by A. K. Koonce
Wrath of One
Copyright 2019 A.K. Koonce & Aleera Anaya Ceres
All Rights Reserved
Cover design by Killerbookcovers
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without express written permission from the author. Any unauthorized use of this material is prohibited.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Triton’s Academy Sneak Peek
Also by A.K. Koonce
Also by Aleera Anaya Ceres
About A.K. Koonce
About Aleera Anaya Ceres
One
Saint
If we were smart, we’d be hiding like the other Prods of Academy of Six. We’d take shelter in the barricaded dorms away from the lashing destruction and hellacious fires.
It’s safe to say we are not smart, though. Because Malek, Syko, Phoenix, and I stand looming above it all on the rooftop of the main office, high above the new hell that’s crashed into Academy of Six. The world down below doesn’t look as familiar as it once did. Cavernous rocks stand tall within the woods as ice and snow cling to the branches of strange willowy trees that I’ve never seen before. Blue and red fire blooms across the dark forest, consuming everything around it in flickering tendrils. The thick smell of ash and sizzling flesh saturates the air, choking my lungs with every shaking breath I take. Smoky wind catches my dark hair and flings it into my eyes, but I never take my gaze off her.
And Izzy, she never takes her gaze off her father—Professor Shade, the devil himself. Her back and stark black wings are perfectly straight against the iron-wrought throne. Fiery lines glint along the veins of her wings and illuminate her pretty, but glaring, bicolored eyes.
She’s like a shattered version of herself. Like catching a glimpse of the beautiful girl I met over a year ago in a dark, warped mirror.
“You think she’s still in there? Or do you think it’s entirely her demonic Prod?” Malek asks me in a cutting whisper. It sounds harsh, like he doesn’t really want to say what he just said.
But we’re all thinking it.
“She’s still in there.” Phoenix folds his arms firmly over his chest, his attention locked on where she sits among the screaming hell spawns, the enormous Messenger of Chaos and the devil who did this all. “She might seem distant, but she’s still there. She’s still the same woman who made me—” His voice cuts off, but I can almost hear the words love her slip from his parted lips.
This is a shit hole mess. None of us has a clue how to cope with the fact that the woman we love is down there at the center of the hellish circus. She… did this. She chose her father over us.
My throat tightens as I think about my own parents. To be honest, if my father praised me and took an interest in me the way Shade did Izzy… I probably would have unleashed hell for his sudden affection too. It’s completely screwed up, what love does to you. It hurts, what she’s done, but I can’t say that I don’t understand it.
My attention shifts to the explosion of power that’s raining down chaotic magic on the demons just two buildings over. Kayos’s image flickers in and out of focus, static light pulsing around her as she tears into the creatures clawing through the dirt like they’re nothing more than insignificant flies buzzing around her. Blood and body parts surround the little blonde girl, and her eyes shine manically in the moonlight.
Syko’s big black eyes shine as he watches her with a sort of amazement in his smooth features.
She’s waited for this moment her entire life, it seems—to be unleashed without repercussions and let that savage side loose. She can take care of herself, no longer needing big brother to dance around her emotions. Just as the thought flitters through my mind, her magic rips through a demon the size of a tree and splinters his whole body into pieces.
Wow. She can definitely take care of herself…
My gaze shifts across the flickering fires, the slamming of bodies into brick, and the snarling of flicking, evil tongues. And then, I spot a horde of demons gripping the gates. They pull with all their might, but the iron never bends. Some climb higher; they reach the spiked points at the top of the gate, just to scream out in pain and fall to the ground all over again.
“The demons can’t get over the academy gates,” I whisper, my brows scrunching together as I watch it all.
“Of course they can’t,” Heaven drawls. “Nothing gets in or out of Academy of Six without absolution. The entire place is warded. High honored donors like Daddy and me have unlimited absolution.”
Of course he does.
“Of course Daddy does.” I echo my thoughts exactly. “That’s why you’re able to haunt my lost soul.” During the little blip of hell opening up, I make time to give my sister a nice glare, but I just can’t seem to fully manage the scowl.
Everything’s a fuckery of a mess right now.
Heaven sits on the far edge, holding Sasha in her arms while the fae girl shivers against the cold. The two of them are well hidden and hunkered down below the brick ledge, but how long can we all really stay here?
I won’t leave. Not while Izzy is surrounded by danger.
But we need a plan.
“If we stand here with our dicks in our hands long enough, he’s going to break the ward.” Phoenix’s gaze shifts over the destruction of it all, and I can see his beautiful mind churning away. He thinks like them.
Because he’s just like them.
