by Nikki Kelly
Gabriel sat up. His hand still in hers, he kissed Iona’s fingers.
She had saved him, where I could not.
Gabriel was no longer fallen.
And he was no longer my Angel. He was Iona’s.
The rain stopped, and the trees swayed as the remaining members of my family climbed up the hillside to meet us. Brooke, Fergal, and Phelan, who had his arm around the shoulders of Cameron.
Cameron.
As I scanned the scenery, every surviving Second Generation Vampire stood now human. I thought back to what Malachi had told me. He’d said that with Zherneboh’s end his house of cards would fall, and fall they had.
My thoughts went first to Jonah.
I had ended his Pureblood Master, and consequently every Vampire in Emery’s line would have been restored back to human. But minutes after Emery had burned, Jonah had fallen into the third; the time distortion must have interfered with the venom leaving his system. But it finally had. And when it left him, it left Brooke, a Vampire he had created. And when her humanity returned, the venom she had spread left Fergal, too.
Zherneboh’s end had caused the venom he had infected the Arch Angels with to evaporate, but after existing in such darkness they mustn’t have been able to go back to who they once were. Unlike human beings, who live in the spectrum of the gray, the Arch Angels’ souls were created and existed in a state of pure light, and so every one of the Arch Angels had died Purebloods.
But with their deaths, they had set mankind free.
I dug my nails into my palms. Zherneboh’s venom had infected me, too, and I had been created an Angel, but I was still standing; I was still alive.
I felt the sting then.
Ruby red seeped between my fingers.
I was bleeding.
My eyes crossed as one of the blue butterflies left my skin and landed on the tip of my nose. It stretched its wings and took flight.
The same as Jonah, all along I had made choices, even when there hadn’t seemed like there were any. I had accepted and embraced my gray soul, and I’d considered myself superhuman. And now, I was simply human.
I finally allowed my gaze to meet Jonah’s and our eyes locked.
I had survived.
Jonah and I were both mortal.
I had exchanged my existence to save Jonah’s, but Emit had said the fabric of the universe was being torn apart, that I was to stitch it back together, and that would be my payment, not my life as I had first thought.
I had free will.
And Emit had left me signs, hidden messages.… Why would he have sent me warning if my death here on this cliff top were decided? Action and reaction, Emit had said, the nature of free will.
What happened now was up to me.
Maybe Jonah and I could have a fairy-tale future. Maybe now I had earned and deserved a three-worded ending.
Underneath the bowing branches of the half-uprooted oak tree, Jonah moved his foot to the top of the tombstone that had acted as the door down into the cave, and he watched me.
Wait.
I remembered this.
I scanned the area but all I found was my family, clustering together at the roots of the oak tree. As I began to step forward, from over my shoulder a voice sounded, calling out my name.
I took a breath, but as I turned to my right there was no killer robot; instead a battered-looking Darwin stumbled toward me clutching his balled fists tightly to his chest.
I exhaled.
I glanced between my family and Darwin.
Deciding my family could live without me a little longer, I went to Darwin.
Though Darwin was hurt, he was alive, and relief filled me, overtaking my fear. A pained smile stretched across his face as though he were thankful to see me. As he approached, in that familiar way of his, he brought his hands up and slid his fingers between mine.
But as he clamped down, something sharp pierced through my palms.
The needles slid through my skin easily.
My gaze dropped as he angled his thumb and pressed down over the tip of the syringes poking out between his thumb and forefinger, injecting me with hot dark matter.
“Darwin?”
He pulled me into his chest by our entwined hands, so to my family, it appeared that he was embracing me. My body flush with his, he hissed in my ear, “If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” His breathing became heavy. “All this time it was you. Disguising yourself as some sort of superhero…” He trailed off and then whispered, “But you couldn’t disguise your markings.”
Darwin was referring to the tattoos that had grown up my arms after Ruadhan had died, tattoos that must have resembled the ones he had seen in the CCTV footage of the Pureblood who had murdered his brother in France.
Darwin thought I had killed Elliot.
I swallowed. “She, I, did kill someone, but his name was Bradley.”
A mournful snort left Darwin. “My father used to go on about it, the importance of the family name.…”
As he held me still, the veins in my wrist began to sizzle and I felt sick.
“Looking at my business card, you said, ‘That’s a whole lot of letters.’ Evidently you missed the only ones that held any real meaning.”
I tugged backward, and this time he let me go.
“Darwin B. B. Montmorency.” He paused. “Elliot shared the family name, of course. Elliot Bradley-Boulle Montmorency. He preferred to go by his middle name.”
The world seemed to warp, and a vision reflected out at me from the glass of Darwin’s specs.
* * *
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING, LAD?” Ruadhan’s voice sounded.
