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  "The Best Angel-Demon Read: This book is by far the best angel-demon book about the fight between good and evil in a while. The prose is refreshing and the plot very realistic. The novel is a breath of fresh air with a new twist on a very classical plot line/story." ~Kindle Review for Gifts of the Blood

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  A Taste of The Chronicles of Nowhere #1: Worlds Burn Through

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  to Grace and Max

  who carry the fire

  came here with a plan.

  I thought I knew what I was doing.

  I thought there would be at least one person I could trust.

  Was it the drops of angel’s blood throbbing through my veins that made me such a dangerous combination of arrogant and stupid, or was that a trait I could claim solely as my own?

  As I sat half-curled around my knees, I tried to breathe through the panic that threatened to pull me back into a dead faint. Sucking cracks of eye-stinging pain centered in the back of my skull and radiated outward. I kept my eyes fixed on the jagged flagstone floor. The heavy dark stones were so cold beneath me that my butt and thighs were going numb through the thin barrier of designer French jeans. I winced as I remembered how quickly I’d thrown them on in one of Asheroth’s identical white bedrooms. Had it really been only a few hours ago?

  I trusted Ethan. I had trusted Jack. Both of them knew exactly who ruled the Twilight Kingdom.

  Now I did, too.

  Whatever you do, don’t scream.

  There is some hope your innocence may protect you.

  I felt sick, and it went much deeper than a head wound as bile rose to the back of my throat.

  I kept my eyes down, my long hair the only barrier I had left. My hands twisted the denim just below my hips. Making fists helped the nausea a little, but didn’t do a thing for the anger battering against my temporary stupor.

  When cold, rough fingers brushed my hair behind one ear, I froze. Except for the temperature, his touch felt so familiar, like Ethan’s before he changed. I almost wanted to lean into it. But a demon’s embrace was the last thing I needed when I was sick, hurting, and afraid. I launched myself backward before I could stop to think.

  Jack was at my side in an instant, his arms around my shoulder, his whisper in my ear too intense to be comforting. “You hit your head.” He tugged on me like he wanted me up―and quickly―but I shrugged him off. His words became rapid fire bullets. “You should try to stand, Caspia. If there is any way at all you can get up on your own two feet, you had better do it now because it might be the only way he’ll let you walk out of here.”

  I stared at Jack, a flesh and blood version of my dreams come to life.

  More like my nightmares.

  “I can’t trust any of you,” I whispered. “You knew about this.” Bottle rockets of pain exploded across one small area at the center of my skull.

  Jack swept his eyes around the room and touched the back of my head. “There’s no one else to trust here, Caspia,” Jack cautioned. My blood covered three of his fingers. He brought them up between us like he was making some kind of vow. “Remember that. If not me, fine. But don’t trust anyone else in this place either. That would be the worst mistake you could make.”

  “Enough,” said the low cultured voice I remembered from before I passed out. “I don’t want Miss Chastain bleeding from a head wound on my floor.”

  I found myself wrapped in arms so familiar, so momentarily welcome, that I almost forgot where I was.

  In a place called The Twilight Kingdom. With Belial, a demon who’d been hunting me for an as-yet-to-be determined amount of time. A demon that looked almost exactly like my Ethan.

  I wrenched myself backward, but Belial held me tightly by my forearm. “Let me go,” I growled. The sudden movement made me dizzy again and I stumbled.

  He fixed his eyes on me, and I suppressed the urge to shriek. I knew they were dark where Ethan’s were bright; they were, in fact, the last memory I had before passing out. But now, pulled right against his face, I could see that his eyes were a single inky abyss pulling at me. Variegated shades of the darkest kinds of twilight swirled there, obscuring the irises, if he had any. Chills danced across my skin, freezing me colder than even the stone fingers which held me.

