Dark Angel Box Set

by Hanna Peach

Alyx nodded. Then realized that she was still straddling him. She tried to slide off his lap but he held her in place. She gave him a questioning look.

  He grinned. “It helps me recover faster if I have a beautiful woman right here.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “If by incorrigible you mean adorable, then I accept that title.”

  Alyx leaned her cheek against his chest to hide the flush warming her face. Jordan placed his chin on her head and tucked her into his arms.

  “Jordan?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why did you come back here? To this cathedral, I mean. Lukas said you come here sometimes.”

  Jordan pulled back to look at her, then gazed off into the distance. Alyx tried not to sigh as one of his fingers started tracing lazy circles on her arm.

  “It’s quiet. I know I won’t be disturbed at this time of night. I like it here. It makes me feel…” Jordan glanced up to the large cross looming up over the altar, “closer to Him. It gives me hope that one day I may do enough to…redeem myself.”

  She knew he was talking about the seraphelle, Lylianne. The one he caught Michael abusing. The reason he left Michaelea. Her heart ached at the sadness tugging at his handsome features. Jordan wiped a hand over his face and she could hear the scratch of his skin across his stubble.

  “Jordan, it wasn’t your fault. It was Michael’s.”

  “Just like what happened with Aradale and Castelli del Grevepesa wasn’t your fault.”

  Alyx looked away. “Touché.”

  “I know it wasn’t my fault,” he said quietly. “Just like I’m sure deep down, you know it wasn’t your fault. But as you probably understand, I still can’t help but wish I had done things differently.”

  Alyx nodded. It was a curious and incredible feeling to know that she was understood without having to say a word. Jordan did know. He understood. Her skin began to heat as Jordan’s lazy circles became a slow exploration across her back with the flats of his palms. At that moment Alyx had to close her eyes as a wave of something amazing – like soaring above clouds – washed over her and into this strange void in her soul. There was an odd sense of relief with it, as if this feeling had been dammed up, prevented from pooling in her heart by…something. What? It didn’t matter. Or…did it? Alyx had a strange feeling that she was…forgetting something.

  Alyx cleared her throat. “How did you get in here anyway?” she asked, trying to get her attention away from his distracting hands. “Don’t they lock this place up at night?”

  Jordan smiled slyly and took his time in responding. “I may have a key.”

  Alyx raised an eyebrow.

  Jordan shrugged. “I have this…understanding with the pastor’s daughter. We’re friends.”

  Alyx gave him a look of pure disbelief. “Friends? Really?”

  Jordan grinned. “I can’t help if I’m irresistible.”

  Alyx shook her head. “You are unbelievable.”

  Jordan’s smile faltered and his voice dropped so low that she wasn’t sure that she was meant to hear it. “Irresistible, except to the one I really want.”

  She chanced a glance at him, but his face betrayed nothing, so she began to think that she misheard him.

  “I think I am sufficiently recovered now. Let’s find Mayrekk.”

  Alyx leaned against him and gripped his shirt as the wave of DreamWalker covered them both.

  Chapter 5

  Jordan held Alyx’s hand as they floated through the DreamPlain, black and empty.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “I can sense him. But he’s faint. Very faint.”

  “What does that mean? Faint?”

  Jordan paused before answering, “He’s either being hidden by DreamWalker magic or…”

  “Or what?”

  “Or he’s…weak. Maybe from illness or injury.”

  Alyx swallowed. Both these options filled her with dread. She shouldn’t have left Mayrekk alone in Michaelea. She should have tried to get him out. She should have tried to recover his prisoner’s apex, the key to his freedom, then.

  “Wait. I think I have him. Hang on.”

  Jordan tugged her and they began to speed through the dark, the DreamScapes looking like small points of light around them, blurred to lines as they moved. Soon they were approaching a ball of ebbing light. The way this light shone so pale and faintly added to Alyx’s feeling of guilt. In what state would they find Mayrekk?

  They fell into his DreamScape.

  * * *

  The blinding light faded into speckles that floated through a high canopy above. Jordan and Alyx were now standing in a forest.

