by KC Bellinger
Copyright © 2021 KC Bellinger
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ASIN: B09FKQQ3XW
Cover design by: Warren Design
Edited by: Blaack Quill Editing
Printed in the United States of America
Dedicated to those who inspired my characters
Erin - Your support and love have been invaluable.
Geoff - Your music molded one of my favorite angels.
Clayton- I wish you were here to see this dream fulfilled.
TAKEN
Marked By Angels 2
Chapter 1
Despite the chill, I rolled the window down and inhaled. The mixture of dewy pine and sulfur from my demon passenger made me giddy. I finally knew what freedom smelled like, and it was refreshing. Checking my reflection in the rearview mirror, I saw the town slip out of view. My long, blonde hair blew lazily behind me, and my sapphire eyes were as blue as the big sky. I never thought this day would arrive. My companion gave me a sideways glance and rolled his eyes.
“What? Aren’t you glad we’re leaving Aster?”
“Obviously, not as happy as you,” he sneered.
I raised my eyebrows at him and smiled. Nothing. Not a damn thing. Fine, two can play that game.
I tapped my index finger on the steering wheel and gazed longingly at the radio. I could turn it on, but I’d just get static. Ugh. I couldn’t stand the tension anymore.
“Jaiten, what’s on your mind?” I turned to my baby-faced passenger. He was in deep thought with his arms crossed and his eyebrows set in a frown. Even in his most menacing demeanor, he lifted my spirits.
“I’m rehearsing a speech in my head. I have to ask for safe passage into the city.” He glared at me. “For the both of us.” There was a hierarchy for the demon population, and Jaiten didn’t want to step on any devilish toes.
Decked out in his favorite black suit, he was dressed to impress ... somebody. He even jelled his soft, brown curls and tucked them neatly behind his ears. I looked down at my faded jeans and stretched pink sweater. It was far from fancy attire, but at least I was comfortable for the long drive.
“Do you want to try it out on me?” I asked, hoping for some communication.
“No.”
I went back to my finger tapping.
The highway was free of moving vehicles, but there were signs of broken-down cars every few miles. Windshields were broken and tires were ripped from their metal shells. I started counting car parts to pass the time. I wondered about the people. Where had they been going before their car broke down? Did they hitchhike to the coast, or did they perish on their journey?
The Crash was to blame for all the debris spread across the highway. Hell, it was the reason everything was the way it was. A series of catastrophic events occurred simultaneously, followed by a meteor shower. Speculation declared it a gravitational pull. However, the fanatics called it an act of God. Either way, many people died and the human population dwindled without medicine, prepackaged food, and other essential needs.
In the beginning, many souls became lost while crossing over, so they were sent back to roam the earth. Most of them were demons. The main demon population was spirit-bound and a regular human couldn’t see them, but there was a handful of us who could.
I was born after The Crash, so I didn’t know the luxuries of electricity or indoor plumbing. The earth’s temperature had cooled, too. There were rumors that the big cities were functioning. We got very little news in my small mountain community. Occasionally, a truck driver or wealthy traveler would tell us about how the government was functioning or what corporations were back in business. Nothing touched Aster. I couldn’t wait to learn what was happening out in the world, but first, I had college registration.
Reaching for my demon, I brushed my fingers across his thigh. I felt his body tense, and without looking at me, he squeezed my hand.
“Sorry, Whit, I have a lot on my mind.” He kissed the back of my hand and returned it to my lap.
It was going to be a long car ride.
***
I did a mental checklist, not that it mattered because I would not turn around and go home.
Home.
Every time I thought of home, my mind found Mom. She was my safe place when I needed life to feel normal, but Dustyn always sneaked in and stole her memories. Dustyn was a demon collector and a close family friend. She’d adopted me with her husband Hewitt after a Hell’s minion killed my mother. I always blamed Dustyn for bringing Ateil into our life, but it wasn’t her fault. I always knew that, but somewhere inside of me, I had to hold onto the blame. It was someone’s fault Mom died.
I’ve brought Dustyn with me, even though I swore I wouldn’t.
Mentally, I slapped myself out of my memories and focussed on the rolling hills. A clapboard church with a decaying steeple sat like an ancient relic on a crest. I pulled over to admire the slightly slanted building.
“C’mon, Jai, let’s go check it out.”
He crinkled his nose. He was getting annoyed with me.
I walked to his door and opened it with a flourish. “Please.”
“Whatever makes you happy.” Jaiten unfolded his long legs out of the car and grinned down at me. It was a goofy smile, the kind that made my heart skip a beat.
“Beat you there!” I took off running up the slope. I heard his breathing as he easily caught up with me and tackled me onto a thick cushion of bluegrass. My giggles turned hysterical when his fingers tickled my ribs. His red eyes met mine and for a moment, nothing else mattered in the world. Not college. Not The Crash. And definitely not Dustyn. Hovering above me, his arms still wrapped around my waist, he leaned in to kiss me.
A deep growl echoed in the canyon, interrupting our precious moment.