  Belial was blind. Or sightless, I should say, because I had learned over the long years of working for Mr. Markov that lack of sight didn’t necessarily mean a person couldn’t see. My boss had fired more than one person for making that mistake. There had been the high school senior who harassed me and Amelie when he thought no one was looking. We’d suffered through exactly one weekend shift of unwelcome pinches and grabs before the boy suffered a nasty steam burn across both hands. Mr. Markov told him not to bother coming back. I had a feeling Belial wouldn’t be so gentle.

  Dimly, Jack’s voice filtered through my haze, arguing. “I’ll take her,” he insisted. “Miranda’s rooms aren’t far from ours. She can have her healed in minutes.”

  “But there is the problem of transport,” Belial mused, still just inches from my face. His hand had begun to chill through my cashmere sweater. “No, Jack. I understand your eagerness. But you are dismissed.”

  “But―” Jack tried to argue some more. Whatever he had been going to say was cut off with a muffled punching sound followed by a soft grunt.

  I dragged my eyes away from Belial’s face, which took more mental effort than I would have believed. Jack was on one knee, his head bent with both arms around his stomach. When he looked up, banked fury burned back at me. Eyes wide, I pulled even harder against Belial, trying to go to Jack, but he stopped me with the tiniest shake of his head.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. I didn’t know where to look so I studied the flames in the fireplace. There was no wood in it. Bones lay heaped and burning in a pile at the center of the huge stone structure. I remembered how there had been no trees when Jack and I walked here. What else would they burn? Bonefire, my shocked mind tried to process, but couldn’t. I filed it away numbly. “I can walk on my own.” I forced my lips to form the words.

  Bones. The warmth I felt came from bonefire. What kind of bones, I didn’t want to know. Ever.

  Belial ignored me. “Go. Now,” he commanded Jack, clipping the words to short vowels.

  My fellow Azalene nodded and swallowed hard. He jackknifed to attention, bowing slightly from the waist as if he hadn’t just been punched there. “Of course.” He wouldn’t even look at me. He spared one nod for Belial before spinning on his bare heel and practically sprinting back the way we’d come.

  Leaving me alone with a demon who wore my boyfriend’s face.

  That face smiled at me now. “Good. I’ve waited quite a long time for your arrival.”

  I nodded hesitantly. The movement made me wince. How to ask what I really wanted to know without giving away too much? “I… When I left. There were―” I exhaled against the sheer insanity of the word. “Hellhounds. Attacking my town.”

  His sightless eyes narrowed. “No questions.”

  I could only stare at him. “What?” I asked, confused.

  “No questions.” Belial released me and reached for the beautiful fox with the reddish gold fur, cradling it like it was something very valuable to him. The animal snuggled closer. “You’ll come with me, and do as you’re told, and ask no questions of any kind.”

  Logan always told me my temper would get me in terrible trouble one day. I used to laugh and tell him I didn’t have a temper, that surely he had me confused with his other sister. But I felt the truth of his w
arning now. I forgot that I was in the Dark Realms, face to face with an ancient creature that literally held the power of life or death over me. I didn’t care what Belial might do to me. Instead, I advanced on him. “Like hell I won’t.” My hands formed into fists on their own. “I’ll ask any question I damn well please, and you’d better answer it.”

  Belial looked more amused than anything else as a slight sneer curled across his face. When my fist connected with it, amusement changed to something else. Something sharp and eager. Pain ripped through my bones as my hand broke, and his murmured words washed over me, whispering.

  “How this will hurt him.”

  For the second time in one day, I passed out at a demon’s feet.

  awoke with most of my clothing gone, replaced by something soft and thin.

  I was flat on my back between silken sheets and a heavy coverlet. My hand, wrapped tightly with a bandage, throbbed dully―along with my head. The room was dim and smoky. Not smoky, I self-corrected as I tried to see in the semi-darkness. Blurry. My vision was blurry, from pain and perhaps drugs. Great.

  “Tell me about my brother,” Belial’s deep voice demanded before I could even focus my eyes.

  “Why?” I asked, resisting the urge to curl back in on myself. I wouldn’t allow myself to look more vulnerable than I already was, here in the center of a strange bed, shrouded in fur. A bed I was afraid might belong to Belial himself. “Why do you want to know about him?”

