Ash quivered, before nodding. He hadn’t seen what I’d done but he’d sensed it and that was enough.
I hadn’t realized until I’d almost lost him how close to Bonded I was with him. Yet also how many responsibilities he had: his sisters and Anarchy’s brother, Key. What would’ve happened to them if he hadn’t come back? If I escaped without them?
Suddenly, the Bloods turned towards me, and I recoiled. My skin stung with the remembered feel of their sticky whips. Instead of lashing me, however, they wrapped their arms around my neck.
They couldn’t speak, but they were bright sparks.
Rebel gave a delighted laugh. “Holy Mary, you look like a hedgehog has been shoved right up... It’s called a hug: you put your arms—”
“I’ve got the hang of it,” I laughed.
I clasped my arms around the Bloods’ small bodies; they burrowed closer. I couldn’t hold my own sister or Rebel’s brother, Haman, but these were Ash’s sisters, and I’d bastard hug them.
Why wouldn’t they talk? I craved to free their voices, which were as trapped as the rest of us.
I swung them across the carriage, spinning them.
Was that a breathy giggle?
“They threatened my sisters,” Ash burst out. “If I didn’t seduce you back to the Fallen from my cell in Angel World. If I gave the game away and told you the truth. Trick would’ve taken my sisters as Seducers.”
I nodded, holding the Bloods closer to my chest. It hadn’t been only Key but his sisters as well who’d been held over Ash. “I understand but I thought that I was sacrificing my sister, and Rebel’s sacrificed his brother. Why are you the only one who gets to keep your family?”
“I don’t.” Ash tore at his bloodstained jeans. “I never did. But sacrificing and giving up anyone to be Trick’s…?” He shivered. “I had to save my sisters; I owed my parents that.”
The Bloods stiffened in my arms. I spun them again to still their tears: they understood.
Did they remember their lost parents?
“If you ever need me,” I whispered in their ears, “call for me. Your fam. You can talk, I don’t care what the bastards have told you. I’ll find a way to free all of you. You can trust me… I don’t want your fear. I’m not the Vampire or Bone Princess. I’m your Protector first, yeah?”
“Dead sweet,” Wild chuckled, swaggering through the open carriage door. “You’ll make a fine mom to our babbies.”
I dropped the Bloods on the back of the familiars as if they were riders at the Derby. The fox brothers crouched, growling.
“I won Lucifer’s test, Supreme Commander Birdbrain. No mom, babbies, or sweetness for you.” When I turned away, however, he kicked my ankle, tumbling me onto my face. “What the hell…?”
Gekkering, hollers, roars.
“I knew turning savage would get you into trouble, wench. Now I’m taking you and your pets to see the boss. If you make a fuss, your daddy will be giving them a taste of the light.” When Wild booted my burned wing, I howled.
Wild held me down with a knee between my shoulder blades. Had he always been this strong?
I quailed. “Don’t touch me.”
My heartbeat raced; I couldn’t even turn my head to see the others. I kicked my legs ineffectually, squirming.
“When you’re mine, I’ll give you to General Trick to train.” Wild’s hot breath tickled the back of my neck; I stilled. “If he can break a dark Brigadier, turning him whore,” his lips smiled against my neck, “then he can do the same for you, bab.”
When I’d held Ash down like this on the floor on his night of punishment, had he felt this powerless?
Then hard fingers pressed into the back of my neck, white-hot pain lanced down my spine, and I was swallowed by violet.
15
The worst sound in the world?
It’s not the scrape of nails on a blackboard, the screech of Tasmanian Devils, or even the yodel-like battle cry of Xena Warrior Princess.
It’s an angel’s tears.
I awoke groggily to a wave of anguished fear through the bond, which like a shot of black coffee, blasted away the darkness.
I’d been forced into unconsciousness by Wild…but after that I’d been drugged.
Fragments arose, breaking the surface of a savage sapphire sea: arches of an abandoned station, map of a lost empire, and tequila.
I shoved myself to my knees to the soundtrack of angel tears and I tingled with the agonizing grief of it. I could’ve torn down the world to make it stop and save Rebel from the torment, but my thighs wobbled like a new-born lamb’s.
