by Ciara Graves
Will Be Done
Reign of Shadows
Ciara Graves
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
Afterword
Will Be Done
Reign Of Shadows Book Two
Seraphim, lords of hell, angels, demons, corrupted mortals, hell spawn, and the dark creatures of nightmares.
The battle of the realms continues!
Lela’s a warrior of light. As a warrior of light her mission is to protect the world from the legions of demons, corrupted mortals, hell spawn, and the dark creatures of nightmares.
Cracks in the veil have opened up the war of shadows and brought it to the mortal plane, opening up the seals to the realms of angels and hell.
Lela’s latest orders are to close the rift near a rundown human settlement. Ambushed by demons during her mission, she finds herself squaring off against a massive demon covered in tribal tattoos.
Tonamech—known as Mech— a tat-covered demon is one of the elite fighters under one of the nine Lords of Hell. HIs mission is to capture souls and return them to hell and fight off angel attacks.
Mech could do without angels. Any of them. Now he’s fighting an angel bearing a very specific branding mark on her shoulder signifying her high rank. He takes her captive. She could provide valuable intel.
Lela’s hope is to build up a burst of holy light to help her escape the demonhold. She didn’t count on Mech’s tenacity.
Warning: Unputdownable action-packed fantasy, with a touch of romance which features seraphim, lords of hell, angels, demons, corrupted mortals, hell spawn, and the dark creatures of nightmares.
Chapter 1
Mech
A bloodcurdling scream tore through the two-story house.
I bolted from the armchair I’d fallen asleep in, sprinted up the steps, and burst through the bedroom door at the end of the hall to find what was becoming an all too familiar sight.
Two demons and Tim fought to keep Lela on the bed.
Another scream—hers—made me wince as I charged forward to help grab her shoulders and push her back as gently as I could.
“Lela, wake up,” I shouted, but her eyes remained shut as her body continued to thrash.
Her back arched off the bed, and she screamed until she went hoarse. Her mouth gaped open in silent agony. Tears streamed down her cheeks. I hated to do it, but restraints might not be out of the question, at this point. I spotted them in the corner of the room. Koreth had a healer bring them, just in case. That was nearly a week ago, and thus far, I had refused to use them. This wasn’t her doing, and I didn’t want to punish her for it.
Besides, waking up restrained might not go over so well.
Leaning over her, I held her face firmly in my hands. “Lela, you need to listen to me. Wake up and look at me. You need to wake up. It’s just a nightmare.”
If that was true or not, I wasn’t sure. She had been plagued by these episodes since I brought her to the safe house in the human outpost of Bear Run. She hadn’t spoken a word, beyond screaming for Morael, and after that, Hadariel. She hadn’t even told me what happened between her and Hadariel, aside from it resulting with her wings ripped from her back, thus being turned into a mortal.
Lela’s mouth closed, and her eyes fluttered open. She didn’t say a word. The defeat in her eyes only made my anger grow. She was on her side, looking blankly at the wall, saying nothing.
Tim gave her a worried glance, but he left with the two demons when I motioned for them to go. The door closed behind them. I dragged over a chair to sit by Lela’s bedside.
“You want to talk about it?” I asked. As I did every time.
She tugged the blanket up higher and rolled over the other way showing me her back. She had a shirt on, but there was blood seeping through the fabric from her tearing the wounds. I’d have to dress them again.
“You need to talk to me,” I tried again. “Tell me what you’re seeing. Tell me what happened.”
“What’s the point?” she whispered.
I froze. It was the first time she’d spoken since I found her in the wastelands.
“The point is, you’re alive, Lela,” I growled. “You’re alive, and you can keep living, keep fighting.”
“No, I can’t. I’m mortal now. I can’t do anything.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t let him win.”
“He already has,” she snapped. She sat up, wincing. “I’ve lost everything. I’m not an angel. I’m not a warrior of the light anymore. I’m nothing.” She reached over her shoulder, her eyes slipping closed as a single tear fell down her cheek. “He took my wings. He took everything I am.”
“That’s not true, and you need to see that.”
I studied her gaunt face closely. She hadn’t been eating much since she was brought here, and as far as I knew only left the bed a couple of times a day to use the restroom. Her hair that was once shiny was dull and faded. It was a tangled mess, but she didn’t seem to care. The fight had disappeared from her eyes. Her whole demeanor shifted. She acted not like the angel I first met in the midst of a fight, but as someone who let herself become the victim.
“I’m not going to sit here and watch you die,” I said as I stood. “Get up.”
“No.”
“You are not going to sit in this bed for another day. Get your ass up and move. Get out of this room. Go talk to someone, anyone. These nightmares are going to keep plaguing you unless you do something about them.”
Her hands fisted in the blankets.
