The wind smacks me. The scent of decay fills my nostrils. Chills go down my spine. My vision covers with a thick blackness. A brutal force tears Kadmiel off me as a clawed hand hauls me on the ground. I recognise the threat at once. Many demons are surrounding us like an enormous noose tightening around our throats.
Pain tears through my neck as a demon lifts me to a sitting position. My glance meets his red eyes. There is no soul inside of him, just pure evil and desire to kill. He pierces the side of my throat with his claw. Sadness and a sense of inevitability drift through me. My mouth fills with blood.
Then the demon pushes his claw deeper and runs it across my throat. I hear Kadmiel roar.
Kadmiel
My eyes cover with a bloody veil as I watch her dead body collapsing on the sand. The demon who has just killed her licks her blood from his claw. Her final sigh is still present in my ears, like an eerie memory of her. She’s dead. My beloved wife is dead. The blood seeping from her ripped throat forms a scarlet pond around her head and sinks into the sand.
I jerk my body forward, but too many clawed hands are immobilising me. There must be a battalion of demons around me.
I want to kill them all. Then I want to die to join her. My beloved wife.
The air is still as though we are in the eye of a hurricane. A few of the sun’s rays filter through the gap between two storm clouds, touching her body. I can hear her sigh again then a sea wave washes over her. Her body blurs, turns translucent like a mist on an autumn morning. Rive becomes sea foam tinted with redness as every dead mermaid would. Rage wells up in my chest. I won’t even be able to kiss her goodbye. The sea takes possession of my wife and her body dissolves like she’s never been born.
I can’t breathe. I’m mute. My heart crumbles into a billion pieces. Tears blind me. Then pain slices through my back as the demons chop off my wings with their claws. This pain seeps into every molecule of my being, the agony I’ve never felt before. My mind goes blank.
A male voice shakes me out of my void. Pain claws me the moment I lift my eyelids. Every muscle in my body hurts like a tank has hit me. Micah’s face wavers above mine, distorted by red sparks that dance in front of my eyes. Nausea surges through my stomach.
“Don’t move,” Micah says sharply.
“Rive,” I murmur, my throat dry and thin like a piece of thread.
“Don’t move,” Micah says and lays his hand on my shoulder, pushing me down.
I sweep my hand, jerk my body to the side and fall off the bed. My bed. My body hits the floor as the pain in my back pins me down. Makes me pant like a wounded animal. Yet, each breath supplies me with less and less oxygen. My mind spins.
Four hands lift me and lay me back on the bed.
“Don’t move,” Micah growls.
“The demons,” I rasp.
“We killed them all,” Theo says in a cold voice.
“Rive,” I say.
“Rest,” Micah says.
“Rive,” I roar and sit up, a whirl of white flashes in my head.
“She’s dead,” Micah rumbles. “You were both not careful enough.”
I crawl off the bed as Sabrael offers me his support and I straighten.
“They didn’t kill me,” I say.
“They took your wings and killed your wife,” Micah says. “It gave them more entertainment than your death would have.”
“Take me to my wife,” I say.
“You need rest,” Micah insists.
“I fucking need to be with my wife,” I roar.
Chapter 10
Kadmiel
I sit on the sand, watching the sea waves as I do every day from the moment of her death two months ago.
My elbows are propped on my bent knees. My back hurts like hell, but that’s nothing. My heart hurts more. No, I have no heart. A hollow has replaced my heart. A hollow endless like the universe, filled with rage and loss.
“Can you sense her?” I ask as Micah settles himself next to me, his legs stretched out. “Where is she?”
“Everywhere,” Micah says, “In the wind, in the sea, around us.”
“Kill me, Micah,” I say. “I’m not allowed to take my own life, but you can kill me.”
“I won’t kill my friend.”
“Your friend is asking you for a favour.” My eyes flick over my bike.
I have no wings to travel, so I decided to buy a motorcycle. It’s a fucking good means of travelling, more exciting than my wings. A sense of pride flashes through me as my eyes roam over the engine and wheels. The steel and red details reflect the sun’s rays, blinding me.
