Angel Of Mercy (Cambions #3) Read online

  Angel of Mercy

  Shannon Dermott

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. The scanning, uploading and distribution of the book via the Internet or via any other means without permission is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchased only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support for the author’s rights is appreciated. For information address Wicked Truth Publishing.

  First Edition

  Copyright 2013 Shannon Dermott

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  ISBN-

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to the fans of the Cambions series.

  Contents

  DEDICATION iii

  Chapter One 0

  Chapter Two 5

  Chapter Three 10

  Chapter Four 16

  Chapter Five 28

  Chapter Six 37

  Chapter Seven 43

  Chapter Eight 46

  Chapter Nine 50

  Chapter Ten 58

  Chapter Eleven 64

  Chapter Twelve 70

  Chapter Thirteen 75

  Chapter Fourteen 79

  Chapter Fifteen 86

  Chapter Sixteen 89

  Chapter Seventeen 96

  Chapter Eighteen 103

  Chapter Nineteen 109

  Chapter Twenty 114

  Chapter Twenty One 119

  Chapter Twenty Two 123

  Chapter Twenty Three 130

  Chapter Twenty Four 135

  Chapter Twenty Five 140

  Chapter Twenty Six 146

  Chapter Twenty Seven 152

  Chapter Twenty Eight 159

  Chapter Twenty Nine 165

  Chapter Thirty 170

  Chapter Thirty One 175

  Chapter Thirty Two 179

  Chapter Thirty Three 183

  Chapter Thirty Four 187

  Chapter Thirty Five 192

  Chapter Thirty Six 197

  Chapter Thirty Seven 203

  Chapter Thirty Eight 208

  Chapter Thirty Nine 214

  Chapter Forty 219

  Chapter Forty One 224

  Chapter Forty Two 230

  Chapter Forty Three 236

  Chapter Forty Four 244

  Chapter Forty Five 249

  Chapter Forty Six 255

  Chapter Forty Seven 260

  Chapter Forty Eight 264

  Chapter Forty Nine 269

  Chapter Fifty 277

  Chapter Fifty One 284

  Chapter Fifty Two 290

  Chapter Fifty Three 294

  Chapter Fifty Four 299

  Chapter Fifty Five 306

  Chapter Fifty Six 312

  Chapter Fifty Seven 317

  Chapter Fifty Eight 323

  Chapter Fifty Nine 328

  Chapter Sixty 334

  Chapter Sixty One 340

  Chapter Sixty Two 345

  Chapter Sixty Three 354

  Chapter Sixty Four 363

  Chapter Sixty Five 365

  Chapter One

  The broad colorless sky let loose puffy flakes to fall without mercy. The soft powder coated everything in a world of white. It was on days like these that school was closed. Unfortunately, not on a Saturday. Not on that day, during the single most important test of my life. Everyone said how critical it was to fill in the right ovals, to see through the convoluted questions and answer correctly. Yet I was frozen, my pencil in hand, wondering how I was going to make it through this test. My eyes were glued to the winter land just on the other side of the window, an escape that wasn’t likely to happen for another few hours. It all seemed so pointless. In the big scheme of things, why did it matter how well I did on this exam?

  Still not looking to the bubble sheet that could rule my destiny, I surveyed the room and the other students whose lives depended on this one test. Where they all looked intent and focused, I felt scatterbrained and disillusioned.

  It felt like I single handedly ruined all my friends’ lives. Maggie, Luke, Flynn, and Paul. I was like a bad penny that needed tossing out. So what was the point to this stupid test? There were just so many other important things to worry about. Demons and demon hunters were trying to kill me. My mom kept secrets that I had no way of getting the answers to unless I wanted to forfeit her life.

  And it was a matter of days before we would know if Maggie had become a werewolf. She, on the other, hand seemed to be handling things much better than I, with her number two pencil filling in ovals like no one’s business.

  I stared down at the question I’d hesitated on. A synonym for licentious. I’d used that word against him that very first night. Tightness seized my chest with the thought of him. I pushed back the grief, I just had to get through this; then the tears could fall.

  Images however, flashed in my mind, Flynn with a hatchet protruding from his chest, his mouth speaking those three words and me pressing my lips to his to save his life. A single tear tore from my hold and raced down my cheek to blot an answer I hadn’t yet managed to fill in. It had almost been two weeks since that day.

  Despite the clock ticking down the time left to work on this section of the exam, I couldn’t stop myself from being sucked into the memory of that moment.

  It was as clear as if I was back in that moment. Willing all I had into him, I hoped for him to live. Solid hands came around my waist and wrenched me from him. I screamed in protest but felt all my energy leave me with that last breath. My vision tunneled like a fox falling down a dark rabbit hole until there was little more than nothing.

  “She wasn’t kissing him, she was trying to save his life,” an accented voice said through the shadows. I knew that Scottish lilt anywhere. Sebastian. “Are you going to just hold her or are you going to use that angel light of yours?” So, Luke was here.

