by Kristie Cook
About This Book
They’re gone.
I’m still trying to process that fact, but I can’t. Although I have nowhere near enough life or leadership experience, I have to serve my purpose and lead the Angels’ army to war. But for every step we take, Lucas trumps it as he orchestrates the beginnings of World War III. Single-handedly, he turns the humans against the Amadis, and when Tristan and I top every country’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists, we’re forced to go underground to fight this war.
With the help of my people and a group of unexpected allies, I have to figure out a way to stop the Daemoni from taking over humanity. Some claim Lucas to be the Antichrist. I won’t give him that credit, but he’s sure trying his best to prove me wrong. If it’s true, then we’ve all become part of an age-old prophecy of divine providence. But the Amadis will do everything we can to stop Lucas and change the world’s destiny, even if it means we die trying.
Unholy Torment
Kristie Cook
Contents
Books by Kristie Cook
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
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Glossary & Cast
Unholy Torment Playlist
About the Author
Connect With Me Online
Acknowledgments
Books by Kristie Cook
An Excerpt
Fractured Faith
Books by Kristie Cook
Soul Savers
A Demon’s Promise
An Angel’s Purpose
Dangerous Devotion
Dark Power
Sacred Wrath
Unholy Torment
Fractured Faith
Genesis: A Soul Savers Novella
Awakened Angel: A Soul Savers Novella
Prophecy of the Wolves: (A Soul Savers Tie-In Novella)
Wonder: A Soul Savers Collection of Holiday Short Stories & Recipes
Havenwood Falls
Forget You Not
Lose You Not
Break Me Not
The Collector: Awakening
The Winged & the Wicked (with T.V. Hahn)
Savage Salvation (Sin & Silk)
Sun & Moon Academy Book One: Fall Semester
Havenwood Falls Short Story Anthology 2018
Havenwood Falls Short Story Anthology 2019
Book Of Phoenix
The Space Between
The Space Beyond
The Space Within
Copyright © 2014, 2015, 2020 by Kristie Cook
All rights reserved.
Published by
Ang’dora Productions, LLC
Punta Gorda, FL
Mailing Address:
5621 Strand Blvd., Suite 210
Naples, FL 34110
Ang’dora Productions and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Ang’dora Productions, LLC
Cover design by Lily Rowserein
Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the copyright owner.
Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Edition January 2015
Updated November 2015, July 2020
For You, My Reader
Chapter 1
Automatic gunfire beat out a staccato rhythm all around me. Thunder punctuated it with a loud bass sound, followed by a streak of lightning that illuminated the cracks carved into the sky and the ancient structure looming nearby. A steady rain fell, pelting my skin and drenching my hair, plastering the strands to my head.
One word drowned out the cacophony of the storm. One scream that lifted the hairs on the back of my neck.
“ALEXIS!”
One image that pushed everything else out of focus.
Auburn hair that looked nearly black from being soaked. Almond-shaped, brown eyes even larger than normal. Olive-toned skin washed out, blanched by the rain. A small and curvy, yet fit body.
Just like me.
She lunged and reached out, as though to save me from the danger.
But it was her body being peppered with the bullets. Her body that jerked and twitched with each hit. Her body that collapsed as her arms still lifted toward me, her voice again calling my name.
“MOM!”
The word became lodged in my throat. My mouth opened wide to let the scream out. But I had no force to make it heard. I had no power to propel my body forward. I could only stand there, unable to do anything but watch the blood mix with the rain and stain her shirt with rivers of red.
My breath caught audibly, and my hand clapped over my chest, my heart pounding against it with the force of Thor’s hammer. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.
My bedroom surrounded me, the misty gray of pre-dawn light leaking through the doorway to the balcony, the sheer curtain barely fluttering before it. I sat in my bed, sweat dripping down my back, trying to catch my breath.
I didn’t know if you could call that a recurring nightmare, considering I hadn’t been sleeping. Sleep rarely blessed me with its presence since we returned from that fatal night three weeks ago. I only came to bed at night because it was what people did. So I lay here in the dark, letting my body regenerate as best as it could, wishing sleep would wrap me in its peace and take me away from this world at least for a couple of hours. But too many thoughts and memories raced through my consciousness to allow it to shut down. Especially this particular scene. It was a nightmare, yes, but not one I could ever wake from.
The vision of my mother’s death replayed in my mind day and night with just the smallest of triggers, leaving me with the same questions every time.
Why did I only stand there, stupid and useless? Why didn’t I do anything?
The same answers came along with them: I was too inexperienced, too ignorant to expect such shockingly cruel behavior even from our enemy, too naïve to think my sperm-donor would murder the only woman who’d ever loved him, and too slow to act. I was not enough yet. Not fast enough, not smart enough, not experienced enough. Not enough of anything to be where I was now—especially not enough to be matriarch of the Amadis.
