Taken

by Quinn Blackbird

  Fishy stinks tended to come with the Commos Isles.

  Soap traders made a small fortune off of us.

  Satisfied, Madame Jasmeen sent us down to the village with bottles of chevki and rolled tobacco for pipes.

  But I had little intention of working tonight.

  It was a dark sky painted in navy blue swirls and white glittering dots—a magical sky for a magical night.

  One to remember.

  *

  Crow wings flapped in the dark above me, reminding me of old sheets caught on the drying-line down the side of our cabin.

  Every heavy flap of their wings sounded like infant thunder claps to me. It was a wonder no one else heard them over the fast beats of drums pounding through the village.

  Guess it was just me who paid crows any mind. I’d always liked them.

  I was standing with a brown-haired pirate when a load of starbursts took off into the sky and spooked away the last of the lingering crows.

  My mouth turned down at the corner as I watched the starbursts explode above with a thunderous boom, then bright, dazzling sparks scattered the sky.

  “Not a fan of starbursts?” the pirate asked, turning his virgin-wood eyes upwards. “We brought them. Our gift to your isle for having us this night.”

  The sparks took shape into white and red roses.

  I took a swig of the bottle of chevki we shared; a cheap, clear drink that could land you on your backside in a tussle or a fumble—depending on how your night went.

  The sharp drink burned my throat and tickled bile in the pit of my stomach, but I washed it down with another harsh gulp.

  “Not really,” I coughed. “They’re nowhere near as pretty as the real sky and stars. Don’t know why we need fake ones to bury the real thing.”

  The pirate took the bottle for himself.

  As he drank, his curious gaze roamed my face. Even silent and studious, mischief seemed to cling to his dirt-brown eyes.

  “And,” I admitted, a chevki-fuelled heat on my cheeks, “they’re a bit loud. Scare off all the birds.” I shrugged. “I think it’s a bit cruel.”

  The pirate smiled, then rested the chevki bottle on the tree stump beside us. “Real cruelty would be to waste a moment like this.”

  His eyes twinkled with trouble as he gestured between us, then up at the starburst sky.

  The sparks above twisted from a discoloured rose into clusters of bleeding hearts and a perfect, round moon. The stars might have been fake, the moon too, but the light from the illusion wasn’t.

  White moonlight rushed over the isle and illuminated every shadowy nook where kisses and fumbles were revealed.

  I laughed as a couple came scrambling out from behind an empty market stall, undressed from the waist-down.

  “So you think talking is a waste of a moment?” I challenged, bringing my attention back to the pirate.

  He wore a charming, too-gentle smile and leaned himself against the tall tree-stump. His elbow dared get too close to the bottle of chevki.

  “If a moment is spent on anything other than kissing, fumbling, killing or stealing, then it’s a terrible waste.”

  A laugh fought to escape me, but I just grinned and shook my head. Pirates called to Monster. They spoke to her, not the ‘me’ I pretended to be.

  “Well I’m not in the mood to kill or steal tonight,” I said and reached for the clear bottle nervously close to his elbow. One wrong move and a good amount of work would have spilled onto the soil. “And if I’m going to fumble, I might want to know the murderous pirate for at least a whole day.”

  “Kissing then?” His grin tickled my stomach. Or was that his not-so-secret cruelty? After all, he didn’t so much as flinch when I called him murderous.

  I wondered, distantly, what it would have been like to be so free, to never have to hide what you really are. Pirates and crows, free to fly and sail away.

  I shook off the thought with a searing gulp from the bottle.

  As the rim left my lips, I let out a choked cough and offered him some.

  “Name’s Jasper, by the way.” He brought the bottle to his lips, but didn’t sip. Instead, his eyes twinkled at me like little starbursts of their own. “Now can we kiss?”

  “Please,” I scoffed. “Like I give a damn what your name is.”

  His laugh was drowned out by sudden shouts:

  “Got one! I’ve got one! Down here!”

  I looked up just as a trio of shadows came barrelling down the hill, headed right for us.

  I drew closer to the stump, eyes narrowing. With the too-bright glow of the starburst moon starting to fade, my sight was left stained by white dots blurring my vision.

  “Lissa?” The girl leading the way down at us waved.

  My shoulders sagged as a breathy sigh came from me.

  It was only Ava and some of the other girls from the balneum.

  Then, my relief collapsed under the weight of what was in her waving hand—a red ribbon.

  I recognised the game the girls were playing, and I wasn’t having it, not one bit.

  “Ava,” I snapped as she staggered to a heavy stop beside Jasper. “Back off—”

  Too late.

  She snatched Jasper’s face and reeled him in for a kiss, one that was way too hot and heavy for the middle of a stone-paved path between the village centre and the rocky shore.

  Jasper stilled. Just for a second. Then his arms came around Ava’s curvy waist, and he held her to him.

  My mouth twisted as I glared at the pair of them, entwined, right in front of me.

  He hadn’t been a fair target for their game.

  The other two girls that came down with Ava knew that, and they stood on the other side of the snogging pair, looking uncomfortable.

  One mouthed ‘Sorry’ before they turned and swept back up the path to find their own targets.

  What the hell could I do with a sorry?

  Not rewind time, that was for sure. I couldn’t take their sorrys and stumble back to the start of the night to find a different target of my own.

  Ribbons and Lips, that was the game.

  We all had ribbons, those of us who worked at the balneum, and we dished them out throughout the night. It was a claim—blue-wearing men were mine. But I hadn’t wrapped a ribbon around Jasper yet.

  All that time I wasted on him, and now that Ava slipped her ribbon around his neck, he would be added to Ava’s tally for the night. Madame Jasmeen would think she put in all the hard work, when all she did was steal the cream off of my cake.

  I saw red, and it wasn’t just Ava’s ribbon.

  “He’s mine,” I gritted out.

  She was too slow to hear me, so I stomped forward and snatched both of their arms in a vice-like grip, ready to wrench them apart—

  It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have touched them—especially not him.

  I cried out in surprise.

  Ava choked on a scream and stumbled back from the pirate.

  But Jasper was no pirate…

  His skin was suddenly glowing. Then the glow faltered before it slipped into me.

  Stunned, I watched his glow wriggle its way up my bare arm, along my collarbone, then rush down the other arm, where it sank into Ava’s skin.

  I stole Jasper’s glow, his essence—his power.

  With my touch, I’d dragged his power out from his skin and channelled it through my own body into Ava’s.

  Mortiz was right. I should have stayed home. Stayed alive.

  “Aniel,” whispered Ava, her disbelieving eyes fixed on Jasper.

  He looked just as shocked as we did.

  But I had no choice other than to snap the hell out of it and get as far away from him as possible.

  This was what my mother died to protect me from—

  No one can know what I am. A thief of power. No one can know—especially not an aniel, the child of a God.

  I snatched Ava’s wrist harder than before. Her bones creaked under my grip.

&n
bsp; “Run!”

  END OF SAMPLE CHAPTER