  He appeared to think this over for a moment, his eyes narrowing while pale fingers dusted the tops of cut crystal bottles that flared into focus when my vision cleared. The demon stood with his back to me, next to a small table that housed what looked like a bar.

  “For reasons that are my own,” he said at last, very slowly, very clearly. By chance or habit, he picked the brightest bottle of all, a squat thing half full of clear crimson liquid―sheer, but brilliant like blood stretched across fire. He held it toward me as if he would have me drink. “Don’t you have a brother?” Two full glasses of the liquid waited at his elbow. I hadn’t seen him pour.

  “Yes,” I answered carefully, staring at the fiery liquid. I did not want to drink with a demon.

  “Yes, I knew that you did.” Belial carried the drinks toward me slowly, deliberately, as if I were a wild bird he didn’t want to startle. “I also know he was dying.” He timed his words with his actions; his next sentence carried him right next to me on the bed. I didn’t want to be sitting so close to a demon, but I was injured and alone in this place, and didn’t really have a choice. I tried to scoot back, away from him, but dizziness and pain made it a fruitless gesture. Belial smirked.

  “He should have died,” the demon insisted, leaning even closer to me. The scent of ash and over-ripe fruit overwhelmed me. I shifted my weight sideways, but Belial was faster, his abyss-eyes boring into mine. The strange crimson liquid appeared right in front of me before I could move. “But Logan didn’t die, did he? And then my brother arrived in your life.” Frigid fingers pinned my uninjured ones around the crystal glass.

  The silver links in the bracelet Ethan had given me shone in the firelight, reminding me of what I had lost.

  Belial tossed his own back in one fluid motion. “At least, that’s what my spies tell me. Drink.”

  “No.” I wondered if he could feel my good hand trembling underneath the pressure of his hold.

  His fox jumped up on his other side, padding around the heavy coverlet in a tight circle before settling down against its master’s side. Its actions reminded me of Abigail making herself at home on the sofa next to Logan, and a tremendous homesickness tore through me. Belial leaned into me just like a stalking animal. He had only to slide an arm beneath me to make it into an embrace. “Drink. It won’t hurt you. If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead.”

  If he came much closer, I was going to spill the red liquid down my nightgown. Once I would have thrown it in his face. Now, it was all I could do not to shake like a newborn kitten while I tossed back the cloying, crimson liquor.

  At least, I hoped it was liquor.

  But even then he didn’t release me. He curved over me, looming above me, blocking all light. I had only to wrap my hand around the back of his neck and close my eyes. He could so easily be Ethan.

  God, I was in trouble.

  “That’s enough,” I said in a surprisingly firm voice. “I know how powerful you are in this place. I know what you can do. But I won’t let you bully me. I drank your drink. Now let me go.”

  Surprise flickered across his familiar features, but he masked it. He slipped away, taking his fox with him. He studied the flames, his back turned, the silver of his black suede jacket gleaming. “How did he do it? How did Ethan’i’el keep your brother from dying?”

  I remembered that moment, my own brother gone from me, Ethan there before me like the being of Light he kept hidden most of the time. I remembered the Light and life that had traveled between us, between the man I loved and me. And now a demon who could be his twin stood before me, hurting me and playing head games. Anger burned through me and I vaulted off the bed.

  Bad move. Still dizzy from the head wound, I swayed and would have fallen. Thankfully, Belial’s bed had very thick posts. I clung to one with my good hand as if it were a life preserver, realizing too late that I was wearing an almost-sheer silvery nightgown. I flushed with embarrassment; although he couldn’t see me, I still felt exposed. “No. No way. I don’t know what’s between you two, but that’s where it stays, ok? Ethan never once mentioned you to me. I’m here because you wouldn’t leave my town alone until you had me. Well, here I am, and I’m not telling you anything about Ethan.” I wouldn’t either; I had a feeling I would need every single memory of his touch, of each moment together, to survive this place.