“What was that?” I gulped.
Jaiten sat up and surveyed the area. “Whatever it was is gone now, but we shouldn’t stick around for long.”
“I just want to see the church, and then we can go.”
He took my hand and led me up the steep hillside. Fat snowflakes started floating from a nearly cloudless sky—that’s weird. I held my free hand out and the flakes melted quickly on my warm skin.
“I’ll wait outside,” Jaiten said when we approached the church.
There weren’t any symbols left on the building, so I wasn’t sure how holy it truly was. “Why? Can you not enter, or are you afraid you might turn to the light?” I joked, wiping my wet palm onto my jeans.
“I’m afraid the place would instantly ignite in flames.” He lifted an eyebrow and gave an evil laugh.
I rolled my eyes and left him outside.
I took a seat on the pew. There was nothing else left of the chapel. Something about churches always beckoned me as they did Dustyn. In fact, Hewitt—Daddy as I called him—had an abandoned church reconstructed in the White’s Memorial Garden. It was a pristine chapel with a bell tower and a well-polished cross over the altar. Cradled on the altar slept Tresian’s bible. As I had a bond with a demon, Dustyn had one with an angel.
Thinking of them had me wondering what I truly was. We knew Dustyn was an Hour because her angel was kind enough to tell her what she was and how to use her magical abilities. An Hour was a human marked by an angel to help humanity.
Once twelve angels carved o
ut a piece of heaven’s sky and implanted them into humans. These humans, or Hours, have a mark on their back that tells which of the twelve angels was theirs. As far as anyone knows, all the Hours are female. Dustyn fell in love with the angel who created her, Tresian. I knew I had abilities that mirrored hers. However, I didn’t have the sun-dial-shaped mark on my back, and I‘ve never seen an angel other than Tresian. Jaiten entered my life when I was young, and we’ve been inseparable since.
For a few short years, things were almost normal. Dustyn and Hewitt had twins and Kristy, from Hewitt’s first marriage, was a great big sister. We were a close family. For seven years, Dustyn made a life with Hewitt, never once returning to the mountain she grew up on or her ‘demon collecting well.’ She abandoned everything from her past, including her angel. Tresian was to guard the well and two barrels buried deep in the ground. One contained the minion that killed my mother and the other was the scariest demon I’ve ever seen. She had trapped them within the earth because if you killed a demon, it would return to Hell and eventually make its way back to the living. She feared one day someone would come along and dig them up, so she left the angel she loved to watch over her sacred ground while she played a loving normal wife with the man she married.
Dustyn always promised she’d find out what I was, but she never did. As far as I know, she never tried.
A knock on the opened door startled me. Jaiten stood a foot from the doorstep and grinned sheepishly at me. He held a posy of flowers. Most of them were lilacs, wet from the morning dew. Lilacs were Dustyn’s flower, but the irresistible demon holding the flowers was all mine.
“Ready, babe?”
He thrust the bouquet into the open doorway, and I accepted them with pride.
“I know lilies are your flowers, but I’ve been acting like a jerk all morning. Can you forgive me?”
His lopsided smile tickled me to my toes. I never could stay mad at him for long.
Chapter 2
I inhaled the sweet floral scent and accepted his outstretched hand. Lazily, he swung our hands back and forth as we rounded the back of the church to admire the view. I expected to find a hillside of spring flowers, but it was bare, with a worn road to an abandoned ranch. Still in decent shape, the main house was rustic with wood and stone accents. Jaiten draped his arms around my neck. His breath tickled my ear, and my body melted against his.
“Wanna play house tonight?”
“Why just tonight?” I laid my head on his chest. “Why not stay here forever? Just you and me.” I turned around and raised my eyes to meet his. “We don’t have to go to Timber Grove.” I stood on my tippy toes to kiss him, but since I was on the downward slope, my lips only grazed his neck.
His body tensed, and he lifted me up, so he didn’t have to lean over to kiss me.
A low growl bounced off the hillside and caused me to shiver.
Jaiten set me down and peered over the valley. His sensuous gaze turned to a nervous scan. “Let’s go.”
“It’s probably just a bear. It wouldn’t have a chance against you.” I smiled confidently up at him.
“Now, Whitney,” Jaiten demanded. He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the car.
Luckily for me, I didn’t have a problem keeping up with him. We reached the car, and the growl grew louder and longer. Yet there was no sign of what was making the sound.
“Start the car!”
“I’m working on it.” Fumbling with the keys, I couldn’t help but check all my mirrors and windows for the creature.
A rumble came from behind, shaking the car.
“What is it?”
“Give me the keys,” Jaiten took them from me before I could respond. He jammed the metal into the ignition and slid his long leg over to the gas pedal. The vehicle jumped to life, and we took off like a bat out of hell.
