He licked his lips again. “I don’t know how long it will be until the king gets word of this. The road will be dangerous, and we’ll be stopped by the Crimson Army. When they spot the car, they’ll want to know why the Butchers are coming to the castle without making a request first.”
“Can you give me directions? You don’t have to drive me.”
“I-I can. But it is—”
“I don’t care how dangerous it is. I have to get to the castle. I have to—”
A shout from outside, then the crack of a gunshot.
A scream.
I moved to the window.
There was the body of a man on the garden path outside, a bullet wound in his head, a crimson soldier standing over it. It was a male soldier, laughing behind his helmet.
A man in rags ran at him. “My son! You killed my son!”
The guard shot the man dead.
“Let that be a lesson to all of you!”
That voice. Tenshi, that voice!
Colin?
I ran downstairs. That was two deaths too many. On my way, I went to the cabinet with the guns and retrieved a revolver. One of the drawers housed the ammo. I loaded up and dashed to the front door, weaving through frightened folk.
“Stay back. Go take cover and keep away from the windows.”
The door was ajar. I stepped outside with the gun raised.
I heard the gasp, then the voice within the helmet spoke. “Gabriel?” He laughed. “Isn’t this a turn out for the books?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Man, the water was cold.
The damn hand still had me held right, taking me all the way down to the inky bottom of the lake. I struggled and kicked and mentally cursed the fucker, but it just crushed me tighter, my arms stuck between large fingers, my own fingers twitching out in the dark like little worms ready for watery jaws.
I stopped twitching them.
Lost my katanas again! Great!
I wasn’t, well, a fish, so this shit had to end sharpish, or I was gonna be a floating corpse.
Something cut through the water, churning up the dark. Oh, fuck. Some big nasty? Drown or get eaten. What a choice.
The hilts of my katanas brushed my fingers and palms. Not big and nasty, but pointy and awesome! I locked my hands around them as if they were flies, and my hands were Venus Fly Traps scoring some grub.
My swords as flies? Right…
I brought them up, my wrists twisting, the spikes of the shackles that still clung to me like silver leeches putting their painful moves on me. The blades touched the blue hand and sucked it down, the dark water igniting with the red and white lightshow of the blades sucking energy.
When you thought about it, I was kinda like a baku with their sucking ways. Maybe that should’ve been my other half and not this half-tenshi thing.
My brain was still trying to wrap itself around the revelation.
Boom! I was free. Just like that.
I swam upwards for precious air and got it. I sucked it in as I broke the surface, gorging on it.
Something wrapped around my ankle and I was yanked back down.
I stabbed down at the thing with my sword, the trajectory slow in the water, but it caught a fleshy lump.
More light show, free again, a mighty source of power flooding my blades. A groan below me, a strong current spinning me. I let it, knowing to never swim against these things.
Stay calm. Don’t fight it. Don’t panic.
When the current stopped, and another groan came from way down in the depths, I kicked my legs back to the top, breaking the surface of the lake for a second time.
My katanas buzzed with power. What’d I just stabbed? Plus, I now potentially had some of the king’s magic stored—a big blue hand of my own. Well, white if I could use it.
No reason why I shouldn’t be able to.
Time to get the hell out of the water. Without sheathing my weapons, I swam to the nearest bank, ready for the next thing to grab me.
I was so fucking sick of being grabbed.
Nothing did, though. Small mercies and shit.
I waded out of the water, trudging up the muddy slope of the bank, pushing my hair out of my face.
“Fucking wanker king.” I breathed, getting some more air into my lungs.
Coffee, beer—any of that would do. Then a hug from G and a session in the kitchen whipping up some cupcakes. Chocolate ones with a fresh strawberry nestled in the buttercream icing.
Bliss.
A kiss from G…
I had to find him again. Willow Street was nearby. That was where the café was. Hopefully, he was still safe inside. He’d probably be looking for me, knowing him, though.
Right, time to—
Voices.
The Butchers?
I hurried to the path that ran past the mansion, drawing my katanas and sending Bob and Rose in the direction of the voices.
A warm beam of happy came straight at me from my babies as they wove in and out of G’s legs. There was also a growl for the other guy there in the small garden with the beta.
Colin.
I broke into a run.
Chapter Thirty
Gabriel
Rage. Bloodlust, the kind that’d flooded me when I’d made my first kill on my thirteenth birthday, the kind I’d been trapped in under the red moon.
Colin. Dead. One of the ten wolves belonging to High Alpha’s personal unit of warriors. Dead. The man who’d beaten Akira, used him, broke him, was dead.
At the end of this revolver.
“I came for lover boy,” he said.
“Where is he?” I held the gun steady.
“You don’t know?”
“Answer me.”
“Guess what, Gabriel? You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore.”
“Where is he, Colin?”
“You must be deaf in your death.” He chuckled. “Look at the state of you. What a pleasing sight. Gabriel Dawson dead. No longer the beta, nothing but a pathetic dead creature at my mercy.”
My hold on myself was fracturing. “Where’s Akira?”
