‘Gwyn…?’
Dillon’s mouth twisted. ‘How’d you enjoy it? Being the powerless one?’
‘It’s a bitch,’ I stared up at him. ‘But then I spent twenty-one years on earth being powerless. And I’m my mum’s prisoner now. You reckon I don’t get you…?’
‘Get me?’ His fingers ran through my hair, before he drew back. ‘Tell it to me when you’ve been a toy.’
He crushed my left hand with his heel.
I howled, yanking at my hand.
‘Sixteen,’ Battle intoned.
‘Enough with the counting of doom,’ I hollered, as the powers inside me unfurled their wings at the agony.
‘Seventeen.’
And that was it.
I drew Star, stabbing the dagger into Dillon’s bare foot. Finally, it was his turn to howl.
Flight whined, but I grinned, thrusting his bleeding foot off my knuckles. Whilst Dillon hopped and squealed, I cradled my throbbing fingers.
And didn’t watch out for the predator.
Dillon grabbed my hair, dragging me backwards; my legs kicked like a crazy frog, until I was hanging by one foot upside down over the mountain’s edge.
Dizzy, the forest far below blurred.
I caught my sunglasses before they could tumble from my nose, as I swung in the breeze. Flight squeaked, nuzzling closer into the scabbard. When my dress fell down, I shivered; lucky angels preferred silk panties to going commando.
Then Dillon’s hand slipped on my ankle, and I jerked downwards.
I squealed.
His wings were nothing but cauterised stumps, like Gwyn’s; if I fell, he couldn’t catch me.
I twisted, staring up at him. ‘I’m not hurting Gwyn,’ I wheezed, my heart thundering. ‘I’d never hurt him.’
Dillon’s gaze was blank but steady.
He didn’t believe me. Why the hell should he trust me?
At last, I was hauled up and hurled onto my face in the circle.
I shook, hugging the earth, like it’d be stolen from me again.
Dillon crouched over me. ‘I couldn’t kill you; you’re the Saviour.’ I glanced up, startled. ‘But if you ever do hurt Gwyn, I’ll hurl you off this mountain anyway, you get me?’
I nodded, shakily.
Battle marched over, forcing Rebel to crawl after her on his knees.
To my surprise, Rebel threw himself at me, wrapping his wings around me and brushing his hand through my hair as if checking I was still alive. His face was ashen when he drew back. ‘By all the saints, don’t do that again.’ Then he gave a dazzling smile, the type I hadn’t realised I’d missed so badly. ‘But that with Star was brilliant!’
‘It’s a good thing you think so, wee man, because you’ll be using this here dagger to teach madam a lesson.’ Battle sauntered to Star, which was still crimson with Dillon’s blood, and held it out to Rebel.
He shrank back. ‘Not a chance.’
I held Rebel closer, at the same time as edging my free hand towards Flight. ‘You want to shank me, bitch? This time I’ll fight with my own blade.’
Battle sighed. ‘Discipline, daftie, you’ve earned twenty. Or your whipping boy has. On the day you earn none, you’ll be ready for the Trials. How else does a spanner like you learn lessons? Or are all your fights going to end with you being chucked off a cliff?’
Rebel rose, taking his dad’s dagger from her, before drifting like a frightened kid to the smallest hazel tree.
Confused, I watched as he jumped up to a low branch and cut off a thin green length. He leant against the trunk and slid the blade up and down, stripping off the leaves. When he wandered back to us, his head lowered, and handed back the branch, I swallowed.
Swoosh — Battle cut the branch through the air.
Whipping boy…?
Hell, Rebel had just been forced to cut his own bastard switch. And now he laid himself at my feet as a sacrifice.
He shimmied his trousers to his ankles; his wings were outspread.
Shanking a Broken and getting Rebel whipped in my place because I’d failed in my training? When it came to the Win Over Drake campaign? That was a massive tick in the Epic Failure column.
I slipped Flight’s harness off my back, before dropping onto my front next to Rebel; he turned his head to gaze at me, his kohl smudged eyes soft but assessing.
‘Crack on with it then,’ I linked Rebel’s pinkie with mine, and for once he didn’t flinch. ‘My twenty mistakes: my twenty strokes. Don’t want to mess up the pretty boy.’
