by K. A Knight
“I do not! I am the head of this council! These people are mine, you are nothing but relics!” Amos yells.
Wow, what a drama queen. Can’t he die with dignity?
He turns then, his eyes alighting on me. “And you! I gave you everything, power, opportunity, and what did you do? You threw it all away! Well, I don’t need you! We don’t need you!”
“We who?” I roll my eyes.
Veyo sniggers, and I glare at him as Griffin snarls, “He’s mine, he touched you.”
“We? Oh my, did I not tell you who made you?” Amos cackles, seeming very calm all of a sudden. “No use hiding anymore, why don’t you come out?” he calls.
A door behind the throne opens, but I can’t see the person yet. “You saw his laboratory and work, Dawn, one of many, I assure you. This man has been doing this for years. I, of course, had to hide it and kill a few people who condemned his actions, but I recognised what he was doing for what it was—genius.”
The man steps from behind the thrones and I hear Griffin suck in breath, “Da—Gabriel?” he whispers.
My eyes dart from Griffin back to the man, the angel, waiting there. He looks like Griffin, I can see the resemblance. This is the man behind it all? The very same man who made all the nephilim….and my mate? Who supposedly died for his crimes?
Fuck.
Dad...Gabriel.
He’s alive.
He’s alive…it keeps repeating in my head. All this time, I thought he was dead, killed for his crimes, and here he is. Alive and well, and not only that, but thriving and making more of his experiments, one that includes my mate. He stands tall, proud, and cold. He looks the same, but it all feels so wrong. How did I never notice the utter callousness behind his eyes, the cool way he would watch us, even back then? Because I was a child, wanting my dad’s love. I can see the real him now, but did he ever love me...love us?
God, Mum. He let her die, he let it happen and didn’t even try to stop it! He could have! He could have stopped it, why didn’t he?
“Because she was a means to an end, boy, nothing more,” he retorts, watching me with those golden eyes I used to wish I had.
He never loved us.
“No, you were amusing. I will give you that, and once I felt something akin to kindness towards you and your human mother, but then I realised that sentiment was holding me back. If I wanted to complete my mission, to make the strongest soldiers, I could not afford such luxuries and weaknesses.”
I flinch and he steps forward, his eyes on me, driving each word home, flaying me open until I stand before him broken, damaged, and unloved. I start to spiral, my madness rushing through me...
“You were not the perfect soldier, too driven by emotions. And those others could not even think for themselves. I realised where I went wrong. I needed to start with babies with souls and minds of their own. Take the strongest of our kind and mate them, breed them until we had soldiers. Raise them as ours to follow us.” He looks at Dawn then and I slump when not under his gaze. “But you...you were a hope. A daydream. I did not think it would actually work, but here you stand. And how magnificent you are!” He grins, pride on his face. “You are what I was searching for all those years. They were all failed experiments, but you? You are true power, I filled you with it. Enough to kill any man, human or otherwise. Pulled directly from the oldest of us, the gods, and injected into you as an embryo. You bonded with it—” He shakes his head, staring down at my mate like she’s his world...he used to watch us like that.
It was all a lie.
“Gods?” she repeats, confused and angry, her fists clenched at her sides.
“Old relics of a world past, creatures best forgotten. They turned their backs on this world and retreated. The very first of us. I found a few of the first seven, the original gods. I took their power, harvested it!”
“And put it in me,” she whispers, watching him in horror. “What am I?”
“I don’t know!” He laughs. “Nothing we have ever seen before! You have the exact untrained and unknown magic that made them...but now it’s more. So much more, and you are magnificent!” he cries, and steps towards her. “Think of everything we could do! We do not need the council, any council, they can’t rule us.”
“You mean me,” she spits. “You are nothing, just an angel. You call your son fallen, an experiment, an abomination, but you are the same. You’re fucked up, so fucked up.” She shakes her head. “Even if I didn’t hate you for what you did to me, I would loathe you for what you did to my mate!” she screams at him, and power launches through the room, tossing everyone back as it spins faster and faster with her at the center of the storm.
“Mate? Interesting,” Gabriel mutters. “What else can you do?” he questions, looking around at the evident power.
“You want to know?” she queries, her tone deadly, quiet, and I know she’s going to explode. “I’ll show you!” she roars. “You will never hurt him or anyone again!”
I know she means me. She’s angry on my behalf, and love for her fills me at that, pushing back some of the darkness. The woman who loves me despite everything, who wants to protect me from my own father, from my own mind.
With her last word, pure, unfiltered power flows from her, like she’s a conduit, to do her bidding, but it’s too much. Too powerful. “Dawn!” I yell as she screams in agony. I can feel it searing her, killing her. “Vasculo, stop it!”
Everyone else fades away—my anger, my betrayal, Gabriel, Amos. Nothing matters but my mate.
Dawn.
“Little Monster, that’s enough, they will pay!” Nos tries to gain her attention, laying his hand on her arm, and I watch it start to burn. He winces in pain but holds on. “I am here, Little Monster, I can feel you, so lost, so alone...you never are.” He looks at me then and I know.
She needs me.
