“You’re joking, yeah? You’re nothing now. Just another Imperfect.” He grinned as he tapped her nose. “Enjoy my life.”
She howled and bit at his fingers, but he snatched his hand back with a laugh. He jumped up, sliding Flight underneath the Venus flytrap coils.
My head lolled; gray nibbled at the edges of my mind.
“Hang in there,” Harahel muttered. “And yeah, that was a bad pun. Can you even hear me?”
My eyelashes fluttered.
“I’m taking that as a yes.” He yanked back Flight.
Rip — Flight tore through the tongue in a burst of reeking fluids.
Harahel caught me in his arms, as I toppled forwards lost to the poison.
…A feathery nest… Fingers stroking my cheek… Scratches throbbing… Burning, burning, burning…
Thick paste cooling like breath blowing through my veins… Sting fading… Fever dying to embers…
“…What then?” Ash’s frustrated whisper. “The Pure are fanatics, but their strategy is sound. Remove the wings, remove the means of escape.”
“You’re saying it all arseway, Brigadier. They only copied the Matriarch’s trick.” Rebel’s reply. “The real problem with us scattering is Broken Hollow. There’s no way out of that bleeding place unless you count the sunlight shafts. And what was the problem with that again?”
“No wings. That’s called trapping yourself in an indefensible position: the bottom of the mountain. Plus, you’re giving me the shivers, angel. Has Violet ever told you how sexy you are when you play at General?”
At Rebel’s roar, I blinked open my eyes. “Play nicely, boys. I didn’t know war games gave you stiffies.”
Instantly, they were at my side, each touching one injured palm, as they glowered at each other.
I squirmed; I’d been laid in the far corner on Battle’s nest of feathers. My armor had been stripped away, along with Star. When I strained, I could hear fighting above us and further out in the corridors.
The vampires had shattered Angel World.
“What’s Broken Hollow?” I asked.
“Most Glories don’t allow their Broken to sleep in their chambers,” Rebel answered. “They’re after using them, then sending them to the Hollow. Broken are kicked and booted if they’re found in the rest of Angel World without a Glory, so it’s where they live the rest of the time too.” His eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you know?”
I looked away, unable to meet his gaze.
Gwyn had merely always been there when I’d needed him, disappearing somewhere when he wasn’t.
How did I break out the toys, when Broken Hollow was deep in the mountain, designed to hold the wingless captive?
I wrinkled my nose: a medicinal cherry gloop clung to my exposed skin. It ponged like wood smoke.
Dillon clattered a tray of the cherry herb by my head, and I met his eye. “Cheers for the save. Again.”
Dillon shrugged. “It was one of my duties to tend to my ex-owner when she pricked herself.” He sneered dismissively at Battle’s huddled form on the training space. “And I didn’t do it for you.” His lips twitched into an almost smile. “I wouldn’t want Gwyn to injure himself by slapping me again.”
“Careful, cariad,” Gwyn popped up from the feathers behind me, pouting, “fear the wrath of Gwyn.”
Dillon snorted with laughter.
“Say we set up a plan to play Pied Piper and lead the slaves out of Broken Hollow?” I sat up. “What about the slaves trapped in their Glories’ rooms?”
Hold onto your strawberry cheeks, hooker, the Pied Piper drowned those rats, he didn’t save them. Plus, he wasn’t the poster boy for equality because he left behind the boy who couldn’t walk fast enough.
Are you abandoning those who can’t fly to safety? Or are you leading them to their deaths?
Bitch, that’s the last time I use a metaphor around you.
I notice that you’re not answering.
I turned down status, power, and my own mum. What more do you want?
You to prove it.
“We’ll find them.” Dillon dragged Gwyn up, hugging him to his side. “Then collect everyone, Broken and Imperfect, in Broken Hollow. We know the Glories who’ll be keeping their toys tied up.”
“I’ll go with them, knowing the Imperfect.” Harahel sheepishly held out Flight to me.
I hefted her by the hilt, before placing her down. “You’re a lucky bloke: she rolled over for a tummy rub. You tamed yourself one tough bitch.”
