Dark Angel Box Set

by Hanna Peach

  Alyx shook her head slightly, as if she was trying to shake something loose from her mind. “How are you here? Why are you here?”

  “I’m here to see you, of course.” Israel pushed his nose into her cheek and breathed her in. She almost lost her train of thought when he brushed his lips across her mouth. She sucked in a breath. She could almost forget that…

  Alyx couldn’t shake this strange feeling. She leaned back so that her mouth was out of range of his. He pouted.

  “But, you’re lost,” she said, “I…I lost you. How…?”

  “You did lose me, didn’t you?” Israel’s fingers, splayed across her back, tensed and clawed into her as he gripped her closer. It wasn’t painful but the feeling wasn’t a tender one. It was passionate but underneath the passion was anger. His eyes became hard as stone as they narrowed. “You let him take me.”

  Alyx tried to push him away but his fingers clawed even harder into her body. “Israel, what are you doing?”

  “You lost me. You failed.”

  “Let go of me.”

  His eyes took on a strange menacing glare as his hands gripped her so hard that it pinched. She winced. “Kiss me, Alyxandria,” he growled as he pushed his mouth towards her. His voice was hard like stone. “Kiss me.”

  Alyxandria. He never calls me Alyxandria.

  “Israel, please.” Alyx tried to lodge an elbow in between them to push him away.

  “I just want you so badly.” One of his hands pushed under her shirt, his mouth sucking along her neck. The feeling of his tongue on her skin made her skin erupt in tingles. His fingers found the skin under her breast and the odd feeling intensified.

  She shoved his hand down. “Don’t.”

  He wasn’t deterred. His other hand slipped down her back and over her ass, pulling her even closer to him. He rubbed his hips against hers. “Come on, baby,” he crooned. “I want to be with you. Show me you love me, babe.”

  Wrong. This was all wrong.

  His hand went for her breast again. This time she shoved him away with every ounce of strength. He stumbled back, a look of pain on his face. Immediately she regretted it. Her hands went out towards him out of instinct. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean−”

  His face screwed up and he pushed her, knocking her back against a wall. His hands ripped at her shirt; she heard the sound of tearing and felt cold air rushing around her stomach.

  “Israel, stop.” Alyx flung out an elbow between them again, but it clocked him right in the mouth. He let go of her and Alyx slid sideways along the wall to get some space from him. What was going on with him?

  His head snapped back to her, a manic look in his eyes. He put his hand to his mouth and it came away with blood. “You made me bleed, darling.”

  “Please stop it,” Alyx cried. “Israel, what’s wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?”

  Alyx unsheathed her dagger and held out the point to him. “Stay back.”

  “Or what? You’ll make me bleed again? Or is this some kind of sex game you want to play? I didn’t pick you for a kinky type.”

  “I’m not playing games.” For every step she edged back, he advanced. She glanced over her shoulder. Another wall was coming up and she was running out of room. “Stop right there. I don’t want to hurt you.” Her back hit the wall.

  “What if I want to be hurt?”

  He lunged at her. Alyx sidestepped and moved out into open space. He turned and kept advancing towards her. “Please, Israel. Don’t.”

  “Please, Israel,” he said in a mocking tone. He leapt at her again, his hand grabbing for the wrist that held her dagger. Alyx moved, leaping back, but the edge of her blade sliced against his palm. He hissed as he stared at his injured hand. When he looked up at her, his eyes looked like two dead orbs. “You’ll pay for that.”

  He roared as he ran at her. This time she didn’t have a chance to move out of his way. She raised her dagger out of instinct as his body knocked into her. She felt him tense and a sharp, tortured gasp heaved from his mouth. Oh God.

  His body fell heavy against her and she let go of the dagger handle as she tried to use both hands to hold him up. Her right hand was spotted with blood. She didn’t hear the clatter of the dagger falling. “No, please,” she whispered as she stared at his face. His eyes were wide and full of disbelief.

  “Y-You…” he started to say. His chin fell onto her shoulder and he was silent.

  Oh God. Oh God, no.

