Angel of Darkness Books 1-5

by Mackenzie Morris

  During the day, the sun was his enemy. It burned his skin and nearly blinded him as it reflected off of the cresting waves. During the night, he begged for it to return as he froze and climbed as high as he could up the cave wall to get away from the frigid water during high tide. The constant flooding made sleeping for any long stretch of time nearly impossible. As water and food became nonexistent, his weakness overwhelmed him to the point that he was no longer able to get out of the water, so he would hold his knees to his chest and sit on the one ledge he had to wait it out as the water surrounded him.

  Today, Jaylen watched the fins of black dolphins a few hundred feet off the shore as seagulls circled above them, sounding their call as the sun began to set behind the rocks. The waves crashed against the rocks and the first trickles of water rolled into the cell, causing the tiny cuts from the rocks on the bottoms of Jaylen's feet to sting with the salt.

  Jaylen picked up the thick seashell that was hard enough to cut through the rocks of the cell and scratched another mark to signify the passing day. He traced the lines with his finger and counted them all. Sixteen. It had been difficult up to this point, but he knew that the worst was yet to come. Starvation and dehydration were already wreaking havoc on his body and his mind, but he promised himself something at the beginning of this. He would stay alive as long as he could, regardless of how painful it became. He would not end his own life. Sure, the thought of drowning or cutting his throat with the sharp seashell was tempting at times of severe emotional weakness, but those feelings quickly passed when he took a few deep breaths and thought of Reya.

  The thoughts he had of Reya were the only things keeping him going. Jaylen didn't know why that was the case, but something about picturing her warm smile and her flittering giggle made him want to survive and find her again. They weren't together for very long at all, but there was something about her that Jaylen couldn't forget if he tried. It could have been the sun and lack of water playing tricks on his mind, but there were cold nights when he would have a dream of her and he would have sworn he loved her.

  As he watched the waves rise and fill his cell, something caught his eye. He waded through the cool water and squinted in the orange sunlight as he tried to make out what the object was. It glinted in the light as if it was some sort of glass. A bottle would be invaluable to him so he could store rainwater. He had to get it no matter what. Jaylen reached out through the steel bars and stretched as far as he could. His cracked fingertips grazed the slippery surface, but all he did was push it farther away. "No! Come back. Please." He continued to beg the bottle to come back, but it became lost in the waves again. Another disappointment.

  Giving up for the night, he trudged back to the ledge along the back wall and sat down again. He leaned back against the rough rocks, but opened his eyes when he heard something clinking against the metal bars. He jumped down and ran as fast as he could to the steel bars and plucked the bottle out of the water. His joy was unrivaled by any he had found lately. Jaylen pried the cork from the bottle with his teeth and reached inside the green-tinted glass to find something strange. Paper? Taking the bottle to his ledge, he extracted the tan paper as best as he could with one hand. Who would send a message in a bottle? He figured it was probably some young child who thought that the stories about them were true.

  Jaylen unrolled the paper and noticed the curly handwriting right away. This wasn't written by any child. It had been a while, but he knew the forms of the letters and the way the words ended with tiny curls. He gasped as he held up the note in the fading sunlight and read it.

  To Anyone Who Finds This Bottle,

  It is foolish of me to write this on the belief that waves and wind could somehow send these words to anyone in particular. But I have grown so desperate that I have run out of options. As such, this will be my one and final attempt at this insanity. Whoever finds this letter, please read my words and know that they were meant for a very special boy who has been lost for quite some time. He was my life and my everything. I entrust this letter to whoever finds it and beg of you to do whatever is in your power to find its intended receiver.

  Now to Jaylen Amalas Corrifus, I am sorry. This entire situation is more my fault than you will ever know. I have failed not only Heaven, but you as well. And that is unacceptable. I want to kill myself. I do. However, I know that if I no longer exist, then the search for you will end. I must stay alive for as long as I can to keep even the tiniest flicker of hope alive that someday, I will have you back in my arms again. I know our bond has been broken, but that is no fault of your own. I will bond with you again. I swear it. With all of my soul, I swear to you that I will find a way to make all of this right. I have no way of knowing what horrors you have endured, but I continue to hold fast to the hope that you are alive. Wait for me. Do not leave this world until I am able to hold you in my arms. Then you can die and find peace. Not before I am with you. Please. Hold on just a little bit longer. I will find you. You are my life and my love. I need you, Jaylen Corrifus.

  Without you, I am hopeless.

  With all the love in my heart,

  Fallen Angel Zeriel

  Wingless

  Angel of Darkness Book Three

  Wingless

  Copyright © 2015 by Mackenzie Morris

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

  Chapter 1

  Four Months Later

  When Jaylen woke up in the bright sunlight that entered through the bars of his coastal isolation cell, he spotted the newest wooden crate that had been left for him. He slid off of the dry ledge and landed in the shallow seawater that had just begun to fill the cell during high tide then weakly made his way over to the battered wooden crate. This was the fourth one he had mysteriously received by an unknown visitor in the night. Whoever it was, they were able to open the cell to set the crate inside, but didn't care enough for Jaylen to rescue him. All signs pointed to Archangel Carvael.