  With a gentle kiss to my forehead, I was laid carefully down. Total darkness had encased me but I could still hear. The voices were growing softer, getting farther away.

  “Nina, come over here and help.” Luke’s voice was panicked. “Sebastian do you think you could get our hands directly on the wound?”

  Desperate to know, I tried lifting my head, but it was far too heavy. What I deduced from his words was that Luke must not be able to save him alone. Was Sebastian going make their hands disappear inside Flynn’s chest?

  “I have to hold both of your hands while we do this,” Sebastian said, his voice now barely a whisper

  Just as I’d begun to lose myself to the void of awareness, Nina’s voice popped in, a sharp, annoying intrusion. “Is this sanitary?”

  I wanted to yell at the girl that none of it matter if he died. But it was too late for that. I lost my battle with consciousness.

  The footsteps of the teacher monitoring the exam snapped me back to the present. I wasn’t even halfway done when the first warning of the dwindling time was called. I skipped over the licentious question. I just couldn’t do it. Each vocabulary word brought me back to a moment in time to remind me just how messed up things were. Paul was still in a trance. Luke went out of town with Sebastian to look for answers. And with Maggie across the room, her eyes and attention trained to the task before her, I never felt so alone.

  Despite the tick t
ick ticking of the clock, I managed to bungle my way through. The math section, which should have been a breeze for me, was an utter disaster. I couldn’t concentrate. There would be other test times, I thought, even though I wanted to be done with it. I might just have to take this exam again if things ever calmed down. But for now, I was so done with SAT words.

  When time was finally called, I walked out the doors of the testing facility. My first action besides heading to the car was to delete the word of the day apps off my phone.

  With the sun breaking through and glaring off the blindingly white snow, I shielded my eyes to get a better view of Maggie as she caught up to me in the parking lot. She exuded relatively calm and at peace. Why wasn’t she in the same state of turmoil as I was? Making my way over to the passenger side of her car, I waited for the click that signaled that the doors were unlocked.

  However, when the doors stayed locked, I looked into her probing green eyes. They told me she was worried about me. “So, how’d you do?” She sounded too bright and cheerful. Her red hair was pulled back for once in a smooth ponytail revealing more of her lightly freckled face.

  I shook my head. “Not good.” My own signature ponytail shifted side to side with my movement.

  She smiled but I could tell she was forcing it. “It’s okay, we can always take it again,” she said, trying to be positive.

  I nodded, thinking what a bad friend I was being. She was the one in need of comfort, yet here she was coddling me. “Yeah,” I muttered before I opened the door and jumped in.

  We rode home without speaking. Music streamed through the car radio to fill the silence spaces. And even in the quiet, I knew Maggie would be there for me. “So, you want to watch a movie or something?” she asked when she pulled up to the house.

  My half smile and a quick shake of my head said it all. When I went to grab the door handle to get out, Maggie said, “This is all fucked up, Eme. It is. But it will work out. Somehow.” Her voice trailed off.

  Feeling like the biggest jerk, I turned and gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Maggs. I should be there for you. I just haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Luke, huh?” she asked. There were no more secrets between us. She knew the whole story and then some. Feeling like a bobble head doll, I nodded again. Now, she squeezed my hand. “Maybe later then.”

  “Yeah,” I said for like the thousandth time. Giving her another small smile, I exited the car.

  One glance over at Flynn’s dented Hummer that still sat in its same spot where he’d last left it, I hurried to my room. I took off my Harvard sweatpants and hoodie and got into bed with only a tee-shirt and underwear, forcing my eyes closed. I’d heard my mom in the kitchen but lately even cooking hadn’t soothed my mind like it had in the past.

  Burying my head under the covers wasn’t going to solve anything, I knew, but I was tired and my emotions still felt raw. I thought about the closed door down the hall, the one I had avoided. I closed my eyes willing myself to sleep, hoping for oblivion and a release of all my shame and guilt.

  Chapter Two

  With a gasp, I awoke and rose like the living dead. I choked on the air in my lungs. The nightmare of Flynn dying clawed at my throat with a scream caught in its grasp. The light of the day still streamed in my window and a quick check of the clock let me know that I’d only slept an hour.

  Unable to stop my feet, I was up and out of bed. Then, I headed down the hall. Tears were threatening again and I prayed I wouldn’t run into my mother. She treated me like cracked glass but her cautious care shattered me every time. No one but Maggie knew what I was going through. Even Luke didn’t know, because how could I tell him everything? There was no way I could tell him the last three words Flynn had uttered to me.

  My hand curled around the doorknob with white knuckles. It took a long time, me staring at the wood of the door, before I pushed it open.

  The door eased open without a whisper of sound. Light filtered through the windows bathing his still form with light.

  With the door closed behind me with care, I crawled into the bed and stretched myself next to him. His splayed arm left a gap for me to curl my body into his. The gentle movements of his chest, the soft breath at my neck, only confirmed that he was sleeping. Tears threatened with every movement so I just listened to him inhale and exhale softly.

  His breathing changed just before his arm came around me. Tilting up my head, I saw his eyes were still closed. I let out a relieved sigh, knowing I hadn’t awakened him.