Micah pats my shoulder. “I’ll visit soon.”
“Fuck off.”
Micah pops into this tiny piece of the world twice a week to check on me. He’s helping me travel between my island and the town to get my supplies. I can’t be grateful though.
The truth is I don’t want to see anybody. The boys visit from time to time too and they always refuse to grant my wish and kill me, so I want to rot here on this beach all alone.
“Fuck off with your visits,” I repeat. “Fuck off you all.”
I’ve seen Nineve in town twice. Each time she passed me in silence, bathing in her own thoughts. Adva has emerged from the sea twice, staring at me in silence. Micah told her to go back to her kingdom.
Micah rises to his feet as the rustle from his wings makes my head jerk back.
I’m all alone with my grief.
Well, there are two bottles of vodka at my feet. I will get drunk and sleep here on the beach as I did yesterday and two days ago.
Maybe I could even manage to drink myself to death if I tried really hard. In the meantime, I’m going to fish and talk to myself.
“I hope you’re happy, baby,” I say as my throat tightens and my eyes fill up with tears.
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. It must be fucking boring to be sea foam. Or maybe this is what mermaids truly enjoy after death. I don’t know. I don’t even know what is going to happen to me if I die.
No—
I will fucking die and find Rive and take her to a realm where we can have peace together. That’s my long term plan. I just need to find a way to get myself killed, that’s all. For tonight, I’m planning to get really drunk.
I grab a bottle of vodka and pour the alcohol into my throat.
“To you, princess.”
A scream of a seagull answers me then a delicate breeze brushes against my cheek like a kiss.
“I miss you so much, baby.”
***
Five months later.
The roar of bike engines tears me out of my drunken sleep. My hand jerks up and I stroke my unshaven face. I sit up and stretch my stiff muscles. My eyes sweep over the fish skeletons half-buried in the sand around me. I’m a filthy tramp. Who cares? This is my private piece of hell. I have the right to make it filthy.
The noise comes closer and closer, deafening, pissing me off, and then four bikes invade my very own personal hell. I will fucking kill them all. This is my beach. Even animals stay away from me.
I raise myself, the sand cold against my naked feet.
The bikes stop a few steps away from me and one of the bikers removes his helmet.
“What the hell?” I roar.
“Shut up, Kadmiel,” Zarall says and jumps off his bike.
Something is wrong, but I can’t name that wrongness. I lost my wings. I am still a strong immortal, but my senses have deteriorated and I have to rely on my observations and experience more.
The rest of the bikers remove their helmets and I recognise all my boys. Micah strides towards me, his boots sinking into the sand, clouds of white dust around his feet.
He digs his hand into the bag hanging across his chest and takes out a small urn.
“Take it,” Micah says.
“What is it?” I ask sharply.
“Our wings,” Theo says. “Or what’s left after we chopped them off and burned them.”
I can’t articulate a
single word. My brain is numb like a jellyfish has paralysed it with its tentacles.
“Throw the ashes across the beach and call your wife,” Micah says.
“You gave up your wings?” I ask. “Why?”
“We want our mermaid back,” Sabrael says.
“But you are no angels now,” I say. “That’s fucking... You’re no angels.”
“And neither are you,” Micah says.
“We’re the Shadow Immortals MC now,” Theo says and slaps me on the back, making me hiss. “And you’re our president.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I growl.
“Call her,” Micah says. “We want her back.”
I tear the urn from his hand and move closer to the shore, taking the lid off and turning it over. The ashes form a cloud as a cold breeze carries them across the beach.
“Rive,” I say but only a scream of a seagull answers me.
“Put in more effort,” Micah growls. “There is not much time.”
“I’m trying,” I growl.
“Try harder,” Zarall barks.
I know that the burned angel wings contain a lot of magic, but I have no fucking idea how to use it. I know I have to hurry. What my boys did is forbidden, punished by the death penalty. A sense of pride fills me. My boys are still following me even though I stopped being an angel.