  The crates always had small simple items inside: a pile of bland crackers, two oranges, a flask of fresh water, and a vial of medicine for the wound where Jaylen's left hand had been amputated due to infection. The first crate also contained a small sharp knife and an elegantly-written letter giving him the choice to either continue nearly starving to death and suffering or to slit his throat and get it over with. For some unknown reason, Jaylen decided to suffer.

  But that reason wasn't actually unknown. In the pocket of his tattered cotton pants, Jaylen kept the paper smeared with ink and blood that he had received from the bottle that washed up into his cell weeks before. He had to stay strong for his angel, if Zeriel truly was still alive. The odds of that letter being written by Zeriel and miraculously being sent across the ocean to the other side of the world in a glass wine bottle directly to its intended recipient were close to zero. It could have been a cruel trick from Carvael to make Jaylen want to survive, just so he could watch Jaylen starve to near death. However, Jaylen clung to the hope that it was Zeriel. Even though their bond had been broken, he still cared for Zeriel. Maybe if he cared enough, Zeriel would feel the same for him and find some way to save him from this torment.

  When Jaylen opened the lid of the crate and peered inside, he looked at the strange contents curiously. With his cracked and cut fingers, he sorted through them. A pair of new clean brown cotton pants, a short yellow tunic, a pair of soft leather knee-high boots, underwear, a thin belt, a razor blade, a bar of sweet-smelling soap, a ham sandwich wrapped in parchment paper, a flask filled with peppermint tea, one leather glove, a mirror, and a roun
d ball filled with some kind of blue oily potion. What was all of this for? At the bottom of the crate, he spotted a note.

  Stubborn Mage-Boy,

  Shave, bathe in the ocean water, and eat quickly. Then get dressed in your new clothes and prepare to go back into civilization. Cilona is readying the wheat fields for the annual slave games and you have been selected to compete, despite the heinous implications of your crimes against the country. The Haunted Library has been repaired, as much as was possible after that fire those infiltrators started. Have you enjoyed your stay in the isolation cell? Sure, it was mean of me to falsely accuse you of setting the fire in the library, but no one cares about a slave. I gave you the option to kill yourself, but you decided to be stubborn and live through these past nearly five months. You would not have survived if not for me and my supply crates. You're welcome, by the way. Drink the blue potion so you can get some energy built back up. It is filled with nutrients, fat, and various herbal compounds that will help to jumpstart your body's recovery after so long without a decent meal. Make yourself presentable, and I will be by later to escort you back to Cilona. Do try to look like more than a filthy animal. Public opinion is very important to all of the slave competitors. The spectators get one save for their favorite slave, so you want to win over the hearts of the women who are more likely to feel sympathy for you. Though, you don't stand much of a chance because they all believe that you are the one who set the fire in the Haunted Library and you only have one hand. You aren't well suited for physical fighting and games like the slave games will be. You need all the help you can get.

  Good luck,

  Archangel Carvael

  Jaylen crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the waves. So it was Carvael who had been keeping him alive all this time. Now he expects Jaylen to compete in the slave games. Did Jaylen even have a choice? The overwhelming realization was that he didn't have a choice. Sighing, Jaylen scrambled to unwrap the ham sandwich and voraciously devoured it, savoring every bite. He drank the peppermint tea and even the oily blue potion. He felt instantly better.

  Now for the other objects in the crate. Before the waves could flood the cell completely, Jaylen dragged the crate over to the dry area of the cell and laid out the clothes and various objects. He held up the mirror and gasped as he viewed himself for the first time in five months. He didn't recognize himself. He knew that he had been losing far too much weight, but he didn't realize how much. His ribs showed and he looked like those orphans he saw on the streets of Wolfekin. Then Jaylen spotted his face. He was tan from the sun and his lips were pale and parched. His blond hair had grown out to the top of his ears and he had grown a short beard, mustache, and sideburns. It was splotchy, but definitely there. No one would be able to call him a little boy anymore. So much had changed in five months. It made him wonder what else about his body had changed without him realizing it.

  Without wasting any time, he stripped his tattered pants off and waded out into the deepening water in his cell. With his one hand, he lathered up the floral scented soap and delighted in the feeling of finally being clean again. Once he was as clean as he was going to get with soap and seawater, he sat down on the ledge to dry off as he leaned over the mirror and clumsily shaved for the first time. Proud that he only cut himself three times, Jaylen put the razorblade away then dressed just in time for a tall white-haired angel with golden wings and wrinkles around his pale eyes to land on the rocks outside of the cell.

  Carvael crossed his arms across his long white robes as he watched his prisoner. "Have you enjoyed your time here, Jaylen? My, my . . . you look almost like a man once you're cleaned up. Well, hurry up now. We have many things to discuss before we get to Cilona. Put your hand through the bars so I can secure you. I can't have you running off."

  Without a choice, Jaylen meekly went to the bars and held out his hand. The rope was wound around his wrist and tied so tightly that he yelped in the sudden pain. He waited as Carvael unlocked the bars and slid the heavy steel out of the way.

  "Get out here and bow to me respectfully like a good boy should."

