When I traced my hand down Drake’s chest, his head jerked up at the touch. There was a flash of devastated humiliation before he turned away.
‘Now, now, naughty Wing.’ The Matriarch gripped Drake’s chin so hard, her long violet nails sliced crescents into his skin, as she twisted his head back. ‘Look at her.’
Frankincense battled with waves of myrrh.
‘You’re mine.’ I stroked Drake’s curl behind his ear with mock tenderness, mimicking the touch we never mentioned in the silence of my room; I didn’t miss his quickly hidden hurt. ‘If you’re in the game, the loser gets ganked.’
He shuddered, before he lifted his gaze to mine. His eyes sparked with such intense hatred, I shrank back.
Slap — the Matriarch’s scarlet handprint marked Drake’s cheek.
He breathed hard through his nose, but he didn’t struggle.
‘Boy, we need to do something about your rebellion.’ The Matriarch burrowed her nails deeper, and Drake writhed in his bonds. I battled not to lick up the trails of sweetness dribbling down his chin. ‘My daughter may make use of you, pleasure to your pain. That’s what you’re for, pretty Wing. To teach my daughter to let out her inner Glory.’
The dominant black inside rose up, gnashing its fangs to transform Drake’s hatred to humiliation, and then to tears.
To break him, like he’d broken Rebel.
I touched the pouch at my neck.
To hurt him, like he’d hurt me.
Was this the true face of Sleeping Beauty awoken?
‘Can’t you take your licks?’ When I pressed on Drake’s pinned wing tip, he moaned. ‘My turn. And I want truth. Don’t you remember offering me your arse?’
‘You would play now?’
‘Have we ever stopped?’
His shoulders slumped. ‘It is noble of you to force me to speak my place. I am yours, if you wish to have me, and the Matriarch allows.’
I flushed, ‘I wasn’t—'
‘I warned you, princess, that our world may not be as you hoped. Is this truly the ruler you wish to become?’
‘A daughter flies in the shadow of her mother, even as mine will now learn. Or else, she falls from the sky.’ The Matriarch knelt down to a chest that was engraved with Merlins on each of its sides and lifted out a steel clamp. Then she sidled to Drake, who flinched back, his gaze locked on the wicked toy. ‘The question is: what type of ruler do I wish her to become?’
She opened the clamp and bit its cruel teeth into Drake’s exposed right wing.
He howled.
She draped her arms around his neck and snogged him, swallowing the howl and feeding off the pain as if it was nectar. Then she drew back, lifting the small chest towards me. ‘Show him who has the power. The woman you have become at my side. Show him what it means to play the trickster with a princess.’
I gingerly picked up a crocodile clamp, opening and closing the teeth. Then I caressed my hand up and down the beautiful taut line of Drake’s left wing.
It looked agonising, quivering at such tension.
‘Where to start…?’ I hesitated, before remembering Rebel’s bent wing. How he was unable to fly properly. ‘Here.’
I bit the toy hard into sensitive flesh.
Drake yowled, tossing his head against the pain.
I was lifted in a heady blur that cottonwooled my mind.
Corrupt, poison, control…
Rule with love.
I pressed clamp after clamp down Drake’s left wing, as intent on the task as a surgeon. I only stopped when I reached the quivering tip.
I stood back to admire my sculpture.
My dark amusement.
Except, then Drake’s wails broke through the black waves clouding my mind; I saw his broken body, hanging limp in his bondage.
How had I lost control to the Queen of Corrupted Love?
I blinked, rocking back on my heels. My vision blurred.
I never wanted to be that princess…woman…again.
‘Doesn’t he look beautiful suffering? And you, I see, beautiful inflicting it.’ I flinched, as the Matriarch flung down the chest — clatter. She sidled closer, her long hair swishing against the floor. ‘We must play with pain together often.’
What would she do if I puked all over her this time?
Still, Commander Drake had disrespected by playing the Loki, so the sorry-face wasn’t pouting, until the Matriarch plucked one of his bleeding feathers and braided it into my hair.
