His cool hand curled around my wing and yanked me upright, clean off my feet, then tossed me away from him. Stumbling into the crowd, I felt claws snag my arm, my leg, slicing deep, before the crowd heaved forward and shoved me back into the middle of the pit. Fear muddied my thoughts. Foul air choked me. I knew my own fear crippled me. But knowing it and dealing with it were poles apart. If I didn’t conquer myself, I’d be dead in moments.
I searched the crowd for Mammon. I hadn’t seen him since his earlier revelation. Briefly, it angered me that he wasn’t here. Wasn’t all of this for him? Why wasn’t he here to witness what would surely be my demise?
A roar of glee rippled around the crowd. Some beast had tossed a chain into the pit. Da’mean looped it around his fist and leered at me. A brittle fear—cold, so cold it scolded my veins—spilled through me, unraveling my control, loosening my bladder, and robbing my legs of the strength enough to keep me upright. I slumped to my knees in a pool of my own piss. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t beat him. I was nothing. Weak. Tiny. Insignificant. Riddled with self-disgust and diseased with humanity.
Your freedom is in your hands.
Freedom. I didn’t even know what freedom meant.
You will be magnificent.
I laughed at the echo of Mammon’s words. Magnificent? This?
Defiance is powerful. As is hope.
I was about to die. What good were my hope-filled dreams? Hope was not for the likes of me.
What did you feel when you defied him?
Fire.
The second my thoughts latched onto that one word, fire blazed across my blackened demon skin, lighting me up like a beacon. It came so hard and so fast that it flushed the icy fear from my veins and drove a living, breathing inferno into my soul. Liquid heat flooded my body with power, and beneath the consuming flames, rage simmered; pure, unfiltered, human rage. Behind it thrust a wave of wrath as hot and sensual as the lick of fire across my skin. It wasn’t merely an emotion. For those few piercing moments of clarity, it was my reason for breathing, for living.
I snapped my head back and bared my fangs as Da’mean leered down at me, bowing his arm back, ready to strike.
The passage of time slowed. My hearing deafened to everything but the rapid beat of my heart, and my mind calmed. When he struck, it wasn’t the lightning quick punches I’d received before, but a slow, meandering approach. I witnessed the tension in his muscles and saw his fist come forward with unerring precision. I ducked to the side, clamped both hands around his extended forearm, and planted my fangs deep into his arm. I am faster than you, I sneered in my mind. His arm muscles squirmed beneath the press of my lips, my teeth nicked bone, and my owner let out a bellow that shook the cavern walls. He yanked his arm back, taking me with it. I clung on until he tried to launch me over his head. Seizing my moment, I dropped onto his back between his wings and sank my teeth into his neck and my claws into his back, grazing his ribs. And I fight with the fire of hope in my soul, you worthless lesser beast.
He stilled, and in the next instant, my lungs ceased breathing. Mouth agape, I threw my head back, seeking oxygen in air that wasn’t there. Da’mean lashed his claws over his shoulders, trying to sweep me off him, but my claws were hooked in deep. Even as I struggled to breathe and the suffocating blanket of unconsciousness threatened to smother me, I reveled in the sensation of his blood running over my hands.
At least I’d die trying, just as Mammon had wanted.
He was here. The alluring touch of his element wove around my trembling body.
I saw him then, a shadow, a darkness, stalking the rear of the crowd, no more than a phantom really with eyes like hot coals. Tangible fury simmered around him, but it wasn’t directed at me.
The fire. Yes. Da’mean had stolen the air from my lungs, not from the cavern around us. My flames still burned. He didn’t know I could wield chaos fire like a weapon.
Slay him. Drown him in our element, my human-half demanded. The vehemence with which she spoke drilled rods of courage into my elemental body. I thought I was capable of savagery, but her thoughts of murder and mayhem put mine to shame. He will not hurt us again. End it. And kill them all.
I called the heat, opened my mind and embraced it. Stealing it from the other fire elementals in the room, I ripped it out of them and funneled it all into my arms, my hands, through my claws, and into Da’mean. Wicked glee strummed through my quivering body. He arched back, thrust his wings outward, and let out the most terrifying howl. Flames gorged on every inch of his flesh, lapped around his calf muscles, slid over his thighs, caressed his back, licked over his wings and kissed his face. I felt it all, as though my hands guided the fire. His skin literally boiled beneath my touch. The stench of burned flesh choked my throat.
He staggered beneath me, stumbled, and fell facedown onto the pit floor. Pleasure trickled up my spine. I threw my head back and sent a triumphant howl into the cavern. He was down. Immobile. I leaned in, my cheek close to his, his flesh rippling beneath the heat of me, and I knew he was dead. I’d killed him. I’d slain my owner. It tasted sweet, his death. Relief cooled my fire. It was over. He would never hurt me again.