The large body under the sheets next to me stirred, and a warm, calming palm slid up my spine. I swiped at my cheeks, making sure they’d remained dry. I didn’t want him to know if I’d been crying. Except for one major breakdown behind closed doors, tears usually eluded me these days, and this morning was no exception. His hand gently gripped my shoulder, and his thumb rubbed circles into the back of my neck, massaging the ever-present knot.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” I whispered as I turned my head slightly to look over my shoulde
r. “Again.”
His torso twisted toward me, rustling the sheet, and his other arm snaked across my belly. He pulled me down to him, nestling my head under his chin and curling his body protectively around mine.
“I don’t mind,” Tristan murmured, his lovely voice husky with sleep as he pulled me closer.
“You don’t get much more sleep than I do, though.”
“Don’t worry about me, my love. I am always here for you, by your side, shouldering your pain with you.”
Now my eyes stung, and I blinked rapidly while drawing in a jagged breath. I lived with the agony of Rina’s and Sophia’s deaths causing fresh breaks in my heart every day, but I didn’t cry. The waking nightmare made me gasp for air with its horrific and unending awfulness, but I didn’t cry. The loss and what it meant for me, the Amadis, the world, often paralyzed me, but I didn’t cry. Kindness, though . . . the kindness of others always came close to breaking me. And Tristan, of course, had been nothing but kind and gentle, patient and comforting, and most of all loving. He was my rock, and I needed him to keep me anchored when the tumultuous waters of life tossed me in all directions, threatening to sweep me away.
I pressed my lips against his bare, muscular chest, letting them linger for a long moment, and then I pulled away, wiggling out of the circle of his powerful arms.
“You’re leaving me?” he asked, his voice soft and half-asleep.
“I’m going to the cliff. You try to get more sleep.”
His breaths came in a steady rhythm by the time I’d dressed in yoga pants and a hoodie and stuffed my feet into running shoes. I pushed the sheer curtain aside, stepped onto the balcony, and inhaled a deep breath of the cool, salty air of a mid-September morning in the Greek Islands. Then I sprang from the third-story balcony. Even the deer on the edge of the woods didn’t hear me as I landed softly on the balls of my feet. After a quick wave to the vampire guard standing watch on this side of the building, I pulled my hood over my head and took off in a sprint, past the training gym behind the mansion and through the woods.
I ran three miles straight east, through the forest and across the northern edge of Amadis Island, to where the cliffs dropped to the sea. The woods were still dark and unusually quiet as I sprinted through them. I only sensed animal mind signatures, so if any shifters or vamps had been out for the night, they were gone now, back at home in the village eight miles away at the south end of the island. When I burst out of the tree line, the sky hadn’t lightened at all since I’d left—it had only been a minute or so—and it was still a dark gray. I stood on the edge of the cliff, listening to the waves crash against the bottom and staring straight outward as the breeze lifted and tossed my hair. I saw what was no longer there.
Their bodies lay side-by-side, two so tiny and one larger, all of them painfully still on the grandiose pyre built for the triple funeral and decorated with beautiful greenery and flowers. Mom’s and Rina’s hair were arranged in up-dos, and they wore their traditional Amadis dresses, both in royal purple. Although she’d only been the matriarch for five minutes, I had decreed that Mom deserved to wear the leader’s color rather than the lighter plum shade that represented the matriarch’s second. I’d also ensured Winston, her one true love who’d also died that night, lay by her side. Their arms were neatly arranged so their hands came together on their stomachs, and their eyes were closed. The peace the whole display showed clashed with the emotions that stormed through me.
A crowd of about as many Amadis as could possibly fit on the island—at least five times the normal population of 637—had gathered behind Tristan, Dorian, and me to say farewell to their leaders. Several people cried and sniffled, including Charlotte and Julia, and I thought Solomon, too, all who stood right behind us. Others, like Ophelia, the witch who had served as Rina’s head of household for over a century, sobbed loudly.
I’d held Tristan’s hand as he lit the pyre with fire from his palm. My power contributed to lifting the huge wooden dais from the ground and sending it over the cliff’s edge, where it hung in midair. My throat tightened, and I choked on the sobs building their way up, forcing me to say my good-byes silently. The flames licked higher, sending black plumes into the air, until they swallowed their bodies. Then the entire thing disappeared as the Angels accepted my grandmother, my mom, and her soul mate to the Otherworld.
I drew in a long breath as the vision faded away and blew it out slowly. This nightmare wasn’t quite as horrific as the one at the abbey, but the memory of their funeral a couple of weeks ago remained just as fresh and painful. I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat and jumped off the hundred-foot cliff.