‘Now the Wing is ours to share,’ the Matriarch announced. I jolted at the touch of the feather at my cheek, as she brushed the braid behind my ear, in the same way I’d tucked Drake’s curl behind his. ‘I always love to watch him weeping on his knees for your little Addict. I don’t know who loathes it more, and the pain is delicious. You’ll soar to the heavens with me, baby bird.’
I caught Drake’s gaze: he was…lost.
And I’d done that.
Rebel and Ash had once knelt, broken and bleeding with mutilated wings at the feet of a fanatic, and I’d been the bitch to rescue them.
I’d burned the bastard for touching what was mine. But how was I any different?
I staggered away, slamming against the wall so hard I winced. I opened my mouth to tell my mum where to stick it, but Drake stared at me, shaking his head frantically.
I closed my mouth with a snap.
Rule with love? Corrupted, poisoned, and controlling…
In London, we called that hate.
What the hell was I doing?
It’d take more than one kinky session to become the ruler the Matriarch wanted. I’d never be anyone’s shadow. But a fall from the sky would kill me.
The Matriarch grasped Drake’s hair. ‘It seems to hunt an Addict, you become an Addict. So much training forgotten. Why do you move, when your queen doesn’t wish it?’
She ripped off the clamps, pulling out Drake’s feathers in clumps and shoving her hand over his mouth to stifle his shrieking.
He struggled, before slumping, his head bowed.
The Matriarch tossed the bloodied clamps onto the floor, like an infestation of predator bugs. When she turned to me, she blinked; her ice mask back in place.
There was no way she couldn’t read my expression, as I fidgeted from foot to foot.
‘You’ll learn.’ The Matriarch ducked under Drake’s wing to the back of the cave. ‘If Wings aren’t kept with a firm hand? You end up with creatures like the Fallen. Or your father. Monsters.’ Her eyes flashed from the black, like a snow tiger’s. I’d hated my dad for abandoning me and now I hated him even for creating me. Did my mum hate me too? ‘Don’t fear the dark, my daughter, because with me, you’ll soar in the light. You’re home now. You won’t ever be weak or alone again. You’re of royal blood; no one can change what courses inside. As long as you learn.’
Never weak or alone…?
I clenched my hands to stop their shaking. Because the Matriarch was singing my siren song.
She opened a chest, which rested along the length of the back wall, drawing out a huge sword with a hilt built out of violet feathers.
The same sword Drake had laid, in fizzing fire, over Rebel’s dad’s neck, before he’d sliced it down and executed him.
‘Please…’ Drake could barely raise his head. ‘My Flight…’
‘My Flight,’ the Matriarch amended, before holding out the feathered hilt to me. ‘And now yours.’
‘I will not allow you to take the only thing I have left.’ Drake’s slender throat worked with suppressed sobs. ‘I apologise for my disobedience. But allow me to retain my mother’s weapon. I swear—’
‘You dare speak?’ The Matriarch nudged the weapon at me again. ‘Take it.’
Welcome to the Psycho Party.
When I clasped the hilt, the surge of power hit me, electrifying me to the tips of my fingers.
I gasped, curling my toes.
‘We fly the same path, but can you control yours? Are you a fighter, or fe
eble as the Wings? What use have I for a feeble daughter? Do you wish to discover what I do to the Imperfect?’ The Matriarch raised her eyebrow.
‘No one but I shall command Flight.’ Drake’s gaze blazed.
Flight jumped in my hands. The hilt heated, searing my palms.
I squealed, trying to drop the sword, but it stuck to my blistered palms before it swung.
I was thrown against the stone wall; my wrists were crushed. I yelped, struggling to control Drake’s weapon that’d been taken from him in the ultimate unmanning.
‘Allow it, Hal-sword-feathery-arse. This is your new mistress. And if you don’t stop, I’ll bust your shank balls, you get me?’ I growled.
The sword twirled me in a circle, like a freakshow Catherine wheel.
I hollered, collapsing to my knees.
White power soared through Flight: not out to an enemy but into me, holding back both violet and black, binding it with magic.
My mind was folding in on itself, snared by Flight.
