I jerked away from him.
Flight’s hilt cooled, as the fire died. With a shudder, the white slipped from my mind.
I stared down at the sword in my shaky hands.
So much power…
Drake had saved me. Except, if I didn’t take on his dare and reject, in whatever way I could, the Matriarch’s transformations, then in seven days my own weapon would turn assassin.
Light fingers traced down my spine.
I jumped, as the Matriarch rested her chin on my shoulder with her arms around my waist.
My mum hadn’t hugged me before, but this parody made me want to scratch off my own skin.
“Seven days, I believe?” The Matriarch’s tinkling laugh would’ve shattered fairies’ wings; I gritted my teeth. Drake screwed closed his eyes. “What? Did you think that I’d mistake you for whispering lovers? Boy, you are delicious in your anger. And your contempt for my Wing, baby bird, makes for sugared, hate-filled treats.” She swung me around like a rag-doll. “Children, both of you.”
“I’m all grownup, bitch.” I shrugged away from her.
And she let me.
Her gaze, however, was frosty once more. “Then you play for adult stakes. Seven days to become, how did my boy so naughtily put it…? My monstrous shadow. If not, then I shall do the honors of the kill.”
I froze. Why did my mum and the cold but pretty angel, who I’d come to consider mine, want to kill me?
“That’s not fair. I can’t become both like you…and not like you. In a week I’ll be killed whatever I do.”
Drake still hadn’t opened his eyes.
Not that I blamed him.
The Matriarch pushed a tendril of hair, which had curled into the pool of scarlet on the floor, away with her stiletto, like a sweeping brush. “By my wing, did those silly humans teach you that life was fair?”
I twisted away, resting my hands against the wall.
If there was one thing I knew, it was how unfair life was.
“So, I get to choose death by shank or psycho Queen?”
“Hush, princess. You get to choose who you are.” Drake’s head hung low, but I jolted at the intensity of his words. “And I believe you to be extraordinary.”
Extraordinary or not, I had seven days to become a princess, in a new supernatural world.
If I didn’t become a savior for Drake, I was dead, chunky salsa style. And if I didn’t do a Cinderella for my mum, I’d dance to the same sizzling tune.
What did I know about ruling? I’d been an orphan, dropout, and gamer.
And I was still a prisoner.
Pulsing scarlet blocks shifted restlessly on the spiral shelves that wound above my head.
I cringed at the growls from the slabs like the make-believe monsters were truly clawing to escape.
Achoo!
Sneezing on the stone dust, I stumbled in the crimson-dyed circular chamber, only to be caught by a small wing, which looped around me.
I rested back against the feathers.
A breeze ghost-walked across my skin, before whirlwind dancing around the raised platform in the center of the room, where a single block lay on the plinth, snarling to itself.
Flight rested cool against my back in a gold-threaded leather harness and scabbard. Drake had said that his sword would watch over my choices. It was like having my own execution weapon hanging around my neck.
The Matriarch had insisted, still stroking Drake’s mutilated wing, that I start my first day of training.
“A shadow who flies at my side must have the mental strength to survive.” I hadn’t understood the glare that she’d shot Drake, or the tightening of her fingers into his wing. But then, I’d remembered Flight’s white magic overpowering me, Drake’s violet tendrils threading through my mind, and the way that the Matriarch had herself read Drake’s memories through a touch of his wings. These bastards played the game inside each other, as much as with physical strength outside. “Imperfect as he is, your first Trainer, Harahel, is owned by one I trust. Seven days, baby bird.”
I twisted to the Wing, Harahel, who’d steadied me.
Harahel slouched against the platform. He was smaller than Rebel and although he was striking, he had a weariness that looked etched into the lines around his eyes. He smelled of sweet green apples, like an orchard on the turn of spring; my mouth watered.
Maybe I could convince Gwyn that I had a rare disease treated orally by apples.
Brunet curls fell to the waistband of Harahel’s ash gray harem trousers; he twiddled with their ends, studying me with a smirk.
