‘Everybody has their kinks’
Drake hissed, ‘Princess, be silent.’
‘I’m a queen now. This bitch has a crown.’
The Mage, however, only waved a lazy hand. ‘Naïve, little apprentice, you’ll learn. You have exceptional powers, but your rage and lust control them. Aren’t you intrigued to discover the mental strength I could unlock?’
‘I’ve had enough of being used as a weapon. I’m not some magic bomb.’
The Mage shoved me away with a pat on the head. ‘You believe I’m a bad father, like Lucifer?’ I winced. ‘Of course I shan’t use you. I’ll set you free.’
I stared at him in shock, but he’d already whirled to Drake.
‘Take these…creatures…’ The Mage’s gaze cooled, as he pointed at each of my fam in turn like they were a line-up of schoolkids waiting in front of the headmaster for a caning. ‘Seducer, Addict, and Blood Familiars—’
‘Fam,’ I hopped onto a boulder, staring across at the hulking castle. ‘And they’re mine.’
‘They’re the Legion’s, and in case you were unclear, so are you.’
‘Please, queen, obey,’ Drake begged.
I hadn’t noticed the tremors through Drake’s wings before, or his anxious glances between the Mage and me.
The Mage’s long finger finally pointed at Mischief, before crooking at him. Mischief shuffled closer, his expression schooled to blankness.
‘Is the deserter, traitor, and whore family too?’ The Mage asked.
Why couldn’t I read Mischief’s expression? I knew a loaded question when I heard it.
‘He’s one of yours, yeah?’ I shrugged.
The Mage backhanded Mischief hard enough to knock him to his knees and split his lip.
Wrong answer.
Blaze growled, and Spark nudged his head against Mischief’s hand.
Mischief’s hair hung over his face, his shoulders slumped, and he didn’t look up.
I wished I could tell Mischief that I’d only been trying to cover for him. Did he believe I meant it?
‘Take her family to the barracks,’ the Mage wiped his hand down his shirt, as if disgusted to have been tainted with Mischief’s blood.
Drake nodded, still not meeting my gaze.
‘Seducer,’ Ash whispered, waggling his eyebrows and throwing a mocking glance over his shoulder at the Mage. Then he snogged me, and I was caught in his aromatic embrace…safety.
When Ash followed Drake down the pebbled path, Rebel dragged me close, touching our foreheads. ‘Addict,’ he smirked.
Then he patted his thigh, and the familiars chased after him, pausing to rub their heads against my ankles, gazing up at me and winking.
I laughed. If we’d been alone, I knew they’d have been saying Blood Familiars.
That was why I loved them all: funny, brave…misfits like me and they owned it. I forced myself to look away…and not think about what would happen to them at the barracks.
The Mage rapped his fingers against his palm, deep in concentration. ‘Now you’re joining the Legion, you should know I reward with the truth.’
Mischief’s head shot up. He stared frantically between us. ‘Mage Drake, I’ll be useless if—’
‘More useless than you already are?’ The Mage enquired. Mischief flushed. ‘I punish, as well as reward. This is your chastisement, Zophia, for defying me. This boy, little apprentice, is a—’
‘Spy,’ Mischief burst out, his fists clenched on his lap, and his eyes blazing with a burning mix of defiance and shame. ‘After all, am I not useless? Good for nothing but being invisible, as I always have been?’ He breathed hard through his nostrils, calming himself. I shivered, crossing my arms to trap my hands under my armpits and stop the violet from bursting out and burning him. How could I crave to hurt and hold him at the same time? ‘When you were in Angel World and the first vampires attacked, secretly to the rest of the Legion, the Mage decided to sacrifice me by allowing Lucifer to make me his captive. The others believe I played traitor.’
The Ossuary and Charnel House… The cruelty of the FF to the angels, and Lucifer’s play with Mischief…
The Mage had ordered that because of me…?
I leapt off the boulder, prowling closer. ‘Why the hell…?’
‘So you’d have an ally if you were taken.’ He peered from underneath his eyelashes at me. ‘Who could then rescue you, tricking you into the hands of the Mage…’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Even if that meant staging a rebellion.’
My legs buckled. I fell to my knees next to Mischief.
The Mage chuckled, but I didn’t care about him. I couldn’t look away from Mischief’s bruised face.
Because nothing had been real.
‘Architect and hero of the Bone Revolution,’ I sneered.
Mischief’s gaze was level. ‘An illusion. I warned you.’ I flinched. ‘You were never in control, but then, neither was I.’
When I reached up to touch Mischief’s bleeding…lying…lip, he winced. ‘If you were whoring yourself out to the enemy for info and spying on me, why are you returning the whipped dog?’
Mischief’s tongue swiped across my finger, as if for comfort. ‘What high standards you hold others to. The Mage told me I’d be trapping a brutal beast. Yet when I discovered you were…something else…’ His cheeks pinked. ‘Let us simply say that I went offscript. The revolution became real, and I swapped loyalties. Spies are rewarded, deserters become the whipped.’
‘Why did you desert?’
He met my gaze. ‘And I imagined you cleverer than a beast.’
My heart thundered, and my fingers shook as they stroked his cheek.