I writhed, struggling to speak, but my lips wouldn’t move.
I tried to reach out to my mum, but the Matriarch simply studied me as she had the beetles.
A game between Drake and me with only one winner.
Except, Flight was Drake’s last link to his mum. Who could blame him for making sure this time I lost?
My hands clutched the hilt, even as my skin peeled and reddened.
Then the blade tipped towards me.
I fought to force it away again, but slowly the blade pressed under my chin and pierced my throat.
5
The first time I’d smelled my own sizzling flesh had been at the tip of Rebel’s flaming sword.
The second time?
My neck seared under the blistering fizz of Drake’s Flight.
Bitch could get a complex.
The blade sliced my throat; scarlet slicked my sweating skin. I staggered back, tripping over the steel clamps like bloodied booby traps, skittering them across the stone floor of the Matriarch’s chamber into the Merlin chests.
Clink — clink — clink.
The Matriarch twirled a feather that was woven into her waterfall hair; she lounged in the gloom with a haughty boredom, as if a sword wasn’t battling to gank its new mistress: her daughter.
But then, the Matriarch had set up this contest.
My shoulders ached; my arms strained from forcing back the blade. Inside, violet and black clashed with smothering white. I licked my lips, forcing my charred fingers looser on the hot hilt.
Just one inch more, and I’d be a fine red mist.
I glanced up from the crackling blade and caught Drake’s eye.
Then I wished I hadn’t.
Still pinned with his wings hammered into the wall, with his quivering arms suspended from the ceiling, Drake no longer slumped in his bondage. Instead, he could’ve been ruling atop the mountain of feathers with me, looking down on the valley of bones and the world he’d subdued.
Painted with crimson, glorious in pain, awe-inspiring in righteousness.
I quailed, taking a step towards him, before slipping in a puddle of his candyfloss blood.
Flight soared out of my hands, I stumbled forwards, catching myself around Drake’s neck, and frankincense tongued me.
I panted, hazy with agony, fear, and a desire that flushed me with guilt because…he was the enemy.
Wasn’t he?
Angel Blood: world’s best black-market aphrodisiac.
At last, Flight blasted back into my hand, like a question, and I screamed.
White-hot flames feathered out between both our guts, kissing along our arched bodies; we gasped in unison.
Then Drake’s lips were against mine, as hot as Flight.
I jerked back, but Drake’s whisper stopped me, ‘Dare.’
His gaze was desperate, pleading.
Did I trust him?
Hell, I wasn’t a wallad.
But strung up, forced, unweaponed, a bloke needed some respect.
I gave a curt nod.
Drake bit at my lip, pulling me closer, before he murmured, ‘Be still. I propose, seven days. To become a different kind of monster princess, rather than slipping into the monstrous shadow of your mother. Or my Flight shall kill you.’
I jerked away from him.
Flight’s hilt cooled, as the fire died. With a shudder, the white slipped from my mind.
I stared down at the sword in my shaky hands.
So much power…
Drake had saved me. Except, if I didn’t take on his dare and reject, in whatever way I could, the Matriarch’s transformations, then in seven days my own weapon would turn assassin.
Light fingers traced down my spine.
I jumped, as the Matriarch rested her chin on my shoulder, her arms around my waist.
My mum hadn’t hugged me before, but this parody made me want to scratch off my own skin.
‘Seven days, I believe?’ The Matriarch’s tinkling laugh would’ve shattered fairies’ wings; I gritted my teeth. Drake screwed closed his eyes. ‘What? Did you think I’d mistake you for whispering lovers? Boy, you are delicious in your anger. And your contempt for my Wing, baby bird, makes for sugared, hate-filled treats.’ She swung me round like a rag-doll. ‘Children, both of you.’
‘I’m all grownup, bitch,’ I shrugged away from her.
And she let me.
Her gaze, however, was frosty once more. ‘Then you play for adult stakes. Seven days to become, how did my boy so naughtily put it…? My monstrous shadow. If not, then I shall do the honours of the kill.’
‘That’s not fair. I can’t become both like you…and not like you. In a week I’ll be ganked whatever I do.’
