Deviant Angel (The Angel Series Book 4)

Book summary

In a world gripped by the Illuminati's control and an uneasy alien alliance, Stevie Ray Collins refuses to surrender his freedom. As chaos unfolds and loved ones are taken, Stevie, Stephanie, and their allies prepare for a gritty showdown. Their fight for humanity’s future begins now, with everything on the line.

Excerpt from Deviant Angel

Reflection

Looking back throughout the short years of my twenty-two years of life, I, Stephanie Ray Collins, never dreamt that my journey would’ve ended at this very spot. Looking down the barrel of my enemies, I knew my demise was imminent. Even a genetically engineered angel couldn’t have seen what was to come. I thought I had as much a chance as anyone, living a normal life, free to decide my own destination. I was dead wrong.

The Illuminati would never retract their ironclad claws from my flesh. I was their prized treasure and my sticker was far too valuable for them to ever let go of me. I may be a piece of property to the Family but this piece wasn’t going down without an old fashion fight, but first… I had an uprising to go to.

The world had gone to hell in a handbasket. The system we once knew and depended on from the simplest task as getting the Sunday newspaper had come to a screeching halt. Every little minuscule part of our socialism, economy, and commerce had gone rogue. Famine blanketed the countryside like a frozen winter. Folks forced from their homes to the streets, banks closed and the almighty dollar suddenly crashed. People rioting and innocent ones shot in cold blood, left to bleed out onto the streets. As if in one sweep, the United Nations collapsed in less than one day.

The new authorities under the rule of National Socialism declared The Order to be invoked, likemartial law only far more sinister. Our old government had completely fallen. It was gone. Vanished in one night, just like the walls of Rome, our system collapsed, crumbling to the ground.

New rulers had emerged or maybe they’d been ruling all along, behind the shadows, in secret? Aidan was right. The Elite were always there watching, hiding, and waiting for their time to act. The populous were blindsided.

I recalled something that Aidan once told meif people new the dark things that lurked in the shadows, they would go insane. At the time, I didn’t understand. A lot had changed since then. Now I understood exactly what he meant. I wished I could go back to that time of ignorance.

As reality played its evil hand, the rulers had spread their poison like Hitler conquering half of Europe. Although this uprising was on a much larger scale, taking the world by sweeps and bounds.

The Illuminati had the world by its feet, but not me. I refused to give them my free will. Because of my threat and rebellion, they wanted rid of me. I reckoned, since I wouldn’t join their political massacre, they viewed me as their enemy. I reckoned that any opposing threat had to be dealt with effectively… but I wasn’t going down alone. I planned to take some with me.

It was going to be one hell of a Fourth of July in my neighborhood. This time, I was coming with my guns loaded just like the gunfight at OK-Fucking-Corral or at least that was my theory.

Throes of Cataclysm

I stood in the throes of cataclysm and the hard realization that I'd been duped once again ripped through me. My gaze dropped down to the ring that embellished his middle finger, the diamond eye that betrayed his identity as the faceless boy… my beguiling adversary. A deadly mistake on his part!

With complete certainty, I knew what I must do next. It was like the walk of doom. Mine. I scoffed.

Fuck ‘em.

Aidan froze. Sweat beaded his forehead. My pendulous knives hovered dangerously at his throat. The cold blades obeyed my command. I narrowed my eyes at Aidan. He knew only one slight slip, and my knives would finish him off. I smelled his fear, and I reveled in it.

Rage surged forth deep within my core, and it obeyed. The winds whipped through as I unleashed my essence, an inauspicious place where I did not recognize myself.

As if we stood in amidst of a tornado, my powers soared and the tempest grew fiercer. Everything began twirling at warp speed. The winds howled encircling Aidan and me as if we were its prey. Trees snapped back and forth violently.

Focusing on my enemy, I reigned back my powerful essence as it gnarled in protest. I asked in a voice unknown to my ears, a voice of a true and deadly Zophasemin. “I’m going to ask you this once,” my voice echoed. “Don't lie to me, druid,” I warned in a calm, steel voice. “It was you and Sally all along. The two of you framed me!”

Aidan’s mouth opened to speak, but it seemed the cat had taken his tongue.

“After all this time, you hid in the shadows of anonymity like a yellow-back coward with that damn needle, full of God-knows-what!” I hissed through gritted teeth. “I remember your diamond ring.” My eyes fixed on his third finger, the ring glimmered in the sunlight, gold diamonds marking an eye. I nodded at it. “It’s quite unique. Though, it’s hideous.” I snarled.