“Rive,” I say. “Come back to me.”
“Rive,” my boys rumble with one voice as the power of their incinerated wings touches the back of my neck like an exhale from eternity.
I watch the sea as a wave brings foam towards the shore. The foam bubbles, forms a shape that turns into a body. A mermaid’s body.
My knees bend as dizziness fills my head. Theo grabs my arm and I see Micah lean over the mermaid and scoop her up in his arms as Zarall spreads a blanket between his hands. I move forward, my eyes fixed on her face. Rive’s face. Her eyes are closed, her chest rising and falling in an ardent effort, her limbs limp. Then my glance travels to her belly. Her pregnant belly. The sight of her belly hits me hard and my heart stops beating for a moment then something jabs it like a thorn.
“We have to hurry,” Micah says as Zarall covers her with the blanket. “We’ve broken a lot of rules. Other angels will hunt us. Demons will hunt us. We’re outlaws now.”
“We fucking are,” I say.
“One percenters,” Theo says and grins widely. “Hurry, the boat is waiting.”
“The boat?” I rasp.
“We stole it from one rich dickhead,” Sabrael says. “Like one percenters.”
Rive
I’m cold. My teeth chatter together and my body trembles. Pain claws me. I can’t open my eyes. It feels like my eyelids are made of marble and every molecule of my body turns into ice.
“You’re safe, Rive,” a masculine voice whispers into my ear.
His voice. I love his voice so much. A hot mouth plants kisses on my neck. His mouth. I feel his lips on mine, his breath, his tongue touching mine. His joy and relief. His heat tearing its way into my body, diffusing into my veins and fighting against the cold and pain.
A memory flashes through my head, forcing a cry from mouth. This is the memory of the claw ripping out my throat.
Muscular arms wrap around me, shelter me. His arms.
“You’re safe, baby,” Kadmiel says. “Everything will be fine.”
His skin warms up mine. His voice pulls me out of the grey cold void holding my mind captive. He kisses my temple, strokes my arm, and caresses my belly. A thought blasts inside of my head. There is a tiny life in my womb, but I don’t understand how and why. My body jerks up, but Kadmiel immobilises me in his embrace.
“Easy, princess,” he says. “You’re pregnant, woman.”
“They,” I cry out, my chest stiff like it’s made of concrete.
“It’s over, Rive. You’re safe.”
I lift my eyelids and his face blurs above mine. My head throbs. My jaws ache.
“They killed me,” I gasp.
“I brought you back.”
I’m unable to process this information. A thought hammers in my head. The demons killed me. I should be dead. But, I’m not.
“I will feed,” Kadmiel says. “I will bathe you. I will protect you.”
“You took me as your wife, sir.”
“Oh yes,” he says and growls.
His mouth moves up and down my neck with impatience, greed, and he scratches my skin with his teeth.
“Are you hungry?” he rasps.
“I don’t know.”
My body feels like a pile of mush. The sensation of pins and needles in my fingers and toes diverts my attention for an instant then Kadmiel is all that I can focus on.
His hand moves up my outer thigh and squeezes my ass cheek. I realise I’m lying on my side, naked, my back against his chest.
“You must be hungry,” Kadmiel says. “You’ve been asleep for two days.”
I feel his hard cock throbbing against my thigh as he glides his palm over my belly. The baby moves inside of my womb. It’s a girl.
“Talia,” Kadmiel says. “She wants to be named Talia.”
I know. I can sense her. She’s curious and happy, yet, sprinkled with a deadness, darkness like a vampire or a ghost. I feel the subtle vibes of that darkness in my veins too.
“Oh, yes,” Kadmiel says. “Talia is a mystery.” He sits up and pulls me up.
I slump into his body as my eyes roam over the bedroom I’m in. It’s not Kadmiel’s bedroom I remember. The furniture is modern and there is a cot by the red bricked wall. Two metal pillars support the ceiling and a big industrial lamp illuminates the floor made of iron grates and concrete.