Breathing hard through the stone dust of the Crypt, my kneecaps shifted on the bed of femurs nested beneath me.
“Morning, champ.” I startled, falling on my arse. Lucifer sprawled next to me, casually sharing my bone bed. He wore full regalia; his horns tipped towards me like candles in the gloom. He waved like we were best mates on a sleepover. I didn’t know whether he needed a kick to the balls or a cuddle — maybe both. “My Blood Lovers, why, those tykes sure like to play. I hate to spoil their fun and I’ve never been the spanky guy with the strict face, unless it’s a scene and all in play. What? Is that your strict face? Am I in for a spanking?”
I tried to turn my head — jeers, laughter, and Rebel’s sobs — but Lucifer caught my chin.
I shook, fisting my hands. “What did they do to me?”
“Aw, you still think that I’d let any of my people hurt you? Your sister was getting antsy. She’s a feisty little thing, isn’t she? Keeps the Blood Lovers in line. A real Queen bee. She wanted to see you but…” His lips quirked. “…She didn’t trust you. The clever creature had General Wings…borrow you…before your trial.”
“Trial?” I jolted.
“Yikes, someone’s tense.” Lucifer stroked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “By the Light, relax. You’re safe with me.”
I unclenched my hands, which was a mistake because then memories broke through me in a tidal wave.
I’d been spread-eagled on the plum and black mosaic floor, tripping out on the invisible force that Jade had pressed into my mind. Her hand had hovered over my forehead, and the force had surged, flooding me until I’d been paralyzed and dazed, under her command.
Numb, I’d battered at my mind. But I’d been locked away: nothing but a body to be petted and pawed by the Blood Lovers, who’d swayed in hazy blurs above me.
Eel’s ethereal “Trouble with Dreams” had caught me in its unnerving spell: dime-store keyboards, layering over drums and ticking clocks, until I hadn’t known whether I’d been truly asleep.
Then Jade’s pink-and-black fringe had swept across my cheek, and I’d tremored with enough awareness to know that she’d crouched over me with the iPod plugged in each of our ears. The intimacy of sharing the song — as I had with Rebel in times of grief and triumph but always joined in the search for Jade — had roused me like the lancing of a needle.
It’d been almost as sharp as Jade’s words. “You never saw it with your fancy job at that gaming company. Lost in your computers and angels. The perfect worlds that you created. But a girl like me at college…? I was the outcast: the bitch even the geeks bullied.” How hadn’t I known? Had I always been that blind? Jade’s expression had darkened. “No one bullies me now. My bloke’s the Commander, and I can do this.”
Jade’s Blood Lover power had rushed though me, dragging me down into an LSD whirlpool.
I’d managed to force out a whimper. Why hadn’t she let me talk? Or maybe, for once, she’d wanted me to listen.
“Shhh,” Jade had raised her finger to my lips. “I just want you to know…you don’t have to worry about me anymore or do the big sister thing. Because no one’s a misfit here; the vampires accept us. There are no outcasts because the Fallen are outcasts too.”
I’d choked at her twisted, romanticized narrative of the Fall.
Yet Jade had never had the chance to believe in Santa as a kid and now she’d been making up for it with an adult f
antasy. Hadn’t everyone the right to lose themselves?
Jade had dragged a bloke to her side who wore nothing but a plaid kilt, fishnets, and war paint that streaked his cheeks. He had the beautiful androgyny of a teen David Bowie. He’d ducked his head, grinning. “Remember Ben from Jerusalem’s? How he was so anxious that he couldn’t even speak?” Ben: the silent kid who’d crept around the home with armfuls of schoolbooks like they’d been a shield…? What the hell…? “And Zoe…Ella…Connor…”
The pulse had pounded in my ears.
Finally, I’d found the disappeared kids from Hackney… The vampires had stolen them as Blood Lovers.
Because of me? Because I’d been there?
“The Fallen own Jerusalem’s.” I’d startled out of my daze, as Jade had stroked my hair: had she read my mind? “They watch over it like…guardians. Then they choose the special ones to become their eternal lovers. It’s a dark fairy tale, and we’re the princes and princesses.”