As rage embraced my internal war, I began to toy with Aidan. With a flick of the wrist, another knife appeared pointing straight at his groin. I taunted him with a wicked smile.

The glint in his blues confirmed his fraught. I knew that I’d never become a victim to him ever again and I delighted in that little insight. Aidan didn’t dare flinch, not even a twitch. He was wise not to trust me. Hell, I didn’t trust myself at this point.

I eyed him cautiously as the dark seductress deep within my core sang its wondrous song. Intoxicated, I craved the essence like a bloodthirsty vampire craving to feed. But I fought the urge and harnessed its desires.

Answers hung on the tip of his tongue and I needed the truth. I called to him in that strange voice. “It was your hand that was behind my suffering. It was your evil magick that compelled every lawman and judge in the state of Louisiana to convict me. You were the mastermind behind my fate, sending me off to an asylum where they left me lying in my own piss and vomit, under a constant drug induced stupor by your orders. As I laid unconscious for months on end, unaware, my child grew within me.” My voice broke from the gut-wrenching pain that consumed me. “After I gave birth, you ripped my baby from me, denying a mother of her own child. You destroyed everything I loved!” Electricity coursed through my body as lightning struck a tree and snapped it in two. “Tell me this is not true!” I screamed with spittle spewing. My madness was more than a simple emotion. I was a mother aching to cradle her child, a child I’d never had the chance to know, a mother seeking justice.

Aidan stayed silent for a moment.

“Tell me, NOW!” I demanded. I wanted to rip his heart right out of his chest and set it ablaze. Yet, I held the essence back. I was in control… nothim.

“Yes, it’s true!” he admitted, his eyes wide with alarm. “It’s all true!” Aidan bellowed. “Everything is true! Sally and I are married. We married two centuries ago. The girl lied to you. She’s immortal,” he rambled as if he was standing before a priest.

“Stop! I don’t care, druid. Tell me why you framed me?” I stared at this stranger as my stomach winced from his atrocities. How could I have ever loved this man?

“Wait! I’ll tell you!” Aidan exclaimed, losing what little courage he had. “Before you run your bloody knives through me at least give me the opportunity to explain.” Without thinking, he flinched, and my knives inched closer. He pressed his head tight against the tree as he pleaded. “Wait! I'll tell you everything.”

Unexpectedly, I heard a deep laugh. I tilted my chin sideways, catching the Cajun standing only a few paces behind me, smirking. He nodded to Aidan. “This one deserves death. He does not respect women, non! This pig murdered my sister!” The Cajun growled. “He got her drunk and had his way, this one did. That murderous bastard used his black magick on her. His puppets… the Law Enforcement claimed she committed suicide. It was lies! All lies. My sister would’ve never taken her life.” The Cajun belted out; loathing filled his voice. “If you like… I will happily dispose of this filthy baggage for you. Gotta gator out back that's hungry.” A wicked smile touched his lips.

Then, it occurred to me. “What did your sister look like?”

“A lot like me only a higher pitched voice.” Sarcasm poured from his perilous voice. “Adaline was about your height, sixteen, dark hair, and dark skin… very beautiful. She was good. Never in trouble, full of life. She had plans, that one, college, husband, and children. Adaline was full of dreams.” The Cajun’s eyes moistened. “The police found my sister’s body in the alley across from the Catfish diner. It was the last place she’d been seen alive. The authorities are liars. I spit on ‘em!” The Cajun lurked forward and placed his hand on his gun holster, fingers tight around its hilt as he continued, “Funny how things bite you in the ass. My peeps thought they were doing a good thing. They wanted Adaline away from the thugs of the city.” The Cajun’s face hardened. “They moved her to the small town of Tangi where that sociopath lived.”

Emitting only a cold stone face, Aidan exhibited no remorse. The word savage came to mind.

I remembered the girl at the diner where my mother worked. She was wasted drunk hanging on Aidan. I had just had a huge argument with Sara. Aidan had caught me before I’d left on my bike. He’d arranged for Jeffery to pick the girl up and take her home. Could he have lied about that too? My incensed eyes cut back to Aidan. “Is this true?” I carefully eyed my captive. He lingered a moment as if he were conjuring up a lie. “I sent her home with Sam.”

“Wait! I thought Jeffery had picked her up.” Could he had been lying to me? Come to think about it, I didn’t see Jeffery in the driver’s seat. In fact, no one got out of the car.

