The Rise of Monsters: Angelus Book One

by Brianna Jean

  “Quint,” I said, pulling his face up so I had his full attention. I swallowed my fear and listened to the bond. He needed me, something within him had unlocked and exploded when I entered his life, and I was about to take my own advice. When I was sure I had his attention, I leaned down and kissed him gently. He relaxed into it just as I pulled away. “Take what you want.”

  Understanding what I meant, he closed his eyes and nodded.

  He was the one who made himself feel left out. If he wanted time with me, he could take it. If he took something I wasn’t willing to give him, he’d know it before any real damage was done.

  This was instinct, and I was done fighting it.

  “Annalise,” Cabe called. I looked up at him from over Quint’s shoulder, surprised to see a smile plastered on his face, as if he’d won our little challenge.

  Maybe he did.

  He just saw me kiss Quint right after he kissed the shit out of me and laid his heart bare. And yet, he was smiling.

  “Yes?”

  “From now on, we take what we want.” The look on his face made me return his smile. He flipped the switch faster than I gave him credit for. He loved another version of me, but he seemed to like this version too. He was trying.

  “We take what we want,” I echoed, agreeing.

  I was still wrapped around Quint, his head against my chest as he steadied his breath. “You good, Q?”

  He nodded against me. “Oh, ya know, just waiting for this raging hard-on to chill the fuck out so I don’t assault Cabriel with my monster cock when I turn around.”

  I laughed, feeling a little lightheaded and high from the blunt. “Pulling your nose out of my tits might be a good start.”

  I tapped his shoulder twice, still laughing as he set me down and moved to stand behind me. I felt said “monster cock” as it pressed against my ass, causing me to groan, not giving a damn about Cabe watching. It was too impressive to ignore.

  “Fuck, you weren’t kidding,” I whispered, reaching behind to get a handful of the masterpiece hidden in his joggers.

  He slapped my hand away. “Hands off unless we’re fucking, Minx, there’s a reason I call him a monster.”

  Just then, the door slammed open, and my heart flew to my throat, blocking out all oxygen.

  One second, I was breathing deep, the next I couldn’t find a breath for miles.

  He was back.

  My match, in all his fucked-up glory. I felt sick as I took in his appearance.

  He wore the same jeans as before, the same hoodie, but his hair was messed more than usual. Like fingers had pulled on the strands.

  His lips were swollen like they’d been kissed.

  His neck was covered in dark purple splotches.

  “Annalise.” I distantly heard Quint warn, but it went in one ear and out the other. The bond twisted and bucked between us as I felt its anger, its hatred toward what I saw.

  All hell broke loose.

  That storm Cabe occasionally held in his eyes became my own. I didn’t believe it was real until I heard the crash of thunder outside, so loud the windows shook, a glass fell off the island and smashed as it hit the floor. It had just been a quiet, peaceful night, and somehow I had caused a storm, awakening it in my anger.

  I continued to stare at Lanier, his chest rising and falling heavily as he turned to glare at his brothers. “You fucking kissed her?”

  Lightning lit up the room, the power went out.

  “Annalise,” Cabe’s voice carried a warning deep within the syllables of my name.

  I didn’t care.

  I was gone.

  I tried screaming at myself to be reasonable, explaining that it didn’t matter, that Lanier could fuck whoever he wanted—we weren’t together. He wasn’t mine.

  But the bond between us all was living. It was a living thing, and it was pissed.

  I didn’t think that I had a heart anymore; I thought it died with Brinley, but when my heightened senses caught the perfume on his skin, scented the arousal of another girl, I felt it fucking crack.

  My heart broke, my soul screamed, my flames burned brighter and attacked.

  They jumped on him, and he groaned low and deep, fangs ripping from his gumline, dripping venom onto the floor.

  “You kissed them,” he spat, glaring at me, not even fazed by the wicked storm building outside the penthouse. His silver eyes were like daggers as they took in my swollen lips.

  “Don’t,” I cautioned, my voice layered and dark.

  One word, thunder rolled.

