Bound by Sin: The Beginning of a Prophecy (Prophecy #3) (22 page)

Constance leaned away from the wa
ll and cleared her throat. “But if you turn her, won’t Brooke have to live with her decision for eternity too?”

Azaal’s
head spun around and he stomped back toward her. Lowering his head, he growled, “I didn’t ask you to speak, did I?” His hand flew up and wrapped around her neck. “You should learn to keep quiet. I told you the conscience was the last to go, after a while she’d have no way to experience sorrow or regret.”

His grip on Constance
’s throat loosened and he turned back in my direction. “One of you will die, it’s your choice who. You die, and he’ll long for death. If you kill him, you will give him a gift, rest – you will give him rest. The question here is do you wish him a moment of pain, or an eternity of unmatched sorrow and desolation?”

Azaal
walked to the doorway. His hand gripped onto the doorframe and he stopped. He concentrated on the floor and his breath grew heavy with anger. “He can’t save you! I have this place surrounded by miles of demons who haven’t fed in quite a while. They would rip you from his arms and suck every drop of blood from you. They obey me!” he roared, and disappeared behind the wall.

My jaw clenched together. Glancing at Constance, I gave
her a pleading look. Her eyes searched the room before she peered into the chamber Azaal had retreated to.

“Co
nstance?” I whispered. “Please. Help me.” I stood staring at her, silently pleading with my eyes, my body trembling as I took in the way death had changed her appearance. She was still beautiful, but pale, and her eyes seemed so listless, so hollow.

She released a sigh and
her face turned toward the floor. “I’m sorry, Brooke,” she said loud enough so that he could her hear denying me aid. She walked through the same door as Azaal and I was left alone in the open hall, my heavy breath bouncing from the ancient walls.

Gavin

Chapter
Twenty-eight

Running up the stairs at a pace that would bend the mind of any mortal, I
punched the door open. The heavy piece of oak smashed against the exterior of the building, exploding into pieces as the hinges bent from the sheer force, and flew across the yard.

My chest heaved as I stepped out into the world I wanted to slaughter for stealing what was mine. Glancing up at the sky I noticed t
he thick plumes of ash had lightened from pitch black to a dark, slate grey.

Eternal night
.

I glanced down the street and the wind blew several leaves across the cobblestone pathway.
Aside from the sound of the brittle edges of the leaves scraping the top of the bricks it was completely silent. The empty sound of death hung heavy over the city.

I had no idea where he’d taken her.
For the first time I understood what the word helpless meant. I had failed her; unable to control the sadistic, demonic urges burning inside me, I gave her up as an offering to the devil. I should’ve known she wouldn’t be safe alone… but I had no choice. I would have murdered her had I stayed.

I searched the
street and began to walk in the direction of one of many abandoned cars lining the roads. As I stomped across the pavement, I kicked the corpses out of my way and reached for the handle of an ash-covered car. The fine particles flew from the handle as I jerked it back. The door was locked. I drew my arm back to punch through the glass of the driver’s side door, stopping when I heard a woman call out my name.

“Gavin!”

Turning, I saw Raven on the opposite side of the street. My eyes narrowed and my brows furrowed. Carefully stepping over the dead that lay rotting every few feet, I approached her, anger welling inside me.

“Why are you here?” I shouted
. “And if it has anything to do with that son-of-a-bitch, I suggest you leave before I kill you!” I continued to stalk toward her and she didn’t budge. Stopping in front of her, I glared down at her; my breath ragged, my heart filled with wrath threatening to hammer through my chest.

Raven
stared up at me and said nothing. She wrapped her arms around me and clung to me tightly as she buried her face in my shoulder. The feeling was so unnatural that my arms initially moved away from her.

“They’re all gone,” she said, h
er voice muffled in the fabric of my shirt.

I
cautiously moved my hands to her back and awkwardly patted her.

Raven’s head rose and
her eyes glared up at me. “They’ve killed everyone! There’s no one left to feed from. We’re all going to die!” The fear on her face dulled momentarily and her eyes glassed over. “I guess we really weren’t ‘immortal’ after all.”

Her statement startled me
and all I could think of was Brooke. “Brooke? Is she still alive?”

“
Azaal has her. He’s got a plan, Gavin,” Raven whispered, as though she were terrified someone would hear her.

Pushing her away from me, my expression grew stern
. “How do you know this?” I asked.

“He summoned us all. Not long after you left with Brooke. I
t was chaos. Absolute chaos.” She shook her head and her eyes focused on the ground. “Azaal told us to kill every mortal there was, starting with the Guardians.” Raven paused. Her foot traced over the crack in the pathway. “He’s killed the other Fallen!”

My jaw
fell open and my body tensed up.
She must be mistaken.
Shaking my head, I exclaimed, “The Fallen
can’t
die.” I gripped her shoulders, shaking her as my voice rose to a soft shout, “What are you talking about?”