  Especially considering who its keeper was.

  “You will tell me,” Belial said, just above a whisper, but there was hatred below his words. “You will tell me anything I want, when I want, and we will begin with why your brother did not die.”

  All at once, fear coiled down my spine, twisting my nerves and making me truly afraid. Not because I was worried about my town, or the people I loved; I was afraid of the creature in front of me. Suddenly he bore very little resemblance to Ethan at all. I couldn’t explain what exactly happened to melt the semblance of humanity from his bones so quickly, but it was gone. In its place was something that was the very essence of Darkness. Every abyss- wing and portal I had ever seen since meeting Ethan led here, to the creature in front of me.

  “I know you can hurt me,” I said, doing my best to stand up straight, even though my knees felt like jelly. “I know you can do terrible things until I tell you whatever you want, do whatever you want. But that’s not the same as telling you, exactly. It’s being forced. Maybe it won’t matter in the end, but it matters to me.”

  I kind of expected the torture to start there, but he merely closed his eyes and petted his fox. A tiny bit of the evil fled the room. “No, I won’t torture you. You’ll tell me willingly.”

  My old familiar stubbornness settled in between us. He had no idea how pig-headed I could be. “You don’t know me very well, then.”

  “On the contrary.” He put his fox down gently. I wished I hadn’t seen that; I didn’t want to see him be gentle to anything. “You will meet me for breakfast tomorrow morning, eager to tell me what I want to know. About my brother, and yours. And then we’ll have a history lesson.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because.” At a gesture, two spectral gray shapes appeared, one on either side of him. Their features were indistinct and in flux like tightly leashed tornados shaped like people. “In exchange, I will grant you one request.”

  My too-good-to-be true radar started screaming even as I tried not to stare at the gray mist-figures advancing on me. “One request? What kind of request, exactly?” I prodded.

  “Anything you want. But just one. And just for one person. You can�
�t ask for every single Nephilim here to suddenly wake up in their beds, for instance.” He smiled much too smugly for my liking.

  “But I could request that one Nephilim wake up in her bed?” I asked dubiously.

  “Yes.” He began to flip idly through a book on the table near the bottles of liquid. I wondered why he bothered, since he couldn’t see the words on the page.

  “Then that’s what I want. I mean yes, let’s do it. I’ll tell you right now.” I crept closer, testing boundaries in my eagerness. The hem of my nightgown looked like a living pool of mercury on the floor between us. I wondered if it matched my eyes, or the links of my bracelets. I wondered if Belial could tell about my eyes. He smiled at my hesitant approach.

  “In the morning, Caspia. That is the bargain. The Grey Ladies”―he indicated the mist figures―“will show to your rooms, where you can meet the other Gifted. The Grey Ladies were human, once. They should be familiar with your needs.” He leaned toward me, and in the firelight, he looked so much like Ethan it made me ache. To think I could be back with my boyfriend in the morning… but of course, it had to be some kind of trick. I knew better than to bargain with demons and expect to come out ahead. He saw the doubt in my eyes, and said more gently, “If anything in your rooms is not to your liking, just tell one of the Grey Ladies. I’ve assigned the pair of them to wait on you while you’re here. And of course, Jack will be wanting to see you. He was quite upset at your sudden parting.”

  My head snapped up at the mention of Jack. “Is he okay? He’s not… hurt, is he?”

  Belial shrugged. “I really don’t know. I was much more concerned with you. He might be.”

  My alarm grew faster than my anger at his callousness. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You have a doctor here, don’t you?”

  “Demons don’t get sick.”

  “But if you’re building an army… well, we’re human, and we need things.” I crossed my arms like a petulant child. “Like doctors.”

  Belial raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been rather eager for your arrival. Some of the others have not been so fortunate as to have aroused my interest. Go with the Grey Ladies. Go and see how the other Gifted fare.” His serpent’s smile slithered back in place. “Then tell me over breakfast what your request will be. Home for you? Or something else? Something that will help all your brethren?”