Chapter 1
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound of my blood as it leaked onto the stone floor echoed inside of my little prison.
I had managed to pull myself up, with my back against the stone wall, as I clutched the wound that ran from my sternum to my pubis. The pain was not easily ignored as my nerve endings lit up, one by one, like Christmas lights.
Healing was more difficult than I had expected. It was almost impossible to pull treachery from the air and to spin it into Magic. I had no idea where I was. The quality of the air was different, and the Sin and Lies were almost non-existent.
Surely, the Ice Prison would have been… colder. Instead, the temperature was positively balmy.
I put pressure on my wound and hissed a breath between my teeth. I was two halves of a fractured meat sack. My eyes flared silver as I inhaled any sort of Sin that I could get my hands on. Manipulation was a child of treachery and I grasped at the Magic with greedy fingers.
I did not know how long I had been imprisoned, but it was enough to let my mind stew.
Where is my child? I wondered with unfamiliar fear. My heart felt like it was made of broken glass, and it jabbed the inside of my ribs every time the image of my beautiful daughter’s face flitted into my mind. I shook my head to clear it. I could not dwell. I could only act.
Step one: get out of the dingy cell.
I cursed my hindered healing ability. The dagger that Meesha had used must have been enchanted. My body was returning to its natural state, but I still had a way to go. I had been human for longer than I should have been. It had taken a month or two for my Demonality to melt away the first time. How long would it take for my Hell Magic to return?
The sound of heavy footfalls drew my attention to the darkness behind the bars of my cell. My head turned with whip-sharp motion, and my eyes narrowed. I licked my lips and inhaled their scent on the air. It was familiar but I could not quite place it. I had encountered the type of creature before, but to be unable to recall what it was. It unnerved me.
I staggered and clutched the stone wall as a wave of pain cut through my stomach like a lightning.
“The Commander brought this one in from the Ice Prison.” A deep voice rumbled from far away. The footsteps that had been steadily approaching paused.
“Why would he break a Demon from the Prison?” Another voice replied.
There was a slow pause and I imagined that Tweedle-Dee was shrugging. I stepped closer to the bars but I kept my fingers away from the iron.
“Fucking Demons.” One of them snarled.
I adjusted my ripped and bloody pyjama top. The outfit held too many memories and I would burn it when I had the chance. At that moment, however, it afforded my cleavage the exposure that I needed. I licked my lips and my tongue met the tang of copper that told me that my face was covered in blood. Perhaps seduction was not going to be the most successful plan, but it was the easiest.
I placed my hand against the damp stone to hold myself up, but I forced my gaze straight to meet the eyes of my capturer. Bronze eyes with dirty mottled wings. Angels.
My lips curled over my teeth and a snarl ripped through my throat. I grasped my wound and pushed the skin together. Heal, dammit.
“Hello, filth.” The first one to speak was taller, boarder. His wings were held tightly against his back, bronze accents mixed in with grey feathers. Tweedle-Dee with his deeper voice and penchant for swearing.
Tweedle-Dum was silent and watched me with a glimmer of fear in his eyes. He shifted from foot to foot. He would be fun to pull apart.
“Hello, boys.” I wiggled my fingers, leaning against the wall of my cell. I forced my face into an impassive expression to hide the pain that I was in.
Neither moved, but they watched me.
“Were you expecting horns and a forked tail?” I purred.
Tweedle-Dum scratched the back of his neck. “Maybe.”
“Only on Thursdays.” I winked and shifted my attention to the warrior. “Can I have my phone call now?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.” The warrior growled. “Your presence in the Summerland is an abomination.”
My laughter echoed through the dank prison. “I am not here of my own volition.”
“You should not be here at all.” Tweedle-Dee’s voice was gruff.
I fanned myself to try and diffuse my laughter. It was not working and the Angel was growing irater by the second. I could not help it. I had no context for the situation that I was in.
“Where is this Summerland?” I asked.
The warrior crooked his brow, “Don’t play the fool, Demon.”
I waved my hand in a circular gesture to imply that he was boring me with his attitude. “I just want to crawl back into my little hole and back to my family. I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.”
The warrior gripped the handle of his sword and stepped towards the bars. His body was taut with tension.
“I will ensure that you never harm another soul again.” The Angel enunciated every syllable as if I would have difficulty understanding.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I felt the last of my wound stitch itself together. I straightened my body leaving my laidback stance behind. My fists clenched tightly enough that I felt the bite of my nails in my palms. A flash of anger pierced through the calm that I had summoned to deal with the two pion Angels.