In the barn in Neylis, Jonah rummaged around Gabriel’s office. He flipped through a Rolodex, and selected a card filed behind a tab labeled with Gabriel’s business partner’s name. “Albert Bradley-Boulle Montmorency.” The card simply read “Le Baron, Limoux.” He tapped the club name into his cell phone quickly and then shouted back through the door, “Out.”
* * *
AT THE BAR IN LE BARON, Bradley took up a barstool and conversed with me. “I’m only passing, a fleeting visit; my dad owns this place,” he said as he eyed the crystal around my neck.
* * *
IN THE DARK, under the faint flicker of a dying bulb, Bradley pulled a knife from his pocket. The girl in the shadow manifested through my skin and, throwing Bradley around the building’s side, pulled him apart limb by limb.
* * *
“ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO WATCH?”
With his father’s hand on his shoulder, Darwin nodded, taking the tablet. He sat squarely in an armchair beside a fireplace, his elbows on his knees, and pressed play.…
* * *
DARWIN WAS UNSTEADY on his feet as he watched me refuse Gabriel’s comfort. And as the tattooed markings the girl in the shadow had worn inked up my arms and stained over my skin, Darwin’s eyes grew wide.
* * *
THE WORLD SLOWED.
The dark matter traveled toward my heart. In the third dimension, Malachi’s design had churned it clockwise, because he knew what Darwin did: that if the particles collided they would destroy one another.
I was dizzy.
Darwin stepped backward, and then I saw it.
The round-headed robot with the green triangular eyes and hands dressed in black gloves.
God’s name was Emit, and apparently death had a name, too.
His name was Marvin.
The robot had always been a sign, a warning pointing to Darwin. Above a logo for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the robot was stitched on Darwin’s T-shirt.
Though Darwin was angry, his expression showed sadness and he hesitated before he slunk away. I brought my arms out to steady myself, and the last ribbons of the aurora spiraled around me as a new day began to dawn.
From the cliff top, I looked down upon my family, and despite the searing heat of the boiling dark matter as it surged through my veins, I was so cold.
; The white-gold aura that surrounded Gabriel’s form was luminous against the gray backdrop. I smiled at the sight, and as he realized what was happening, he couldn’t bring his lips to curve at their corners. But for all the memories and the love we had once shared, with his eyes he smiled back at me.
His stare remained fixed on me as he wrapped his arm around Iona’s back. He placed his chin to her temple and then finally he looked away.
My gaze wandered to Phelan and Cameron, who stood side by side, straightened their backs and bowed their heads—a mark of respect.
Brooke paced toward me, but Fergal snatched her hand and tugged her back. She buried her head in his chest and cried.
And then my eyes locked with Jonah’s.
We had almost made it—almost.
For a fleeting second, I felt the beat of the drum sound in time with my heart.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed.
And I was. For the things I’d said to him and for leaving him now. And though I was more afraid than I had ever been before, I wouldn’t take back loving Jonah for anything.
Emit appeared, his jacket dazzling as he came forward, and I realized I was no longer teetering at the edge of the end, I was falling from it. I said to him in a whisper, “I’m not ready.”
And as I blinked, in the gray of twilight, I saw Ruadhan. He went unnoticed as he drifted behind my family, and then I heard his voice in my head. “No one ever is, sweetheart.”
My knees buckled, and I closed my eyes. With my arms spread wide, I fell.
Firm hands caught me by my waist before I could meet the ground, and I opened my eyes to find Jonah.
The rush of the darkness surged underneath my skin, and I warned him away. “Go!”
Jonah was mortal now, no longer in the dark, and no longer alone.
He didn’t need me.
Tucking my hair behind my ear, he said, “You were living for me. Now let me die for you.”
I stifled a breath. He held me tight as tears splashed down my cheeks and he rubbed the tip of his nose against my skin, mopping them away.
I wheezed. “Jonah—”
Shaking his head, he said, “Don’t be afraid.” His lips stretched into a contented smile, and he kissed me.
The hot dark matter collided in my chest, but I didn’t feel it. All I felt was Jonah’s truth as he whispered it in my ear. Keeping his promise, he gave me the only three words that mattered. The three words the end of my story truly deserved.
And in that one perfect moment I had clarity.
I knew the meaning.
Here in twilight, finally I found my place.
A strobe of light beamed, and together we burst into a billion butterflies.
EPILOGUE
JONAH
IN HER EAR, I whispered, “I love you.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nikki Kelly is the author of Lailah and Gabriel, Books One and Two of the Styclar Saga. Lailah was first launched in serial form on Wattpad, an online readers’ and writers’ community. Within six months, the novel had over one million readers. Nikki lives in London with her husband and their daughter. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Nikki Kelly
A Feiwel and Friends Book
An Imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
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All rights reserved.
Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
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First hardcover edition February 2017
eBook edition February 2017
eISBN 978-1-250-13189-8