“Like I’ll ever tell you. Don’t worry, you’ll never see—”
“G?”
A jolt to my chest as Aki appeared on the garden path, dripping wet.
Colin cocked his gun.
I cocked mine.
Chapter Thirty-One
Holy shit!
G and Colin. I heard him when I’d rocked up to the garden gate.
Holy bastard shit!
A gun went off, and I yelled in shock.
No! Not again! Don’t let G be—
Colin was sprawled on the ground, not G. He was howling in pain, a bullet hole in his armored leg.
Looked like the kneecap.
Whoa.
“Not so strong,” G said, striding over to Colin.
“Get away!” the ex-werewolf roared, struggling with his gun.
G grabbed the gun and tossed it off to the side, dropping his own. His eyes were twin pools of molten gold, rage coming off him in hot, invisible waves.
Oh, tenshi. He was enough to make me piss myself.
Even Bob and Rose lowered their eyes, tails between their legs as they backed off, whining.
Through them, I could smell his bloodlust.
He tore the armor from Colin’s body, exposing white material beneath.
“Get away!” Colin screamed as G ripped into his flesh.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Gabriel
The blood, the flesh, the entrails, and everything that was him.
It all had to end.
Bloodlust was my master.
For Aki.
This was for Aki.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Colin’s screams still rang in my ears like a sweet song.
There was blood everywhere, entrails painting the path and grass. G had ripped him all the way up the middle, cracking his chest open, crushing Colin’s heart in his hand. By
the time he got to ripping the head off the wanker, Colin had stopped screaming and twitching. He was nothing but a really messy corpse.
With the head of Colin in his big hands, he pulled off the helmet, a beast lost to his savage spirit. G growled at the head, then smashed it onto the path with so much force it exploded, spraying bone and blood and brain matter in a sickeningly crunchy, wet bang.
At least, it would’ve been sickening if it hadn’t been so fucking satisfying. The gore left from Colin’s slaughter was the prettiest piece of art I’d ever seen. Not one single splatter or lump turned my stomach, the components making my grin proper wide with my own bloodlust.
G was panting, staring down at the broken head, then switched his attention to me.
His beautiful dark skin was covered in blood and sweat.
G.
G was here, all six-foot-four of him.
I ran at him as he ran at me, crashing together, limbs locking in the biggest bear hug ever. Oh, tenshi. I was in his arms again, him in mine.
Together.
Reunited.
We kissed, lips smashing together with desperate need, a force flooding through me I had zero control over. And I didn’t wanna control it. I wanted his lips, his arms around me, not giving two shits about Colin’s blood on him.
G.
G was here. He was fucking here!
G.
When the kissing ended, I leaned back to take in his handsome face, those strong and chiseled features, to touch the stubble that’d just rubbed against mine as we’d embraced, to drink in his Christmassy smell cutting through the gory scents.
I smiled up at him. “You’re here.” I had to keep reminding myself that this was real. Tears spilled down my cheeks and my heart was ready to burst with so much fucking joy.
“And so are you, Aki.” He stroked the side of my face.
We hugged each other tight, so tight I didn’t think I’d ever let him go. I listened to his heartbeat with my face buried in his chest, let it remind me that he was right here with me again, alive, not dead.
My G.
The two of us together again.
Man, these tears wouldn’t stop.
When the hug ended, and the silent sobbing, I fingered the dreamcatcher pendant. “You know what this is yet?” I asked softly.
“Strange,” he replied. “I’ve shifted since being here, and it didn’t break.”
“Thank the tenshi for that.”
“You know what it is, don’t you?” he asked.
Our foreheads touched. “Yeah. It’s made the best smoke and mirrors trick ever. You’re not dead. I’m not dead. Nothing but a dream.” I told him all about the dreaming death stuff.
Foreheads parted, him frowning. “I’m not dead.”
“She’s good, that dream witch, eh?”
“Extremely.” His brow was proper creased in, well, confusion.
“Gives me a headache,” I said, “but also makes me wanna kiss that woman for making this possible.”
He took my face in his hands, his thumbs stroking the tops of my ears. “I’m here for you.”
Companion… A gift by your side… “Yeah,” I breathed, eyes welling up again.
He looked down. “Your wrists, Aki.” Gently, he lifted them, stroking the shackles.
“Yeah, those Butcher bastards did this. Need to try and unlock them.”
A ring of gold fire still shimmered in G’s green eyes. “They did this to you?”
“Yep. Shame I missed them snuffing it.”
But seeing Colin get torn apart was much, much better.
He was actually dead. Again.
The dead star maker was dead, gone from this existence into another, never to darken my doorway again.
I hoped.
This time it better stick.
Gone.
Colin gone.
He’d been my obsession, the first man I’d fallen head-over-heels in love with, who’d swept me up into a dreamy world of romance and sex, only to pull his pants down and shit all over it with pain and misery, leaving my heart in pieces, killing all the stars and the hope of love. Took love and choked it, shot it in the head over and over again, locked it into his werewolf jaws and tore into nothing.
