The Damned (The Unearthly Book 5)

by Laura Thalassa

Demons, angels, and supernaturals all watched her in horror, in wonder. Andre’s bleeding heart squeezed at the sight.

  She tilted her head skyward once more. The power that drenched her now bled away the black attire she wore, replacing it with iridescent robes. They rippled around her body, moving as though the air was as viscous as water. Whatever magic this was, Andre was sure he’d never seen anything like it.

  She had hovered in the air while she held the devil’s hand, but now she rose until she levitated twenty feet above them. Angels shifted their sword arms, preparing themselves to fight her. But she wasn’t attacking. She wasn’t aware at all from what Andre could tell.

  His soul cried because he couldn’t see his Gabrielle in this woman.

  Gabrielle

  Power roared through my veins, continuing to brighten my skin and tear me apart from the inside out. I’d thought it might settle now that the devil was gone. I hadn’t thought it could hurt worse than it already had.

  I was wrong on both counts.

  My eyes didn’t see, my ears didn’t hear. I was pain, limitless pain. My power built on itself, boiling my blood as it did so. I blindly stared at the heavens as it drew out the damnation within me like one would a poison. But it also felt like it was killing me.

  My back arched and I screamed, the sound like nothing of this earth as the siren rode my voice.

  Oh God, the pain. Just a vessel, a vessel for darkness and light to battle, and either might win, but I would lose.

  The power stole the rest of my thoughts. It stole everything.

  For one brief second, the world came to a halt as I hovered in the air. And then the power burst through my skin, ripping me apart, and Gabrielle as I knew her was nothing more than smoke and memory.

  Andre

  Something was wrong. Gabrielle’s skin continued to brighten, and her face contorted.

  Andre had frozen in place, just like everyone else out here.

  He forced his feet into action. It felt like pulling himself from a bog, each step difficult. He sheathed his sword as he staggered towards her.

  Gabrielle continued to brighten, her body arching. She opened her mouth and let out a scream. The noise brought Andre to his knees.

  Beautiful anguish.

  Then it all stilled. He felt the silence and the breath of magic against his skin.

  Dear Lord, it was too late.

  Andre roared as light consumed Gabrielle’s body. And then that light, that blinding light, blasted from her. It was so bright it lit the night sky, so bright it drained their surroundings of color.

  It swept over the field, and Andre saw the demons closest to Gabrielle combust, flames ripping through them, before the light swallowed that too. He heard Lila’s shriek a moment before it consumed her.

  The shockwave raced towards him, and he only had a split second to realize that the light would burn through him. He dropped his sword and opened his arms to embrace his death.

  Andre didn’t even have time to scream as it ripped through his body, incinerating muscle, bone, and seven hundred years of life.

  And then the curse of vampirism was finished, once and for all.

  Chapter 32

  Gabrielle

  My skin throbbed. Each cell felt like it had its own pounding pulse.

  Bit by bit, the blinding, all-consuming light drew away from the edges of my vision and color seeped back. With it came sight.

  The sky had lightened since I last gazed upon it, now a dusky dark blue. In the east, pinks and purples bled into it.

  My body began to descend and I dimmed. My earlier power fled, draining me of the last of my energy.

  Weak. So unbelievably weak. My feet gently touched the grass, then the backs of my thighs, then my shoulders and head. Laid down by some unseen being.

  I barely had energy to move, but I managed to tilt my head to the side. The grass beneath my cheek didn’t wilt or flatten itself away from me.

  Bishopcourt stood off in the distance, smoldering. Around me, a field of men and women lay, some dead, some stirring awake. No one had been left on their feet. Well, aside from the angels that hovered in the sky, but they hadn’t been standing in the first place. The only beings wiped away completely were the demons. Not even their bodies remained.

  Banished to hell along with the devil.

  As the last of my power left me, my heart jolted, and I felt a familiar tug as my bond flared to life. I placed a hand over my chest and felt the pump of that organ.

