“I was saving you all,” Mischief’s voice was low and brittle. “Saving my family.”
I huffed. “You scheme and plot; it’s what you do. All I wanted was for Rahab to notice and train me: just like you with your daddy. Now, thanks to our help, you’ve jumped realms. Don’t pretend that wasn’t your true plan or that you haven’t dreamed about it since you killed the bloke who raised you.”
This time, the tears did escape Mischief’s eyes.
When I caught Rebel’s gaze, I hadn’t expected the sad reproach. Hell, even if I was right, I regretted voicing the words: Mischief had told me something agonizingly private, and I’d used it to shank him. J had taught me that, yet only now did it feel wrong.
I bit my lip. “I’m sorry…”
Mischief slumped; his wings drooped. “Despite what you clearly believe, from the moment my brothers and myself were held on that damned island, my dreams were focused on one thing alone: saving the Broken, Phoenixes, and Undeserving. To free my people.” He raised his gaze to mine: sharp as ice. “I sincerely doubt that I shall be invited into the loving arms of my true father. I was, as you know, abandoned as a bastard son.” I flinched at the raw pain that bled through his steely tone. “Put aside your unwarranted mawkishness,” his gaze softened for a moment as it flickered to Ash, “and execute me because I have no value as either guide or hostage.”
When I trembled, my nails nicked Mischief’s neck.
At a sudden yank on my skirt, I glanced down.
Firebird knelt amongst the feathers, glancing between Mischief and me in agitation. “Please, if he has done wrong, he can be punished but not…? He’s loved by the Phoenixes because he’s our Defender.”
Mischief swallowed hard. “Turn away,” he whispered. “Grant me this one thing: do not watch.”
Hell, Mischief was begging his own brother not to witness his death, even if his brother only knew him as the Defender of his kind.
My nails retracted so quickly that I staggered backwards. Then I launched myself at Mischief, snatching him away from Rebel and clasping him.
Mischief blinked. “Perhaps you have a different definition of execution…?”
“Perhaps I’ll never kill one of my own, even if they are Machiavellian Archdukes. And perhaps I’m just buzzing that we’re all alive.” I snuggled Mischief, and he let me.
Spark’s ears twitched. “Aye, but we’re also above a valley of bones in the Realm of the Seraphim. The Seraphim—”
“Right, like we know anything about those bastards,” Blaze scoffed. “That’s why you’d be a head case to go exploring here.” Blaze beat his wings, raising into the smoky air. “Just like the head case Seraphim. The numpties declared themselves gods and swaggered off to this world centuries before we were born.”
I raised my head from Mischief’s shoulder: we truly were in the realm of the gods. And I’d struggled to accept bastard magic…
“They’re shifters,” Mischief muttered (and I didn’t need like me tagged on to get his flush of shame). “It’d be just like the arrogant deities to have been walking amongst us, spreading tales of their deadly nature and glory. They certainly spread their seed.” He grimaced, and I nuzzled along his jawline in reassurance. “But we can’t know.”
Maybe your Scottish fox brothers should watch their colossal mouths, Violet-divinity, or they’ll find themselves with more than ears and tails. Plus, the Unicorn Kid needs his cute mouth washed out…
J, where the hell have you been? We rewove the Legion’s story. Plus, our Sugar Plum Angel hid—
Excuse me, I was busy gagging on your hypocrisy. How many secrets are you hiding? Have you told anyone about the voice who speaks to you?
Who am I, Violet?
Cold washed through me, as I recoiled from Mischief at J’s question. Mischief furrowed his brows in confusion.
“My Queen?” Drake strode towards me, but I waved him back.
My heartbeat was suddenly too loud; my mouth too dry.
No, no, no…
J had always been my secret: he’d raised me, saved me, and never abandoned me. As a kid, unlike my parents and the angels, he’d always answered when I’d called.
Almost.
He’d only gone silent, when I’d demanded to know who he was… I loved J, even if I’d never known whether he was truly real. Yet what if he was real…?
“Well, my son and the Silver Queen seeking an audience with my fabulous self. I’m honored.”
I froze: J’s voice burst into my head. Except, it wasn’t J’s voice. It was similar but colder, harder, and more regal.
When I glanced around, however, everyone else had also stiffened.
I rubbed my foot through the feathers. “Any chance I was the only bitch to hear that?”
A sea of shaking heads.
I tried to warn you. You’ve demanded trust, but you held onto the only secret that mattered.
Me.
Who are you, J?
Haven’t you guessed yet? Don’t you know me well enough after all these years?
Jahael?
I gasped, shaking. The lover inside my mind was a Seraphim god…?
“I don’t believe that we formally requested to see you,” Mischief said, stiffly.