Harahel followed the Broken into the corridor, before calling back at us, “Hey, I’m irresistible.”
Ash sniggered, straightening to watch the door. “I like that angel.”
Rebel spluttered, staring at him. “Muppet.”
Haman knelt next to me, passing a cool cloth over the paste and easing it off. His hair swept across my skin, and his vanilla infused wings wrapped around me.
I sighed. “You’re hired.”
Haman giggled but then flushed, torturing his lower lip with his small teeth: just like his brother. “You look like a tribal princess.”
Rebel rolled his eyes. “She looks like a—”
“Choose your next words carefully,” I warned.
Rebel grinned. “Sow who’s rolled in mud.”
Ash smirked. “The art of seduction: R.I.P.”
Haman’s panicked gaze swung between Rebel and me. Then he curled over with his forehead to the floor. “Please forgive my brother. Zachriel doesn’t always know what… Please, it’s not his fault; discipline me…”
Rebel paled, tugging on Haman’s arm, but he wouldn’t kneel up.
Haman’s shaking only stopped, when I stroked through his hair. “No forgiving or disciplining. I’m not the bastard Legion. I don’t want you kneeling at my feet, but at my side or battling at my back.” I pulled Haman onto the feathers next to me, and he blinked at me, confused. “Rebel is fam. So, you are too.”
Haman stared at me. “I’ve been alone...the lowly Son of a Fallen…but now a princess claims me as family?”
Awkward, I shrugged. “Don’t go reckoning that I’m the Disney princess variety, more like the freaky bitch who leads you into the Apocalypse.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he firmly shook his head, “family is family.”
My eyes prickled. “Yeah, bro.”
“About the Apocalypse scenario…” Ash pulled off masterful Brigadier, even if he was the only naked one in the room. “How are we flying out of here with an army of the Broken? I’m trying to trust you, but unless they can grow wings, it’ll be our last stand.”
“You either trust me or you don’t. None of this trying bollocks.”
Ash mock saluted. “I trust you, Yoda.”
Grow wings…?
I quivered. Falling forward, I gripped onto Rebel.
Royal blood: J had called it powerful.
From the beginning, Drake had shown me visions, Ash had shied from it, Rebel had saved himself from Falling through it, and my Training had danced around it.
My blood.
It opened the Gateways because after everything I’d forgotten the vision they’d shown me when I’d first asked how to survive and escape Angel World. Because I hadn’t understood the riddle. Except, it’d told me the answer, and I’d ignored it.
I had to share the revelation.
Soaring, I pulled Rebel into a kiss, twining our tongues. First hesitant, and then lost in the thrill, he snogged back. When he closed his eyes, I stroked around the edges of the Mark.
He arched with the fireworks of pleasure sparking through him, and the image that I danced into his head.
Streaks of blood seeped from backs, before coiling out of the wounds into curled letters:
Love touched
Blood Princess
We fly Again.
Rebel jerked away from the kiss. “Blood Princess,” he whispered, snatching Star out of my scabbard, before flipping me onto my stomach.
Then he slashed throu
gh my dress, drove the shank between my shoulder blades with a twist, and made me bleed.
26
Betrayal is a bitch.
I howled, fumbling at the shank buried between my shoulders. I couldn’t reach the hilt, however, only the slick gush of my own blood.
Why was I bleeding like a victim in a slasher?
The jade walls smoldered — fire in their depths — as they rumbled.
I spluttered on the feathers forced onto my tongue, sinking face first into the nest.
This is why I never trusted bastard men, J.
You chose to show him the truth. Is it the loyal little punk’s fault that he has the cute as pie balls to act on it?
Loyal isn’t a knife in the back. I didn’t expect a literal acting out of Blood Princess.
What you expect and what you need, Violet-pod, aren’t the same thing.
My toes curled, as I panted.
Ash’s roar, followed by Rebel’s gasp, and Haman’s whine.
I edged onto my elbow, fighting against the blinding fireworks, which were bursting across my vision.
Ash clutched Rebel, wrenching back his head to expose his neck.