It was almost possible not to notice that Harahel was missing his right hand.
Except, I had. And when I’d glanced too long, he’d blushed.
Was that why he was wearing ash, rather than indigo trousers?
Go for the hands, Rebel had taught me, then the head. Because angels and vampires couldn’t grow them back…
I eyed Harahel. The Matriarch trusted the Glory who owned him.
Did that mean I couldn’t?
You started the game, hooker. Why are you gagging that Commander Goldilocks has raised the stakes? Or that his Ice Mistress has doubled them?
I can’t be the princess they both want, J.
You only bring one flavor to the party.
A monster, I get you.
You’re a huntress. You’re also a princess, Miss Fabulous, even if you’re not yet feeling the crown thing.
When rulers have their heads chopped off, they lose their crowns.
Then win this dare. Don’t become their princess. Become mine.
I smiled at J’s possessive growl; there was no doubt that I was his.
“This is a library?” I whistled, studying the glowing vision out of Potter’s wet dream. “Hell, if my school had one like this, maybe I wouldn’t have played truant.”
Harahel sniggered. “Yeah, but then I’d have had to kill you.”
I spluttered, “What, bro?”
“Joking.” He raised his neat eyebrow. “I’d explode the whole school. Boom!” He puffed out his chest. I shot him another uneasy glance. He sighed, deflating. “Joking. The book would explode the whole city. It’s protected, for pure angel eyes only. Or royalty, like you.”
“Password protected like a computer.”
He cocked his head. “What’s a computer?”
Now it was my turn to snigger. “Isn’t the brave warrior of boom plugged into social media?”
Harahel booted at the platform; the block vibrated, deepening to burgundy. “Since this…” He raised his stump, and I fought not to flinch. “I’m one of the Imperfect. Confined to barracks. Humans could’ve invented flying horses, and I’d be clueless.”
“I’d better not explain about iPods, smartphones, and YouTube then. I don’t want my outfit brain splattered when I blow your mind.”
“Back at you, when I blow your mind,” he pouted, “you haven’t read one of my books yet.”
“Cool comeback, bro. This is me, quaking in my leather boots.”
The blocks on the lower levels bellowed, and I cowered.
Way to go with the diplomacy, Feathery-cakes.
Don’t piss off the freaky glowing stones, I get you.
“If I wasn’t in the Lower Level of Angels, you’d be dangling upside down in those pretty leather boots.” Harahel scowled, before grinning. “But hey, when you’re the Wing of a General like Anpiel, who worries about a little ash mixed in with the violet? It’s not like I care…what they say.” He waggled his eyebrows. “And look at me, taking the mighty princess back to school.”
His eyes widened, as if his brain had caught up with the words spilling out of his mouth. He fell to his knees in front of me, spreading out his delicate wings, in what I’d learned with horror to be the punishment position.
“Get up,” I grimaced.
Harahel had just spoken to me in the most human way since I’d been dragged to Angel World.
His cringing fear…?
> He could stick that.
“Sorry, I forget myself...that I’m now Imperfect.”
I nudged Harahel with my toe. “Do I look like I’ve been drinking the Psycho Juice? You’re just you, and I’m just me. Nobody’s perfect.”
Flight hummed, flapping against my back and stroking me in tingling waves.
I could be losing it A Clockwork Orange style, but Drake’s surrogate mummy just patted me on the back.
Harem pants has you by your feathery pussy, girl.
Do you want to discover what the sword does if it decides to punish your ass?
I flinched, as the sword settled.
Harahel stared at me, before pushing himself up. “Anpiel will love you, and believe me, she hates most Glories. In Angel World? You need allies.” When I looked away, he frowned. “You do have allies?”
“Does a Commander count, who’s threatened to get medieval on my ass if I don’t become the model princess?”
“That would be a no.” Harahel snatched my arm, and I was wrapped in a warm apple scent, as he dragged me in front of the platform. The burgundy block snarled even louder. “Well, now you have me, and I bet Anpiel too. She’s sister to the Supreme Commander, so—”
“Joking again, yeah?”