  “Michaelea,” Jordan said. The instant he said it Alyx felt the familiarity coat her senses. This was the forest around Michaelea. Or at least it would be Mayrekk’s memory of the forest, this being his DreamScape.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” a familiar voice said. Familiar but drained of life. “They’ll find you. They’re watching me.”

  Alyx spun. Her heart tore open when she saw Mayrekk. He was slumped against the base of a tree. Slashes criss-crossed his arms and legs, oozing and raw. Alyx remembered how her own wounds had come with her into her previous DreamScapes. Which meant that these wounds weren’t just in this DreamScape, they were real as well. Black Stone wounds. From the Black Stone sword that Michael had taken from her when she had been captured trying to rescue Israel from the Hollows.

  “Mayrekk,” she said as she flew to his side. “Oh God, what have they done to you?”

  Jordan kneeled down on Mayrekk’s other side, his face hard like steel. “I’m going to tear him into pieces,” he muttered. “Then I’m going to kill him.”

  Alyx didn’t need to ask who the he was Jordan was talking about. They both knew who did this. Elder Michael.

  She cradled his head. Michael was torturing Mayrekk because he helped her get away. Guilt made her voice quiver. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I like being here,” Mayrekk said. His eyes were dull and he looked as though he was having trouble focusing. “This forest is the only place I feel…free. I know why I’m here…why are you here?”

  “Israel has been poisoned,” Alyx said. For some reason, her tongue felt funny when she said his name. “Demon poison. Do you know how to cure demon poison?”

  Mayrekk’s eyes widened. “Israel? Your bonded?”

  Alyx nodded. “He doesn’t have much time.”

  “Demon poison is tricky,” he gasped between breaths. “Different poisons…different types of blood…need different cures. Tricky. Israel’s blood is tricky.”

  Israel was half mortal and half demon. Tricky was an understatement.

  “Yes, but how do we find a cure? How?” Alyx felt the beginnings of a gnawing desperation. Come on Mayrekk.

  If he dies, I die.

  “What’s in…the Dark can save him.”

  “What?”

  “The Dark. Find the Dark.” Mayrekk’s eyes rolled back into his head and his lashes fluttered.

  “What does that mean? No, please stay awake. What does that mean?” Alyx only realized that she was shaking Mayrekk’s shoulders when Jordan pulled her hands off him and gave her a warning look.

  “Mayrekk,” he said, turning back to the slumped seraph, “we’re going to come rescue you. Just hold on, okay?”

  Mayrekk’s eyes opened wide. “No.”

  “We will, Mayrekk,” said Alyx. “We’ll find a way.”

  Mayrekk shook his head weakly. “Forget me. I am but a pawn.”

  He started on a coughing fit that shook his whole body. Alyx could do nothing but rub his back and try not to hit the ground in helpless frustration.

  When the coughs subsided, Mayrekk slumped back against the tree trunk. When he dropped his hand from his lips Alyx could see that his palm was stained with blood. She glanced up and met Jordan’s concerned gaze. He had noticed the blood, too.

  “You must solve Raphael’s ri
ddle,” Mayrekk wheezed. “You must save the boy. That is more important than the life of this old seraph.”

  Alyx felt her stomach drop as she remembered the small charm that Raphael had instructed Mayrekk to give to her before he was murdered all those centuries ago. Michael had taken that charm off her, along with Elijah’s pick, Jordan’s ring and the Saint’s bracelet when she had been captured by him. She had to get them back. She had to rescue Mayrekk. She had to save Israel. She had to save Mini. She had to stop this prophecy. Oh, God. Her head spun as the weight of all these responsibilities crushed her.

  How? How would she even begin to find where Michael had hidden Mayrekk’s prisoner’s apex? Surely he wouldn’t keep it in his chambers again?

  Alyx remembered what Mayrekk had said about the magical chain around his wrist.

  “It’s a prisoner’s bracelet... It physically stops me from moving too far away from the cuff’s apex. The apex is the tether and is also the key to unlock the bracelet.”

