by G. Bailey
Myles feels just like that.
“I’m worried they are using you,” he starts. “And I sense deception coming off them. I know you don’t really know me—”
“Tell me about you then. How did you become alpha?” I ask, resting on a bag of rice.
Myles moves and sits down on a wooden crate near me. “My dad was alpha before me, but he was a shit alpha. He abused most the pack, including me. I was a punching bag until I turned eleven and ran away. It was the most cowardly thing I have ever done.”
“I don’t think that is a cowardly thing to do at all. You were a scared kid,” I softly tell him, but he stares at the floor, his hands shaking slightly.
“I lived on the streets of London for a long time. It was easy to get food and find a hostel once a week to shower and all that,” he explains to me. “I didn’t care; I was free…until I was sixteen and my father found me. The once strong alpha I remembered and feared was a drunken fool and wasted away into a skinny man with pale skin. I fought him when he attacked me, and I won, killing him and instantly becoming the alpha. The pack was a state when I came back, but I spent the last six years fixing what I could. But the humans were becoming a big issue we couldn’t escape. When I heard there was a safe place for the pack to live under a new alpha, I knew I had to do the right thing and take them to him. I plan to leave them there and walk away.”
“Why?” I question, leaning forward.
“There can’t be two alphas in a pack, and my wolf has only known how to fight and defend itself. There is no way my wolf will submit to anyone,” he explains. “But I can’t keep my people safe in the world, so this is the only way. I guess I saw a bit of myself in you when you fell into the sea. Just someone who ran away because the world is fucking scary.”
“Do you think I should go back?”
“To a vampire who hurt you? To angels you can’t trust?” he says and shakes his head. “No, you shouldn’t go back, but you will because you have friends who need you. I fought my father, even when it broke my heart to do so, because my friends and family needed me. I always loved my dad…but I did the right thing. Sometimes the right thing is devastating.”
“I like you, Myles,” I say, standing up straight and offering him my hand. He slides his hand into mine and grins at me.
“Good thing you do. I like you too, Kaitlyn,” he replies, watching my eyes closely. “And anything you decide, you have my support.”
Holding his hand, I feel a connection between us that was never there before. Almost like my soul is happy, my body itches to move closer and my hand never wants to leave his hand. Before I utter any of the embarrassing things in my mind out loud, I let go of his hand. I walk around him to the door and pause with my hand on the handle. “You didn’t just save me from the sea, Myles, you saved me from myself. I don’t know if I could have been brave and gone back, but if you were brave enough to face your father, I know I can do this. Thank you.”
Myles doesn’t say anything, and I’m thankful as I pull the door open and walk back with him to the table. We sit down, and I watch Gabriel and Madi. I sense the same deception Myles picked up on, but it all comes from Gabriel and not Madi. I’m not sure if it’s deception, but something feels off.
Crossing my arms, I keep my head high as I give them the answer they need. “I am going back to the academy.”
“And I’m coming with you,” Myles adds, and I stare at him like he has truly lost his mind. “Secretly, of course. You should go through the main gates or doors, and I will sneak in. Be your secret guard in the shadows. Trust me. I can be invisible if I want.” He winks at me.
“Myles you’ve saved my life, and I can’t let you risk yours. I already owe you,” I say. “Plus, won’t your pack need you here?”
“We are nearly at the island, and as I see it, there is an alpha ready for them there. It would have been a fight between us on that island. My wolf doesn’t love competition,” Myles explains, standing up. “Be right back, I need to let everyone know and put my beta in charge until they get to the wolves. I wouldn’t leave unless I was sure they were safe, but it’s time. I could never have left this boat anyway, and now I have an option that fell from the sky.”
“Myles…” I say his name, but he is already out the door, not looking back.
“Don’t bother. Wolf shifters can be real stubborn about their females,” Madi says with a wave of her hand.
Gabriel only shakes his head. “Young love, how I do remember it fondly.”