  I’m alive.

  After all that I’d done, I was sure the energy would eat me up.

  I heard a gasp in the distance, then, “Soulmate.”

  A jolt flared through my body, and my connection throbbed.

  It couldn’t be.

  I pushed myself to my forearms, the air stirring my hair. Across the field, Andre stared at me, his gaze intense. Shocked.

  I thought he was dead. I thought I’d lost him. But there he stood, looking very much alive.

  He glanced down at the torn and bloodstained material that covered his chest. His fingers rubbed over the skin. The wound that the devil delivered, the one that should’ve killed him and sent him to hell, had vanished, and his heart—

  I closed my eyes, just to make sure I heard correctly.

  Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

  It beat. His heart beat.

  How was that possible?

  I opened my eyes as wonder spread across Andre’s features. He strode forward, his movements somewhat stilted. I got the impression that he might be just as weak as I was.

  As he got closer, our connection got stronger.

  Our connection.

  A sob slipped out of my mouth. I forced myself to my feet and stumbled forward. I tripped over myself, but then he was there to catch me in his arms. One of his hands skimmed up my neck and tilted my jaw up.

  Our connection—our connection!—throbbed. And then our lips met, and it went blissfully silent.

  I couldn’t imagine any mouth could feel this soft or anyone could taste this good. Andre’s lips glided over mine, his arms tightening around me. I’d seen a future with the devil, a future that stretched on and on, and in it I was happy. But it didn’t hold a flame to a single lifetime with this man.

  Neither of us expected this, neither of us thought it was possible. We’d fought and fought, and I wasn’t sure we ever truly believed we’d make it out alive. And now I was in Andre’s arms, my hand pressed against his beating heart.

  Eventually we had to come up for air. An hour ago, we wouldn’t need to catch our breaths. Now we did.

  Andre still held me tightly against him, his hand cupping the side of my jaw. His eyes searched mine, his chest rising and falling. “What is the meaning of this?”

  I blinked back watery tears.

  Watery tears. Not blood.

  “I think it’s over, Andre. It’s finally over.”

  “Dios mio,” Andre whispered.

  He reeled me back into his body, trembling around me. A tear hit my cheek, sliding down into my mouth. I tasted salt and water, and as my nose buried into the crook of Andre’s neck, I could smell him. Not his pheromones. Him.

  We truly were no longer vampires, which meant we weren’t damned. Only, I wasn’t sure we were human, either. I still retained my ability to smell and hear things normal mortals couldn’t.

  Above us, the sky brightened. We gazed to the skies, our arms still locked around one another’s.

  The angels stared at me now, their brows pinched together, their mouths frowning. And as people roused themselves, they too studied me until they caught sight of what was happening above us.

  Light backlit the dark clouds. They parted, and a beam of light stretched from beyond them to the field. Not light from the sun, which was rising in the east; light from on high.

  The atmosphere inside the beam of light shimmered and coalesced into a man with iridescent wings and dark skin and eyes that seemed to contain the entire universe. He
had the same otherworldly beauty as all the angels, but I could feel the power of this man eclipsing theirs.

  He wore golden gladiator sandals and a cloth made from the same fabric as my own attire that draped around his hips. And he wore little else.

  “I, the messenger known on earth as Jericho Aquinas, come bearing an edict for heaven, earth, and hell,” he said, his voice carrying over the field.

  That was what Jericho really looked like? Holy heavens, the dude was a babe.

  “In response to a plea made on a celestial request quill, God, our holy mother, has intervened.” He held up a scroll that shimmered. “This is Her edict.”

  He unrolled the paper and began reading. The language he spoke wasn’t meant for human ears.

  Teoian, my mind whispered, the language of the gods.

  The sound of it reverberated in my bones, too powerful and vast to be understood. I caught the sound of my name amongst the words.