  “Annalise!” someone shouted.

  Another word, lighting crashed.

  “Come get me, baby,” Lanier taunted.

  Four words, rain turned to hail and slammed against the windows.

  I was unhinged.

  “Someone do something!” Quint shouted. I tried to help, tried to pull in my anger, put a mental leash on it, but I couldn’t get the job done. I was fucking raging. My heart hurt, my fingers curled and uncurled at my side as I tried to fight the horrible feelings.

  “Cabe, you have to ask for Cabe,” Bestia supplied in my thoughts.

  “Why?” I mentally asked, voice hard.

  “Because that is his power, only he can calm your storms,” she urged frantically.

  “Fuck that,” I replied out loud, finding it harder and harder to say no to the power that had taken over my body, my mind. I didn’t want his help, I wanted to shift.

  So I did.

  I found Bestia and shoved her spirit into the shift, my wings bursting from my back in one powerful whoosh.

  Glass fell, Quint swore, Cabe flew into action.

  He moved to stand in front of me, clasping my face in the palms of his hands. His eyes were wide but still determined and focused.

  “Come back to me, Annalise,” he commanded, his stormy eyes searching mine.

  I could feel his power chasing mine, like a game of tag. Every time he caught up to me, I changed the game. Hail turned to snow, snow turned into a blizzard, the temperature dropping further the closer he got to stopping me.

  “Annalise, come back to me,” he said again, whispered this time.

  The cadence of his voice, the hopeful determination, had me pausing.

  I felt myself come back enough to stop the movement of the storms but not enough to turn them off entirely. My legs began to weaken, losing the battle of exhaustion.

  Cabe caught me before I fell. “I’ve got you.”

  It took him a minute, but somehow, the storms made way for a cloudless night sky. I pulled myself together and moved away from him. I put a hand to my forehead, trying to come back to the front, ignoring the screaming in my mind, the pain in the bond.

  “I thought that I was dealing with just one other thing inside me, but I think we can add another one to that list,” I groaned, pissed off and confused as hell. “What the fuck was that?”

  “I don’t know, but we need to figure it out before you cause a natural disaster.” Quint laughed, enjoying the insanity. “That was new for you too, Cabe, right?”

  I couldn’t stand any longer, I fell with a thump against the couch, sliding into the cushions and curling up in the corner. Too much, too fast.

  “Yes,” Cabe replied, his voice distant. “I’ve never done that before. Never even knew it was possible.”

  “It’s not fucking possible,” Lanier shouted from somewhere in the room. I wanted to rip his ass into tiny pieces, but I was too exhausted to do anything but lie there and listen. “None of this is fucking possible! I’ve spent all this time searching for the reason the mating bonds have disappeared, and now all of a sudden, we find Annalise, I’m drinking blood, and Cabe is chasing away storms that she caused because she got fucking jealous?”

  That did it, I busted out laughing again. “This is fucking nuts.”

  I was bitter, but if I didn’t laugh, I’d cry, so I let it out. I didn’t stop until I could form a full sentence without feeling enough negative emotions to feed Q
uint for a year.

  “I was, hell, I am jealous. And that’s the crazy part! The part we should be focusing on,” I started, wiping my laugh-induced tears before covering my eyes with my arm, blocking them out. “I’m jealous over someone I don’t even know, sleeping with someone I know even less. And I’m angry enough to cause a fucking storm? None of this shit is normal!”

  I heard some shuffling before anyone responded. It was Lanier who spoke next, surprising me. “The reason you’re jealous is the same reason I just went out and fucked someone else.”

  “And that is?” Cabe questioned, clearly upset with his brother.

  “She’s our mate.”

  No one breathed. Everyone heard the three words that sealed our fate.

  The leader of the group had recognized the situation for what it was, and we had no choice but to look at it.

  “She feels us, she knows where we are and how we’re feeling,” Quint spoke first, filling Lanier in on what I’d discovered shortly after he left.

  “And I know what she’s feeling most of the time, but I’m not sure if it’s because of the visions or the bond,” Cabe added. “Or both.”