‘Let the Supreme Commander whip my arse,’ Rebel whispered. ‘She’s fierce powerful, and fair on you for acting like I’m worth more than the Mark on my neck, but she’ll flay the skin from you.’
I flinched. ‘I’m keen on you keeping your skin too.’
Battle swung the switch back and forth, striding around us: a wildcat deciding where to bite into its prey first.
As the sharp switch pressed into the hollow of my back, I held my breath and waited to be beaten bloody.
14
Cool mist teared down my cheeks. I stretched my shoulders, tensing against the phantom blow of the first lash.
Above, birds of prey circled in the grey clouds: Merlins, kestrels, and sparrowhawks.
I wriggled on my belly, trapped in the circle of pyres and catkin cocoon hazels. Stones dug into my front, whilst the biting tip of the switch traced down my back. Heady on the spicy fragrance, I forced myself to smile at Rebel, still linking his pinkie with mine.
Rebel tore at his lip with his teeth, casting glances between me and the hovering predator: Battle.
‘Are you just going to stand there stroking your stick like a newbie with his dick?’ I scoffed. ‘Because please tell me I earned Gold Level Licks? Next time? I’m shooting for Platinum.’
The switch raised from my back, and I held my breath, waiting for the line of fire to explode.
Instead, Battle laughed. ‘Will you hear your blether? Now I understand the — rumours — whispered about the Matriarch’s so-called daughter. You’re off your head, wee idiot, to offer yourself as sacrifice for a toy.’
Rebel winced on the toy but he murmured, ‘Ignore the blarney. The bad bastard is right. I’m nothing to you now. Let me be you whipping boy.’
Nothing?
The powers inside shot their claim through the Mark, before I could stop them; Rebel jerked, his legs kicking. Then he flushed, pulling his pinkie away from mine.
Why did that hurt more than if he’d booted me in the gut?
My hand curled into a fist. ‘Don’t analyse me, Freudface, you’re the one with the spanking fetish.’
Swoosh.
I braced myself, but it was Rebel who yelped.
I scrambled to my knees.
A livid welt had been painted across Rebel’s thighs. Blood beaded from the edges.
I glared at Battle, who bended the switch between her hands, before drawing it above her head again.
Rebel tensed.
‘The spanners like you, cheeky madam, who sacrifice themselves for others can take their own pain. What they can’t take?’
Swoosh.
A stinging shot across Rebel’s arse. He keened.
‘Please…’ I begged, hugging my knees
‘Two.’ Battle met my gaze. ‘Pain to someone else. All.’ Swoosh — Rebel’s lower back. ‘Because.’ Swoosh — Rebel’s shoulders. ‘You.’ Swoosh — Rebel’s right wing. ‘Failed.’
Swoosh.
She struck Rebel across his damaged left wing, and he screamed, finally curling into a sobbing ball.
I reared up, but she booted me back down, before grabbing Rebel by the neck and throwing him onto his front.
‘Fourteen more,’ Battle panted. ‘How much does this hurt, madam? Will you fail me again, when each mistake has such a cost?’
Pressed to the dirt, I shook my head.
She grinned, before raising the switch again, and I wailed because I couldn’t protect Rebel. Because he was ta
king the punishment for me. And because I didn’t know how to save us.
Crimson, purple, black.
A criss-crossed web of welts and bruises sliced down Rebel’s shoulders, back, and wings. I couldn’t see underneath his trousers now he’d yanked them up, but the blows had rained down onto his arse and legs all the way to the knees.
How was he still bastard standing?
I perched on the ledge in my cave chambers, squeezing a suede cushion to my cheek. The ivy tangling down the crystals tickled me through my dress.
How was it fair that I failed and got hugs and tickles, and Rebel took the beating?
But then, who said life was fair?
Rebel leant against the cabinet, warily watching me, whilst he wrung out a cloth in a wooden bowl of water. He hadn’t spoken since Dillon had helped him limp back to my rooms from our mountainside training.
I’d expected Dillon to be in swag mode, but unlike the bitch face he’d scowled at me, with Rebel he’d been gentle.
Slave solidarity?