About a fifth of the way down, I swung my body inward and landed on a three-foot-wide ledge that jutted out two feet from the cliff side. I’d only recently noticed it, although we’d held many funerals on the cliff straight above, and nobody had ever mentioned the ledge that was almost like an altar down here. Perhaps nobody had actually discovered it before or maybe only matriarchs could see it, but I found it to be the most secluded and peaceful place to spend time alone. I hadn’t ventured into the Sacred Archives yet, which would also be peaceful, I knew, but they didn’t provide this view.
As though the smoke from the many pyres that had burnt over the centuries had stained the stone, the faces of hundreds of Ames women were depicted on the cliff’s wall around this ledge. Including Rina’s and Mom’s, which were quite a bit darker than the others, because time and weather hadn’t faded them yet. My fingers traced over their cheeks and jawlines as I stared at them for a long moment before turning and sitting, letting my legs dangle over the ledge.
The Aegean Sea spread before me to the horizon, where the sun began to show itself, streaking the sky and clouds with bright pinks and oranges. The water reflected the colors, and the sunrise was as stunning as any sunset I’d watched with Tristan. Two birds cawed at each other overhead as they flew by before diving down for the sea to catch their breakfast. The waves threw themselves against the cliffs and rocks below, sending spray high into the air, but not quite high enough to reach me. Still, I could taste the saltiness on my lips and tongue with each breath I inhaled.
Here in this place, I somehow felt as though I sat among my mother, grandmother, and the rest of my ancestors in Heaven, rather than on the other side of the veil that separated the Otherworld realm from our physical one. Maybe their portraits behind me provided the comfort or maybe it was something more Otherworldly, but I didn’t feel quite as alone here, even though I was the last of my kind on this entire planet. In this entire realm. The Ames family line teetered on the verge of extinction, and the Amadis would follow shortly.
Somehow, I was supposed to prevent that.
“What am I going to do?” I asked aloud, not for the first time.
Mom and Rina—and even Cassandra, the very first Amadis matriarch—had promised me that night on the abbey grounds that I would never be alone. But although I felt their presence here, I also felt completely isolated. I wished they could talk to me, give me guidance and direction, tell me how to move forward. Because I was stuck. Paralyzed. At a complete loss.
“How do I lead the Amadis when I still know so little? How do I take on this war that I know is coming? How do I function without you?” I let out a guttural cry. “How can I be the mother to all of these people when I can’t even handle Dorian? Please tell me what to do!”
Mom and Rina had both assured me I was ready for this role, but I most certainly wasn’t. Compared to them, I was still an infant. They’d had decades—more than a century—to prepare and serve as leaders. I was still in my twenties with only two-and-a-half years of living in this strange world no Norman would believe existed. How could anyone, especially the Angels, think I was ready to take this all on?
“You are not alone.”
The words whispered in my head, so quietly, I couldn’t tell if Rina, Cassandra, or Mom spoke to me. Or perhaps they were just a figment of my imagination.
&nb
sp; “But you’re not here,” I spoke aloud.
“But others are. You do not have to do it all by yourself.” The sound came as a mixture of all of their voices, soft and multilayered.
I pressed my lips together and nodded. “I have Tristan, I know.”
“Yes, you do. But not only him. You have people, Alexis. People who want to serve you.”
I stared out at the sunrise as I considered this. My council. They were telling me to form my council that would serve as my confidants and advisors.
“Be prepared, Alexis. The Daemoni are acting. Everything is about to change!”
“What does that mean?” I knew the Daemoni had something up their collective sleeve—Kali and Lucas had given us a glimpse of it at the abbey. But they’d been quite silent the last few weeks, and I doubted it had anything to do with them giving us time to mourn. Lucas didn’t have that kind of respect in a single cell of his body. They must have been planning something big and were now ready to execute.
My ancestors didn’t answer me, and I asked again, pleading. “What do you mean? What’s about to happen? Tell me what to do!”
I waited quietly, but still no response came. In fact, even when I changed the subject, no more answers came to any of my questions, including what to do about Dorian. My poor son had just been an eight, almost nine-year-old child when Owen had taken him from the safe house on Captiva Island. Six months later, he’d returned taller—taller than me now—and seemingly much older, as though he’d aged four or five years while we’d been separated, complete with the broody attitude of an adolescent. I’d been letting him off easy because of everything he’d been through—from being kidnapped and kept with the sorceress-bitch Kali to watching Rina and his Mimi die violently—but I knew deep down his insolent behavior came from more than his suffering from PTSD. The Daemoni had changed him mentally and physically. I didn’t know how, exactly, because he refused to talk about it and stayed to himself, rarely leaving his room as he claimed he was studying. Studying what, I also didn’t know. Presumably his schoolwork, but I had a feeling he was also discovering and growing his powers. And keeping them hidden from us. What had Kali and the Daemoni done to him? Whatever it was, it scared the hell out of me. My baby was no longer my little boy.