Drake still hadn’t opened his eyes, his head hanging low.
Not that I blamed him.
The Matriarch pushed a tendril of hair, which had curled into the pool of scarlet on the floor, away with her stiletto, like a sweeping brush. ‘By my wing, did those silly humans teach you life was fair?’
I twisted away, resting my hands against the wall.
If there was one thing I knew, it was how unfair life was.
‘So, I get to choose death by shank or psycho Queen?’
‘Hush, princess. You get to choose who you are.’ Drake still didn’t look up, but I jolted at the intensity of his words. ‘And I believe you to be extraordinary.’
Extraordinary or not, I had seven days to become a princess, in a new supernatural world.
If I didn’t become a saviour for Drake, I was dead, chunky salsa style. And if I didn’t do a Cinderella for my mum, I’d dance to the same sizzling tune.
What did I know about ruling? I’d been an orphan, dropout, and gamer.
And I was still a prisoner.
Pulsing scarlet blocks shifted restlessly on the spiral shelves that wound above my head.
I cringed at the growls from the slabs like the make-believe monsters were truly clawing to escape.
Achoo!
Sneezing on the stone dust, I stumbled in the crimson-dyed circular chamber, only to be caught by a small wing, which looped around me.
I rested back against the feathers.
A breeze ghost-walked across my skin, before whirlwind dancing around the raised platform in the centre of the room, where a single block lay on the plinth, snarling to itself.
Flight rested cool against my back in a gold-threaded leather harness and scabbard.
Drake had said his sword would watch over my choices. It was like having my own execution weapon hanging around my neck.
The Matriarch had insisted, still stroking Drake’s mutilated wing, that I start my first day of training.
‘A shadow who flies at my side must have the mental strength to survive.’ I hadn’t understood the glare she’d shot Drake, or the tightening of her fingers into his wing. But then, I’d remembered Flight’s white magic overpowering me, Drake’s violet tendrils threading through my mind, and the way the Matriarch
had herself read Drake’s memories through a touch of his wings. These bastards played the game inside each other, as much as with physical strength outside. ‘Imperfect as he is, your first Trainer, Harahel, is owned by one I trust. Seven days, baby bird.’
I twisted to the Wing, Harahel, who’d steadied me.
Harahel slouched against the platform. He was smaller than Rebel and although he was striking, he had a weariness that looked etched into the lines around his eyes. He smelled of sweet green apples, like an orchard on the turn of spring; my mouth watered.
Maybe I could convince Gwyn I had a rare disease treated orally by apples.
Brunet curls fell to the waistband of Harahel’s ash grey harem trousers; he twiddled with their ends, studying me with a smirk.
It was almost possible not to notice Harahel was missing his right hand.
Except, I had. And when I’d glanced too long, he’d blushed.
Was that why he was wearing ash, rather than indigo trousers?
Go for the hands, Rebel had taught me, then the head. Because angels and vampires couldn’t grow them back…
I eyed Harahel. The Matriarch trusted the skank Glory who owned him.
Did that mean I couldn’t?
You started the game, hooker. Why are you gagging that Commander Goldilocks has raised the stakes? Or that his Ice Mistress has doubled them?
I can’t be the princess they both want, J.
You only bring one flavour to the party.
A monster, I get you.
You’re a huntress. You’re also a princess, Miss Fabulous, even if you’re not yet feeling the crown thing.
When rulers have their heads chopped off, they lose their crowns.
Then win this dare. Don’t become their princess. Become mine.
‘This is a library?’ I whistled, studying the glowing vision out of Potter’s wet dream. ‘Hell, if my school had one like this, maybe I wouldn’t have played truant.’
Harahel sniggered. ‘Yeah, but then I’d have had to kill you.’
I spluttered, ‘What, bro?’
‘Joking,’ he raised his neat eyebrow. ‘I’d explode the whole school. Boom!’ He puffed out his chest. I shot him another uneasy glance. He sighed, deflating. ‘Joking. The book would explode the whole city. It’s protected, for pure angel eyes only. Or royalty, like you.’
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