“We need to guard the source of the barrier. Whatever magic is containing this shit, we need to get to it before he does.” Phoenix turns, and it stuns me that he looks to Malek first. “We need to go. We need to find someone who knows how the academy magic works, and we need to get there. Now.”
Just when you think the two of them are on the same page, they’re fucking not.
“I’m not leaving her. Are you out of your damn mind?” Malek holds the incubus’s gaze while every muscle in his body strains. He wants to be down there. He wants to protect her.
His beast demands it. I can tell.
And that isn’t safe for anyone.
“I’ll go,” Syko whispers, turning away from the sight of his sister for the first time. Phoenix immediately nods, and I can’t help but look across the flickering hellfire to take her in.
My chest squeezes tight at the thought of both of them leaving. I hate the thought of them down there among all of that.
Phoenix’s big hand brushes over my bicep. He tightens his hold there in a warm and reassuring way until I look at his deep green eyes.
He’s relentless, just like Izzy. Except his power is contained.
I can’t be so sure about Izzy’s power
in this moment.
If we stay and do nothing, eventually someone will need to keep us safe from that power.
Two
Izara
Chaos is a word I didn’t fully comprehend until now. Neither was the sadistic sense of love that came with it.
The wilder, primitive, and savage part of me that I’ve fully embraced loves the violence. Relishes it. As the veil ripped open and the creatures of hell poured through, the men I love were thrown away from me, lost in the fray of hell on earth. But it wasn’t them I worried about. I didn’t even think of them.
How could I when my attention was snatched by the rift between worlds?
It’s a beautiful thing, and if I had my paints, I would portray it in all its vivacious violence. Creatures tear over each other like lions fighting and clawing over a scrap of bone. The air around the academy literally looks like it’s made of thin curtained fabric and has been ripped from top to bottom.
Fire licks through until it’s all consuming, raging across the forestation of black trees and dead earth.
Burn, I will it.
Burn.
I sit straight-backed on my throne, and I’ve never felt more at home than I do here. With this power thrumming through my veins like cold and hot rivers of fire warring against each other for dominance. My angel and hell blood demanding to take over.
My fingers flick across the armrest of my throne leisurely as I take in the chaos around me with joy.
Once upon a time, I would have thought it was my reckless Prod feeling joy. Not anymore. We are one now, she and I. My father had been right about embracing her; it gives me complete and utter control, coursing through my body.
I feel the power inside me, not like something foreign, not like something to be feared, but something to be relished. Something to embrace and to wield like it deserves.
The blood inside my body is holy and damned, and I’ve never felt more the sinner than I do now.
My wings snap closed at my back.
Watching the spectacle before me is like watching a play fall to tatters. Like watching darts pierce balloons filled with paint so it splatters in angry bursts across a canvas. Beside me, my half-brother, the Messenger of Chaos, laughs as two hellhounds drag the body of a Prod out into the clearing and rip through his chest.
I sigh and turn away from the sight.
My father watches the scene as well. He doesn’t laugh, though. He doesn’t seem to be at all like my vicious gargoyle of a brother. He’s more controlled, humming with quiet energy and delight. His posture is almost careless as he leans forward, elbows against his knees.
Looking at him now, in his elegant all-black suit, his profile chiseled, I wouldn’t peg him for a king. But the smoking obsidian crown on his brow that licks bits of fire tells me otherwise.
The King of Hell is my father.
The devil does wear Prada after all.
As if he feels my stare, he slowly turns and blinks at me with his bicolored eyes. One black, one as golden as the fire that threads through the veins of my wings.
He smiles at me, and he’s so handsome, I stare. All my life I’ve looked for bits of myself in others—in looks, if not in manners—and I’ve finally found it. I can see my eyes reflected in his own, and I know they’re a mirror of one another. I should have seen it before. His hair, the angle of his jaw…
I blink again, and he’s speaking. “You made this possible, daughter mine. Now together, we will rule hell on earth.”
I smile at him. A smile that suddenly drops from my face. When my eyebrows pull together in a furrowed expression, my father seems to falter.
“Are you not happy?”
“Perfectly happy, Father.”
“Then what is it?”
My eyes stray away from him for a split second and move over the rooftop of one of the buildings. My every sense is heightened now. It’s different, embracing the full extent of my powers. I can make out their figures, the figures of the men I love, staring down at the havoc I helped to wreak.
“I do not want them harmed.” My voice comes out more vehement than I intend. “Any of them.”
Understanding dawns on him. He reaches between the space of our joined thrones and grasps for my hand, bringing it to his mouth to press a kiss to my knuckles. “You and your soft heart. It’s the angel blood that helps you love like you do. Very well. My gift to you. I swear no harm will befall your little toys.”