***
Jaiten kept his eyes peeled to the side of the road and chewed his lip. I’d never seen him look anything other than confident, cocky even. Nervously, I twisted the gold choker that held a locket of my Mother’s ashes around my neck. It felt cold on my clammy skin. Jaiten gave it to me when I was young, and I never took it off. I tugged gently on it to make sure it was secure. Out of habit, my fingers switched to my other necklace, a long silver chain that held a metal orb containing a mix of rose petals and the bark of an apple tree. I brought the charm to my nose and inhaled. The scent stirred a deep memory, like pine trees and cider at Christmas. The tea-like flakes were a way for me to contact a dear friend who’d passed away when I was young.
Mable was elderly when I moved into the White’s house, but she was the closest I ever got to having a grandmother. She bound her spirit to her cottage, so when she died, her specter could still guide me. Or rather, Dustyn. To call her, all I needed was a bit of blood or a freshly picked daisy and an incantation. Spells worked differently depending on the origin of the magic and the person performing the task.
“Jai, what was that?”
Jaiten exhaled calmly but remained vigilant. “We are out of our territory. I feel that was a warning.”
“Who has territory in the middle of nowhere?”
“Good question.” He returned to his original position with frowning eyes and arms crossed.
Here we go again.
Chapter 3
The evening air was tinged with a salty breeze from the ocean and it floated through the cracked window, warm and inviting. Timber Grove was once a resort built for the rich. If it had remained small, it would have been a neat town, but with wealth came growth. Subdivisions and superstores erupted. I’ve seen pictures in an old magazine, but looking at the darkening skyline, I wasn’t prepared for the big city. The streets of houses were in ruin or burnt down. Gas stations and grocery stores were boarded up despite all the broken glass. Everything was desolate. I wondered if I did the right thing coming here. Supposedly, the cities were thriving compared to small towns, but not here in Timber Grove.
“It’ll get better as we get deeper downtown,” Jaiten assured me with little conviction.
The tall buildings soared into the darkness. There was light but not the pretty artificial street lamps I had hoped for.
Barrels filled with trash burned on every main corner, and it didn’t smell good. There were people on the streets, and from a distance, it was a pleasant sight. A family walked by. The mother clasped onto her child as her husband swung an empty bottle. Their faces were dirty and their clothes couldn’t even be classified as rags; rags could be washed. Naked women danced around flickering bonfires as men cheered them on, throwing food at them. They reached out and snagged a piece of stale bread and sucked on it.
“Jaiten.” I slowed for a stop sign.
The women looked like animals. Some of them had chains around their ankles.
“Hmm?” His eyes were aimed forward. He didn’t see the horror unfold around him, or if he did, he wasn’t acknowledging it.
“Why are they sucking on bread like it’s a piece of fruit?”
He turned to face me and smiled a toothy grin. “No teeth.”
“Oh.” I ground my teeth; all there, and perfectly straight and healthy. I watched as one dancer climbed onto one of the sitting men.
“It’s called a lap dance, Whit, and stop staring, it’s not polite.”
“That’s wrong.”
“No, what’s wrong is that girl is younger than you.”
“No way! She looks twice my age.”
“You’ve lived a sheltered life; always doing what you’re told like a good girl,” Jaiten sneered. “No, you’ve lived a good life.” Jaiten placed his hand on mine, and the rough edges on his face that had formed over the years softened, as did his voice. “You’ve known nothing but love, even though you have lost a lot. You have never been neglected or abused.” He nodded at the naked teen girl. “She has been out on the streets since she was a kid. She has never known or been shown love and never will.” He removed his hand from mine and gestured a signal to turn left.
“Let’s go.”
I couldn’t though. I had enough food in my car to feed her for a month. I could offer her clothes too. She looked at me and raised her lip in anger, but her eyes were sending a different message. They were full of shadows and sadness.
She got off the man and walked to my car. I pressed the little button to roll down the window, but Jaiten protested.
His face twisted and his dark eyebrows narrowed. “Now Whitney,” he ordered.
The girl came within an arm’s reach from the car. She said something unintelligible. Her fists and feet flew up in frustration and pounded on the car. I pulled away, leaving the girl screaming and pulling on her matted brown curls. Through the cracked window, I could still hear her throwing curses at me. The words made little sense as if it was a foreign language, but it wasn’t, it was just gibberish.
Jaiten was right; the main blocks of downtown were well maintained. Oil lamps and torches were attached to the more prominent businesses. The streets were clean and all the buildings were intact. Fancy cars lined the curbs and designated parking lots. I parked under a large oak tree and let the vibrations of the car die with the engine.
A man wearing a tweed jacket walked by the car; he was murmuring something incomprehensible, “They are everywhere and no one sees this? No one sees the eyes of Hell searching the seas and land?” He continued talking to himself as he walked by.
I sighed and rubbed my eyes.
Tired, and a bit shaken, Jaiten leaned over me and reached for the seat lever. Reclining my chair back, he lingered above me and smiled. “Get some rest.” He brushed my cheek with a kiss and stroked the back of my neck.
I closed my eyes and focused on his soft hands, massaging my nerves and tight muscles. He stopped briefly and tugged on my necklace before extending his fingers to my shoulders, lulling me to sleep.