I waited for her to do something, to yell and scream at me. I waited for her to chuck pillows or the lamp by the bedside. All she did was sit there and stare. Her face grew pale, and then it was like she wasn’t there with me. I called her name three times when she finally gave herself a shake. Her eyes flitted around the room wildly as she scrambled across the bed until she backed into the headboard. The second she made contact, she gasped in pain.
I rushed forward. “I need to dress your wounds again,” I told her, but she backed away from me, fear in her eyes. “Lela?”
“Stay away from me,” she whispered, horrified. “Stay back. Don’t touch me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said quietly, uncertain if she was seeing me or someone else now.
“You killed him. You murdered him. How could you do that?”
Shit, this was bad. She definitely wasn’t seeing me. “Lela, it’s not Hadariel, alright? I need you to focus and remember. You’re with me at a safe house. You’re not with Hadariel.”
She trembled and shook her head, muttering, “No,” over and over. She clapped her hands to her ears as if she heard voices, or perhaps, even, the bastard himself, trying to talk to her. The healer, Bailey, had left extra bottles of sedative on the table. I reached for one, but she wouldn’t take it from me, not willingly.
“Forgive me later,” I muttered then picked up one of the small bottles and approached the bed.
She screamed and tried to get away. She nearly toppled off the bed in her haste. I shouted for Tim, and he rushed in, followed by Kexan.
“Hold her,” I ordered. pulling out the stopper on the vial.
She went back to screaming, and as carefully as I could, I forced her head back and poured the sedative down her throat. She spat some of it out, but enough made it down to work. She stilled. Her eyes closed. She was whispering under her breath.
This would let her sl
eep for a while. Bailey could come in and redress the wounds without the fear of Lela going off on her.
“What’s happening to Lela?” Tim asked out of breath from fighting against Lela.
“I wish I knew.”
“She still won’t talk?” Kexan eyed her warily as I rolled her onto her side and tugged up her shirt to see how badly she’d torn open the wounds. “Damn.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Kexan’s eyes were wide. “I forgot you hadn’t seen them yet,” I said in something of an apology.
“I heard they were bad, but that’s terrible.”
Where Lela’s wings had once been, were two gaping, elongated gashes. They were healing, but it was a slow process because she was now mortal. Bailey was using every demon trick she knew of to seal them, but Lela’s outbursts were making it hard. They had been bandaged, but she reopened them fighting against us. The wound on the right was completely visible, oozing blood and puss. The one on the left had bled through the bandaging.
“Tim, bring Bailey,” I said quietly, unable to take my gaze from Lela’s back.
He rushed out of the room.
Kexan came closer. “You think she’s ever going to be sane again?”
“I don’t think she’s crazy, not yet anyway. If she would just talk about it, I might be able to help her.” I smoothed the hair from her face. Her lip twitched, but she didn’t wake up. “I’m going to tear his wings out when we get to him. Make him suffer.”
“Unless he manages to kill us all first.”
“You’re not helping,” I muttered.
Steps and quiet voices came from behind us. Bailey didn’t even stop to talk to me. She went straight to Lela, shaking her head and giving the fallen angel a pitying stare.
“How bad?” I asked, following her.
“If she can’t stop having fits, these wounds will never heal.” Bailey removed the full bandaging and sighed. “This isn’t simply from the physical wound. This is inner turmoil. She has to come to terms with what she’s gone through.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried to get her to do that?” I growled, then bit my lip when Bailey shot me a glare. “Sorry, I just don’t know what else to do.”
“Push her.”
I scoffed. “How is that possibly going to do anything for her? She’s going to break.”
“And?”
“And what?” I stormed away, not wanting to lose it on the demon trying to heal Lela.
I wished my mother was alive. She would have a plan. She could be here, finding a way to make Lela talk. I was failing. That’s all I was doing, and I couldn’t help but blame myself for Lela’s current situation. She nearly died because of me.
My fingers dug into my palms until Kexan barked my name. I frowned then glanced at my hands. They were bleeding.
“Leave,” Bailey said, not looking up from her work. She was filling the wounds with a dark green paste that stunk of wet grass. “Get some fresh air, clear your head. When you come back to this room, you better be ready for a fight.”
I didn’t plan on leaving, but Kexan grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the door.
“She’s in good hands,” he assured me. “Tim, you’ll stay with Bailey?”
“Naturally. Go clear your head, Mech.”
My gut churned at leaving Lela, especially after the episode she just had, but I hadn’t slept well in over a week. I hadn’t eaten much either. Nor taken care of myself. I wasn’t even sure what was going on with the lords or our soldiers. Koreth had told me to only worry about Lela and keeping her alive. Not that I had much choice. Without a doubt, Lela and I were destined to find one another.
My mind had been in turmoil since finding her fallen in the wastelands. If I lost her so soon, what was the point of going on? I would become my father, as he was after he lost my mother. We should be trying to understand what we shared, but now I was afraid I was going to fail Lela before we ever had that chance.