Giddy with glee, I yanked my claws free and climbed to my feet, only to find the crowd observing me in silence.
I’d killed my owner. I’d committed the worst crime a half-blood could be condemned for. The eyes of my elemental kin burned with indignation. It was open season on me.
* * *
C haos. Such a simple word for something so unstoppable, something pure, wild, and seductive. Elementals are slaves to chaos. And as the crowd surged, chaos flooded the cavern. The elements of chaos danced above us. Fire entwined, ice lashed, and air writhed. Others simmered and broiled until chaos itself frothed and fizzled them all into a storm of energy. My newly discovered fire gushed through my elemental body, and then the first blow came from behind, shattering the frightful embrace of fear and spurring me into action. Instinct trampled on panic, and I did all I could to fight them off. Pain sparked on my body. Daggers, claws, teeth—all found my flesh. I killed some of them, but their number soon swamped me.
Tumbling to the floor, I realized I would die without seeing the towers of glittering light Mammon had spoken of and the wonders that belonged to my human half. My fleeting existence, my tiny life, seemed so…redundant. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. I knew it in my bones, in my flesh, in my blood. This wasn’t life at all. My half-human mind refused to accept this would be how it would end. How dare they take my dreams from me? What right did these creatures have?
Mammon clasped his hand around my upper arm and dragged me to my feet. He tugged my limp and tiny self against his chest, clamped his arm around my upper body, and pinned me back against him. I caught the flash of blue light from an ethereal blade and smiled as the sword cut through the wave of elementals, slicing them apart with terrifying ease. Mammon hunched forward, curled me into his embrace, and roared. The monstrous sound deafened me, vibrated through my tiny body, and rattled my teeth. I’d have clamped my hands over my ears if he’d unpinned my arms.
“Muse is mine!” he snarled. Every bellows breath he took rumbled with barely restrained anger.
A few rushed forward, too lost to the bloodlust to recognize when to quit. Mammon thrust out a hand and wrapped them in blue flame. They made it a few more steps before the fire exploded. Ashes blasted my face, and the foolish elementals were no more.
The mood of the crowd turned. Those at the front bent low and shuffled with shame. Others scurried back, falling over themselves in their haste to be free. Mammon could kill them all with a glance. Terror widened their eyes. I wanted him to do it. Breathing hard, bleeding, bruised a
nd broken, I thirsted for their blood. Had I the power, I’d have slaughtered every last one.
Mammon sucked in a breath, and he let loose a primal bellow of rage that surely must have shaken the foundations of the fortress above. The cavern quickly emptied of elementals as they scurried over one another in their haste to be anywhere but within Mammon’s sight. Chaos fizzled to nothing, and the elements melted away. Clutched against Mammon’s behemoth body, bleeding, battered, but more alive than ever before, I regarded my fallen kin and only wished I could have killed more.
* * *
I couldn’t speak. My ridiculous human body had decided speech was superfluous. Not that I knew what to say. We stood on top of this new world. At least, so it appeared. Beyond a smooth sheet of glass, the City of Boston glistened. Sharp towers reached like monoliths into an inky black sky dusted with diamond stars. We stood inside one such tower. Below, veins of red and white pulsed through the streets—cars, Ahkeel had said. There were so many. I pressed my hand to the ‘glass,’ expecting it to ripple like water, but it was cold and solid beneath my touch. Throat dry, heart pounding, I glanced behind me at the strange cube ‘apartment’. Here too, glass sparkled. The floor gleamed as though polished. Countless lights illuminated every angle. Leather, fabric, and stone wrapped me in a peculiar warmth. And bizarrely, I felt safe, although there was nothing here to suggest sanctuary. No barricades, no cages.
When we’d popped into existence in this apartment moments after leaving the pit, Mammon had demanded I wear my human skin. I’d obliged without a thought and wandered, awed and silent. I touched and gasped and peeked around doors, under fabric squares called cushions. I scrunched my little human toes into the soft pile of a rug. In a tiny room, I frowned at a little white seat and its pool of water. Was I meant to drink from that? How did I get the water out? In that same room, I’d seen my human reflection clearly for the first time. A curious thing. Dark straight-as-arrows hair skimmed my bare shoulders. Soft brown eyes betrayed nothing of my past. No scars. No wounds. Smooth, pink cheeks, plump lips. I’d emerged from the little room and found Ahkeel standing by the wall of windows, his naked human body beautifully framed by the landscape of Boston.
I didn’t know what to say to him. What words could possibly translate the myriad of feelings and emotions running through my human mind? He’d saved me. And now we were here, in a land filled with fantastical things, magical, impossible things.