As they talk between each other, my teeth ache, and I close my eyes as I hear their loud heartbeats like a song I want to dance to. I turn away and cover my face with my hands for a minute until the moment passes and I feel safe. Sooner or later, I will need to face the truth.
I’m not just an angel anymore.
Chapter 32
His fingers softly flicker down my bare back, caressing me with every brush of his fingertips against my skin, my body reacting with shakes of desire. I roll onto my back as Ren leans over me, locks of his dark smoky hair falling over his forehead as his playful, desire-filled dark eyes latch onto mine. Only for a moment do I forget everything that happened between us, but then it suddenly comes back, making me tense and freeze all over.
Lust cannot make you forget betrayal. No matter how sweet it might be.
Ren sees the resolve, the spite and hate burning in my eyes as his expression changes. Guilt burns so brightly in his eyes, and I can only watch, the urge to understand him so strong it hurts.
“I never meant to hurt you. I lost control, the mating bond for vampires is so strong,” Ren softly explains himself. “I was weak and lost myself in you when you kissed me. Come back to me, and I promise to protect you always.”
“You hurt me; you turned me into a vampire without my permission!” I shout at him, smacking my fists against his chest. “I. Hate. You. I hate you!” I scream over and over until blood pours from his chest where I hit him, and darkness smothers us both.
I wake up with a gasp, breathing heavily and covered in sweat as I look around Myles’s cabin, and the rocking of the ship slowly reminds me I’m safe and Ren isn’t here with me. Not yet anyway. The dream felt so real, so vivid, like Ren was really with me, and I could feel his fingers on my skin, sense his guilt like a real thing in the world, so strong I can almost taste it in my mouth. Closing my eyes, I tell myself once again it wasn’t real and Ren doesn’t feel guilt for what he did, he just took what he wanted, and I will forever hate him for that. I thought he was my friend, my saviour in the light, but it turns out he was the demon in the darkness that I needed to avoid. Not fall in love with. I lean back on the pillow, knowing I should get more sleep before the morning comes and with it, my return to the academy. After our meeting, we realised it was the middle of the night, and returning at night isn’t the best of ideas.
I slide out of bed, knowing how difficult it was to go to sleep in the first place and figuring sleep isn’t going to come easily to me a second time. I brush my hair with Myles’s hairbrush and put on my clothes before heading out the room and down the corridors. Instead of going into the common areas, I head up the stairs that lead to the top of the ship. After walking up three levels of stairs, I get to double metal doors and push them open. Cold, salty air brushes my hair around my cheeks as I breathe in the smell of the ocean and close the doors behind me. The ship is much larger than I remember seeing it in the water, but I guess I was at a distance. The ship is almost shaped like a cruise liner, but instead, it has a near flat surface with high gates surrounding the upper part. Bright orange escape boats line the edges with floating rings in the middle of them, and I swiftly turn around as I sense I’m not alone anymore.
“Gabriel,” I say as he folds his bright white wings and walks up to me, his arms resting in the middle of his back behind him. I once looked up to him, trusted him even, and now I realise I was so naive about this world and my place in it. The angels told me they were the good guys, and I believed i
t, and I shouldn’t have done.
“I wished to talk to you alone,” he says and looks away from me, staring above at the stars. I follow his line of sight to the moon, which looks so bright and alluring out here in the sea. “Ever since I was a wee lad, I believed in the light above because he would talk to me, keep me sane when I was very alone as a child. I was brought up in a church with nuns, and they were very good to me, but their hearts belonged to the church, and I longed for more than they could have given me. Even when I died and became an angel, the Great Light above never left my head. He told me it was my destiny to finish the vampires off and stop them spreading across the world like wildfire. And I believed him.”
“Still do?” I ask. “Do you still believe the angels are blessed and the good guys?”
