by Kim Petersen
A hybrid goon careened against the barn wall with a gaping hole in his chest. The wounded hybrid slumped to the ground, his forked tongue dangling from his mouth and his face a blank scaly mask.
Chaos ensued. Frenzied screams hung thick in the air and mingled with the scent of fear. The odor of blood coiled through the valley like a thick mist. The other hybrid guard scrambled to the door and reached for the timber plank. Regan never lost sight of him. He heard the booming footsteps in the cottage next to him. His mother’s cry hung in his ears.
He pulled the trigger.
Boom.
The bullet smashed into the hybrid at the barn door just as he removed the timber plank. The hybrid spun around and his eyes scanned the area until they settled on Regan. He grabbed his chest and opened his mouth. A fresh trickle of blood escaped his lips. A bubble of blood foamed like pink silky soap before he gagged, his eyes wide with shock. He took a step toward Regan. A second bullet thundered out from Regan’s gun. The hybrid clutched his chest and stumbled forward as the barn door swung open and collected him.
A pistol extended from the shaded barn door, thick claws looped around the trigger. Regan saw it at the precise moment the bulky tattooed hybrid lunged at him from around the corner of the cottage. Regan hit the ground hard as a loud crack seized through his head. He wasn’t sure if it was the gun blasting or the sound of his skull colliding against the gritty gravel. He blinked up in time to see a black set of eyes roll back with the arc of the hybrid’s curly head. Yellow stained pointed teeth jabbed at him.
He dodged the snapping jaws, swinging his elbow and smashing the hybrid in the side of the face. The hybrid growled and his head flipped to the side with the impact. He raised a balled scaly fist and began repeatedly pounding into Regan’s chest.
More gunshots shrilled through the valley like fireworks. Regan’s ears were ringing with the constant sound ricocheting all around him, but through it all he heard the beat of Arella’s heart in the background. There was no breath left to inhale under the blows to his gut. Rage brewed deep within. Regan managed to move quick enough as the hybrid slung his arm back, bladed claws ready to slash. He kicked a boot between the hybrid’s legs. The hybrid recoiled, folding his body into himself for a bare moment.
Regan moved fast. He leaped to his feet and swung another boot into the side of the hybrid’s skull. He felt a crack. His ears pulsed with the continuous stream of gunshots ringing out through the air.
Boom.
Boom.
The hybrid blanched and faltered momentarily on his feet. His tattooed arms gleamed briefly as he plunged at Regan with a smooth motion of his huge body. They fell to the gravel, twisting and groping before long ragged claws split through Regan’s flesh. Regan yelled out. His head felt like a spinning top; his ripped sweater soaked the blood oozing from his chest. He began to feel dizzy.
He glanced up as the hybrid followed up with another slash of his curved talons. In a swift move, Regan rolled to the side and dodged the blow and slammed his fist into the hybrid’s jaw, the same spot he’d connected with his boot before. The hybrid swayed uncertainly, stabilizing himself with a palm against the gravel.
Regan punched him again. His knuckles tore into the hybrid’s face repeatedly but still the beast didn’t drop despite the constant pounding. The hybrid’s lips curled up into a deep snarl, and his black eyes peered at Regan like endless pits of death.
Regan faltered between punches. The bones in his bloody fist felt brittle, and his gut was sticky with blood. He saw the hybrid gain traction in the gravel. Regan knew he was about to strike again. He twisted his hips and smashed the hybrid with a brutal kick to the head. The hybrid lost balance and fell to the ground with a hiss emanating from his tongue.
Regan moved in for the kill. The hybrid squirmed on the ground. He lifted his foot to swing another kick.
Arella screamed.
Regan hesitated, his pulse raced. Her panic filled him. Something sharp struck Regan in the back of the skull. He jerked forward, while his head spiraled. Black spots clouded his vision. He saw the hybrid regain himself and rise to his feet, a wicked grin plastered on his scaly face.
Regan turned in time to catch the claws slice against his cheek and a spittle of blood splatter over Zane Crais’ face.
His blood.
His gut lurched, and his mouth watered. He clenched a fist and swung at Zane. Regan’s legs buckled under him as his feet gave away, sending him sprawling onto the ground. The tattooed hybrid had side-swiped his calves. Hard gravel penetrated his back.
Regan heard a light humming sound in the distance. He blinked through the spots fogging his vision to focus on Zane standing over him. The lizard-man grinned, his forked tongue protruding over scaly lips while he raised his claws, ready to strike. Regan braced himself for the blow. Is this how I die?
‘You really thought you could win this battle? Your powers are not strong enough to defeat me and my pack,’ Zane drawled.
Regan tried to focus, but his mind shook and vibrated with a dull sound. He couldn’t think over a high-pitched melody that waved over the valley and grew to a peak.
Arella.