“You think that you can challenge me?” I asked slowly. I brought my hand to my face and surveyed the dried blood that coated my skin.
“I know that I can.” The warrior was smug.
I stretched out my fingers and allowed my magic to do as it wished. Ice hit the air and steam rose quickly. Intense cold was often just as dangerous as unbearable heat. I could burn his pretty face just as easily with my ice as I could with Hellfire.
A cruel numbness washed over me. I was sick of their games. Playing the cocky Demon had gotten more information than I had hoped, but my patience was wearing thin.
“Come closer to the bars, my winged friend. I will allow you to impart the first strike if you think that you can.” I whispered. My eyes whipped to his and I knew what he saw. The bright silver of Devil’s magic had taken over my irises. The Warrior froze as his smaller companion took a step back. I liked the faint scent of surprise and fear that tainted the air like a droplet of black ink on a pristine white page. I relished in it. I had been human for too long.
But now I was back.
I took a step towards the bars, extending my hand out. The nullifying properties of the iron attempted to swallow the steam rising from my fingertips but the metal was in too short supply to take what I was throwing out.
Without a word, only a sullen gulp of uncertainty, the angel turned on his heel and walked away from my cell.
I could not help the laugh that bubbled out of my throat.
“Goodbye, fair warrior.” I cackled. “I won’t tell the others that you ran!”
I counted the stones in my cell until I grew bored. My skin was covered with a thick layer of blood and the stink of human sweat from childbirth.
I examined my skin and found that my pores had disappeared. No tear ducts. A sense of rightness had settled over my body, as if everything was finally slotting into place.
I made plans in my mind. I imagined tearing the face from the guard that had challenged me. I daydreamed of ripping off his arm and then knocking him around the head with it. I thought about wiping the smug expression off his face. That was, if he would ever deign to revisit me after his display of fear.
I let out a peal of laughter that I could not hold back. It was comforting to feel the blanket of immortality over my shoulders again. I was positively giddy.
“I'm glad you are enjoying yourself, Dahlia Clark.” A deep voice rumbled. My giggles tapered off as I turned to my visitor.
I recognised him, but it took a second to place the Angel's face. He had snuck up on me and I could not deny that a small part of me was impressed by that.
“Uriah.” I nodded, my gaze shamelessly raked over the Enochian runes that littered his chest like a white network of pretty scars. His chest was bare, toned and bronze. The holster of his sword hung low on his hips. He wore jeans, which was a stark difference to the guard’s uniform that the arseholes before had sported.
“You remembered.” His head cocked to the side. His expression was intensely serious and I couldn’t sense his emotions.
“I always remember my first Angel feather.” I eyed his golden plumage with a wink.
“You’ve been threatening my guards,” Uriah said.
“I would say that they started it, but that would be positively juvenile.” I grasped the bars and leant forward. The iron numbed my fingers and threatened to sap my magic but I would be damned if I was going to show one of the Lord's Chosen that I was weak.
“What happened to your child?” the angel’s eyes narrowed.
“I don’t know.”
“Your mate?”
“You mean Luc?” I asked. “I don’t know.”
Uriah did not look like he believed me as he pushed his hands inside of his pockets and sighed.
“Are you the infamous Commander?” I asked.
“I am the one that released you from the Ice Prison, yes.”
So, that's where I had been. It was all darkness to me. Nothingness and freezing emptiness. “Why?”
“The Guardian decreed it.” He said without inflection.
I nodded as if I understood but said nothing.
“The Lord has requested a meeting with you,” Uriah informed me. His sentence trailed off as he took in my furrowed brow and distanced expression.
“I have no desire to meet God.”
“The Lord.” He corrected. “Of the Summerland.”
“Heaven,” I said.
Uriah sighed again. So heavily that I thought his soul was trying to leave his body. “If you have no wish to meet the Lord, then you will simply rot here.”
I released the bars and stretched out my fingers, relishing in the pins and needles that had stiffened them. The iron was sturdy but it would not hold me forever.
“I have no desire to meet the Lord,” I repeated, using his correct title. “I simply want to go back to Hell.”
Uriah smiled sadly. “It’s been five years, Ms Clark.” He said lightly. “I am not sure that you would like what you find if you returned.”
I did not know how long I was left alone after Uriah walked away from the bars of my cell. I was beyond incensed.
Five years had passed.
My connection to Hell was muted but present, which meant that I no longer slept or needed food.
I closed my eyes and sorted through my photographic memory for possible ways to break through the bars. Freezing them would have been the easiest option. Chilling the metal and the shattering it into tiny pieces.