Lucifer wiped the tears from my cheeks, holding me to his chest. When had I started crying? “Tell daddy all about it.” The leather was hard and hot: black armor molded now over the PVC. “Mortals are such funny…little…beings. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but a Blood Lover’s words can never hurt me.”
“Don’t mess with me: you knew.” I pulled back, swiping at my own cheeks. “You wanted me to—”
“Get over your human fetish? See your adopted sister for what she is and not what you pretended because…hooray for us…you have new pets to play with.” Lucifer rose in a roar of light, yanking me to my feet and spinning me.
I yelped, before stilling.
This time the Crypt was empty apart from a gang of FF, who circled my pets and were already playing.
A female FF who wore snake earrings through her enlarged earlobes and inked with feather tattoos across her chin, held Rebel under her as she ground against him, clouting him between kisses. Her tongue, as long and thick as her piercings, forced between his sobbing lips.
His tears, shredding me across the Blood Lover bond, were the worst sound in the bastard world.
Ash’s cloudy eyes remained defiantly dry.
Catcalls and whistles.
Wild held out a skeleton, dancing it around Ash and rubbing it against him in a grotesque parody of seduction.
Ash struck out clumsily, confused in his near blindness, as he was baited.
“Stop this,” I snarled, shaking.
Lucifer’s arm trapped me in place; the bonfire ash of his wings curled around me. “Uh-huh, they’re playthings, see? Hiding from the light — truth — is that a family trait? Because I have to say, it’s appealing in a Blood Lover, but not in a true princess.” When I flinched, Lucifer giggled. “Only my daughter could be such a rebel that she can’t be won over with the be a princess of the night line.”
Oomph – I elbowed him in the guts.
When Lucifer doubled over, I twisted to him. “Listen here, Your Creepy Highness, I won the test, the Devil’s Trident, and my blokes. I’m no one’s princess of the night — or their bitch.”
“Did you?” Lucifer soared up, blocking the way between me and my family. Suddenly, he appeared to have grown: his helmet and wings blazed brighter, and his armor gleamed. “This is a trial. Not really much point to that, if the jury’s not out…”
I snorted. “And where’s this invisible jury? The same place as the imaginary barristers and pretend judge?”
Lucifer pirouetted. “Here, and all in one and the same glorious person! You see…” Suddenly he became sombre, steepling his hands. “We have few rules, but one of the biggies is: Don’t kill humans. At least, without permission.” My stomach roiled. “You were meant to rescue the Fallen from the hunters. But did you also…?”
“Cut the Old Bailey dramatics. The bitches filmed torture porn, for real, because it got them off. There’s no superhero who wouldn’t have gone supernova.”
Lucifer smiled sadly, and all I wanted was for him to say that he was proud of me again. He waved his hand at Wild, however, who reluctantly dropped the skeleton, before hauling the Snake Bitch off Rebel.
Rebel staggered up, clasping Ash, who booted him with a growl, until Rebel curled his wings around him. Ash sniffed. Then he settled into Rebel’s arms, as they rocked.
Hell, I wished that I was in their arms.
Lucifer tapped me on the nose. “You reckon that you’re a superhero? Let me break this to you: you’re the villain. In fact, after that…KABOOM...you’re the super-villain.” When I recoiled, Lucifer’s smile wavered. Were his eyelashes mattered wet? “Why, you’re my daughter, of course I wanted you to pass. But we’re not the monsters under kiddies’ beds who kill, and I have a duty to help you understand. Let’s call it a ‘C’. Not a total fail but not strong enough to earn the Devil’s Trident.”
“Help, need you, not fair,” Devil wailed from his entrapment underneath Lucifer’s leather.
I shook my head, as my vampiric powers raged at the loss and fear…to have been cheated out of my birthright. Thick as tar, the black oozed behind my eyes, coated my nostrils in its scent, and weighed my tongue.
“YOURS, YOURS, YOURS,” Devil seethed, “take me.”
“Now, the Fallen who can’t control killing…? They’re the Pure.” Lucifer continued, turning his back, as if he hadn’t sensed the rage building in me to tear him open and strip him to the bone to steal Devil for myself. “Their leader, a Glory who lost her way a long time ago, risks everything that I’m working on with the humans. So, I’m offering you another chance. Test Number Two: kill the leader of the Pure. You have permission to kill. Enjoy. Of course,” his shoulders slumped, “you could just join them. What a dilemma: who do you choose?”