  Shock, disbelief, something, everything was gripping her body like icy hands. Alyx’s whole body started to shake. She lowered him onto the ground and his body fell heavy and useless like a sack. Heavy and useless. He fell back, the knife handle protruding from his chest, surrounded with red like a warning.

  She killed him. She killed Israel.

  A hand on her shoulder startled Alyx and she spun, holding her hands up in defense. A lump lodged in her throat when she saw his familiar face, his ruddy cheeks and soft brown eyes, staring back at her. “Mayrekk?”

  “Hello, Alyx.”

  There was a reason why he couldn’t be here. She struggled to remember why. Why couldn’t Mayrekk be here?

  It came to her. “But…you’re dead.”

  When Mayrekk answered his voice was cool but his eyes glinted hard like ice. “Thanks to you.”

  Alyx drew back, horror curling like fingers inside her. “W-What?”

  Mayrekk’s face softened and the hardness in his eyes slipped away as if it had never been there. She thought she might have imagined what Mayrekk had said to her.

  “I’m dreaming,” she realized. “I have to be dreaming.” Alyx traced her finger along Israel’s arm and tried not to look at his open, lifeless eyes. Yes, that’s it. She was dreaming. She would never kill Israel. Her heart released with relief.

  “I’m sorry, but this isn’t a dream, Alyx.”

  “What is it?”

  Mayrekk’s jaw set. “This is a premonition.”

  Alyx sucked in her breath. “No.”

  “Yes. But it doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “How…what should I do?”

  “Just accept what is meant to happen.”

  “What is meant to happen?”

  Mayrekk stared at her for a moment. “Let me show you some things. Take my hand.”

  Alyx hesitated for a moment. Why was she hesitating? This was Mayrekk. She loved Mayrekk, trusted him. She fought the uneasy feeling in her belly and took his hand. Israel faded into nothing and the world around them dissolved, the colors swirling around them as if caught in a storm. Alyx had to shut her eyes as pieces flew into them like gritty sand. She could feel that they were flying, Mayrekk pulling her along, the wind whipping through her hair and ruffling along her clothes.

  When she opened her eyes the air was thick with black smoke as they flew through it. Alyx could barely see, but Mayrekk seemed so certain about the way he was going. She trusted him, right?

  They broke through the smoke. Alyx felt her stomach drop at the sight below. The forest that stretched out burned with fire, leaving in its wake a black smoking scar and charcoal stumps where trees had been. Was this Raphael’s vision of the world’s predicted destruction?

  Mayrekk spoke. “We’re above one of the decreasing numbers of forests in Northern Sumatra, Indonesia.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “The mortals call it ‘slash and burn’. It’s the cheapest way for them to clear an entire forest.”

  Alyx stared at the charred crater that stretched out far, almost to the horizon. Her heart choked. “Why?”

  “They want this land for themselves. To make a profit out of it. This one is going to be a tobacco plantation. A tobacco plantation. These humans are killing this planet so they can kill themselves. They can’t stop themselves, so we must do it for them.”

  “But they can learn. They can change.”

  Mayrekk snarled. “If they keep going at this
rate, this country will run out of forest in the next three years. Three years, Alyx. We don’t have time to wait for them to change.”

  Alyx scrambled to think of a response. “But…think of Brazil. They managed to slow their deforestation down in the last few years.”

  “Slow. But not stop. What do you say about a species that, in the best case scenario, can only slow down their destruction of Earth?”

  The world underneath them swirled into a river of colors. It reassembled into a sea below. But it was a sea with something very, very wrong with it. A huge oil tanker had gone to ground and was spewing its belly up with black, sticky oil. On the nearby shore the lifeless bodies of seals and birds were coated with it, slick like a death shroud. Those animals still alive were dirty with it. Alyx knew they would soon meet the same fate. The air retained a chill and Alyx found her breath coming out in a fog.

  “Will you be the one to say that the lives of these humans are worth more than the other species on this planet?” Mayrekk said. “Should they be allowed to live at the expense of other life?”