He bowed his head. “Who’d joke about having Hasmal as family?”
I snorted.
That solved the Matriarch trusting him sized puzzle, but not whether I could truly trust Harahel or Anpiel…
Harahel shook me, and I blinked. “Concentrate. Do you want to be torn — rip — into a million itty pieces and then barbecued?”
“That’d be a no.”
“Do you train for the queen, or for yourself?”
I crossed my arms. “Why? Do rainbows spout sparkling out of your arse if I say myself?”
“You don’t die.”
I swallowed, looking away. “I didn’t decide to train but I choose to grow strong, so…train the hell out of me.”
“All I needed to know.” He shoved me closer to the block.
Grrrrrr.
I jumped, before narrowing my eyes. “Calm your Gremlin arse down, I’m on the side of the angels.”
Harrumph.
The block flopped on the plinth, shrugging pompously to itself.
I scrutinized the smooth block. There was one stone thorn in the center like the tip of a sharp nose.
When I was a teenager, I’d once seen a bloke discovered on a building site, who’d drowned in cement. Only the tip of his nose had peeked out.
What was hidden inside this block?
“How’d I read this sexy slab?” I tapped its edge.
Mrrrrr….
Screw me sideways, I could swear that was a purr.
Just call me Ambassador of Diplomacy.
Harahel clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Hey, you haven’t called your favorite Trainer sexy. And we use these Gateways to search.”
“Like the Internet for spell casters,” I muttered.
Harahel tilted his head. “Does your Internet work with blood as well?”
I traced my fingers over the Gateway’s warm skin-like surface; it shivered. “Blood…?”
He crushed my palm down over the Gateway.
I howled, as my skin was pricked Sleeping Beauty style by the stone thorn. My blood trickled, melding with the Gateway, whilst it roared along with every other pulsing block.
I jerked, fighting the drag towards the Gateway…into it.
My brain was torn to a million itty pieces. My body juddered, fried with electric currents down my spinal column and tree branch spreading to my fingertips. And I flew the crimson path of my blood into the roaring mouth of the Gateway.
When it swallowed me, I screamed.
6
I flew over the blood rainbow into the world inside the Gateway.
Fat scarlet tears soaked my dress. I shivered, even as I screamed into the gushing red that was frying me from the inside out.
Then I was falling.
I twisted, clawing at the void. My guts lurched. Copper stickiness coated my nostrils, sweet and tangy.
Nothing but this tumble into...
My blood.
I hollered.
J, help me, I’m asking.
Two things you’re the mistress of: blood and gaming.
Didn’t you tell Mr Sweet Thing Librarian (and I’d stamp his ass property of J’s any day), that this was a computer?
This gory nightmare isn’t real?
Oh, you can bet your hoochie mama ass it’s real.
If you bleed out in here, then you’ll be the most beautiful corpse in the cemetery out there as well.
Cheers for the visual.
So, how’s this like Angels vs Vampires? When I design a game, I’m the bitch in charge of the controls.
You still are. You just don’t know whether to swipe left or right yet. But you better work it out fast before you hit the blood brick road.
I groaned, somersaulting.
Harahel was taking the piss.
If these Gateways were like interactive books, however, then what was Harahel showing me? Or was the Gateway calling the shots?
Or my own blood?
Yet Harahel had said that it was a search, and I was a computer’s mistress. I could make a search engine lick my leather boots.
I concentrated, hauling back against the hissing pull of the red. One final yank downwards, before I stilled, hanging mid-air. “This is my gametime. And I’m about to God-out.”
Crimson strands wove around me. Glittering sparks crackled across my skin, jolted through my heart, and burned me to another Level of Perfection.
They shot me up…up…up…until I burst free of the blood rainbow and into a golden chamber.