“The Devil’s Trident,” I growled.
As I lunged for Lucifer’s neck, however, he soared upwards in a shower of sparks; my fingers choked bone. I shrank back from the grinning skeleton, which stalked towards me, Jason and the Argonauts style, animated inside its ribcage by Lucifer’s teeming lights.
The glowing skeleton swung for me. I ducked, but its skeletal fist caught the side of my head. Slamming into the wall in a cascade of white flashes, I gasped.
That bastard hurt.
It also knocked Devil’s whining beneath the throbbing in my mind.
Why had I craved the trident like Rebel’s blood…? What’d possessed me?
I dived under the skeleton’s grasping hands.
Cheers and guffaws.
The FF lounged against the crypts, hooking their arms around Rebel and Ash to stop them joining in the fun.
I lunged at the bed of bones that I’d woken up on, snatching a femur and weighing it in my hand. I’d have preferred a baseball bat, but it’d do. I smashed the femur through the skeleton’s rib cage. When the light’s squealed, I jumped. Then they rushed out of the gaps, buzzing like indignant fairies around my head.
I rattled the femur. “Fly, bitches.”
With a final flounce, they hummed back to Lucifer, who welcomed them into his horns.
I wrenched my bone weapon out of the ribcage, smashing it down again into the skull, which shattered. The skeleton collapsed to nothing but inanimate bones again. Breathing harshly, I swung and swung and swung…until nothing was left but pulverized shards.
Tremors ran through me, as at last I hurled down the femur onto the remains. “Nobody touches my blokes.”
“Splendid.” Lucifer drifted down from the roof, grinning. “You can kill the leader of the Pure, Stephanie, just like that. Although — eek — all that messy rage. I blame the hormones, I truly do.”
I squared my shoulders. “Stick it. I’m not an assassin. All this changing the game makes me wonder…do you want me to fail?”
Lucifer’s grin faded. Unexpectedly, he looked vulnerable, and it wasn’t a good look. “You know who wants people to fail? Glories. They’re cruel creatures who don’t understand loyalty. All they want is your pain. Like you.’ I took a step towards him, ov
erwhelmed with the need to comfort him, before looking away. My chest tightened. I craved to prove him wrong. “You haven’t opened yourself to me or this world and you haven’t earned my trust.”
So, that’s what it was like to be bollocked by a parent.
What had my mum done to Lucifer as her Wing to make him Mr Paranoia?
“Perhaps it’ll help you if I make this a test of loyalty alongside my pet?” Lucifer strode to the wall, spreading his palm on the smooth surface.
Then he yanked.
With a desperate gasp, Mischief tumbled out of the marble onto the floor like a landed fish.
Lucifer nudged him with his toe. “You could hear, pet?”
Mischief nodded, whilst his chest wildly rose and fell. Hell, had he been frozen in the rock throughout my trial? “An inspired bonding session,” he gasped.
“Flatterer,” Lucifer fluttered his eyelashes.
Mischief glanced at me significantly. “A worthy test of how well the future Queen of Chaos and I can fight together for you. Your daughter at your side, and me at your feet.’
“You’ve got to love an angel who knows their place.” Lucifer’s high laugh rang through the Crypt.
Mischief cringed but met my gaze. “I’m partial to not dying, and this test risks both our heads.”
Out with the stealthy; Mischief was branding his message across his forehead: TAKE THE TEST.
Despite what Mischief was urging, just as I hadn’t become my mum’s weapon, I wouldn’t become my dad’s hired killer. Even if the mark was Stephanie, who’d tried to execute me, stolen her followers’ wings, and kept Anarchy as her pet.
I’d always thirsted for the moment that you held someone’s life, God-like, on a blade’s knife-edge. I’d fought the addiction and I couldn’t fall back into it.
Or else I’d devour the world.
I tilted up my chin. “I’m a monster but I won’t be your killer. So, stick it again.”
Sizzle — Lucifer’s horns flared, filling the Crypt behind him.
I threw my hand across my eyes to block out the painful light, trembling. A wave of heat hit my cheeks.
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