Crunch — Ash’s extended fangs sank into Rebel’s throat.
Rebel didn’t fight. Like a martyr, he hung in Ash’s arms, gnawing his lip swollen against the pain.
Slam.
A glorious burst of copper sweetness; it sang in spiraling harmonies.
Haman leapt onto Ash’s shoulders, beating him with his small fists, as tears streamed down his cheeks. “Leave my brother alone…” His breath hitched. “Stop hurting him…”
Instantly, Ash retracted his fangs, shoving Rebel to the floor, before carefully crouching to swing Haman down next to him. “Sorry, young one.”
Slam.
A syrupy wave dragged me under; my shoulder blades fizzed.
Haman wrapped his arms and wings around Rebel, licking at the puncture wounds on his neck. “Don’t leave me alone again…”
Rebel stroked a quivering hand down his brother’s cheek. “Get on with you, I swear nothing will part us again: we’re brothers.” He raised his middle finger at Ash. “And you’re a muppet. Stop wasting Feather’s blood; it’s how we’ll fly out of here.”
I jolted.
No matter how many times Rebel risked his life for me, or how I controlled and Marked him, when the blade had struck, I’d still reckoned the worst: I didn’t trust him. I shook with guilt and the need to lick the wounds on his neck, like Haman was, to take away his pain. Except, I still had a knife in my own back.
Rebel had worked it out. I was the Blood Princess: my blood was how we’d escape Angel World…and save it.
Ash blinked, flying on his own taste of Rebel’s blood.
Slam.
I tingled.
Would Ash be addicted to Rebel now like I was?
Ash snatched a bowl and bandages from a cabinet that stank of the same wood smoke herbs as Dillon had pasted across my skin: Battle’s Training kit. He sank to his knees next to me, stroking my hair to one side, before scraping the edge of the bowl through the blood. When he gripped Star’s hilt and pulled out the blade, blood gushed up volcano-like.
I shuddered.
Ash plugged the lava explosion with the bowl, before pulling back and pressing on a bandage. Then he started to thread a needle.
Stitches: bastard perfect.
I eyed the needle. “You know how to do that, nurse Fang?”
“Soldier. For centuries. Not just a pretty face.”
Rebel shuffled closer. Haman clasped his arms around his brother’s waist; his expression was fierce. He might be the younger brother, but he was too used to playing the protective alpha with the Broken.
“I ballsed that up.” Rebel glanced at me from underneath his eyelashes. Delicious scarlet still dribbled down his neck. “Are you vexed?”
I raised an eyebrow. “How about a little warning next time, shanky?”
He fiddled with the skull on the chain of his trousers. “I thought it’d hurt less. I forgot about the…” He waved at Ash. “And that only I knew about the blood because of the…” He gestured at his neck.
And the Mark.
Ash froze, stilling the needle. Then he pounced.
Rebel stumbled backwards, but Ash grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, pushing back his hair and gently tracing our feathered initials.
“You Marked him?” Ash’s voice vibrated with a fury that made me quail. “Wasn’t I clear on how much being owned sucks?”
“Not now.” Rebel caught Ash’s hand between his.
“About the grrr…” Ash flushed as he flashed his fangs.
Rebel’s gaze softened. “We can blether — and I’ll boot your arse — later. The princess’ blood is brutal powerful. I’ll take it to Broken Hollow with my brother, whilst you patch up Feathers.” He smiled. “And sweet Christ, you’ll see a wonder when you join us.”
“Always playing Doctor Who’s Time Lord,” Ash muttered.
When Haman collected the bowl, I wrinkled my nose against the rich scent of my own blood.
“See? I bleed for my blokes,” I smirked.
A litany of groans and snorted laughter.
“What? Too soon?” I pillowed my head on my arms.
This morning I’d been a princess, but now I’d melted my status’ respect Hackney acid-style; I’d never been so pleased to see the fearful faces and stuttered apologies dissolve.
“Watch yourself with the Fallen,” Rebel warned, taking the bowl from Haman. “Don’t you dare abandon me, princess. We’re flying from here together.”