The only problem? My prison was encased in iron, the second that my magic got close to the bars, it would fade to nothing. Stolen by the metal.
I thought about what Luc would do but came up short. There was always a level of mystery around my Master that I didn’t quite understand.
Would he have broken through the stone walls with his fists in the air like the warrior king he was?
Or would he wear his title as the Devil proudly and chip away at his capturer's integrity by offering them anything they could ever want?
Would he bide his time?
I surveyed my thought process with a critical eye. Did I always count on others to make decisions for me? Did I simply wait for things to happen to me?
The Summerland was Heaven.
I was a Queen in my own right. Any human or Hellion would sell their soul for an audience with me. I may have been bolstered into my pedestal by the Devil, but I had power of my own. And yet, the Lord summoned me like a peasant.
I huffed a sigh with my eyes closed and my cheek against the limestone. The sound of rushing footsteps was enough to bring me back to the surface from my thoughts.
I sensed the pulsating anger that wrapped around the air and strangled the oxygen from it. It was a similar effect to that of a Seventh Circle Hellion. They tended to suck all energy from their surroundings like a sponge.
“Demon,” One of the Angels hissed. His feathers glinted gold and then silver in the light but it was hard to focus on his form. A strange sensation stabbed at the front of my mind. Magic. I tried to focus on the group but my vision slipped over them and I was unable to see straight. It must have been a spell. It almost impossible to look at them, let alone talk back to them. I could not count how many there were, as they snuck up to the bars of my cell like a horde of cowards.
I had surveyed the bars of my prison numerous times in the hours that I had been left alone, and yet, a door that I did not know existed swung open and allowed the winged peons entrance into my cramped prison.
The iron gate swung shut and melted back into an impenetrable wall of bars. I could not see how many there were, but the shimmering powder of whatever Angelic spell they had cast fell to the floor like glitter as they moved.
I felt the air shift as I was surrounded. I laid on the floor, on my side but with my spine to the wall. They could not attack from behind, but that meant little if I could not see my attackers.
I closed my eyes again and inhaled deeply, taking in their individual scents. There were five of them. They smelt like a combination of fresh rain and citrus fruit. I recognised the scent of Tweedle-Dum, the warrior. Although, his much smaller companion was not with the group of midnight visitors.
“We’re going to teach you a lesson.”
“Demons don’t deserve to live.”
“Lucifer should pay for what he did to our Lord.”
“Nova is forgiving, but we are not.”
The low rumble of multiple voices as they spat words at me filled my ears. They tugged on my shoulders to urge me to the centre of my empty cell, and it was enough to make my blood chill.
The tapered darkness inside of my mind rimmed the edge of my vision and my bloodlust grew.
The demon inside of me curled my fingers until they sharped to talons. I relished in the familiar feeling of changing my form. My magic reached out like dark tendrils, searching, seeking something to constrict and suffocate.
Angels were unlike anything which I had ever encountered before. Their shells were human, but their innards were energy and light. I could poison their souls with a simple lick of my power. I watched the white purity of their divinity turn black and I grabbed the body of the closest angel and ripped his head clean off.
The spell faded from the fallen guard as his life flickered out like a blown bulb. His head fell to the ground with a surprisingly loud thump.
“I've not beheaded someone in an age,” I mused and then licked the pearlescent blood my hooked talon. It was bitter like soap.
I felt the others shift as another Angel darted forward and grabbed a handful of my platinum hair.
I staggered backwards and slammed the guard into the wall with all the force I could muster. His ribs shattered and I dug my claws into his forearms. His arms tightened around my waist as I slammed my head back into the angel’s nose. The crunch of his septum was a sound that I would replay and savour later.
I ignored the shell and reached forward and gripped the heart of the shimmering guard in front of me, as he stalked towards me. Invisible even to my demonic vision, I clasped where his heart should have been and my magic curled like a barbed wire punch, latching onto his soul and leaving jagged marks all over it.
Demons were grounded. Flesh, blood, and magic. Angels straddled the line between reality and the ether.
I punched, clawed and took more hits than I would care to admit. My already ruined clothing had gone hard with blood, and my hair was ratty with the jewel-like angelic fluids that sprayed from their body when they bled.
With my enemies surrounding me, dead on the floor. I was alone again. My chest heaved and the beast inside of me roared and revelled at the corpses. The proof of my strength.
They could send as many of their winged weaklings as they wanted. Nothing can break the Queen of the First Circle.