  The room was silent as we waited for Lanier to give his reason for believing that I’m their mate.

  All he said in a tired, defeated, voice was, “She’s everywhere.”

  I swear, time stopped.

  Everywhere.

  I was fucking another girl, balls deep, and it was Annalise that I had in my head, in my bones, on my throbbing dick. I wasn’t turned on by the girl I found sulking over a cosmo at Hellhound. I was turned on by my anger toward Annalise.

  The hatred I felt toward her was feral and sexual and not at all truly about her. It was as if our bond was made wrong, and where love should have been, lust and resentment had made a home for themselves. I was twisted inside out.

  But I wasn’t blind.

  “She’s everywhere, and I can’t turn it off,” I said to the room, thinking about how she looked when I walked in. Freshly fucking kissed.

  Quint watched me with uncertainty dipped in fear. I knew him well enough to know that he didn’t like that I acknowledged the bond. He thought I was going to ask Annalise to choose one of us. Joke would be on him. I addressed him first. “I’m assuming you haven’t been able to turn it off, either?”

  “I haven’t tried,” he replied honestly. Annalise took her arm away from her face and sat up, looking directly to Quint. He attempted to hide his insecurity, leaning back in the chair with a relaxed smile, but I saw it. He was afraid she wouldn’t pick him, but he still wanted to appear confident. “What? Did you think I would?” he asked her.

  She watched him, tilting her head to the side. “Stop with all that, Quint. You’re terrified of something, and I want to know what it is.”

  He froze, his eyes darkening. “I’m terrified? You’re really going to start that argument right now?”

  “Yes!” she shouted, standing up. She was wearing my fucking clothes again, causing my heart to squeeze, my dick waking up at the sight. She was everything I didn’t want to crave—but I did, even still. “This is the fucking time, boys. Everyone needs to lay it all out there so we can figure this out and come up with a plan.”

  “You really like plans,” Cabe said under his breath, causing me to smirk. She did. Our girl was always calculating, always thinking.

  Our girl.

  Hmm.

  “Stuff it, Goldilocks,” she snapped, then turned to me. “So you believe that I am your mate.”

  I moved to the spot on the couch that she was lying in, sitting down and eyeing her with my smirk still firmly in place, trying to ignore the fact that she smelled like my best friends. “Yes.”

  “And do you believe that I’m also their mate?” She pointed to my brothers. My smirk grew. She was walking straight into my trap.

  “I do.”

  She sat down on the glass coffee table. “Does that mean that we have three separate bonds, or does that mean we’re all connected? If one denies it, we all separate?”

  I looked to Cabe and Quint, and they both nodded, so I confirmed, “We’re all connected.”

  “One bond,” she stated, tasting the meaning of it on her tongue. “So, boss man, what do we do?” She raised an eyebrow in challenge, leaning back on her hands.

  “Well,” I started, drawing out the word to let her know that I was going to act out this demonstration and she was going to be my example. “We don’t have much of a choice right now, do we?”

  She narrowed her eyes, not following. “What do you mean?”

  “We can’t turn the bond down when no other bonds currently exist and the ceremonies have stopped all together.” I lifted my hand and brought my index finger to my bottom lip, running the tip along my flesh, never taking my eyes off of her.

  Her gaze darted to my finger.

  “We have to go find the reason the ceremonies have stopped,” I continued, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees, bringing us closer together. Her eyes were still focused on my lip, so I ran my tongue along it.

  Lust flared in her lilac pools. “Get to the point, Lanier.”

  I chuckled and stood up, offering her my hand. She eyed it skeptically but put her palm in mine anyway. I pulled her up and spun her so that she was pressed tightly against my chest. I draped my arms over her shoulders and looked at my brothers, who watched me with laser-like attention.

  “The point is that we are bonded and we have no way to break it,” I whispered in her ear and smiled at the shiver that snaked down her body. She tried to move, but I held tighter. “Instinct is going to take over sooner or later, and we will be helpless against it.”