My suddenly iced.

“The diner?” Aidan’s brows pleated as if he had a sudden onset of amnesia. “I don’t recall having Jeffery waste gas on a drunk girl.”

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. When did Aidan ever forget anything? “You don’t remember?”

“Why would I remember such a mundane thing as some poor drunk twat’s name?” His face carried no apology.

“Which one, Sam or Jeffery?” I spat out fighting against the fathom foot that pressed against my chest.

“Why the concern? She was merely a human girl.” Finally, the villain revealed himself, emotions laced with arsenic.

I could hear the Cajun cursing a slew of words. “If you don’t kill that bastard, I swear I will.”

I craned my neck, eyes fixed on the Cajun. “Nick, back off! You’ll get your turn!” I gravely promised. I whipped my eyes back at Aidan. “It looks like you have many enemies, druid.”

“Get on with your barnyard trial. I have admitted to all my mishaps. You decide.”

Nothing about him felt right. He exhumed the epitome of disgust. A far cry from the man I once knew and loved.

“No good deed goes unpunished, right?” I stared Aidan in the eye unlike that day he captured me. The essence rumbled deep within. I could feel the enmity begging to spew forth, and all I had to do was release its fervor on him. It’d be over just like that. Still, I couldn’t do it.

Not yet.

Aidan spoke up. “You are aware as well as I am, the Family controls every living creature from the earth to the heavens, human and numinous. I’ve never belonged to myself. Nor do any of us, even you!” he paused. “Brave or perhaps witless, your father adventured down another path. He risked his life to leave the Family. If you ask me, he was a fool. Look what good his short-term freedom got him… buried six feet under."

“Shut up!” I stepped up, fist flexing by my side. “You don’t get to speak about my father!”

“You mustn't get yourself in a tizzy, sweetheart. I am merely stating a fact.” His arrogance superseded his common sense.

“Can the facts, druid! I haven't got time for your bullshit."

“Stupid, inbred! You think I'm wasting your time? Something you should know about your family… our family. If you defect from their sanction, you are as good as dead. The Family considers this apostasy, which is unforgivable. As you know, I make no excuse for my actions. I did what I had to do to survive. You can believe me or not, but I had no knowledge of where you were hanging your hat, so to speak. However, my uncle and the Family felt it was best I didn’t have any contact. They claimed that a large sum of money had been exchanged for the baby. Shortly after, you disappeared with no forwarding address.”

I spat at his elaborate tale. “You’re lying! Money doesn’t mean anything to me. You knew I would’ve never agreed to such bile.”

“It’s funny how fast a person can change their minds when he or she has no family and no means of support.”

“You have yet to tell me why I took the fall for crimes I didn't commit.”

“What does it matter now?" he shrugged. "You’re free, aren’t you?”

“Tell me!” I hissed.

Aidan exhaled a restless sigh. “Very well, if you insist,” he said in a grudging voice. “The trumped-up charges were for show. It was only a front to the public’s eye. We had to make it look legit. The Family wanted the heat off their trail. There were too many lives lost to sweep it under the rug. Therefore, they decided it was in the best interest for everyone if you took the fall.”

“Fall? Your family murdered people and destroyed my life. It wasn’t a fall. It was an atrocity. I lost my child!”

“Doesn’t the end justify the means?”

There I had it, the worm in the apple. “No! Aidan, it doesn’t,” I bellowed.

“Look! Sorry to offend, but that’s how my world operates. A few lives lost for the greater good.”

I almost charged him, but somehow, I held my feet planted to the ground. “What about our daughter?” My voice broke, “Dawn?”

“What about her?”

“Did our child’s death justify your fucking means?”

Aidan held his tongue for a brief moment, and then he answered. “I supposed she became collateral damage.” A thirst for blood surged through me. I wanted him dead! To keep from unhinging my fury, I drove one knife through his right shoulder.

Aidan screamed out from the sharp stab. “You fucking bitch! If I get loose from here. I’m going to kill you myself!”

Silently communicating, I ordered my blades to still until further orders. They obeyed, hovering in Aidan’s face.

Aidan was my captive now. He was pinned against the tree as blood trickled down his arms and chest. His once crisp, white shirt changed into a deep crimson and with each breath he took, his face deepened in agony.

Good! His heart may be a cold stone but at least, he was feeling pain. I flashed a satisfying grin. “I hope you bleed like the swine that you are.”

