m sorry, so I am. Or maybe…’ His expression gentled, even under the bruise — my mark — around his swollen eye. ‘You’re under a spell. Evie’s rose potions are brutal—’
‘Not offering marriage, wallad, shagging. Your lucky night in hell,’ I grinned.
He bucked. ‘Offer again when you love me.’
Shocked, I stared down at him.
The bastard was rejecting me?
I growled, gripping his wings by their delicate tips. I remembered the sensation of standing atop the mountain of feathers, above the land of bones, coursing with power.
Destroyer or saviour.
Crack — my foot snapping the light wing bones… I could bend Rebel’s wing back and break…
Rebel whimpered.
I eased the pressure, shoving away from him. ‘I can’t love my kidnapper.’
Dizzy, the world lurched. I stumbled to my knees and then crawled to the door.
Large bare feet, hairy legs, and powerful thighs…
I gazed up at the glowering giant of Da, who stood akimbo, like a devil in a kid’s play.
I wobbled to my feet, edging out of the bedroom.
When I peered back, Da had stalked to Rebel, who lay motionless. Yet Rebel’s eyes were wide and supplicating, as Da ran his hand along Rebel’s collar.
It was no longer worship: Da’s love was toxic.
Yet Rebel had abducted me. Why should I save him from the witches?
I closed the door behind me, trapping Rebel with his Da. But even through the blurred fog of the poison, I knew Rebel was a prisoner, just the same as me. An angel, ensnared by witches. And we’d need each other to escape.
Because his family had tried to murder me.
I screamed, battering at my own mind to return me to that room and help Rebel. But the poison’s hold was too strong.
Tonight, we were both alone.