Stepping forward, I struggle against the power, but when I get close enough, I lay my hand on her too. My knees almost buckle from the pain, not just my own at the fire racing across my hand that’s touching her, but at the pain inside her. Coming from her…she is lost. Alone in the middle of all that power. It’s controlling her, not the other way around, wanting to do her bidding, but it’s too much for her alone. She’s curled into a ball inside, cut off from everyone, unable to even feel our minds.
Locked away.
This is what she feared even if she never voiced it. She feared that the power was too strong. That she couldn’t control what she was and one day would hurt someone, but she should have realised that she’s never alone, we are here. We are hers, made for this. For her. We can handle it together, control it together.
“She needs us!” I scream to the others, as the chairs and decor in the room are picked up by the storm. The windows blow open, and glass shatters everywhere, yet still I hold on.
Dume takes hold of her shoulder and the power lessens. Jair clutches her other shoulder and I can almost touch her inside now, so close. Aska wraps his tail around her leg and I feel her look up at us from the bottom of that storm, searching for us, so close… It has to work... Why isn’t it?
No, I can’t lose her.
Not another person I love, this has to work!
But then the wolf presses his head against her leg and her hand reaches for him, so close…we are so close. Her fingers brush us, feeling us, and the storm stops for a moment, but it’s not enough.
We are not enough.
She screams, and it fills the room as the storm rages on. She’s in the middle, the tempest called by her rage and hate. Fuelled by it. She needs love to break it, us, her mates…
Then he’s there—Lucifer. He presses his forehead to hers, his red eyes locked on her unseeing gaze. “I am here, come back. Let it go, feel us, we are here. Find us, touch us, release it into us...let it wash through us and out again, let us help. Let us anchor you.”
She reaches for us again, fighting so hard to get to us, and then she’s there. Her hand grips ours, her mind mixing wit
h ours, our bindings surrounding her, anchoring her to this world and our arms.
The power stutters and then redirects, flowing through us. At first it hurts, there is too much. Fuck, how did she survive this? How did she have all this inside her and not go mad?
But then it lessens to a trickle instead of a tsunami and I can breathe again. Opening my eyes, I look to my mate, my vasculo.
She slumps in our grasp as all that power finally leaves her, flowing within us, filtered through us until she can handle it, then it drifts back to her. Her eyes close for a moment before they flicker open, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I was so scared. So scared I had lost her forever. I would have died with her here, in this storm, because there is no life without my love.
My love.
Our love.
“You saved me,” she whispers, looking around at us. “I couldn’t feel you anymore, I was so scared...and then you were there, a light in the dark...I could feel each and every one of you. How deeply you cared, how sure you were I could do this…” She shivers in our grasps. “Feel your love.”
“Even monsters need love, Little Monster, you know that. You always have ours.”
She nods and we hold her. Here, in the middle of her destruction, we hold her. Eventually she nods and pulls back, looking towards Gabriel and Amos. “You were right, I don’t know what I’m capable of. I’m powerful, uncontrolled, and untrained. A threat, a monster. But with my men, with my monsters at my side, I can conquer it.”
She steps forward.
“We fight death. I survived the worst of humanity and your world. I can survive anything with them at my side. That’s what you didn’t count on. You thought I would need you, but I don’t. I need them, the ones you feared and tossed away. My monsters. And I’m the biggest one yet.”
Pride fills me, such pride and love. Never before have I wanted to follow anyone, but this woman...Nos was right. I would follow her anywhere.
“As one, we are more than you could have ever imagined, and now those you created will be the ones who kill you. Poetic.” She grins and lifts her hand.
She’s going to save us all.
“I can’t let you kill him.” Titus sighs, stepping from among the crowd. He looks to Gabriel. “He created me, after all.”
Griffin’s mouth drops open as I step closer to Dawn. She frowns, glancing between them. Titus watches her with a smile. “I guess that makes us related in a weird way, all of Gabriel’s creations in one room...well, most of them.” He winks as he steps up to Gabriel who nods at him.
“You did your job well.”
“Y-You are with him!” Amos sputters, answering the question I was just thinking—who knew who it was...no one, I would say.
Titus looks at him. “It was imperative I was on the council. I fed you information that would help you find him so you would see his greatness once again. We knew you would see the possibilities and hire him, then I made sure to gain your confidence and trust with my position, to stop any threats to his life while using you.”
“This is better than any Jeremy Kyle,” Aska mutters.
Dawn shrugs. “Fine, you die too.”
Titus shakes his head. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. You see, you might be powerful, maybe even more so than me...but I have been around a long time. And I plan to be around for a lot longer, at least until our mission is complete.”
“I knew you would not allow this.” Gabriel smirks, looking at Dawn. “Kill her.”
Titus sighs and pushes up the sleeves of his shirt. “Apologies, I would have liked to have gotten to know another like myself, but I must do my duty.”
“You’re a puppet,” she hisses.
I glance from him to her and step in front of her. She can protect herself, my little monster, that is true, but he is not touching a hair on her head. He isn’t even getting near her. Just because she can defend herself doesn’t mean she has to, we are here too. I look to Griffin and he nods, then we move as a unit, as one.