Took my soul and wrung it dry.
Now he was gone.
Breaking out of the bubble of me and G, I noticed a load of eyes of me. People who’d been through the wringer, shocked and confused, maybe not enjoying the carnage on the small front garden like I was.
“We need to chat some more,” I said.
G turned his head to the crowd outside the mansion door. “We certainly do.”
* * *
We sat alone in a room together. I’d never seen so many doilies in my life, but the sofa was comfy, and that was good enough for me. We were sitting at an angle to face each other on the two-seater. I didn’t wanna take my eyes off him.
Everyone else gave us some space to talk.
We wouldn’t stay here long.
G’d told me all about the things he’d been up to, how his bullet wound had basically gone thanks to his wolfy healing, about the people he’d met, the mega interesting bone key stuff.
“Bet the king thought he was so smart hiding it,” I’d said. “Smug wanker.”
Then it was my turn to tell him all about the king, the shit that’d gone down, Colin stuff, going over the stuff the petal woman had told me about the dreaming death again and then topped it all off with the biggest cherry of them all—that I was half-tenshi.
He blinked, showing nothing else but the natural rhythm of his eyes. It took him a good minute to answer. “That does explain why the mazoku have always acted the way they do around you, and why Mama Rita wanted you dead.”
“Yeah. It does. Dunno why anyone couldn’t just tell me straight up.”
“Extremely frustrating. But from what you said, this is all part of the trial—a correlation of events and actions to make the greater whole of your destiny. To discover the truth, as the woman had mentioned in your dream.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “For real?”
“You don’t think so?”
“Yeah. I do, really. I just wish I could see the greater whole. And I know it’s all part of my journey. At least I now know I’m a half-tenshi with awesome katanas. I just want more answers. Ugh. I’m not gonna whine.”
“At least Mama Rita thinks you’re dead.”
That made me smile a bit. “Yeah. That’s one for me—for us.” The weight, that crushing weight of everything on my body and soul, wanting to grind me down. “I just can’t deal with this idea of being tenshi. It can’t be right, can it? Me? Part divine being? It’s not… I mean, I’ve seen some freaky shit in my time, but this ain’t right, G.”
“I think it is, Aki. Your katanas, the mazoku, this thing with you on a quest to break the curse on the moon.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
My lips were tingling from that kiss. I wanted more, even though I shouldn’t be thinking about it. I mean, he was still covered in Colin’s blood, we were filthy, and there was danger everywhere, but that didn’t stop the heat in my groin, the desire to rip that white throw off him and—
I shuffled in my seat. “I know you’re right. A part of me gets the tenshi bit, accepts it because it’s there. But the other half wants the king to be talking out of his arse, that I’m still lost at sea with this ‘who am I?’ stuff. Somehow it was more comfortable not knowing, you know?”
“I get that, Aki. Denial is sweeter than reality sometimes.”
Since when did his lashes cast shadows on his cheeks? “Bit like me and you.”
“Yes. But the reverse.”
“Reality is defo sweeter. What does it mean? For us?”
“I don’t know. But I want to find out.”
A nice tightness in my chest. “Me too,” I whispered, then sat up straight after thirty seconds of staring at him, thinking about him naked and wild things we could be doing on this sofa. “First thi
ngs first, though.”
“Yes. Kill the king. I’m with you on that theory. He has to be stopped regardless.”
“So, we get back to the castle and take him down and then help these people open the way to paradise.”
He smiled. “Sounds like an excellent plan.”
“Maybe then things will go back to normal, and I can go and kick arse with my new katanas and get more answers about how to break the moon.”
What did this have to do with Mount Tate and that pagoda, and how the fuck was I gonna stop Mama Rita and were my new blades actually for the moon? They had a part to play, sure. But what?
Within for without, that’s the petal woman had said.
Gah! Okay. Keep on keeping, and don’t go crackers.
Just wait and see.
If I thought too much about these things, they’d wind me up and make my brain go pop. Head in the game again, get this done and save the world.
G’s cock was waiting just under that throw…
Head in the game, dickhead!
* * *
I struck the glowing blue chain wrapped around the safe with a katana. It snapped open, and my pointy beauties got fed some more energy, a prickling up my spine and a dancing tickle in my veins following.
“I found a blowtorch,” the girl called Jessie announced.
Those dead Butcher wankers… The things they must’ve put these people through. I mean, I’d heard some of it for myself when I’d been dragged here.
Jessie handed the blowtorch to G, who got to work on the safe.
The plan was this. Stay in the mansion. Everyone was armed with something for any attack that, let’s face it, would come down on us. All was quiet for now, no activity in the city from what any of us could see from the upper windows of the house.
Me and G were gonna head out to the castle soon. Alone. Too many peeps would be dangerous. That idea wasn’t going down too well with anyone. Everyone wanted a piece of the action, no matter how scared they were. They’d found out about the castle’s kitchen staff, how they’d helped me and lost their heads for it, and that’d been a spark for them.
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