I let out a shaky breath but left with Kexan, but each step away from Lela caused me physical pain. We made it downstairs, and he led me into the kitchen. The safe house was filled with several humans as well as a couple of demons. All of whom were healing from wounds. The building was heavily warded against angels to stop Hadariel’s men from finding Lela and finishing her off. Kexan asked the demons in the kitchen to give us the room. After they slipped out, he handed me a beer.
“Sit down and relax for a few minutes.”
“Relax?” I popped the tab off the beer and chucked it across the room where it pinged off the window and landed somewhere on the floor. “How am I supposed to relax when she’s up there letting herself die? Huh? Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“Do what Bailey told you. You have to push her, make her understand what you are to her, and that she can’t just give up. She’s got something to live for, Mech, and that’s you.”
I chugged my beer and threw the empty bottle in the trashcan so hard it shattered. “Not that easy.”
“Wait, have you not told her the truth?”
I glowered at him, then threw my hands up. “When do you think I’ve had time? When she’s screaming and fighting us in her sleep? Or when she looks at me like I’m Hadariel, there to finish her off? She’s hardly spoken or been coherent enough to even get two words in.”
“Mech, she needs to know.”
“That what? The demon who’s the reason why she lost her light, her faith, her everything is her soul mate?” I laughed harshly, running my hands through my hair as I stormed around the kitchen. “She’ll hate me. If she doesn’t already. I’d hate me.”
“Then, she hates you.”
“Wow, thanks for that motivational speech. Really helped me out.”
“Why don’t you reach out to Koreth?”
“He has enough to deal with, I’m sure. I’m going to assume since no one’s come, there isn’t any news?”
“On which war front?”
I plopped into a chair at the table. “Both.”
“Abominations roving in packs have been seen,” he said as he joined me at the table, bringing me a second beer. “Two more rifts have opened, and there’s a wild pack of hellhounds on the loose.”
“And the angels?”
Kexan peeled at the label on his bottle. He wasn’t an easy one to make nervous, but when he didn’t answer right away and kept picking at the paper, he didn’t have to say anything for me to know he was worried.
“Whatever it is, just tell me. I can handle it.”
“You sure about that? You’ve gone off the deep end yourself this last week.”
“Can you blame me?”
Kexan took a while to answer. “No, but the war hasn’t stopped just because Lela has been hurt. Hadariel needs to be halted. Meanwhile, evil is amassing. We’re going to need you out there soon.”
“I can’t leave her in this state.”
“You’re going to have to.” He started to say something but stopped. “Never mind.”
“I told you, I can handle it. What haven’t you told me?”
He shoved his beer aside. “It’s the angels. They’ve gone quiet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean since Lela fell, we haven’t seen any of them. None are patrolling their cities or rifts. We haven’t stumbled across any near the outposts, and none have attacked.” He spread his hands flat on the table. “I don’t like it.”
“Maybe Lela weakened Hadariel when they fought?” I mused.
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to be caught off guard when Hadariel makes his next move. And I don’t want to face them alone.” He stood and made for the door. “Find a way to save her so you can save yourself, too.” He patted me on the shoulder on his way out.
Those in the house went about their business as I eventually made it out the back door and into the yard. There’d been a garden here once upon a time. Now it was filled with weeds and dirt. I doubted anything would grow here again. I crouched low and picked up a clump o
f dirt, breaking it apart with my fingers. How had I landed my ass in this mess? I hardly knew anything about Lela, or who she was before she stumbled across my path.
What I did know was we were bound together, for one reason or another. The first time I saw those fierce indigo eyes was a moment I would never forget. She struck me right to my core in those few seconds. It’s exactly how Koreth described meeting my mother. One look and they were both lost. That’s how it was sometimes. It’s what my mother had told me when I was younger. Sometimes two souls just know they’re meant to be.
I couldn’t give up on Lela now. Nor could I let her give up on herself. Kexan was right. If it would save Lela from the dark place she’d fallen into, I could handle her hate. I could take whatever she threw at me as long as she lived. Mortal or not, she was my future. And I was hers.
I chucked the clump of dirt back into the garden. If I shut my eyes, I could almost envision this place filled with life again. Green grass and a garden filled with plants stretching toward the sun. That future hadn’t seemed possible a few weeks ago. I stood in that yard and tilted my head back. My cheeks grew warm, as if I was feeling the sun again. Hope. I had to hold onto hope.
On my way inside, I reached into my pocket and fumbled with the button infused with Lela’s blood and my hellfire. I hadn’t been able to let go of it. I tried to reach out to her through her dreams but had been blocked by a solid wall of darkness. I had thought it was Hadariel, but after what Bailey said, now I understood it was Lela. I’d have to make her break through that darkness. Or I’d lose her.
That just wasn’t an option. Bracing myself for the fight I was about to ignite, I climbed the stairs back to Lela’s room and waited for her to wake up.