  “But there are innocents on this planet. Not every human is involved in burning trees or spilling oil. There are good people on this planet, innocents…children…”

  “Children.” Mayrekk said. “You think the children on this planet are innocent?”

  The ground dissolved again like sand caught in a wind and reassembled itself once more. The ground below was a rich red earth with patches of lush green grass and tall trees swaying in a breeze. Hot and humid air blasted up from the ground, blowing away the cold. The tall grass swayed as if a herd of tigers was stalking through it.

  “What are they?” Alyx asked.

  “Just watch.”

  The first animal broke through into the clearing. It wasn’t a tiger. It was a dark-skinned boy dressed in fatigues. In his arms, where he should have held a toy, was a large gun made of metal and bullets.

  “Innocent, you say?” said Mayrekk. “Here, the children play with real guns.”

  Alyx couldn’t speak. Her heart felt like it was bleeding from everything that she saw. The hopelessness of trying to change anything that was happening on this planet overwhelmed her.

  “Don’t you see,” Mayrekk said softly, “Elder Michael isn’t trying to destroy this planet. He’s trying to save it from the real monsters. The humans. They need to be stopped.”

  “By wiping out their entire population?”

  Mayrekk’s face became stone. “It is no less than what God would do if he were here.”

  Alyx drew back from him. “You can’t really believe that!”

  “He did it during the Great Flood, he would do it again now.”

  “Who are we to decide−”

  “We’re immortal, celestial beings. We are the hands of God. We shouldn’t be hiding in our tiny cities while these humans inhabit every corner of the world like a plague of rats.” Spit flew from Mayrekk’s mouth. “We need to reclaim this planet, for the sake of this planet. Elder Michael, he has a vision for us.”

  “Power corrupts,” she said softly, repeating something Jordan once said. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

  “What did you say?”

  “This can’t happen. It’s wrong.”

  In his rage Mayrekk’s eyes seemed to flicker: brown to blue and back to brown, as if she was seeing a corner of a set of blinds lifting up to reveal a hint of what was lurking beneath. Finally the flickering stopped on the set of cold blue eyes looking so wrong within Mayrekk’s soft face. They stared at her. Those icy blue eyes, those cold, determined eyes were all too familiar…

  This wasn’t Mayrekk. Alyx tugged against him, trying to get her hand free from his grip. “Let go of me.”

  He snarled at her efforts. He wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t get free of this imposter. “Stupid child. Why do you fight against me when you know you can’t win?”

  Mayrekk lifted his right hand towards the sky and black clouds drew to a point above him as if drawn by a magnet. As he did this more and more of the façade started to drop, his face reassembling itself into Elder Michael, rippling out, starting from his eyes. Magic exploded out from every cloud around her, hitting her from all sides at once. She felt a tearing inside her. A tearing so painful that her pain became her entire universe, each flare of hurt a star, each cluster of stars a galaxy. He let go of her.

  She began to fall.

  Alyx tumbled, her limbs flapping out against the wind like broken wings. She couldn’t push against the wind. She couldn’t fly. The air was too heavy, gravity was too strong and it pulled her down, down, down towards the ground, twisting and turning underneath her, growing ever closer. She got the sense that whatever had been torn away she might never get back.

  She hit the ground.

  Chapter 27

  Alyx’s eyes felt glued shut. The ground underneath her seemed to be gripping her into it so that she could barely move. Behind the darkness of her closed lids she could hear whispers echoing as if she was in a closed space. And footsteps. Footsteps echoed along the ground into her ear.

  “Get her up,” a voice boomed.

  Immediately several hands grabbed her arms and hoisted her up. Her head spun as she tried to stand on her own feet. She pried her eyelids open and for the first few moments while her pupils adjusted to the light, she was blinded by white.

  She scanned the area around her. She was standing in the Heart of Michaelea, the soaring roof curved over her. In front of her on the platform were the three Elders: Michael, Gabriel and Uriel. The Heart was full of Seraphim, clustering in rows and rows of benches, all jostling to get a better look at her, their faces full of curiosity and contempt.