  The apex is the tether.

  Alyx lifted her head towards Jordan. “Jordan. How much of Mayrekk’s reality filters into this DreamScape?”

  “Most of it. Why? What are you thinking?”

  “Mayrekk’s prisoner’s bracelet is tethered to its apex. In real life, once Mayrekk reaches the end of the magical tether he can’t physically go any farther. Would that happen to him in here?”

  “I dare say it would work the same. If his wounds enter this ’Scape then why not his bonds?”

  “If we take him to the ends of his tether…”

  “…we can pinpoint where the apex is,” Jordan finished. “It’s worth a try.”

  Jordan slipped his arms under Mayrekk’s body and pulled him to his chest as if he were carrying a baby. Mayrekk groaned.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Jordan said.

  Alyx followed Jordan as he moved through the forest going directly south. It was eerily quiet, with no wind to move the leaves and no distant sound of city life. Even though she knew it was a DreamScape, she couldn’t help the prickles running across her skin.

  Jordan must have noticed her shudder. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know… I feel like we’re being watched.”

  Jordan glanced around them. “We could very well be. Let’s keep moving.” They kept going at a faster pace.

  Soon Jordan halted. “I think we found the edge. I can’t seem to take him any farther.”

  “We need to find some way to mark this spot so we can see it from the air. We need…” Alyx thought for a second, “at least three separate marks along the edge of the tether to find the center.”

  Jordan flexed one of his palms out away from Mayrekk’s body. From nothing, in his palm was a flash of light, then a blue globe appeared. He dropped it on the ground and it cracked open, letting out blue smoke that trailed to the air like a climbing vine.

  “How did you do that?” gasped Alyx.

  “This is a DreamScape, remember? If you can create a door, you can create anything in here. You just have to believe you can.”

  They began to move through the trees again, this time going northeast. They kept going until Jordan came to a stop again. Again he marked the spot with blue smoke. Mayrekk was moaning softly, begging Jordan to let him down and to not carry him any farther.

  “I’m sorry, Mayrekk, but it’ll only be a few more minutes.”

  Alyx thought she heard a distant rumbling. “Jordan, did you—”

  “Yes, I heard it, too. We have to move.”

  They sped through the forest, moving northwest. Once again Jordan stopped when he couldn’t carry Mayrekk any farther. Jordan let off a final marker, and the soft blue smoke lifted up to the sky.

  A sudden thunder of movement through the trees caused Alyx to snap her head around. In the background, leaves and bushes began to part as something large and angry made its way through the forest towards them. They had been discovered.

  “We have to split up,” Jordan said. “You find the apex’s location. I’ll try to keep them following me as long as I can.”

  Alyx nodded. “Mayrekk, I’ll see you soon, I promise.”

  Mayrekk moaned, but he didn’t reply. Alyx let her eyes meet Jordan’s once more before she shot up toward the sky. As she rose she could see Jordan speeding away through the trees.

  Alyx broke through the canopy of leaves and felt the crispness of the air above rush past her skin. She climbed higher and higher in the air until she could see the city of Michaelea and its surroundings below like a map. She could see where the three columns of smoke marked the edges of Mayrekk’s tether.

  She imagined the circle arcing around to join these three points together. In the middle of this invisible circle was the location of the apex. Alyx frowned. From where she hovered, the apex was supposedly in a forested part of the unoccupied side of the mountain. This couldn’t be right. She quickly recalculated it in her head again, conscious that every second counted.

  Confident that she hadn’t miscalculated, yet still confused at the outcome, Alyx aimed for the green section of the mountain that supposedly held the key to Mayrekk’s freedom, diving back down under the canopy. She hovered just under the cover of the leaves, frowning as she stared at this unremarkable piece of forest floor. There was nothing here, or at least nothing that Mayrekk’s subconscious was showing.

  Chapter 6

  Back in the cathedral Alyx woke, still curled in Jordan’s lap, her hands gripped in fists on his shirt. Jordan was already awake.