He ducked out of Battle’s chambers with his hand entwined with his brother’s.
A sharp prick on my wounded back, and I yipped. Ash pressed in the needle, before threading it neatly out again.
“Are you all right there, sacrificial lamb?” Ash pulled the needle, and I tensed, as the lips of the gash puckered together.
“Yeah, crapping rainbows.”
“Added to my List of Things I Need to See Before I Die.”
“You know, for a bloke who told me when we first met that you don’t fight, you fight a hell of a lot.”
“I don’t fight,” he avoided my eye, “I fight for you.”
“Rebel calls you the Brigadier. Why would the Fangs bench you?”
Ash’s hand hesitated; the needle hovered over my skin. “Punishment, Violet.” His voice was flat. “To be a Seducer is worse than dying. It’s like…being Marked.”
He tied off the thread and bandaged his work in a determined silence.
A Seducer was like being Marked? Worse than dying? Punishment?
Had I made Rebel suffer, the same as Ash?
I wormed further down into the feathers, unable to look at Ash, until my scattered thoughts calmed.
Rust brown stick angels scrawled on the wall: I trailed my finger over the ocher. The pictures were more detailed than the ones that Rebel and I had discovered in the Mage’s chambers behind the shelves, with axes and bows. They must be from a later time period.
But then my finger stopped its tracing: humans without wings running from the angels.
My head spun. I clawed at the picture, tearing out my nails against the jade.
Angels had once been hunters on earth, no different to the vampires today.
Predators.
When had the angels cut themselves off from the human world? Or had they been trapped away from the humans in Angel World because they’d hunted?
I stumbled, still shaking from shock, down the corridor.
Flight hummed, cold against my tender back; Star rested against my hip, washed clean of my own blood.
Flames flickered across the walls, and screams echoed from the higher chambers. Shadows flittered: gray and violet.
Ash’s arm tightened around my waist. When my foot caught on an obsidian rock, he stopped me from falling.
Then an angel, fragile and bloodied, crept towards us down the corridor
, gripping onto the wall for support.
Drake.
His honey curls were crusted scarlet, and he hunched over a chest that was banded so purple that it appeared almost as black as the obsidian at my feet.
Guilt nibbled at my arse: Drake had taken his licks to save me. Yet with the guilt was a wave of soaring joy that my Genie of the Lamp was still alive. I was desperate to touch every battered but still beautiful inch of him to check that he was real and sooth him like I always had when he’d curled around me in my nest. But then Ash was prowling to Drake and thrusting him against the wall by the throat.
Drake whined, as his back arched in agony.
“Stop it,” I snapped, swaying to his side and resting against the wall. “Drake’s…” My jailer? Guard? A spy? Mine? “He’s fam.”
Drake blinked at me through swollen eyes.
Ash growled, letting him go with a shove. “The only reason that you’re still alive, Commander, is because you saved us in The Pit.”
“Princess,’” Drake furled his wings around himself, “help me.”
I frowned. It wasn’t like the cool Commander to beg. “I get it. My mum’ll hang you by your balls for fighting her. So, you want to run from the psycho bitch?”
Ash nudged me. ‘He’s a snake, remember? We can’t trust that his allegiance is with us…and you can’t risk the lives of so many, simply to save…an enemy.”
My eyes burned and I stared at the floor as I shook my head at Drake, although the powers inside churned, craving to rescue him as well. “I’m sorry.”
Drake clutched my arm; his gaze was pleading. His despair pulled at me in waves. “I ask not for myself. But—”
“Truth.”
Drake’s face fell, and he let out a sob, before battling to compose himself; he straightened his shoulders, forcing on a blank mask. “Are we not done yet? Another game of Truth or Dare even now?” His desperate words tore at me. His wings curled even tighter around his bruised middle, as he whispered, “Have I not yet passed your test?”
My eyes widened.
Hell, was that how he imagined our game? Why he’d risked his dad’s wrath at my ceremony? Because he reckoned it the same dark amusement, no different to my Warrior Trials?
Rebel Angels: The Complete Series Page 49