The powers inside raged to spit out their fury at his betrayal and beat him, just like the Mage had. Yet I’d learnt in the Under World to control Devil’s whispers and the call of my vampiric side. I might not always win the struggle, but I was bastard trying.
Instead, I sucked on Mischief’s lip, as he bucked in surprise. His blood zinged through me, sparking with desire and magic.
When I drew back, his eyes were wide, and he was panting.
My claws slid out, raking down his chest, and he hissed. ‘A beast has claws.’
‘Excited, are we? Such big talons you have. One could almost think you were showing off.’
‘If you ever trick me with illusions again…?’ I rested my steel nails over the fluttering pulse in his neck; he didn’t pull away. ‘I’ll behead you, traitor, with these talons.’ When Mischief cringed on the traitor, a claw nicked his skin. When I bent to lick up the blood, he shuddered. ‘But you chose to stand at my side, and I won’t forget that.’
The Mage snorted, snatching Mischief by the hair and dragging him to a boulder on the edge of the path, before pressing him over it. ‘Stay. The queen may choose not to punish you, but you’ll be contemplating your behaviour in the Lower Vault for betraying me.’ Mischief struggled, but the Mage pinned him. He cast a glance over his shoulder at me. ‘We shall have a good while without the Matriarch’s interference; she’ll be too busy playing with her favourite Wing now she has him finally.’
I stared at the Mage in shock.
Had everything…from the moment I’d been taken to Angel World, to when I’d been snatched to the Brotherhood of the Phoenix…been a plan by my mother to steal back my dad?
To force him to conceive another child like me?
I shook, pulling in my claws, before pressing my knuckles across my mouth.
The Mage thrust his thumb into the base of Mischief’s neck, and Mischief howled, convulsing across the rock. ‘Never play games with those who’ve been weaving webs for centuries, little apprentice. Lucifer was paying for…unbalancing…the status quo. His punishment was darkness, yet he thirsted for the light. And love. He had no right to either.’ The Mage cocked his head, at last lifting his hand from Mischief’s neck as he assessed me. ‘Your tears are fruitless. Why weep for a Fallen monster?’ Surprised I swiped at my cheeks. Wet. I turned
away my head. ‘Lucifer wished to turn you into an assassin: a devil to win the Devil’s Trident. Tell me, was it worth it? Or are you ready to turn to the Legion?’
Everything had been an illusion?
Despite that, Misrule’s rebellion had saved the Bones, Shadows, and Bloods. He now ruled in place of Lucifer.
So, I was stuck here, apprentice to a fascist spell caster. But who said it had to be as a prisoner? The Mage was the power behind the Matriarch and Angel World. He’d taken out Lucifer with a single spy and our power combined. There’d be no true freedom, whilst the Mage reigned: the shadow with the magic. And now he’d invited me in. Mischief wasn’t the only one who could play the Mata Hari.
Time to fake it with the best of them.
I strutted to Mischief, brushing past the Mage. Then I hauled Mischief up by his tunic. ‘This is one queen who’s learnt her lesson. Vampires and Glories are bad. Check. Ask Mischief, he’ll tell you just how much I wasn’t down with the Under World.’ I grinned. ‘This bitch is for turning.’
The Mage rose up into the night-time sky; his wings beat in flaming arcs. ‘How kind, thank you for permission to torture Zophia.’ Mischief rolled his eyes at me, and I shot him an apologetic glance. ‘Until then, let’s get you settled. The sooner you accept your life as an Apprentice Mage, the better.’
I beat my wings, rising up with my hand clasped in Mischief’s; he soared next to me. ‘The barracks?’
I’d reckoned it’d be like a Hogwart’s dormitory, rather than a military barracks. Was the Mage building an army?
The Mage swooped towards the gatehouse. ‘Why would I place a queen amongst riffraff? You shall live with your brother, the prince.’
Mischief caught me, before I could fall from the sky.
I had a brother?
Was he a captive here, or an enemy member of the Legion: A Mage? And was he like me? A monster?
Dizzy, I clouted and booted at Mischief, but he held on, whispering soothing nonsense into my ear.
Suddenly, everything cleared; violet and black peeled back.
I had a brother: I wasn’t alone.
I peered at the castle ahead. Then I broke free of Mischief’s hold, my wings flaring in glory, as I soared towards the stars, swooping beneath the shimmering moon.
A royal brother and sister monster team…? We’d be kickass…and dangerous enough to destroy the world.
I flew towards my fam, brother, and new home.
Towards magic.
The End
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About the Author
ROSEMARY A JOHNS is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning fantasy author, music fanatic, and paranormal anti-hero addict. She writes sexy angels, savage vampires, and epic battles.
Winner of the Silver Award in the National Wishing Shelf Book Awards. Finalist in the IAN Book of the Year Awards. Runner-up in the Best Fantasy Book of the Year, Reality Bites Book Awards. Honorable Mention in the Readers’ Favorite Book Awards.
Shortlisted in the International Rubery Book awards.
Rosemary is also a traditionally published short story writer. She studied history at Oxford University and ran her own theatre company. She’s always been a rebel…
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Series by Rosemary A Johns
Rebel Vampires
Rebel Angels
Vampire Devil Page 25