I clutched onto the cushion to stop myself grabbing Rebel and licking every inch of him: the candy sweetness of his blood burst in — slam — intense waves — slam — that dragged me to that possessive place — slam — that demanded no one hurt Rebel but me.
He furled his wings in front of him, dabbing the cloth gingerly against the lashes, and then he swayed.
Alarmed, I chucked the cushion sliding across the floor and darted to grab his arm to steady him, but he reared back like a skittish foal.
‘Lay off, princess.’ His hand clamped over his Mark in defence. ‘It’s like this, see, don’t touch me…please…if I still have a choice.’
I recoiled. ‘What the hell, wallad? You’ll always have a choice.’
A small smile escaped at the wallad, before Rebel killed it. He dropped the cloth back in the bowl.
The water coiled with rusty tendrils.
My toes curled at the divine scent, and I forced myself to take a step back.
The collared cutie is bonded and Marked because you wanted him.
In this game you’re playing? You should trust your instincts.
Become the monster?
You are a monster. It’s the flavour this whole gig is about. And you and I both know, there’s no one tastes quite like the Bitch of Utopia.
I studied Rebel, whilst he dangled the cloth down his upper back, biting his lip with the pain as he twisted his shoulders; I didn’t offer to help because that would be touching.
I shifted from foot to foot. ‘Don’t you still…love me?’
Way to go for the Needy Awards.
Rebel stopped in his attempt to clean his own wounds, which was tearing up my insides in a way I hadn’t expected; his cheeks stained pink. ‘I’m a ball-bag.’
I arched an eyebrow. ‘Go on.’
He licked his lips. ‘But I don’t know why. Because sometimes I forget who I am. Then, in this brutal rush, I remember. What a hash I’ve made of everything. But I still crave you. How you burn.’ He hurled the bloodied cloth at the wall; the crystals darkened and wailed. He swung round to me. ‘I’m a bad angel. An Addict. And I betrayed you. You miss me, but I don’t pretend it’s love. Why would you want me to love you?’
Why had I poked the angel to make him dance again?
I shifted. ‘Enough bastards hate me: Battle, Dillon, the Legion, and half the Glories. I need you to have my back. And we’re fam.’
Rebel smiled brightly, wandering over to throw himself stomach first onto the nest. ‘Don’t be a muppet. I’ll always love you. But I’m not a bull to be branded as yours.’
I edged closer. ‘So, we’re tight?’
His gaze hardened to steel. ‘Wise up! You’re a princess; I’m you’re Marked. And that’s not fam.’
‘To hell with your pity party for one. Some pretty patterns don’t mean you’re not fam. Drake’s Marked too: it hasn’t stopped his climb up the angelic social ladder.’
Rebel rubbed a feather off his nose as he battled to push himself up on his elbows. ‘Don’t be after talking about the Commander. You don’t know how awful hard it’s been for him.’
I gaped at him.
I’d been expecting loathing, fury, and bitterness against Rebel’s gaoler and torturer. At their first meeting, I’d decided to allow Rebel three solid shots to the Drake’s head, guts, and balls.
Yet instead, Rebel was acting the protective brother…?
After all these months, I was still stumbling in the dark, in this world where Rebel, Ash, and Drake had known each other for centuries before me.
Rebel closed his eyes, burrowing down into the downy feathers, only to snap them open again, as Gwyn darted into the cavern.
When Gwyn spied Rebel’s welted back, he let out a desperate sob. Then he fell to his knees in front of me, biting hard on his fist to stifle his wails, whilst he rocked.
Startled, I crouched down, smoothing back Gwyn’s hair. He nuzzled into my hand. He didn’t flinch away.
‘It looks worse than it is.’ Rebel pushed himself to his feet with a valiant effort to pass off the wince as a cough. ‘It’s nothing, to be sure.’
He leant over, stroking Gwyn’s stumps.
When Gwyn leaned against Rebel — away from me — I couldn’t help the burst of jealousy.
‘What’s the deal?’ I asked, gently.
Gwyn gulped, before managing to force out, ‘D-Dill boasted about w-what he did: throwing you off a cliff and g-getting Zachriel punished.’
‘Not your fault,’ Rebel murmured.