  “Oh, I’m getting it now.” Quint smiled, clapping his hands and rubbing them together.

  “Hmmm.” Cabe grinned, eyeing Annalise with new intentions. “I’m understanding it too.”

  Annalise chuckled, her head falling back to my chest. I looked down to find that even at the odd angle, she was beautiful. She shook her head. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope,” Quint supplied, practically bouncing.

  “Let me get this straight.” She wiggled free and stood between the three of us. “You’re proposing that we basically agree to a friends-with-benefits relationship to satisfy the bond while we figure this out?”

  “See, you already get us, and we didn’t even say a word.” Quint laughed, reaching forward to bop her on the nose.

  She smacked his hand away. “You’re all fucking crazy, this isn’t going to work!”

  “Says who?” I asked, moving toward her. “You want us, we want you, and we’re stuck with this feeling until we get out of it. I just tried to fuck someone else, Vix, and it didn’t work. We could spend this time angry and causing storms, or we could use the time wisely and put our fangs to good use.” I winked at her, my smirk firmly in place.

  Her eyes flared. She wanted this. But still she protested, “I have a roommate and a job, a life that I can’t just drop.”

  “Oh, don’t even fucking start with that,” Cabe chimed in, annoyed. “You’ve been acting as if your life before you met us was fit for a princess. You live with your ex-boyfriend and work a shitty job at a shitty diner. Come on, Anna, don’t be dense.”

  “Okay, lover boy, back up a second.” The temperature in the room skyrocketed with her anger. “My life before you might have been shitty, but it was fucking mine. I built it, I worked for it, I made my life what it was, and now I’m being forced to leave it behind because I can’t exactly tell my ex-boyfriend that I’m fucking three guys at once because I’m a heavenly being who drinks blood and changes the weather. I’m allowed to be bitter. I’m allowed to be stubborn. This is all fucking crazy.”

  The windows started to shake as Annalise created hurricane force winds with her anger.

  “Annalise,” I said, authority lacing my tone.

  She whipped her head to me, and lilac colored storm clouds rolled in her eyes. “What, Lanier?�
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  “Enough,” I said softly, looking directly into the eye of the storm and willing it to calm. “I understand this is a lot, but all of us have reasons to be angry, and none of us can do a single thing about it until we figure out what the hell is going on. So we agree to live according to the bond.”

  She eyed me for a moment, the winds calming, before looking back at Cabe and over to Quint. When she saw them smile, she sighed. “So we take what we want.”

  “We take what we want,” Quint agreed.

  Cabe chuckled, dropping his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “Fuck, that came full circle.”

  I was left out of the joke, not understanding but not giving a single fuck as long as she agreed.

  “No feelings,” she stated. “I’m serious, I know that everyone says that before jumping into an FWB relationship, but I take that shit as law. No. Fucking. Feelings.”

  My dark heart rejoiced. My glass house remained intact. “You won’t find any arguments from me.”

  “I’m not at all surprised about that,” she joked before grabbing the remote and throwing her body down on the couch. “We need to order food because I’m about to give a whole new meaning to the word hangry, but first, Lanier, please go shower. I can still smell her perfume, and I’m not a saint.”

  She didn’t look at me, but her tone was light, as if joking, only I couldn’t laugh. Regret had filled my chest at her words, bringing me face-to-face with what I’d done and the damage it nearly caused. Meanwhile, she got comfortable on our couch, in our house, and soon she’d be comfortable in our lives.

  This would never work.

  I had what I wanted, temporarily, but I hadn’t thought the plan all the way through. I now had an all access pass to Annalise, and that only provided the constant temptation to get lost in her. It would only get worse after I tasted her. If I didn’t stop myself, I would fall for her and not because of the bond.

  The bond brought her to us, but she would be the reason we agreed to stay.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  I hated being Nephilim, hated what I was.

  I needed to Fall.

  “We’re going to get your shit from your apartment tomorrow morning, so you better come up with a good excuse to tell the fuckboy,” I growled, back to my moody self. My joy was short-lived.