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Prologue
Marik
Despite being merely a vision, I’d never seen anything as beautiful as the woman splayed out before me. Longing crystalline tears lay upon her alabaster skin, and her silver irises, frozen in a sightless visage, mirrored my rugged reflection. Even though the humid air clung to me like a second layer of skin, my demon burned; her ashen state fueled the essence of his Wrath, threatening to unleash him from his eternal prison and set him free upon this plain for nothing less than all-consuming retribution.
I dropped the parchment that had brought forth the vision before I was tempted to burn it to ash. I needed it, just as I needed answers from the Seer on the other side of the two-way mirror.
Without pausing, I pulled open the heavy metal door to the office containing the Seer. She lay sprawled out, one stiletto heel folded over her opposite knee, drawing appreciative glances from the others in the office to that caramel-kissed skin ending in a black lace mini skirt that barely covered her plump ass. Perfectly manicured fire-red nails matching bright red hair covered with a veneer of raven black locks tapped the rhythmic beat of the Imperial March against the wood detailing on the formalsette. She had spunk; I’d give her that, but her attempts at humor could not mask her emotions.
She was uncomfortable, exactly how I wanted her to be. Demons didn’t like being trapped in confined spaces, even if they were golden and furnished with the utmost comfort.
And if she didn’t tell me exactly how she had managed to locate this piece ofparchment I had spent the last 2700 years looking for, she would find her confines becoming much less comfortable by the minute.
“Ariella Gwarovski, I presume?” She raised one perfectly manicured brow as her eyes shone with worriment. “I’m Marik. But I supposed you already knew that.” She shifted her position, squirming under my scrutinizing gaze. “I think we need to have a chat.”
???
Hours later, alone in my study, I pulled out a second piece of parchment within a tightly runed scroll case and placed the two pieces together before me. My demon rose to the surface, and his attention narrowed as black demonic script burned its way across the paper. The words spelled out a prophecy that was no small thing. It could hold the key to keeping the Archangels at bay, which was becoming increasingly more difficult by the day.
For the first time in years, my Demon pulled back from the walls of his cage.
After reading the script several more times, I picked up my cell phone and hit the second speed dial, connecting after the first ring.
“Your Highness?” Felix, my second in command, answered.
“We’re headed to the Red Pines selection.”
“Why? It’s never interested you before,” he replied. “I believe your words in the past have always been something like ‘it’s literal modern-day slavery.’”
“And I stand by that statement,” I replied, clutching the phone to my ear. “But I think we need to make an exception.”
???
In a small town thousands of miles away, she whimpered in her sleep, the connection to the copper-colored eyes seeping away just as she felt it had formed. She moaned, the tears in her eyes freezing to her cheeks as she pulled herself into a cocoon of blankets that could not bring a reprieve to the frost that had begun to line every surface of the bedroom. Nightmares of stolen souls and essences torn ruthlessly from unwilling donors screamed through her troubled mind.
As the night grew colder, even the lights in the heavens appeared to dim as if they were siphoned into the echo of power shimmering in her chest. Just when it felt the cold would become her tomb, sealing her forever in the nightmare of trapped souls that rattled within her chest, the copper bracelet she always wore began to glow. Warmth swept the room, releasing the full moon's brightness cushioned in rapturous stars in the heavens above. And in this moment, she finally slept, her only dreams being of the copper-colored eyes that protected her soul from the suffering within.
Chapter One - Romp with Teddy Bears
Aeryn
One Week Later
There are millions of ways for a mortal to die. And while sure, some of those ways have qualified some swell folks for Darwin awards over the years, most said millions of ways to die involve natural or non-embarrassing ways to go.
But for me? Let’s say I’ve always been destined to sit up there with the guy who decided to jet ski off of Niagara Falls and another who tried to make fireworks by opening a grenade with a chainsaw. And the worst thing about it? I probably wouldn’t even leave a pretty corpse.
Ness was so going to kill me.
The sound of tearing cloth reverberated through the dense foliage. Instead of focusing on a Mission Impossible-style rescue and some suave Crocodile Dundee animal control, I was staring down the business end of a Hell bear. If I died, I would be blaming the Boralis scout I’d been hired to rescue, who thought that bright red fatigues were the perfect attire for hunting demons in a coniferous forest.Fuck. My. Life.
The Hell bear twitched her great muzzle tinged with yellowing saliva and bright streaks of vibrant blood, taking in my measure. She didn’t like what she found. I dove to my right to avoid the first swipe of her razor-sharp claws. I rolled, just missing, as she swung her body around again, raining venom across the needle-strewn ground. Something in my subconscious registered a twinge of burning on my left leg, but I was already so immensely captivated by her grotesque fangs that I hardly noticed.
This girl seriously needed a toothbrush.
Yes, great, Ryn, because that was the perfect thought while diving for your life. I swear, if I had a dollar for every one of my self-directed eyerolls, I would have the money to avoid a mess like this in the first place.
I launched away on a quick blast of energy from my palms, swinging deftly into the closest pine, the needles of the branch I grappled with snapping beneath the pressure and digging into my palms.
