Excerpt:
Chapter
1
One, two, give the devil his due, three, four,
rotten to the core, five, six, kick against the pricks, seven, eight, how much
longer can I take? Bayerly
Easton’s mood was taking a dark turn. Discord was proving to be hard to find.
“What rhymes with ten?” She asked Arabelle.
Arabelle looked at her as if she had lost her
mind. “Ten? This isn’t kiddie school, why do you need a rhyme?”
Bayerly did not answer her. Arabelle shrugged
her shoulders and responded with any word she could think of off the top of her
head. “Hen, den, glen, pen-”
“Pen! Poison pen!” Bayerly had an ah-hah
moment. “I bet I have one of those.”
Arabelle looked as if she did not want to ask where
Bayerly’s mind was because it did not sound like it was sane.
“Let’s find these damn things before you start
singing a lullaby,” Arabelle grumbled. Bayerly snorted.
They had spent a good portion of the day
trying to find any scrap of information on Discord. It had been a roadblock
after roadblock until a witch suggested a certain group of imps that were in
contact with Discord.
Bayerly was itching for action, if she could
not have Discord, she would take the next best thing, a cohort.
“They should be this way,” Arabelle answered.
She glanced down at the highlighted path beneath her feet created by her
tracking spell.
“If you could make a tracking spell for
Discord we would not be in this position.” Bayerly brushed past Arabelle.
“Excuse me; what do you expect me to do? It
doesn’t work for her.” Arabelle looked close to snapping her fingers.
Bayerly could feel the irritation; it was
gradually growing stronger the more this search dragged on. She waved her hand
for Arabelle to pass her around the corner of the building. At the same time,
multiple screams rang out. Arabelle immediately reached for her knife tucked
into her boot. Bayerly readied her hands and the tattoos simmered under her
skin. The closer they got, the louder the sounds became. “They are being noisy
for imps,” Arabelle said.
Bayerly placed her finger over her lip, making
a shush motion. She had a feeling it was not the imps that were causing the
ruckus. Together, they peeked around the corner; it was not what they were
expecting. A small frisson of excitement welled up in Bayerly.
She straightened and strode into the chaos.
Arabelle scrambled after her.
“Hello boys, we need to talk.” Bayerly’s grin
turned devilish.
She stood before a group of hyenas. As if
nature did not know how to decide, it created both hyena and man in one body.
They were grotesque beings.
“I have to say I am curious about something.
It has not escaped my notice how many monsters are running around here as half
animal and half normie. Say, did someone have a little too much fun with the
experiments?” Bayerly dared them to retaliate.
The smallest one stepped forward and bared his
sharp teeth, growling. Another one snapped his teeth and it shut up the
growler. “What do you want?” He snarled.
Bayerly smiled. “We are looking for a group of
imps. They were here. About yea high.” Arabelle answered while mocking the
height of the imps. Bayerly circled the hyena. She was tightly wound.
The hyena gave a large burp and patted his
stomach. “I think they went thataway.” He pointed over his shoulder. The others
snickered.
Arabelle did a face palm. Bayerly fought to
control the red that was starting to cloud her eyes. A thought occurred to her.
“One more question,” she said.
“Whattya want?” He asked with annoyance.
“Why are you out? There is still daylight.”
Bayerly inched closer. She could see the sweat break out across his forehead.
Hyenas stuck to nighttime hours, they did not
roam during the daylight. Here they were causing mischief while the sun was
still out. It was known hyenas surfaced when there was trouble coming, usually
to join in the mayhem and stir up their routines.
“What is it with these questions? Next, you
are going to ask me what kind of underwear I wear,” he chuckled, baring his
teeth.
Bayerly did not respond and neither did
Arabelle. “Tough crowd. We heard the air was good here,” said the hyena while
he crossed his arms. Arabelle tossed her long brown hair over her shoulder,
which exposed her Nightwatcher tattoo on her collarbone. “Well, well, what do
we have here? Nightwatchers. I wonder if you need to be salted.” His voice
dropped low at the end. It was not too low, however, for Bayerly and Arabelle
to hear.