“Where am I?” I whisper.
“You’re home, baby. You will like it here.”
He hooks the back of my neck with his hand as his lips capture mine. My insides melt. My mind goes blurry. I forget to breathe.
I catch a desperate breath. A painful breath. A reassuring breath.
“Everything will be fine,” Kadmiel says.
Kadmiel
She’s so stunned that I fear she’ll forget to breathe again. I put a pile of pillows behind her to support her and jump off the bed to grab the plate with her favourite food. I sit in front of her and feed her slowly.
She is so beautiful. More beautiful than I remember, but a subtle darkness flickers in her eyes. I don’t know what that means. I can sense even more of that darkness from the baby in her belly. I don’t know what that means either.
As Rive empties a half of the dish, I scoop her up in my arms and carry her to the bathroom. She stretches her body out in the bathtub filled with warm water and takes her mermaid form. I sit on the floor with one knee bent, watching her.
“Warm enough?” I ask and pass a toothbrush on to her.
“Perfect,” she says and brushes her teeth, her eyes wide as they slide over the bathroom walls.
One metal pillar supports the arched stone ceiling and there are four arched niches in each wall, a very crude industrial interior.
I stroke her head. “It’s a bit weird for you, I know. I mean your condition and everything.”
“It is weird.”
“A lot has changed.”
“You’ve changed.”
I nod. “You’ve changed too.”
She freezes for a moment. “I’m tougher. Stronger.”
As she finishes brushing her teeth, I take the toothbrush from her hand and throw it into the washbasin.
Rive puts her forearms on the edge of the bathtub and rests her chin against her wrist. “I remember the moment of my death, but I don’t have any memories of being dead. Nothing, except your sadness. Like I closed my eyes and opened them the next moment.”
“You’ve been dead for seven months.”
She swallows thickly, her eyes blinking nervously. “You’re not allowed to resurrect.”
“Fuck the rules, Rive. We’re together again and that’s all that matters.”
/> Rive
He leans towards me and kisses my lips then rises to his feet and grabs a towel from a cabinet made of raw wood. My eyes sweep over his back. There are two scars stretching over his shoulder blades.
“What happened to your back, Kadmiel?”
“The demons chopped off my wings.”
Pain strangles my throat. I know what that means. He’s not an angel anymore.
“You were not allowed to fuck me,” I say. “It’s all my fault. I made you distracted. The order punished you.”
“Stop it, Rive. That’s nobody’s fault. I was not allowed to love you either. But I do love you and nobody and nothing will take you from me. Love is no sin. Fuck the order. I made my choices. I don’t need my wings. I need only you and our baby.”
He lifts me out of the bath, wrapping the towel around me. I notice grey wisps shining among his shoulder-length hair. Two deep furrows mark his face, but I love him even more than before my death.
He lays me on the bed and pats me dry then stretches his naked body beside me. My mermaid tail itches, tingles then forms two legs as pain pricks my skin like a few needles have jabbed me.
“You need more rest, huh?” He kisses my cheek.
His palm slides down my neck and he strokes my breast then circles my nipple with his finger, making it erect. He holds his weight up on his elbow and lowers his head, planting a kiss on my lips.
The kiss deepens. His hand squeezes my breast and he rolls me on my side, drawing me to him so my back is pressed against his chest.
“I need you,” he rasps into my ear, his hot breath sending a tingle along my spine.
I know that. I can sense his desperate hunger for me. I need him too. I need him greedily. I need him desperately.
Our lips meet and he drives his hard cock into me, filling me in one thrust. Stretching me. Causing me pain.
Yet, I crave this sensation and derive my pleasure from it.
My body slides against his as he thrusts into me, his arm crossed over my chest. His other arm travels under my knee and he lifts my folded leg. His cock goes deeper as he pumps in and out, slowly, and his lips crush mine.
“Fuck,” he growls into my mouth.
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