A delighted laugh. “Sure you did: blood called to blood. BAM! Don’t try to trick your daddy, I know how much you wish to show off your skills.” I didn’t miss the warning edge, nor did Mischief who cast a troubled glance at me. “I know who’s naughty and nice because I have the inside track, darlings. And one of you naughty creatures has hidden me inside their heads from the moment of their birth.” I panted, pressing my nails into my palms to control my rapid breathing. Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t… Rebel studied me, cocking his head; his eyes narrowed in both concern and sudden understanding. “You wondered how I walk amongst you…? I’ve been there all the time: inside your Silver Queen.”
I stared down at my boots, unable to look up at the gasps and shocked whispers.
“We Seraphim are angel gods, but say hello to my creation: A Fallen god.”
Rich frankincense, then I was cocooned in the safety of violet wings. “I always knew that there was something extraordinary in your mind.” Drake rested his forehead against mine. “Did I not tell you how special, important, and powerful you are?”
“I lied,” I whispered, “I’m sorry, sor—”
Drake’s lips pressed against mine, and there was heaven in the flare of frankincense infused stars. When he drew back, he placed one final chaste kiss on my lips, before insisting, “You have no talent for lies, and I should know, since I’ve lived my life amongst them. If you’d known that you housed a god, you’d have been considerably more insufferable than you already were.”
Rebel sniggered.
Anael raised an eyebrow. “My sister, the insufferable god.”
“What happened to worshiping deities, bitches?” I growled.
Mischief twirled me away from Drake. “At least we know what’s up with the kneel thing now.” I tried to cross my arms, but he caught my hands between his instead. “Childish.”
When I licked the end of his nose in retaliation, he trapped me with his wings. “Let’s put on a show for daddy dearest. After all, he’s inside you. He’s seen…everything…you’ve done from the moment that you were born.” I flushed: I’d thought Lucifer’s spy lights intrusive but to think Jahael had seen everything…? Strike that…was watching everything…? Mischief grinned wickedly. “We’re both children of the Seraphim: we shan’t be invisible again.”
I wriggled my feet more firmly into the feathers, staring down at the valley of bones.
This was my land: ancient, deadly, and secret. Yet here I was finally free of all secrets to be myself, just like Mischief, even if I was trapped in a mysterious realm, cut off from my own world with my family.
I swear on all the sequins on Broadway, I’m still the bitch who raised you. Don’t forget, I love you.
You betrayed me. Al
l these years I wanted you to be real...but now I just want you out of my head.
You still need me. I promise, I won’t abandon you.
I stared up into the fireball sky; it flared in crimson streaks.
So, the Emperor of the Seraphim wanted an audience with the vampire god…?
I grinned: bring on the fireworks. Because in this world of gods, the Seraphim had just welcomed in a monster.
They were in for a hell of a shock.
The End…For Now
Continue Violet’s adventures in VAMPIRE GOD, Book 5 in the Rebel Angels Series.
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If you enjoyed Vampire Mage: Rebel Angels Book 4, let me know by leaving a review!
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Author Note
Thank you for reading and reviewing. As always, it’s your recommendations, word of mouth, and reviews that make all the difference on whether my books reach new readers and what new worlds I get to write next. I’m more thankful than you’ll know for everything that you do.
I’ve always been fascinated by how different types of control work: cults and knightly codes. In a previous book in the series, Vampire Princess, I explored Angel World where female Glories have the power. I love seeing what it’d look like if the male mages grew up as the Lost Boys. I hope you do too.
The GRAND FINALE of the series is coming up next! And this is where I bite my tongue because Book Five has major twists, surprises, and shocks. It also reveals the answers I’ve been planning throughout the series *evil laugh*
I’m so excited to share it with you!
Thanks, you’re awesome - my Rebel family :)
Rosemary A Johns
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Vampire God
VAMPIRE GOD: REBEL ANGELS BOOK FIVE © copyright 2019 Rosemary A Johns
www.rosemaryajohns.com
First edition 2019
Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Fantasy Rebel Limited
Vampire God
REBEL ANGELS BOOK FIVE
In the realm of the gods, the final game for the Crown has begun.
Violet is running out of time. In a court of godly angelic Seraphim, the only way to survive the trickery and secrets of The Burning Temple is to seduce the despotic Emperor’s sultry shifter son. Yet is he as much a prisoner as her in his Gilded Cage?
Violet must undertake the Test by Monster to become a bodyguard to the Emperor: a Fae Knight of the Seraphim. If she fails, her vampire and angel lovers will be tossed into the Abyss. At last, Violet meets her creator, and the dangerous truth is revealed…
When the Emperor threatens to wipe out every world and start a new Eden, time is up. In the final battle, Violet could lose everything.
1
Vampires? Angels?
I’d become their huntress, princess, mage, and at last, I’d discovered that I was their god. In the deadly Realm of the Seraphim with the ancient and cruel angel gods, who played with life and death like a game, I could either fight or die their slave.
And that made the gods bastards, after all.
In the beginning, I’d believed myself human. The gamer and developer, lost in make-believe. Half vampire, half angel, I’d still lived out a human geek life, until my powers arose phoenix-like on my twenty-first birthday.
I’d sacrificed my mum and dad, as well as my Crown in the Angel and Under World. I’d swept away the Legion of the Phoenix to free the brainwashed lost boys.