  He paused. When he resumed speaking again, it was in another foreign language, one that enveloped me in a peaceful embrace. I felt the brush of divinity in this language not because of its power but because of the holiness that washed over my skin.

  The angels stared at the messenger in growing shock as he spoke.

  Jericho paused once more, and this time when he spoke, it was in English. “In return for freeing those unjustly imprisoned in hell, God has granted amnesty to all who were tricked by the fallen one once known as Lucifer. God has additionally granted amnesty to those both directly and indirectly involved in the release of these souls.

  “The curse of vampirism has been lifted from those still living, along with their immortality. Whatever magic their body retains will be theirs to keep until the day of their death. Their sins up to the present day have been expunged.

  “Lucifer, who sought to break this world to his will, has been stripped of those powers he so recklessly wielded and divested of a mate he sought to entrap. The bonds that he broke in the process have been mended.

  “God’s vessel, Gabrielle Fiori, is to be recognized for her involvement in stopping the devil, as is Andre de Leon, Leanne Summers, Oliver Borealis, and Nona, the weaver of life. Any wrongdoing on their part is absolved by this heavenly decree.

  “With these words, heaven acts out its will. May these times not be forgotten, lest history dare repeat itself.”

  Jericho lowered the scroll and stared out across the field. His eyes briefly landed on me before continuing on. “Be good, humankind, for gods play with mortals and our reckoning is mighty and final.”

  With that, his form shimmered out of existence, and the ray of light dissolved away.

  Andre’s hand tightened on mine as he stared towards the lightening sky. The angels had left shortly after Jericho, and the remaining supernaturals scattered like dust in the wind. The only other beings that lingered were the last of Andre’s coven. There weren’t many, and I recognized even less.

  We watched the horizon. The sun crested in the east, and for the first time in seven hundred years, Andre felt its rays on his skin.

  He sucked in a ragged breath, and I saw a tear slip down his face. He closed his eyes as he drank the sensation in, and then he was laughing, his whole body shaking from it. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from him. I’d thought he’d been beautiful before, but under the glow of the sun, he was magnificent.

  He picked me up by the waist and twirled me around him. I cupped his face, drinking him in. The sun didn’t incinerate his skin, no vines rose to claim me. Our hearts beat together.

  “You did it soulmate—you saved us all,” he said. “My God, we’re finally free.”

  Chapter 33

  Gabrielle

  Two weeks later

  In the end, I had led to the extermination of vampires, just like the prophecy said I would. The curse of vampiricism now lifted, there were no more vampires. Just a bunch of scary-ass mortals.

  Unlike the devil, God gave words and intentions the benefit of the doubt. My plea to save us all hadn’t even been fully written, and I hadn’t clarified who, exactly, I’d been referring to. But God had divined my intentions nonetheless and she’d expanded it to include everyone throughout the ages who’d been duped by the devil. God hadn’t just saved our souls, she’d saved our lives.

  I set down the brush I’d been running through my hair and stared at my reflection in Andre’s bathroom mirror. My skin glowed softly from the song I hummed underneath my breath.

  We might be mortal, but neither Andre nor I were human. I was still a siren, and I could definitely still beguile Andre with my voice—not that he fought it too much. Our bond had reestablished itself, a feature distinct to supernaturals. But most of all, we retained some of our power.

  We’d kept the heightened senses that came with vampiricism—including night vision—and we still both had extraordinary strength and speed. Even more extraordinary was that both of us could still call on small amounts of magic, and I maintained the ability to sense it. It was a mere echo of what we once wielded, but it came with no strings attached.

  There was no longer a name or classification for us. We now fell outside the categories given to supernaturals. It made me wonder if other beings had come into existence as solutions to past battles between good and evil. I guess I would find out once I had children of my own whether they’d inherit these same abilities.

  My gaze moved to the packet of birth control pills sitting on the bathroom counter. Speaking of children, I had to have the vastly uncomfortable conversation with Andre about contraception, a conversation that he, unlike me, didn’t find awkward in the least. He did, however, enjoy watching my face flush with embarrassment.