“Bay, I think you can let go now,” Arabelle
directed to Bayerly.
“With pleasure,” Bayerly said before lunging.
The hyena’s screams broke through the silence.
“How long are you going to avoid talking to
me?”
Camden glared at Will from across the hall in
the front lobby. His answer was obvious.
“Silent treatment it is. I said I was coming
back for you.” Will threw his hands up in frustration. He had remained
unscathed during the fight two hours before with the exception of the telltale
pieces of cobweb in his hair. Camden, on the other hand, was not so lucky. His
clothes were shredded in pieces and his usual neat blond hair hung down in
muddy, sweaty clumps. A long cut trailed down his chest and over his abdomen
and a blackish blue bruise was already starting to show under his eye.
Camden’s ethereal angelic looks resembled more
of a dark angel with a dirt-smeared face, thin, tight lips, and stormy gray
eyes. He pointed his finger angrily in Will’s direction. “You-”
The heavy front door creaked open behind them.
Bayerly and Arabelle came in from outside, they halted spying Will and Camden.
“You made it back before us,” said Bayerly.
She recovered from the surprise of bumping into Will and Camden. The door
closed behind them with a loud booming thud. She looked unsure of what to
say.
Will was momentarily distracted. With her
raven black hair, snow white smooth skin, Bayerly looked ravishing. Her cheeks
were flushed and her piercing bluish white eyes looked alive. “How was your
assignment tonight?”
Bayerly shared a tiny smile with Arabelle. “It
was more exciting than we expected. More action than we were looking for. It
looks as though you guys had a more exciting night than we did. What happened?”
Bayerly noticed Camden’s appearance and Will’s lack of one.
“Nothing good from the looks of it,” Arabelle
chortled. “How did you manage to not get a single scratch?” She tossed the
question in Will’s direction.
“Camden is a little sensitive at the moment,”
said Will, clicking his tongue.
Camden stabbed his finger furiously in Will’s
direction. Bayerly half expected him to burst into flames.
“A little sensitive, easy to
say coming from someone who wasn’t wrapped and used as bait for the spider-”
“I told you my plan-”
“After the fact!” Camden gritted
through his teeth. He roughly ran his hand through his hair.
Without turning away from the mirror hanging
above the side table, Arabelle muttered more to herself. “That’s how.” She
wiped the speck of imaginary dirt from her cheek. Her chocolate colored eyes
twinkled.
“Why didn’t you use your persuasion thingy?”
Bayerly asked, waving her hand in front of him. As a cambion, his talent is
persuasion. Camden can convince anyone to do anything, even the most stubborn
strong-hearted one.
“First of all don’t mock my talent by adding
the word thingy after it and second of all it’s hard to use it when you are
wrapped, bound, and gagged for the spider queen,” Camden glared at Will again.
If his talent was fire, Will would probably have gone up in flames by now. “You
wouldn’t have been able to help yourself either, if it had been you instead of
me. Your tattoos would have been moot.”
Bayerly flinched. She understood what Camden
was saying, Will struck him when he least expected it rendering him vulnerable.
If it had been her, she probably could not have called up her weapons using her
tattoos. However, she would have called a weapon up afterwards to kick his
butt.
As if he knew the direction of her thoughts,
Will subconsciously turned his body inward to ward off any attacks. “I wouldn’t
do that to you,” he mouthed to Bayerly before turning to Camden, she squinted
in response. “I told you I had it under control,” sniffed Will. He crossed his
arms in defense.
Camden brought his thumb and forefinger
together with a teensy, tiny space in between. “That close, that close and I
could have been the new spider king,” he shuddered, thinking of the possibility
of that particular outcome.