‘It is, though, isn’t it?’ Gwyn fidgeted. ‘So, I s-says to him, no more. But he’s awful angry—’
‘Pause and rewind because you blokes know this episode, and I’m a boxset behind. Why’s it your fault if some Broken’s a dick?’
‘Will you dry up?’ I jumped at Rebel’s sharpness. ‘The young one is too honest for his own good; if you ask, he’ll squeal on himself.’
‘I’m also done with secrets. Honesty? I’ll chug that over poison.’
‘It doesn’t burn less,’ Rebel scowled. ‘And it’ll burn him more.’
Gwyn was glancing between us with wide eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Don’t make me say. They’ll kill us…’
I tilted up Gwyn’s chin. ‘No one’s ganking you.’
He balled his shaking hands in his lap. ‘Dill’s my cariad.’
I blinked at Rebel. ‘Translation mode?’
‘His lover. Why do you think he’s so bleeding terrified?’
Dillon’s aggro, examining Gwyn for injury, and chucking me — his owner — off a cliff, was alpha posturing.
And romantic, in a twisted way.
‘Still missing the through line. Broken can’t shag each other?’
‘Wings can only love Glories. Those that don’t are shamed as the Tainted. You could have him executed, princess. Don’t you think Battle would if she found out?’
Gwyn moaned, snatching onto the hem of my dress. ‘I’ll do anything, just don’t tell on Dill…’
The Broken lost their freedom, wings, and then couldn’t even choose who they loved?
No bastard way.
‘Why the hell’s no one stepped-up and stopped this?’ I slid down onto the floor next to Gwyn.
‘You’ve been here months and you’re only after wanting to know that now?’ Rebel shook his head.
I cast him an accusing glare. He drew back, drifting over to the crystal wall, before slumping against it, his lashed shoulders sagging.
How much effort had it taken for him to pretend he was unhurt for Gwyn?
‘Please don’t send me back,’ Gwyn’s forehead rested against mine. ‘I’ll be good.’
‘To your family?’ I clasped his small hand.
‘Look you, Broken don’t have family. Only Discipliners from the Legion: the perfect angels. Not like us, the toys. And I wouldn’t like to go back to Nathanael.’ He shuddered.
The silver-haired, snivelling assassin in gold? He was Gwyn
’s Discipliner?
If I hadn’t detested Nathanael’s weasly arse before, I did now.
‘You do have fam; you have me.’
‘And the muppet over here, if you’ll have him,’ Rebel grinned.
Gwyn laughed, even as tears spilled from his eyes.
Yet this evening, I’d be training again with Gwyn’s cariad. And Battle: the bitch who’d execute them both just for being in love.
Honesty was toxic too, and so were secrets. I didn’t know which I’d choke on first.
The flaming arrow whizzed past my throat, sizzling the skin. I arched backwards, Neo-style, to miss the second arrow. The third one blistered across my gut.
‘A belter!’ Battle crowed, fixing another flaring arrow to her black leather bow. ‘Will you not at least make this a challenge? Or maybe you enjoyed watching your idiot toy’s whipping?’
I spun across the skittering pebbles.
The cold night breeze cut against my cheeks. My breath puffed into the shadowed circle between the stone pyres.
The hazel trees, whose catkins danced with violet fire, as if cocooning magic firefly, lit our arena: all set for a fairy dance.
Battle launched flames at my feet again; she was bastard making me dance.
I glanced at Rebel, who was kneeling next to Dillon under the furthest hazel tree. The one he’d been forced to cut the switch from this morning.
Yeah, I didn’t miss the threat.
Battle notched another arrow, before pausing. ‘I’ll bide my time. Then I’ll take your Addict and show you how to break a toy.’ She wiped the sweat from her forehead, smiling crookedly. ‘I’d give him to Dillon to play with. Light would be a privilege, not a right. He’d have to earn it.’ She licked her lips. ‘And he must be good at earning it, or you wouldn’t have Marked him.’
Rage surged through me wildfire. I shook, hell trembled, from the adrenaline rush sparked by every unrighteous word that’d dripped from Battle’s venomous lips.
J, this is the last night before I’m judged on Drake’s dare. Do I pull in the bitch or let her out to play?
What did I tell you about trusting your monster?
Vampire Princess (Rebel Angels Book 2) Page 12