  Behind my reflection, I caught sight of a broad, muscled chest just as a hand snaked around my waist. Andre leaned in from behind me, pressing a kiss to my cheek, then nipping my ear playfully. “What has my soulmate flustered?”

  I swiveled around in his arms to face him. “Sneaking up on people is not nice.”

  He nuzzled my neck, breathing my scent in. “Mmmm, it’s not, and you are flustered.” The hand around my waist stroked my skin languidly. “Are you still thinking about last night, as I am?”

  See? No qualms.

  My face heated, and Andre flashed me a wicked smile. His eyes strayed briefly to the packet of pills, and the smile vanished.

  And that was the other thing. Now that kids were back on the table for him, I was pretty sure Andre wanted them. Eep. No—please and thank you. I wouldn’t be crossing that bridge for a long time.

  A long, long, long time.

  “Soooooooooouuuuuulmate!” Oliver screeched from the hallway.

  Andre flared his nostrils. “Why is he calling you that?”

  “Because you do, and he loves nothing more than irritating the wrong people.”

  We met the fairy out in the hall. On his heels was Leanne.

  “Has anyone told you that your bed sucks?” he said by way of greeting. “I bet you’ve laid on stone slabs softer than that thing.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Oliver. He’d unofficially taken over my dorm room, much to his former roommate’s delight and much to Leanne’s horror. Andre’d balked at the idea of me returning to the dorm rooms now that I was enrolled at Peel Academy once more. A day after Jericho delivered his message, I found my packed belongings sitting at the foot of Andre’s massive bed.

  “Are we going to discuss this?” I’d asked him.

  “I’ve left you with the enemy for far too long. I’m not making that mistake again.”

  I’d all but rolled my eyes at that, but I didn’t fight him too doggedly on this issue. After moving heaven and hell for him, I wasn’t all that eager to leave his side.

  And, two weeks later, I found there were few things better than falling asleep and waking up in the arms of a former vampire king.

  It might all come to an end in two days, however; that was when my mother was scheduled to arrive. We’d see how that would go over.

&nb
sp; She’d learned along with the rest of the world that gods and devils existed—as did supernaturals of all shapes and sizes—and that her daughter was both the anti-Christ and the girl that saved the world from the devil.

  My mother was obviously having some issues processing all of it.

  “Oh, and I’ll have you know that I put a hex on Doris to make her nose hairs grow to her chin,” Oliver said, pulling me back to the present.

  “Oliver!” I gasped.

  “What? She was rude to Leanne and you, and she casts those judge-y eyes of hers at me. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.” He grabbed my wrist. “We need to go to Castle Rushen. Now.”

  The remains of Castle Rushen, that was. They were still renovating the building after Andre demolished it, and they would be for some time.

  “We’re not going anywhere near that castle,” said my still-so-over-protective-it-hurts soulmate.

  Since the world almost ended, Andre and I had become something of a sensation. Both the supernatural world and the human one were captivated with our story. It was all nice and well, until you wanted to grab a cup of coffee and someone recognized you.

  “Oh my god, you’re Gabrielle Fiori, aren’t you?”

  “Were you really fated to the devil? Did you actually have to marry him?”

  “Can I have a picture with you?”

  “Told you,” Leanne said, back in the present.

  Oliver huffed, then glanced at me, raising his eyebrows. I gave him a look that said, What do you want me to do? I had to pick my battles with Andre, and this was not one of them.

  “Fine, fine. We won’t go, spoilsports. Do you have a television?”

  By means of answer, Andre brushed past us and stalked down the hall.

  Oliver leaned in. “Broody-as-hell. Gah, you lucky bitch,” Oliver said, eyeing his backside.

  The three of us and a couple of Andre’s men entered his conference room and circled the television. Oliver picked up the remote resting on top of it and clicked to the appropriate channel.