“Eh, it wouldn’t have been so bad. She was
okay looking, if you look past her eight hairy legs, beady red eyes, and the
saliva covered fangs, I think you two would have hit it off. ” Will gestured
with his shoulders and Bayerly turned on him with a frown. He gave her a
sheepish look. It was no secret that Will was cocky. As a nephilim, he may be
strong and quick, but his mouth did not have a shut off valve. It was an
endless source of aggravation in the most inopportune times. He was her cocky
nephilim, she thought with a resigned sigh before shaking her head.
Camden sputtered some not so nice choice
words, the corners of his mouth quirked up letting Will know he was not angry,
before storming up the stairs. It was hard to stay mad at Will’s logics. His
muddy boots imprinted in the squeaky-clean tiles and into the carpet lined
steps.
“Mom isn’t going to be happy about that,”
Arabelle called out after Camden, who responded with a throw up of his hands.
“It was a close call,” Will admitted,
whispering to Bayerly when he assumed Camden was out of earshot. He looked at
her with a wince. “It wouldn’t have been pretty to watch him turn into a spider
demon.”
Arabelle snickered. She tossed her long dark
hair to the side, wearing the well-practiced Cheshire grin that only Arabelle
could pull off. Her dark eyes sparkled in amusement.
“I would have paid to see that. Maybe it would
shake the stick out of his-”
Bayerly silenced Arabelle with a look. She did
not doubt her words. Arabelle was a witch, literally and figuratively.
She turned to Will again; a small regretful
expression hovered on his face. She cocked her head to the side, thoughtfully
considering. Bayerly knew Misha’s death weighed heavily on his mind; it was no
different than how she felt with her family.
He knew she understood him. They were alike
him and her. He wanted the distraction of fighting. It was easier to not think
and keep going, burying himself in killing and hunting. The others would go along
with him because they knew it was what he wanted. Even Camden, who stuck by his
side up until the moment he knocked him unconscious and used him for bait for
the spider queen looking for a replacement for spider king, giving Will a
chance to catch her unaware for the swift kill.
Will shrugged his jacket off and slung it over
the banister. Arabelle pulled the elastic out of her long, brown hair, shaking
it loosely. Will gently tugged the crook of Bayerly’s arm, pulling her aside.
Her stomach did flip-flops; it always did when she was in close proximity with
Will. A quiver of delight flared in her chest. She ran her hands along his bare
arms. She could have sworn his green eyes grew darker, her breath hitched in
her throat. His caramel streaked curls fell into his face when he leaned down.
“Did you get closer to finding Discord?” His
voice was husky. It was not what she had expected him to say. Talk about mood
destroyer. He had reminded her of what she was trying to do before she came
back to Croftfield. The excitement squashed, the subject of Discord shook her
out of her daze.
When Bayerly had found out the truth that
Discord, Goddess of Chaos, killed her family, she wanted nothing more than
Discord’s death on her hands. They were hunting each other. She knew deep down
this would not be over until one of them was dead. She would prefer it was not
her.
“No, she’s disappeared. She cannot be in
Avadonia or Mount Olympus because they know what she did. There is not a
whisper of her here. Osden must be with her too because Arabelle couldn’t get
the tracking spell to work for him either.”
“We will get her,” his voice was sharp. Will
was determined to stay one-step ahead of Discord.
Bayerly did not want to talk about her
anymore. “You have cobweb on your hair,” she giggled when Will lowered his head
to her level. Only Will had the ability to make her sound like a giggly normie.
She did not like that. It was a struggle around Will not to feel weak with how
she felt about him after so long of keeping herself closed off. Running her
hand through his soft caramel locks, he brought his head up in time to meet her
at eye level, nose to nose. She could not breathe; her heart thumped slowly,
and unmistakably, a purr sounded in her throat. His green eyes burrowed into
hers, as if he could see into her soul with a gaze.
“God,
you are beautiful,” he whispered. Being Ares’s daughter and his mini carbon
copy gave her a certain look, she was aware of it, and it felt natural to her.
It came in handy in missions. However, when Will said it, she felt special. She
wanted to say the same to him because with his messy caramel hair and beautiful
mossy green eyes he was hot. But his dimples distracted her.
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