“No, the freaking Tooth Fairy, you cosmic douche,” snapped Tyrius, his pointed white teeth showing. He glanced up at me. “How did this guy end up an angel?”
The angel smiled, falling into a fighting posture as he accepted Tyrius’s answer as proof. “Rowyn Sinclair. You have been found guilty of the murder of the archangel Vedriel,” the angel intoned. “By the power of our holy Legion of angels, you have been sentenced to death, which will be carried out at once.”
“Yada.” My fingers brushed my waist. Oh crap. I’d left my weapons belt in the car with Gareth’s sword.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” said Tyrius as he trotted across the room and leapt up on the counter. “Fig Newtons!” the cat exclaimed as he tore open the box of cookies.
I sighed. “I’m innocent,” I announced. “Not like anyone cares.” I thought of what Lucian had said. The angels really didn’t care whether I was innocent or not. They just wanted me dead. To shut me up. And that really, really pissed me off.
The angel’s smile was a mix of indulgent amusement and excitement as he came at me, swift as a burst of storm wind with his supernatural angel speed. My anger welled as he made a stabbing motion at me.
If he thought I’d just stand there and let him kill me, he was the celestial douche of the month.
I hurled myself at him with matching speed, knocking his soul blade from his hand. He gave a little gasp of surprise as I reached out with my hand and wrapped it around his neck—
There was blast of white light as raw kinetic force exploded from my touch, and I let go, stumbling back as something hit my core. Searing pain washed completely through me, drawing tears from my eyes.
I fell back, landing hard on my ass. My gut twisted as a hollow ache found its way there, and I tried hard to breathe through the pain. Blinking through tears, I stared opened mouthed at the angel.
He wasn’t glowing anymore. His angel illuminance was gone.
“What have you done to me?” he stared at his hands, and the expression drained from his face. One moment there had been arrogant conceit, but the next it had simply vanished, leaving his features cold as wild panic crossed his eyes.
I couldn’t sense any angelic energy coming from him.
He looked and felt… human.
Damn. Did I do that?
Before I could stop him, he grabbed the soul blade from the floor—and stabbed himself in the heart. I stared in shock as the angel-turned-human fell to his knees, dark red blood pulsing out around his hands, which were still clasped around the soul blade, and down his chest.
With a final gaze in my direction, his lips moved but no words came out. And then he keeled over to the side.
An unholy mess of blood pooled around him on the floor. His eyes were open and staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. He was dead.
“Rowyn?” choked Tyrius, his eyes wide and chunks of cookies shooting out of his mouth. “What did you do?”
I stared at my hands. “I have no idea.” They didn’t look or feel any different. My pulse jumped, and I started to shake. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t even called upon my darkness, my gift, I had just—
“You touched him and he just turned... human?” expressed Tyrius pulling the words out of my mouth. The cat jumped down from the counter and moved towards the dead angel, the dead human. “I can’t smell any of the angel stink on him. I can’t detect an angel aura either, no soul. There’s always a soul, Rowyn. What happened to his soul?” The cat met my eyes. His expression was a mix of amazement and worry. “Rowyn, what the hell just happened.”
I stared at the dead guy on the floor, trying to make sense of what the hell had just happened. I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t understand it myself. It had happened so fast. All I knew was that it hurt like hell and then voila—he wasn’t sparkly anymore. So what did that mean?
And it hit me. The pieces all came together. This was what Lucian had wanted all along. It had never been about protecting me. He’d wanted me to accept this gift so that I could turn angels into humans and destroy their souls with a single touch.
He wanted a weapon. Me.
I looked at my hands, feeling betrayed for the first time since I’d accepted the gift from Lucian.
Oh, my God. What have I done?
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear reader,
Thank you for reading Dark Gift. If you enjoyed this book, please consider posting a short review. Your feedback is important to me and will help other readers decide whether to read the book too.
Again, thank you for coming on this ride with me, and I hope we’ll take many more together. Happy reading!
All the best,
DARK CURSE
Don’t miss the thrilling continuation of the Shadow and Light series, Dark Curse.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KIM RICHARDSON is the award-winning author of the bestselling SOUL GUARDIANS series. She lives in the eastern part of Canada with her husband, two dogs and a very old cat. She is the author of the SOUL GUARDIANS series, the MYSTICS series, and the DIVIDED REALMS series. Kim’s books are available in print editions, and translations are available in over seven languages.
To learn more about the author, please visit:
www.kimrichardsonbooks.com
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