  I couldn’t have predicted what happened next even if I’d tried. Before my next thought, I was underneath him. The quickness of the action shocked me. My eyes trained to his, which were still closed. He appeared to be dreaming with me in the cast. My leading role included bare naked skin because his hand was under my shirt and moving up fast. His leg was in between mine, making space for his other one. I opened my mouth to say something to wake him, but his mouth descended on mine. His tongue searched for my tonsils. Only a gasp escaped me before I had a moment of clarity to shift my arm and place my hands on his bare chest. Only a bandage stopped my entire palm from touching his heated skin. When his hand skimmed just below my braless chest, my reason came back to me. I shoved. Flynn’s eyes popped open even before he landed on the bed beside me.

  My labored breathing was a confession that he’d affected me. My cheeks flamed as the air from our movements reminded me that my shirt was pushed up well past respectable limits. Taking the hem, I tugged hard to cover my exposed skin to my thighs.

  “Mercy,” Flynn finally said, hoarse and sultry. Turning to meet his gaze, I saw shock before it all dissolved into anger. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Okay, I hadn’t been expecting that. “I–” I tried to say.

  “You need to leave,” he demanded.

  “But,” I sputtered. The tears that had threatened before spilled from my eyes and I felt even more foolish. What I wanted to say was ‘Aren’t we friends?’ ‘I was worried about you.’ ‘I’m scared after what happened.’ Instead, as I scooted off the mattress onto my feet in shame, I uttered, “You said you loved me.” My words were whispers.

  In a rush of sudden movement, my body was pressed to the wall. He looked down on me with menace in his eyes. With a free hand, I wiped the remnants of stray tears and lifted my chin. I’d come in friendship and if he didn’t accept it, then it was his loss.

  Glowering at me, he said in a cold voice, “I thought I was dying. I didn’t mean it.”

  Pain lanced my chest. A feeling of betrayal grew there. I wouldn’t argue the point. I wouldn’t ask why in death, he would he choose to lie about something like that. “You’re such a jerk,” I lashed out.

  “Yeah, you’re a tease.” His face was less than an inch from mine. The hand that cupped my chin and stroked my cheek belied his words. There was tenderness there. But his other hand went to my thigh and it was my body’s turn to betray me. Heat from the warmth of his hand on my bare thigh turned me into a puddle of lust.

  Slapping one hand away from my leg and then the other from my face while I still held reason, I said, “I am not a tease. You’re misinterpreting my actions. You nearly died for me. But don’t think anything has changed between us. Your tenacity will always lead you to a dead end. You’re vulgarity is a laughable defensive mechanism. I came because I care not because I want you.”

  Amusement filled his expression but it was the cold sort. “You may lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me.”

  “Whatever,” I said, trying to push him away. But he was an unmovable force that repelled my attempt to put space between us.

  As if to prove he was in control, he stepped into me. He put a hand on my waist and the other on the wall next to my head. Leaning in, his intention was clear; he was going to kiss me. This was the moment where I should turn my face. Yet I didn’t.

  Brushing past my lips, his mouth was at my ear. “Luke is my best friend.” There was a small pause as if to punctu
ate that statement. “He saved my sorry ass again. And I won’t have you coming in here trying to tempt me.”

  My jaw dropped. I had so not come in here to have sex with him. Yet, I could still taste him on my tongue from the kiss on the bed. The burn of his hand still lingered on my body. The pulse of him had been pressed against me sending shouts of excitement all over me.

  My brain was fogged in a haze of him. His next words jolted me to the present. “You need to leave and don’t come in my room dressed like that unless you want me act like the demon I am. Go back to your virginal room and stay the hell out of mine,” he chided.

  With a shove, he pushed himself off the wall. When he took a step away from me, for a second I missed barricade of heated flesh that had held me in place. With a closed mouth and narrowed eyes, I walked the plank of shame. I didn’t even slam the door as I left. It would only make his day to know he’d pissed me off.

  Through the door, I heard him say quietly, “One, four, three,” but I had no idea what that meant. What I did know was that he’d kicked me out. No jokes and no two hundred dollars for passing go.

  Besides earning his scorn, I’d noticed his bandage was stained red by the time I’d left. His man handling of me caused him to bleed and I had no idea why. He should have been healed by now.

  Still standing in the empty hallway outside his door, I looked at the rug that ran down the middle. I couldn’t stay here, so I willed my feet forward. My current course would lead me to my room at the end. The other option was the stars. They weren’t too far from me and would lead me further away from the stupid mistake I’d made.

  Looking down at what little I wore, I knew he was right. It had been dumb for me to go to him dressed as I had been. But I’d left without a thought except the need to remind myself he was still alive. I headed in my ‘virginal’ bedroom. My teeth ground together. I wanted to curse him and the day he was born. I wanted to tell him what a fool I’d been for thinking he had a heart. Instead, I let the last of my tears fall because they would be the last. No more crying over Flynn McCallister. No way, no how.