Knowing exactly what I’m talking about, his face drops. “I regretted killing Erendriel the second I did it, but a part of me knew it was for the best. The master vampires were once twelve families, and they swept over the world, killing and turning whoever they wanted. No one could stand against them until the angels decided to,” he tells me. “All the families were killed in the name of the light, no child or woman spared, but Erendriel did escape after seeing his entire family murdered. I hoped he would go into the world and live a good, quiet life, but he did not. Erendriel only ever sought vengeance and, in the end, became what he ran from.”
“So the angels killed his entire family, and you wanted him not to come back and fight?” I question in anger. That is disgusting and wrong on so many levels.
Gabriel sighs. “Lass, our people, the angels, did what was best for the world. There was so much pain and destruction caused at the vampires’ hands. You could not imagine it, child. The world was burning under the rule of the vampires, and if they rule once more, it will burn again.”
Knowing there must be a point to him telling me this story alone, I wait.
“I wish the burden of my next question would fall on an older angel, but it must be you. The light above has spoken to me,” Gabriel starts. Yeah, me too. He sounds creepy as fuck. “You must kill Erendriel before he destroys the world.”
I knew he was going to ask that—I felt it in my heart, if not my soul—but the words still shock me.
And a feeling of sickness bubbles in my throat. Kill Ren?
I turn away and walk nearer the edge of the ship as I hold my shaky hands together. “And if I do not?”
“You will be seen as a traitor to the angel race, and he will come for you. The light above will demand your soul and wings back, Kaitlyn,” he softly warns me, but I don’t doubt he is sugarcoating what taking your soul and wings back means. “I do not want that future for you. Please do the right thing. Promise me you will do the right thing.”
“I promise,” I say, feeling like the words bind my soul to something I wasn’t ready for.
Gabriel smiles. “Blessed be the angels.”
I turn around, having no clue what I was going to say, but it doesn’t matter as Gabriel is gone.
If the right thing is to kill Ren…then the wrong thing is to leave him alive. I may hate his guts for what he did to me, but another, deeper part of me worries I wouldn’t be strong enough to kill him.
My heart doesn’t seem to want to let him go. I stare at the horizon as the sun slowly appears, flickering oranges, yellows, reds and purples across the sea and sky like a brush paints across a canvas. How can my world be so beautiful and so destructive all at the same time?
“Good luck, lass,” Myles’s mum, Helda, softly whispers to me as she draws me in for a hug before leaning back, resting her hands on my upper arms. Helda has the same thick blonde hair as her son, but he must get his eyes from his dad. “My boy has been searching the sky and stars for years for something. Ever since he was a wee boy. Then you fall out of the sky, and he is there to catch you. If that isn’t fate, what possibly could be?”
Before I can answer her, Myles steps up to us and grins at me. “Ready, my angel?” Then he pauses. “In fact, how are we getting back to this floating academy island?”
“Do you like horses?” I ask him with a raised eyebrow as I dig out the whistle necklace from around my neck and walk a good distance away from them all after saying goodbye. Gabriel and Madi were gone before I woke up yesterday morning, and I suspect they know my answer to the whole killing Ren and being a spy issue. I use the whistle, which sounds like no noise at all to my ears, but I know Ayda will hear me. The seconds pass into minutes, and before long I feel the minutes have changed into a good quarter of an hour. Just as Myles walks to my side, I sense Ayda near and breathe out a sigh of relief. My beautiful flying white horse smashes through the clouds, her long white wings spread out as she glides down to us. Myles steps back as she gets closer, almost looking like she is going to crash into us, but I know she won’t. She is just dramatic, and I love her.
I always said Ayda’s personality was very much like Vesnia. The two of them should have been bonded, and I should have gotten Vesnia’s horse, which is far calmer. I almost smile until I remember where Vesnia is and I have no idea if she is okay. I suck in a deep breath as Ayda stops right before me, huffing and neighing at me until I stroke her forehead.
“I’m sorry I disappeared,” I softly tell her and rest my head against hers for a moment, which seems to calm her down. Myles comes to my side and slowly moves his hands to Ayda’s mane and strokes her.