No wonder Ash’s geek heart sought out every gadget and console for his gamer’s heaven apartment on earth if he’d been exiled as the Fallen from this.
“Now show me how I become the princess I need to survive and escape?” I demanded. “What does royal blood mean?”
I hoped Harahel couldn’t see me. Hacking the database to find ways to escape Angel World wasn’t what the Matriarch had meant by training.
I yelped, stepping back, as ranks of Wings bowed down before me, materializing in the gold. Their wings were cauterized stumps just like Gwyn’s or Rebel’s in the vision Drake had shown me in London. Drake had claimed that it was a future path if I didn’t return with him to Angel World.
Had it been a lie, or were visions one of Drake’s Angelic Powers? And if so, what else could he see?
I gasped.
Streaks of blood seeped from the blokes’ backs, before coiling out of the wounds into curled letters:
Love touched
Blood Princess
We fly Again.
What was it with the riddles?
Are you seeing this, J?
Receiving loud and clear the screwed-up alternative to ink on those pretty boys.
I’m a Blood Princess?
What the hell is that? I survive by becoming the Big Bad?
You asked to see the meaning of royal blood: here’s the answer, Feathery-highness.
And who do I get love touching?
Maybe it’s who touches you…?
Both Rebel and Ash, angel and vampire, knelt for you. You need them. You can’t fly alone.
Why did I get the feeling that J needed them as much as I did?
“Princess…” The holler fractured the gold, shook the walls, and bled the bowed angels melting into the floor. “Princess, please…”
Harahel.
A wail.
Then, moaned this time, “Princess…”
Harahel hadn’t called me by my title before. Whoever was hurting the librarian enough to push the word from his lips was going down Hackney style.
“Time to return to real life.” I closed my eyes, clicking my heels three times because when would I have the opportunity to take the piss like that again? “Next stop, Angel World.”
I screamed, ripping into itty million pieces and frying electric chair in reverse. Then I was back in the room of spiraling books. I tottered, falling with a panicked flail of my arms. My joints wobbled elastic-like, snapped by the travel through the Gateway.
Crack — there went my knee-caps on the floor.
And Harahel…?
He gazed at me pleadingly, held on his knees against the back wall. His head had been wrenched to the side by his long curls so that the graceful line of his neck was exposed as if in vampire porn.
And he was naked.
He flinched, when my scrutiny dropped to his trousers that were pooled next to him.
When I raised my gaze to the Glory who was holding him down, sparks skittered over my skin in defense of Harahel, my first ally.
“You dare raise your eyes to a Glory?” The angelic asshole, whose silver threaded hair was held back in a bun by two diagonal feathers, (although she had more muscles than any granny I’d ever seen), twisted her hand in Harahel’s hair, and he yowled. “Your status is less than a Glory child, Imperfect. If you behave as one, shall I not treat you as one?”
“I’ll tell my bonded my misbehavior, Pronoia,” Harahel bit out. “She has the right to punish me.”
He didn’t add not you. But he might as well have rapped it, before blowing a raspberry.
Harahel had some swag.
“I’ll inform Anpiel myself, Imperfect,” Pronoia pursed her mouth in disdain, “once I’ve handed out my own chastisement.”
“Enough with the Psycho Gran routine.” I fought to push myself up; my calves quivered. “And since when did the naughty step involve a bare bum?”
Flight hummed her approval, flapping on my back.
“You’ll get your chance soon, girl,” I muttered.
Pronoia tutted. “By the Matriarch, princess, you are ill behaved. But what is to be expected of a mongrel?”
I reddened.
What had I reckoned? She’d bow? Grovel? Kiss my arse? Just because I was a princess? Or because she was frightened of the Matriarch?
But mongrel? Is that what the Glories thought of me behind my back?
“A mongrel with royal blood,” Harahel snarled, and I blinked at the sudden fight in his eyes, even as he held himself still. “Who’s already fought the Pure. She’d bite through your wrinkled old neck, just like I could…before.”
Rebel Angels: The Complete Series Page 32