Regan could feel her behind him. Suddenly she consumed his every thought, clogged his every sense. He twisted his head around to look at her and he froze, wide-eyed.
Wings spread wide and colored and bloomed from behind her back. Her black tumble of wild hair hung back as she held her head back, her chin pointing to the sky. Her hands were outstretched as if she was basking under the radiant light-ray glowing over and around her.
Regan’s world grew totally still.
The valley fell into a hush as Arella’s light-dome spanned the village.
Regan glanced at Zane and the hovering hybrid. Their faces were stuck in a twisted expression; their bodies frozen like plastic soldiers. He scrambled to his feet and faced Arella. His jaw gaped as her magnificent wings fluttered. Once. Twice. Her feet began to leave the earth as she hovered above the ground. She looked down at her toes and a laugh caught in her throat and echoed in his ears. She looked up to meet his gaze and smiled.
The fury and hate in Regan’s heart dissolved along with the persistent ringing in his ears. He returned her smile, mesmerized.
‘You’re as beautiful as endless,’ he whispered.
‘What is endless?’ she smiled.
‘You.’
His heart soared as their eyes locked. For a moment, he thought he caught a glimpse of what it all meant, but the feeling passed before he could fully grasp it.
She made a gesture and he turned to the scene behind him. All of them were frozen, suspended in a fragmented moment of time. All accept the two of them.
Regan walked beside her as if in a trance. He stared in wonder as her eyes met his again and she directed a rose-gold light-ray toward him. The ray blazed over him like a glittering river. He shut his eyes and spread out his arms, his palms facing the heavens. All he knew was completeness; it filled him wholly and it felt like home. The void within his soul overflowed like an exquisite glass of champagne, while his wounds closed. He opened his eyes and took her hands.
Anam Cara.
Arella smiled. Her complexion was a luminous sheath. She really was an angel.
‘Your dark soul is no longer. What now?’ Arella said.
Regan swung around to look at the village. Eddie was stiff and hunched behind the tree trunk, his eyes glued to his gun as his frozen fingers reloaded. Regan exhaled in relief. At least he was alive.
Arella’s wings fluttered again as she lowered to the ground and walked to the tattooed hybrid. She cocked her dark head to the side and a brilliant white light-ray emanated from her eyes. The hybrid’s features moved under the radiance until his scaly hide softened to tanned skin and his claws and fangs morphed back to normal.
She whirled to Regan with a grin.
‘What do ya know?’
‘Huh! I knew I did the right thing by bringing along an angel,’ Regan win
ked.
‘Ha ha. As if you ever had a choice! C’mon, let’s round them up and get you into The Triquetra Sphere.’
They worked fast, gathering the surviving hybrids together, including Zane and Keira. Arella focused the healing light-ray and flushed the poison from each of them in turn while Regan bound and gagged them.
When they reached Keira, Arella hesitated.
‘I want her to come with us,’ she said.
Regan only nodded. He would grant her anything her heart desired.
When they were done, Arella waited outside while he went to the cottage and the hidden chamber – The Triquetra Sphere. He had never been in the sacred coven chamber, but he’d heard enough stories to know what to expect. He found the gold key clasped around his mother’s neck and hidden under her robes. She was huddled behind the small sofa in the cottage living room. The tips of her long blonde hair were stained crimson and her face was bloody with gashes. Her expression was one of panic and despair. Regan had never seen her look so vulnerable. He brushed a hand over her crown and swept his lips against her forehead.
‘It’s going to be okay, mother,’ he murmured into her ear.
He unclasped the golden chain from her neck, his steps tedious as he snaked to the back of the cottage and slipped through a door to a small room. The room was ordinary and bare. A double bed with a bright yellow flowered bedspread adorned the space under a window. The matching curtains were drawn, the afternoon sun glowing against the fabric while a glass lamp gleamed from a bedside table. There was a large mahogany wardrobe opposite the bed, the surface worn and scratched from years of handling.
The room was barren of anything else, yet Regan knew there was more than met the eye. He shifted to the wardrobe and unlatched the doors. They swung on squeaky hinges to reveal robes, long sweeping dresses and shoes, and dusty boxes stacked on shelves. He slid the clothes aside and spotted the obscure latch behind them. A thick chain linked and secured the latch. He took the golden key and slipped it in the lock and turned until he heard the slight click and the chain loosen.
The door fell ajar, and a sudden gush of musty air breezed against Regan’s face. His heart skipped a beat and a thousand voices whispered to him along the wispy breeze. They called and echoed around the edges of his soul. They beckoned him forth and he listened as he stepped through the threshold and stood atop a steep staircase.
He descended without a trace of resistance. He felt made and unmade and filled and unfilled as he went forward with abandon, with fear and without fear. His feet moved, yet he was unaware of his steps as he descended further into the chamber. Candles flamed and flared to light the way until he reached The Triquetra Sphere.