The words little toys grate ever so lightly against my nerves, but I smile anyway.
“Good.” I turn away from him again, my fingers clutching my throne. When I look down at the back of my hand, there’s a slight burn mark against my knuckles. Like that promise was somehow sealed between us with the scar of his kiss.
Shrieks and flesh searing from bone permeate the air. The circles of hell are still coming through, blowing through the portal in shadows and ice and fire. When a familiar figure steps through the portal, leather pants clinging to muscular thighs and a spiked leather jacket open to reveal carved abs, I stand from my seat.
Azazel tugs at his lapels, sweeping his gaze around at the chaos, a soft sneer lifting his lip. Then that gaze settles on me and those smoking, burning wings shift, and he prowls toward me with steps that promise danger.
“Azazel.”
His lips pull into a smile. “I told you we’d meet again, Princess.”
Slowly, my father stands from his throne. The simple action asserts his dominance over this fallen angel, causing him to sigh.
“Where are my manners?” He takes my hand and bows over it; the action is so like Saint that I smile. I wish he were here. My emotions clash just slightly, but I keep my features smooth. Cold lips press to my knuckles, right over my father’s brand. “Your Highness.”
I pull my hand away, flexing my fingers as Azazel stands and turns to bow to my father. “Brother,” he greets coldly.
“Scope out the premises,” my father commands without preamble. “If anyone is hiding, find them and bring them to me. Try not to harm the students, but your ilk can have their way with the professors. If they can tell them apart.”
Azazel’s eyes roll, and he shoves his hands into his tight pockets. “Business as usual.”
“Go.” The hard-cutting word flicks from my father’s mouth with all the viciousness of claws slipping through flesh.
Azazel bows to my father again, but this time the gesture seems almost mocking.
The wild part of me acts on primal instinct. I reach my hand out, catching his neck. My nails dig into his skin and draw blood. “Do not disrespect my father again, Azazel,” I threaten in a voice as cold as ice.
His hand smooths over my own, and I can see his eyes glowing with barely concealed amusement. “Forgive me,” he purrs. “I wouldn’t dare disrespect your father, love.” His fingers grasp my wrist, where I’m sure he feels the rapid beating of my pulse. “What kind of world would we live in if we can’t even trust our own family? Be careful, Izara.”
The words slide over me with all the dark hints of a premonition.
A threat.
A promise.
“Your Highness.” His lips brush across my skin one last time before he turns and leaves to do my father’s bidding.
Three
Syko
Walking away from Izara burns fire in my chest. It’s hard to breathe through it all. It feels like my ribs want to cave in and crush everything inside me.
But I do it. I don’t do it to save myself or even the city outside these walls. I honestly don’t care what happens to anyone else anymore. But I care about Izara and… for some crazy reason I care about the family she’s created out of four Prods who shouldn’t have shit in common.
I care about them, too.
Phoenix grabs my shoulders and shoves me to the dirt. From the cold ground I watch as a charred demon slams into him where I stood just seconds ago. Jagged black nails lash out at the incubus as inky lines spread across Phoenix's face, from his eyes, to
his cheeks, to his lips. A growl like fiery rage roars from the man’s mouth, and his strength bursts out of him, flinging the creature off of him so hard, the thing lands with slamming impact.
And it doesn’t get back up.
Quietly I stand and extend my hand to the fuming incubus. His big black eyes cut to me, and I’m not sure he sees me at first. Not really.
A thank you feels in order, but there isn’t time.
“Come on,” I say instead, pulling him to his feet and racing across the smoky grounds of the school toward our destination far at the back.
I wish I could say it’s safer here. That the chaos of hell is contained to the front of the academy. But that’s just not the case. Golden streams of magic collide with screeching demons. The professors with casting magic line the lawn like a shield around the faculty housing.
Professor Thorne draws sparking lines all around the darkness. His hands are moving like a quick symphony of music is drifting from his fingertips, rather than his strange barrier magic. A single demon with half a dozen horns twisting up from his skull has the stupidity to approach the professor’s handmade fence. The moment his fingers strike through the golden lines of magic, a sizzling sound burns through the air. It’s loud enough to be heard over the creature’s screams. His skin scatters like confetti in the breeze; it flicks off of his arms like light ash twirling around him. And then he bursts open from the inside out, showering us all with tiny, dry flecks of burning flesh.
Professor Thorne’s eyes reflect the golden barrier and shine with pride and accomplishment. He smiles softly.
My wings extend fully, and without warning, I grab Phoenix around the middle and haul him over the deadly barrier. I drop him when we descend, and he lands as gracefully as I do. Except he’s ready. And I’m not.