“I had no way of knowing if you were in Tim-buck-fucking-two or at the Bahamas living it up with some fruity drink on the beach.”

“You lie.”

“You’re right!” he threw at me like shooting bullets. “I should’ve looked further into your whereabouts, but I had to protect Dawn. I was backed into a corner, sweetheart. It’s the truth. I swear!”

“If you cared for our child so much, then why did you let your family take Dawn’s life?” I swallowed the lump that choked my pain. I wasn’t going to cry, I wasn’t going to cry. I repeated inwardly to myself.

“My uncle and the others in charge informed me that Sally and I would be raising the child. We’d teach her magick and our traditions. The family’s long term goal had never changed. They wanted immortality.

I repeated my question. “If what you say is true, then why did they take Dawn’s life?” I gritted through my teeth.

“It was not until I tried to escape with Dawn did the family turn on me. Sally ratted me out to the Family. I knew better than to trust that bitch.” Aidan sneered.

“Yet, you trusted Sally enough to join her diabolical scheme to take me down.”

“That’s where you are wrong! I didn’t get a say.”

“Why are you still alive?”

Aidan’s lips pressed tight and then he relented. “I remain useful to them.”

“Like how?”

“The Family knows I can find you.”

“They know your whereabouts?”

“My uncle bugged my jeep. Don’t worry, Van or the Family won’t come for you unless I defect or you murder me.” His voice seemed stiff as if he’d been rehearsing lines for a Broadway play.

Holy geez! I’d put everyone into danger. I stared at him puzzled. “The Aidan I once knew would’ve never allowed this to happen.”

“Don’t blame me. Your lover boy has left a vapor trace that the Family can see miles away.”

“You’re lying!” I stepped closer. “Val would never be so careless. But you… coming here with a tracking device attached to your damn jeep takes the cake!” I wheeled on my heels, my gaze slamming into the Cajun. I shouted, as my voice spewed with panic. “Get under his jeep and find that damn tracker. Destroy it!” Then I shouted over at Jeffery and Dom. They’d gathered outside on the porch watching in silence. “Get your things. We gotta get moving fast. The Family will be sending their forces.” I turned back to Aidan, our eyes locked. I had one more lie to uncover. “If you can track me, then why didn’t you find me at Haven Hospital?”

“You may find this hard to believe, but it's the truth. The Family cast a spell. A recherché spell that blocks my sensory.” His lies rolled off his tongue like sweet nectar. “It was not until you came to stay with Dom and Jeffery that I was able to find you. The Family used you as a decoy to pull me out of hiding. I underestimated them.” Aidan jerked from the festering knife stuck in his shoulder. The old blood had dried his shirt as the fresh blood spread farther down his chest.

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because it’s the truth!” He spewed, desperation marked his tone. “I want you back. Why is that so hard to believe?”

I scoffed. “And what? Sally, you and I all live happily ever after under the same roof?”

“I don’t love Sally. I never have. I’d ditch her in a heartbeat to be with you. Besides, she’s untrustworthy.”

My brow shot up. “I could say the same about you.”

“Like I said, I do have flaws.” His voice seemed weaker. The pain was getting worse.

The soft Stevie wanted to run to him and throw her arms around his neck, but the hard Stevie preferred a daggered rammed through his lying, black heart. “Stop it! Stop saying those things to me. You do not get to whisper sweet nothings in my ear after you and your damn family destroyed my life. Everything that has ever meant anything to me, you have taken. The only thing I have in my heart for you is contempt.” Calm rage poured from my voice.

Then I recalled a druid spell. One I inherited from Aidan when we had infused ourselves together. I began to chant, arms spread like an eagle’s wings, calling to the elements, and demanding their powers.

“Est a tangle textu nos weave, oh quam nos decipio, nostrum pectus pectoris repletus per lugeo, nos must aufero is sceleris, a rutilus lux lucis mitis weaved, permissum suus subluceo take temerarious inter redimio him ut is nemus oh sic angustus si is wiggles retineo him anhelo!”

As my voice rose above the rising tempest, black, menacing clouds gathered. Thunder roared, and lightning streaked the sky. In the blink of an eye, a glowing rope materialized, snaking around Aidan’s body, binding him to the tree. His eyes flew wide open. “Don’t kill me!” he shrieked.

“You’re not getting off that easily.” I flashed him a dark grin. I thought at this point that I’d stepped off into the world of never, a land that had never been touched. I had to admit, there was something exalting about this all-knowing power. It made me feel alive, electrifying.