A fey wind twirled around him as the passage opened to a large circular room. He blinked as candelabras flashed into his eyes like fiery torches. The room was filled with rows of shelves brimming with ancient leather-bound books and scrolls, cauldrons, swords and wands. Pentacle maps plastered the walls and pendulums; dream-catchers and disks hung all around.
The haunting voices blew and dashed around the chamber. They breezed against his ear like taunting chants, and all he heard was his black witch label Dark Star. A tiny light sparked among the rows of scrolls. Regan took a breath and ventured closer. An overpowering force lured him in. He didn’t resist; he couldn’t. For this was the place of his past, his present, and his future. This was the sacred knowledge of his ancestry that would reveal his true essence. This was the chamber of truth.
Regan took the lucid scroll and unrolled the thick paper. At first the blank page stared back at him vacant and discolored. He frowned. Was this a joke?
But in the next instant, a series of golden text began to materialize before his eyes.
“Since the dawn of mankind, Apepsis: God of the Serpent has explored diverse tactics to inhabit the earth with his will. Shunned from all other realms, the serpent god seeks to guide earth with the poison of darkness. After centuries of struggle between light and dark, a time of reckoning must determine the future of the earth. The Dark Star was born the son of Apepsis. Through his bloodlines will emerge the Serenity Seed, when the son of darkness unites with the daughter of the Ascended Angels.
The twin flames shall ignite when Light and Dark merge in copulation: Anam Cara; the light and other half of the Dark Star’s soul and thus the Serenity Seed shall be spawned. An extraordinary being shall be born to the sons and daughters of the earth, a powerful being capable of bringing to the earth great light and peace, or in turn, mankind will be penetrated with darkness. Thus, how She, the celestial Serenity Seed shall be raised, shall determine the fate of the earth.
Whomever the Serenity Seed shall be nurtured, so too shall light bask the earth with her bloom, or darkness shall prevail and reign indefinitely with her blossom.”
Regan’s head began to spin as the words penetrated through his consciousness.
‘Anam Cara,’ he whispered.
All at once the magical text made sense. He had wandered aimlessly with darkness in his soul. He was the son of Apepsis yet he never truly felt whole. Then he met Arella.
His Anam Cara.
His other soul half.
His light.
Regan’s thoughts drifted to the night before at the hotel. He had felt raw and used, whole and unused all at once, and he had taken her over and over, filled her until he was empty and had no more to give. They had collapsed into the bed, their arms encircled and glistening with their love.
Arella! She was the key to the Serenity Seed all along. And so was he. Clarity found him, and he understood. The Serenity Seed was a product of them both – a child of light and dark. Their daughter. How their child would be raised was pivotal to the future of the world. Regan knew that whether his child be raised here at the coven, kidnapped at the hands of Zane Crais or raised with the divinity of Arella’s ancestry, would determine the fate of mankind.
He allowed the scroll to fall from his fingers. His eyes stung with tears. An overwhelming urge seized through him. He needed her. He turned and ran from the chamber as fast as he could. He had to be with Arella. He needed to protect her and his hallowed child, the Serenity Seed firmly embedded within her womb. He had a choice to make.
With every beat of his heart, he knew what that choice would be.
The cottage door banged loudly as Regan slammed through the threshold. He ran down the stairs, his eyes darting anxiously around the quiet village. Where is she? His heart pumped, his mouth parched and chalky. He blinked and used his palm to shield his eyes from the light-dome radiating over the valley.
Arella was sitting under a tree, her wings furled and slightly concaved behind her. His breath caught and tore through his throat as she rose to her feet and smiled at him. His chest expanded with his breath. He ran to her and took her in his arms and smothered her into him, pressing his lips against her dark hair.
Arella drew gently away and looked up at him, searching his eyes with her own.
‘What is it? Do you know where we can find the Serenity Seed?’
Regan nodded and dropped his hand to cover her womb.
‘The seed is within you, Anam Cara,’ he murmured.
Arella’s eyes filled with tears. Yet he knew they were the tears of truth. She understood.
She circled her hand over his and squeezed.
‘I love you.’
Regan struggled to contain the happiness brimming in his heart.
He grinned. ‘I love you more.’
He tugged gently on her hand.
‘Come on angel, let’s unfreeze the village, and load up the thugs with Eddie. Then leave behind the shadows.’
Arella hesitated. ‘But where will we take her?’
‘Do you like making wine?’ he laughed.
‘I love drinking it. Will that do?’
‘Sure, as long as I can watch you drain every drop while we carve our names on the surface of history.’
‘Together?’
‘Always.’
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br /> About the Author
Kim Petersen is author of The Ascended Angels Series. A paranormal romance thriller fantasy tale about angels on earth, love and demons. Her debut novel, Millie’s Angel received a gold award in the 2017 Dan Poynter’s Global eBook Awards.
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