Yet now I was the one caught in The Burning Temple by a despotic Emperor: a pet monster, in a realm of gods and monsters.
A blazing arc of fire cut across Court One in the Seraphim’s Burning Temple. I howled, yanked backwards by the snaking leg shackles, which bound me to Mischief.
I stumbled, squelching across the floor, which rippled as if it was alive; Mischief’s wings flared in alarm: violet ghosts in the gloom. When Mischief caught me, I clutched onto his silver tunic. He swung us away from the fire, whilst we tangled in the clanking shackles and tumbled onto our arses.
I flailed, and my palm was sucked into the insides of the latest room in the Pleasure Pavilion.
Nope, not thinking of being swallowed by a python.
I wrenched out my hand with a shudder, wiping the stickiness down my black leather trousers.
If it was a bastard Pleasure Pavilion, where were the chocolate unicorns, live gaming tournaments, and my blokes in a blissed pile of feathers, fur, and kisses…?
My stomach rumbled: in my current starved state, I’d lick and suck the chocolate unicorns, until nothing would be left of them but their horns.
Instead of those pleasures, Mischief and I had been trapped together in a screwed-up show for the angel Seraphim, who believed themselves gods: The Angel Games.
For the last three rooms, Mischief and I had battled Seraphim, booby traps, and our worst nightmares come to life. We’d been separated from the rest of my family, as soon as we’d been dragged inside the Seraphim’s domain.
I couldn’t even sense my bonded and Marked Irish angel, Rebel, or my vampire, Ash, who was so close to bonded that my blood called to his.
Since I’d learned that the sassy voice in my head — J — who’d raised me better than anyone in Jerusalem Children’s Home and was as close to me as any lover, was truly the seed of Jahael, Emperor of the Seraphim…making the Emperor my creator…I also hadn’t heard a word from J.
His silence shanked me.
The magic, which wound coldly inside me caressed by shadows, reached out to stroke Mischief’s.
Mischief startled, before he smiled. He curled around me, as I brushed his long silver hair off his forehead. He was trembling, although he fought to hide it.
In the Angel Games, you either worked together…or lost.
Mischief and I had lost against the last Seraphim who we’d battled because in a routine, which would’ve made most clowns stomp their giant feet with jealousy, we’d each pulled in different directions against the shackles: both trying to lead.
Mischief had led the rebellion in the Underworld, just as for centuries he’d helped his people, although always from the shadows. Now that Mischief had revealed his true place — not as a lowly Undeserving, but rather as the bastard son of the Emperor of the gods — did he surge with the same power that had blasted through me ever since we’d entered the temple? The need to prove himself worthy at last?
How dangerous was he?
Mischief was an Archduke. He’d brought us to this realm to save our lives, but now that we were trapped here, did Mischief hunger to finally rule?
It sucked if he did because so far Mischief hadn’t been raised up as an heir, he’d been mocked as the entertainment.
Mischief shuddered, pressing closer to me.
This Serpent Chamber was our punishment for failure because Mischief had been trained to be terrified of snakes.
Yet Jahael was Mischief’s dad. So, for Emperor, read prick.
Was Jahael watching us — his cr
eation and his long-lost son — suffering for him in his Angel Games?
Mischief gasped, as the Pavilion rolled us against the scaly walls. I caught Mischief’s lower lip between mine, biting hard enough to explode his popcorn crackling blood shuddering through me, just like his tremors: his desire chased away the fear. When his hands clasped mine, he was lost in me; the feel of being snake-swallowed forgotten.
Take that Your Imperial Worship Me Because I’m a Narcissistic Unstable Dictatorness.
Mischief was mine, yet he alone had never knelt for me. I didn’t need his worship, only his love.
Hell, I loved him.
Yet the Seraphim were too powerful for me to keep him safe.
Could I keep any of my family safe in this realm? Could even I survive?
The son of a god and a vampire god had become no more than a sideshow.
And wasn’t that a bitch.
Giant metallic glowing eyes swirled, Cheshire Cat style, out of the dark above our heads.
Mischief stiffened, whilst I swallowed with difficulty against my parched throat. Nothing as ordinary as food or drink — or sunlight for Mischief because that’s what angels fed on — had been left in the Pavilion as rewards. Maybe no one in the Angel Games lived long enough to need them. I’d put in my order for a Meat Feast pizza and tequila as soon as the tall glass gates at the end of the Pavilion melted open.
“Trust me, Holy Competitors, whilst you wallow in your fruitless rutting, you risk burning as the Damned, rather than the Divine.” The smooth, aristocratic voice boomed from bowed pink lips, which floated below the silver eyes. I smirked at the Overseer of the Angel Games, whose magic tingled across my own. He’d been the only haughty constant of the games…nothing but eyes and lips…watching and guiding. But why was he throwing a brat tantrum? “You’re approaching the center of Court One and The Abyss. Will two of royal blood die as whores?”
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