  Alyx knew instantly where she was and what this was.

  Alyx screamed and her little girl’s voice pierced the night air of Michaelea. Symon was at her side in an instant. He pulled her shaking body into his arms. She wanted to hug him back but fear made her arms dead. They remained at her side. Symon didn’t appear to mind that she wasn’t responding to him.

  “It’s okay, Alyx.” He pulled back and wiped the damp strands of hair from her face and cheeks. “It’s just a bad dream. A nightmare. It isn’t real.”

  Alyx nodded stiffly. A nightmare. Not real.

  “They’re getting worse.” Symon’s face etched with concern. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She did.

  She wanted so desperately to trust him, to tell him about her bad dreams, dreams about her parents. Somehow she felt that sharing them with him might make them hurt less. Symon, her latest foster parent, seemed different with her than all the others.

  No, a voice inside her said. You can’t trust anyone. They’ll just leave you.

  So she didn’t.

  Alyx tucked her fear and her guilt away inside her, deep down where no one could reach them. “I’m fine,” she forced out.

  “Okay.” Symon smiled. “If you ever decide you want to talk about it, I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

  Alyx stared around the Michaelea courtroom. This was how her nightmare started. The nightmares that she used to have as a child. This was her trial.

  Alyx did tell Symon eventually. Back then she had told Symon and only Symon about the nightmares. She had all but forgotten about them when she got older. When she had met Israel she shared her nightmares with him. Now she was standing in her nightmare.

  All those old fears came flooding back. She was suddenly nine again. She knew what was coming. She knew she couldn’t escape. She turned to run anyway. She felt a flare of pain around her wrists and was tugged back by the chains wrapped around them, held to the ground by thick clamps that disappeared into the floor.

  The invisible judge’s voice boomed over the vicious whispers of the courtroom. “Who of her accusers wants to speak first?”

  Alyx’s eyes found the witness area. There, standing in a cluster facing her, were her parents: her father, Sebastian, with the same green eyes she had, and Elise, her mothe
r, a near-perfect copy of Alyx but with dark, deep-set eyes and long hair. In Alyx’s nightmare they had stood alone. But now they were joined by others.

  Beside them were Mayrekk, Passar, and Elysia, her old flock mate. Clinging to Elysia was Ky, Lukas and Ana’s son. Also standing there were all those who died during Samyara’s raid or who died fighting against him. All dead. All their eyes were on her. Alyx’s hands went to her throat as it began to close up. They were here because she had failed them.

  Her father stepped forward pulling her mother, tucked under his arm, with him. “We died trying to rescue you.”

  All at once something lashed at her back. She felt her skin split open. Alyx drew an inward breath as the pain blazed into her depths. There was a second lash. This time she whimpered. She closed her eyes and sank to her knees, warm wetness trickling down her back. “I was just a baby,” she whispered.

  “You stabbed me,” Passar’s voice declared. “When I was trying to do the right thing.”

  The whip lashed and another strike of pain crossed her back, mingling with the first two lashes. “I thought you were Samyara.”

  “I died to be a message for you from Samyara,” said Elysia.

  Lash.

  “I died because of your botched plan to steal the Black Stone.”

  Lash.

  “Hello, kid.” Mayrekk’s voice came to her from across the room. Alyx opened her eyes and stared into his face.

  “Mayrekk, please. You don’t blame me too, do you?”

  Mayrekk’s lips pressed together. “I died because I helped you.”

  Alyx sagged against her chains. She would not cry. She would not…

  There was the largest, heaviest, loudest crack of the whip. Her back burst into fire. She couldn’t help the cry that tore from her mouth.

  And on it went…

  Until all of them had spoken, their accusations against her laid bare. Voices from the gallery began to repeat a single whisper over and over, and it pierced her brain and echoed inside her. “Guilty.”

  Alyx squeezed her eyes shut again, her head shaking back and forth to try and block out all the noise.

  “Alyxandria,” the judge’s voice boomed out across the hall and into her ears, “it is clear. You have been found guilty.”