He aims for Veyo, I for Titus. I hear a scream and glance over to see Griffin ripping the council lackey to pieces. Titus is more difficult, he’s powerful and sees me coming.
We clash in a flurry of fists and power, but I have something more I am fighting for—not duty, but love.
And love, with a bit of hate peppered in, always wins.
He flings his power at me, trying to throw me off guard, but he should have known I am stronger.
I block his desperate hit and twirl behind him, breaking his neck. He drops to the floor, dead. Gabriel stumbles back, gaping at his now dead creation. “You killed him! You killed him!”
I shrug and step over the body. “He threatened my little monster, council member or not, he dies.” I look to the crowd. “No one, no matter of their station or power, touches my mate. Don’t so much as look at her wrong! Do we have that clear? She is mine!” I roar, letting my power blast through the room, every inch of it. It knocks them to their knees, and their eyes widen. Even those who thought they knew me, who have never felt it before, I let them see every trick I have, everything I will use to protect her.
“And mine,” Griffin snarls, passing over Veyo’s bloodied stump of a hand to Dawn. “The one he touched you with, Vasculo.”
“And mine,” Aska adds, tilting his chin back as he allows his magic to leak from him. In the shadow behind him, I see a dragon with a crown on its head.
“Mine,” Jair and Dume declare in unison, stepping closer to her.
“Touching,” Lucifer drawls and looks around. “This woman is under the sleeping court’s protection for now, death will be swifter for those who think of breaking that rule.”
Dawn grins at us with tears in her eyes before she blinks and gazes over my shoulder. I turn in time to see Gabriel picking up a sword and rushing me. Before I can move to intercept him, Dawn is there.
The sword plunges into her stomach and we all freeze. She looks down slowly at the glowing, golden blade as Gabriel steps back with a triumphant expression. Time freezes for a moment as everything in my body stops. No.
No.
Little Monster!
Eyebrow arched, she reaches for the handle and unhurriedly pulls the sword free of her body. My heart stops at the blood there.
Little Monster—
She holds the sword up to the light, her blood coating the blade, and we all stare as her stomach mends. The hole closes, allowing me to breathe again. A fear like I had never experienced before recedes to anger. She looks at Gabriel and tuts. “That was a bad move, angel.” Then she plunges that same sword into his gut while he is gaping at her.
She doesn’t stop there. She pops up behind him and rips both wings off, the sound screeching and loud. He screams as he drops to his knees. She grips either side of his head, her eyes locked on mine as she leans down to whisper in his ear. “They are mine, no one touches what is mine. Angel, god, divine, no one.”
She twists, ripping his head clean off. Clutching it in her hand, she looks around at the other gathered council members. “Assmos, I’ve wanted to do this for a while.”
“You can’t—you—” He starts, but no one dares stop her as she saunters up to the terrified man as he tries to back away, only to run into Lucifer. He squeaks and turns as Lucifer laughs.
“Boo,” Lucifer says with a wild, wicked smile.
Dawn taps Amos on the shoulder and he spins, his feathers ruffling as he attempts to change, undoubtedly to fly away. “Oh, just fucking die,” she snaps, then plunges her hand into his chest and pries open his ribcage. She wrenches his heart free and drops it to the floor to join Gabriel’s head.
She looks to Lucifer then. “Care to burn them for me? I want to make sure they are really fucking dead, can’t have them coming back and hurting anyone again.”
“My pleasure, walker,” he murmurs, and raises his hands. Two fireballs form in each palm and he drops them on the corpses, head, and heart. They ignite, burning nothing else until onl
y ash remains, and then they wink out of existence.
It’s done.
It’s over.
She is safe.
She turns and smiles at me. “Let’s go home.”
“As you wish, Little Monster,” I reply, and take her hand, pulling her closer. The others step near as we begin to walk away, but Lucifer calls after us.
“The others?”
“Your problem, they are your council,” she answers without looking.
Suddenly screams fill the air, and I glance over my shoulder to see the rest of the council’s bodies draped around him on the floor, dead. “For ignoring your duty and allowing this to happen, I offered you a quick death,” he tells them, before looking up and meeting my stare.
I incline my head. We both know that is only partially true. He did it so they would never seek revenge over the woman who exposed their secrets—Dawn.
“You cannot leave, walker,” he shouts.
“Watch me!” She giggles as the crowd parts for us. Everyone gathered drops their eyes and bows their heads as we pass.
A murmur of ‘thank yous’ goes up to the woman who stopped the people who were hurting them. They look at her with fear and respect.
When we reach the door, I stop just as Lucifer pops up there. He stares only at Dawn. “You cannot leave, walker. There is no council, there must always be a council, I cannot sit on it. Conflict of interest, plus, you killed them. This is your job now.”
“What? No!” Dawn exclaims in horror, looking to me.
But Lucifer raises his voice. “Who here wishes to vote in Dawn, the skinwalker, as temporary council head until others can be found to help her lead?”
Numerous hands and voices agree, nearly every single person in attendance. She blinks in shock, looking at her mates. “I-I can’t lead.”