  He stared past her to the wall. “I didn’t realize they would…Jesus. I always thought he was safe because of his gift. God, why didn’t we check up on him before?”

  Alyx shook her head, silently agreeing with him. They had been so focused on the Black Stone and Samyara that they had all but forgotten about Mayrekk…and Michael. Michael was the invisible threat, his intentions not yet as clear as Samyara’s, an iceberg that they were only seeing a small part of.

  Suddenly, this scared Alyx more than anything.

  Alyx and Jordan slipped out the side door of the cathedral and Jordan locked the door behind him. They were just about to lift up into the night when Alyx felt a crackle in the air and smelled a hint of sourness. The Darkened were near. Here? Now?

  Her body tensed and she grabbed Jordan’s arm. “Jordan.”

  “I can feel it, too.”

  Alyx was grateful for the weight of her blade at her side. A familiar adrenaline buzzed under her skin and her fingers started to flutter against the handle of her blade. Yes. A kill would help ease the tension from the last few days. A kill…or three. She felt herself grow so light that she was standing just on the balls of her feet.

  “Are you armed?” she asked Jordan.

  Even in the dim night she could see the whites of his teeth as he flashed her a grin. “Unless I’m naked I’m always armed. Even then…”

  Before she could stop it, the thought of a naked Jordan invaded her mind. She dropped her gaze as she felt a flush of heat rising to her cheeks, adding to the electricity building up under her skin. Thank God she was hidden by the dark shadows of this overgrown side garden.

  She chanced a glance at Jordan and found he was staring at her, a sly smile playing on his lips. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were enjoying the little thought you just had.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about you.”

  “Oh no? What were you thinking that made your cheeks such a pretty pink?”

  Alyx scrambled for a reasonable cover. One came to her, causing another flood of adrenaline, masking, if just for the moment, the darkness of the past few days. The adrenaline also brought on a rush of playfulness that she hadn’t remembered having since…it seemed like since before she became a Rogue.

  She returned his sly smile and added an air of challenge to her voice. “I was just thinking that we could make this fight a little more interesting?”

  His smile widened. “You want to fight naked?”

/>   “No,” Alyx growled as another flush heated her body. “Get your mind out of the bedroom.”

  “Okay. But it won’t be that interesting.”

  “A wager on the highest kill count.”

  Even in the dim Alyx could see the surprise on his face. “I think I just fell in love,” he said under his breath.

  Alyx hid her smile. Why she was at all pleased that Jordan was impressed with her, she didn’t have an answer.

  “It’s no big deal. I used to do it all the time with my flock mates.” When Symon wasn’t with them, of course.

  Alyx watched a grin spread on Jordan’s face. Even though Jordan had been a Castus he would have made a brilliant warrior. One she would be happy to have as her flock mate, she realized.

  “And the winner?”

  “The winner gets bragging rights.”

  “Not interesting enough.”

  “What would you wager for, then?”

  “Eternal obedience.”

  Alyx raised a stern eyebrow at him.

  Jordan smiled in what was sure to be a faked innocence. “I just meant that the loser would clean the other’s weapons, de-blood their clothes, polish their boots and such.”

  “That’s so not what you meant,” Alyx muttered under her breath.

  He just grinned wider. “Do we have a wager or not?”

  She heard a low pained grunt in the alleyway beyond. A mortal in the wrong place at the wrong time, no doubt.

  “Deal. I just hope you can keep up.” She smirked at him, before pushing up off the ground.

  She vaulted over the tall fence noting that he did so, too. Her dagger and sword being unsheathed made a harmonizing sound with his as they both dropped into the alley. They landed in the middle of the pitted concrete street, their boots tapping to the ground in unison.

  The one street lamp post that hung like a skeleton’s arm over this street had long burned out with no one coming to replace it, causing the alleyway to sink in its shadows. Heavy metal music coming from a basement bar, partly under street level, created a head-aching soundtrack. The haze of smoke seeping from the seams of the door made the sign – “Hell’s Fire”, decorated in tacky fluorescent flames – seem like it really was on fire. Was this bar really standing opposite a church?