  "You can't tell me what to do!" Jaylen grabbed his throat as his voice cracked. What was that?

  Carvael laughed mockingly. "Sounds like someone is becoming a man. It's about time, don't you think? Well, you still have the body of a boy. Pathetic."

  Jaylen's eyes narrowed as he glared at the archangel. "I could have muscles if you hadn't starved me for five months."

  "This is your one warning, boy. You will be silent for the remainder of your time with me in Cilona. Every male slave participating in the slave games must be reverent and submissive. I would have thought that your stay in the isolation cell would have knocked your arrogance down a few notches, but it seems that I was wrong. Do I need to lock you back in there until next year?"

  "No, sir."

  "Good."

  Jaylen followed slightly behind Carvael's large golden wings, not that he had much of a choice with the scratchy rope tied tightly around his wrist. As they walked down the beach, he had to ask a question, even if that question went against the rules of remaining silent. "Can I ask you something?"

  "Are you actually being polite?"

  How was he supposed to answer that? "Yes?"

  "One question. Make it quick."

  "Why do you hate me?"

  "Hatred is such an abstract word, don't you think?" Carvael asked. "Because of you and your corrupted soul, my son is Fallen. That is inexcusable. I will make you suffer for all that you have taken from me. If you hadn't been born, Doran wouldn't have been under so much stress and taken it out on Zeriel. Then Zeriel wouldn't have had to kill Doran in self defense. This is all your fault."

  Did he hear him right? "You knew? You knew about Doran and the abuse Zeriel went through?"

  "Of course! I know everything. Never forget that."

  "But . . . you didn't tell the Angelic Court the truth. Zeriel could have gotten a lighter sentence."

  "That was Zeriel's prerogative, not mine. He was too much of a coward to tell the truth, so he got what he deserved. I was trying to teach my son a lesson in responsibility."

  "Is that what you were trying to teach him when you shunned him when he was my age? All he wanted was for you to love him like you did when he was a child, but you turned your back on him."

  Carvael slapped Jaylen across his face. "Insolent brat. How dare you accuse me of anything? I will make sure that Zeriel is there to watch you die when I finally decide to finish you off."

  Jaylen's jaw ached where a red handprint was left from Carvael's hand. "Zeriel is alive?"

  "Yes, but he can't get to you. So sad, isn't it?"

  "Why don't you simply kill me now? Get it over with. If you hadn't given me those crates of supplies in the cell, I would have been dead by now. What can you possibly gain by keeping me alive?"

  "The delicious satisfaction of watching you suffer. That is all."

  Jaylen scoffed. "How angelic of you."

  Carvel yanked the rope, causing Jaylen to trip and fall into the sand. "Boy, don't press your luck. I could cut off your other hand and see how well you do in the slave games. One more word out of your disrespectful mouth, and I'll do just that. Now stand up and climb on my back so I can fly you back to Cilona."

  "Why would I ever ride on your back?"

  "Because if you don't, I will leave you here. And don't try anything. I will not hesitate you drop you and laugh as you hit the ground and die."

  Without a way to untie the knot binding him to his captor and a deep fear of being stranded out here to die, Jaylen stood up then climbed onto Carvael's back between the golden wings. It was the most degrading and humiliating moment he had to live through since the soul purge exorcism. Even being sold as a slave in front of all the people in Tivareshen wasn't comparable to this. Clinging to the back of his arch enemy with his legs wrapped around his waist was almost worse than starving to death in the isolation cell. Jaylen flinched as the rope was cinched
tight around his back and tied in front of Carvael.

  "There. Now if you fall because you are too weak, I will be able to catch you."

  "I thought you wanted me to fall and die."

  "That was a threat to force you to comply. Now that you have submitted to my will and you are helplessly tied to my back, I can change my mind about your fate. You didn't think I would let you die so easily, did you?" Carvael asked. "That's how I know you are still a naive little child."

  * * *

  Jaylen stirred awake under a thick wool blanket on a soft bed that was a welcome change from sleeping on the hard rocks of the cell. A ball of pale orange mage-glow hovered in the corner of the room and the crackling of a fire burning in the hearth made him smile. He sat up and stretched, breathing the sweet scent of leather and the fragrance from the vase of tulips on the bedside table.

  "Are you feeling better?"

  He spotted the brown-haired girl around his age in a corseted green dress standing in the doorway. "Hey, Reya."

  She came to the bed and set down a tray covered with bandages and various vials of ointments. As she unfolded the roll of bandages, she ran her fingers through Jaylen's scraggly hair. "Remind me to give you a haircut."

  "Is that all you're going to say to me? After five months of being apart, the first thing you tell me is that I need a haircut?"

  Reya sat on the bed and took out a pair of scissors from her dress. "Be still."

  As Reya cut his hair, Jaylen's mind was running wild with thoughts about the girl he had dreamed about every night that he was locked away and starving to death. Her memory kept him strong. Now she was acting like nothing mattered. She was the first woman that Jaylen had seen naked, the first one who touched him intimately, and the first one to cause his self control to waver. He remained chaste, but it was one of the most difficult decisions to stop her from taking their relationship to another level.