“I will teach you how to be human.” The silvery purr of Ahkeel’s words sprinkled shivers across my bare flesh. “Something tells me you’ll catch on quickly enough.” He arched a brow and curled his indulgent lips into a smile.
Inside, my ‘demon’—as my other half was called here–purred, making her thoughts about Ahkeel quite clear. “You planned this? All of this? Teaching me how to call my element, the games in the pit, you gave me the tools I needed to kill him because you couldn’t, not without breaking the laws you’re meant to protect.” His eyes glittered. “Why?” Ahkeel’s smile lingered but seemed to take on a hungry significance. He slid his gaze back to the cityscape. He was my savior. He had orchestrated my escape. Yes, my demon would do anything for Ahkeel. But as I watched this impossibly alluring vision of a man, so deadly in his perfection, I vowed to never forget the demon inside him. If this was freedom, I had no intention of letting it go. I cast my gaze over Boston. This was my moment. Here, in this world, I would finally be free.
I would never forget my owner. Nor would I forget the ravages of the netherworld or that my savior was the demon who had orchestrated my freedom, the same demon who could easily wrench it all away from me. A prince among demons. He didn’t do any of this for me. Of that I was certain. But what could he want from a half-blood like me in this world? He had a mortal lifetime to spring his trap. I had no intention of falling into it. I would be his human. I would learn his ways. And then, when I understood this world, I would be my own person. Not even the Prince of Greed could stop me.
As for my demon, she slumbered in my mind and warmed my soul. She was the whisper in my ear, the voice of desire and hunger. I would not forget who or what I was. Half-human, half-demon, damaged, but oh so wonderfully free.
* * *
The real story begins now…
What does Mammon really want with Muse and will she have the strength to outsmart him? Download The Veil Series novels by clicking here to visit Amazon.
If you enjoyed Wings Of Hope, please leave a review on Amazon here and/or Goodreads here.
THE VEIL SERIES REVIEWS
Moonrise Books
This is a fantastic book and one of my new favorites! ...a brilliant and original tale, entwined with a fascinating element of romance. I am eager to dive into the next book in the series to see what happens with these fantastic characters.
Goodreads reviewer
I absolutely adored this book and this series so far. It's unlike anything I've read before and probably will read for awhile.
Bitten By Books
This is a fresh twist on Urban Fantasy and I am very curious to see where Muse will end up. Likeable characters, fantastic pacing and flow, a solid paranormal foundation, and one hell of an ending make Beyond the Veil a truly enjoyable read.
Happy Tails & Tales
It goes to the excellence of writing skill when you love, and hate, ALL of the characters so much. Seriously, I think it could have had a bad plot and I would have loved the characters. BUT the plot is amazing. You’ll never be able to guess what’s really going on because it’s all about the unveiling.
Nocturnal Predators Reviews
I almost cried. It was THAT heart wrenching. After getting slapped upside the head with plot twists every five pages during the WHOLE book I still didn't see that ending coming.
Amazon reviewer
Nothing is as it seems and it's all too easy to get caught in Muse's story as the plot twists and turns
Smexy Books
From page one I was intrigued and as I turned the final page I still wanted more.
Publishers Weekly
This emotional, supernatural novel keeps up a brisk pace without leaving the reader behind... A solid start to the series.
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ALSO BY PIPPA DACOSTA
The Veil Series
Wings Of Hope (Prequel)
1. Beyond The Veil
2. Devil May Care
3. Darkest Before Dawn
4. Drowning In The Dark (Coming early 2015)
www.theveilseries.co.uk
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Tonbridge, Kent in 1979, --- "Wait a second. Let's cut to the chase. I write kick-ass urban fantasy novels with conflicted characters, breathless action, and no-holds-barred dialogue. My books may not leave you feeling all fluffy and warm inside, but they will excite you. There will be plot-wists, there will be angst, probably a few bodies, and very likely your favorite character will turn out to be the bad guy. Don't say I didn't want you..."
Pippa's family moved to the South West of England where she grew up amongst the dramatic moorland and sweeping coastlands of Devon & Cornwall. With a family history brimming with intrigue, complete with Gypsy angst on one side and Jewish survivors on another, she has the ability to draw from a patchwork of ancestry and use it as the inspiration for her writing. Happily married and the Mother of two little girls, she resides on the Devon & Cornwall border.
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@PippaDaCosta
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With thanks to my very talented Cover Artist, Celairen, because you understand exactly what I want, even when I don’t. To all my readers; without y
ou, these stories wouldn’t exist. Thank you so much for your feedback. I cherish every word. Thank you Karen, and Lynn, at Red Adept, for your endless professionalism and hard work.
To my two girls. You can read Mommy’s books when you’re (much) older.
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