“She is divine. What is her name?”
“How did you know she is a girl?” I mischievously question.
Myles looks at me. “She reminds me of you. There is no way this horse isn’t a girl.”
I laugh. “Her name is Ayda, and we can ride her back to the academy. I can’t use my wings yet without crashing or getting lost, so Ayda is our safe bet,” I tell him, and to my surprise, he doesn’t wait as he jumps and climbs onto Ayda’s back effortlessly, holding a hand out for me. I take his hand, and with impressive strength, he picks me up one-handed and pulls me in front of him on Ayda. I get comfy as Myles wraps his arms around my waist, his body pressed tightly to mine and my wings pushed down. Somehow, it works.
“Are you ready?” Myles asks me, and I want to say no because that’s how I feel. I will never be ready to face Ren, but my friends need me, and I’m no coward. I won’t ever be. “You’re stronger than you think, Katy. Believe in yourself and know I have your back.”
“Thank you,” I tell him, turning my head back as I say it, and his eyes lock on mine. “Let’s go back to my home.”
Chapter 33
Ayda cuts through the clouds, climbing higher and higher until my ears pop and I struggle to suck in air with each one of my breaths. The tension of where we are going is almost as bad as the tension coating the air around us. I have no idea if Ren is even going to talk to me; he might lock me up and throw away the key. I believe we have a connection, and somewhere deep down, I sense he wants me near him, but who actually knows? All I know is that Vesnia and Thallon need me, and I want to see Henry again. I even want to make sure Riley is still alive. But hurting Ren? I might be so angry at him and hate him for the choice he took from me, but killing and taking anyone’s life is a big thing I’m not sure I am ready for.
Thankfully, we crash through the portal, and everything goes still as I look up at The Angel Academy above us. A shimmering shield flickers from the orb, surrounding the academy and stretching to the portal below us and the one above that leads to the angel city. The orb must keep the academy locked away from the rest of the angels, and for some reason, Ren has clearly just let me back into the academy when I doubt anyone else could come in. It looks so normal, the glistening towers shining from the light above, the floating rocks underneath where I was forced to become a light angel by Riley. My heart burns, cracking into splinters every time I think of what Riley did to me. My best friend since I was a child forced me to become a light angel so we could be in a relationship.
But I never once saw Riley like that. Never. Riley was the o
ne person I thought I could trust the most in the world, and we had a connection because we died together.
It did cross my mind that when I chose to become a dark angel, which is what I wanted, Riley could be my partner and we could work together. Everything was so simple and not what it is right now: destroyed and filled with poison. And some poisons you can’t ever get out of your system.
“This place is incredible,” Myles shouts to me, and I just about hear him over the wind, but I look back for a second and grin. I remember how I felt when I first saw the academy and how remarkable it is. No Disney movie, no imagination on earth could come close to the beauty of this place. I steer Ayda towards the back of the stables where I hope Myles can hide for the time being and not be found. I can’t see the vampires showing much interest in the horses when they have angels as snacks instead. The thought makes me shiver, and I hope Myles doesn’t notice. We land behind the stables, and I quickly jump off, stumbling a little, but Myles catches my arm and stops me from falling over.
“Thanks,” I whisper, and I walk to Ayda. “And thank you. We will fly soon, that I promise.” Ayda neighs once in reply and turns around, flying off the side of the cliff. I cross my arms, my nerves making me jittery, then I open the stable door and head inside. As I suspected, it’s empty, and as I run a finger across one of the stable pens, dust covers it. They aren’t doing flying lessons anymore, it seems. Ayda looked in good condition, so either the horses are looking after themselves or someone else is, but not in the academy.
“No one has been here in a while,” Myles points out. “I will use this as my base, but you only need to call and my wolf will hear you.”
“If they find you...” I drift off, and Myles unfolds my crossed arms and takes my hands in his, his touch more soothing than it should be.