Her eyes
leveled with mine. Dark grey circles had formed underneath her eyes from a lack of sustenance. Her skin was pale, tinted blue, and she looked weak. “He’s killed them. He knows how to kill them. Gavin,” her voice cracked and she swallowed, “he knows how to kill you!”

“No!
” I said, turning my back to her and covering my mouth with my hand. I let my fingers trail down my jaw. “We would have known this. I would have known it. We – death – is not even a
concept
to me!” I faced her, still shocked at what she was claiming.

Raven
nodded to assure me she knew what she was telling me to be true. “He knew it. It was in the book. I watched him kill Sebastien.”

Tilting my head
to the side, I studied her. My eyes darted from her eyes down to her wringing hands. “How? How did he kill Sebastien?” I asked, still not able to believe her.

Tears filled her eyes, and for emotion to strike her like that, I knew she was telling the truth. Her conscious had long since been dead and for something to spark the dormant piece of humanity back to life in her for a fleeting moment, what she witnessed must have struck some part of her not touched since her physical death.

My eyes narrowed. “How, Raven. How did he do it? I must know.”

Her tear-
filled eyes cast up to me. “With a spell.”

Wrinkling my brow, I said, “Spells? A spell?”

Raven nodded, pulling her bottom lip in just as the tears poured from her eyes. “He spoke words from the book over a sword from one of the saints and it sliced right through his throat.” Raven collapsed into me, sobbing.

“God damn traitor!”
I screamed, my voice booming from the buildings and carrying down the empty streets.

Pulling herself away from me, her eyes set on me.
“I just couldn’t go with the rest of them. I couldn’t do that to you. I feel somewhat responsible, somehow. I should’ve stopped it,” she said.

“It was my decision. My decision to pursue her.”

Her shoulders rose momentarily. “I know, but…” Her face fell and her shoulders immediately followed.

“But what?” I growled through gritted teeth.
Grabbing onto her chin, I jerked her face up. Her eyes closed, tightening as the tears streamed down her colorless face.

A low hiss resonated in my voice as I demanded,
“Open your eyes and tell me what you’ve done, woman!”

Raven pulled a
short breath in through her lips. “I knew who Brooke was.” Backing away a few steps, she swallowed and continued with, “I knew what you would do to Ashley – and I … I just let it happen.”

My chin drew to my chest, m
y eyes searched her face for an answer. Peering into her, my hand slipped down to her neck. Without my knowing it, my fingers dug into the skin underneath her jawline, clenching around her slender throat, and my arm began to tremble from the unrelenting wrath shooting through me. “You
knew
? How would
you
know such a thing?”

“
Azaal,” she choked out.

“
Azaal?” I shouted. My voice echoed from the walls of the ancient buildings surrounding me.

Raven nodded. “He’s been planning this for centuries. He wanted to assure that everything went just as the pro
phecy had said it would.”

Releasing
my grip on her, I stood looking up into the darkened heavens. I was livid, furious. My eyes fell down from the sky to drink in my surroundings. The death of man surrounded me. The annihilation of a race lay before me, and I may as well have been the one who shed each man’s blood.

“He’s my mas
ter,” she said. “He’s the one who saved me from death. I’m bound to him for eternity, Gavin. I had no choice.”

My face jerked back in her direction. “
Azaal didn’t turn you!”

“Yes
, he did. He’d been living as a vampire for – maybe since the last time you saw him. I didn’t know he was Azaal until a few months ago. He’d claimed he was one of the first vampires. He actually said he was
your
son!”

The rage again began to fill my s
oul. My son had been killed centuries ago, and I wouldn’t doubt if Azaal himself had murdered him. “I’ll kill him!” I howled. My breaths turned swift and labored. I released another long cry into the sky, and the vultures that had been perched in a nearby tree flew out in a panic. Their screeches echoed through the sky, and the fluttering of their wings was almost deafening against the silence.

Raven reached out. Her cold fingertips grazed against my sweaty forearm. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorrow – you somehow still have the ability to feel sorrow, and if it weren’t for that I would end your life here, right now. But I want to make sure that you see what you could have prevented!” I grabbed her and pushed her in front of me.

Falling
onto her knees, she bent her head down. I wrapped my hand around her hair and savagely jerked her head up. “Look! Look at all these people who died because you felt you had to obey
him
! Can you remember the fear you had when you died? Can you even fathom the horror they experienced?” I shouted, pointing at the multitude of rotting corpses strewn across the landscape. “Innocent people – and you – you could have saved them!”

I unwound
her hair from my grip and slung it down against her back.

“Take me to him! Take me to the fucking demon. If there’s a way to kill him, I want to be the one to take his miserable life!”

Constance

Chapter
Twenty-nine

Standing in front of the window, I
stared out at the unending field of vampires. At the dark soldiers surrounding us, a field of living dead to keep Brooke from escaping. Their low growls and murmurs carried in through the open window created a constant hum.

I turned from the window and
faced Azaal. He was sitting in a large armchair with one leg casually draped over its arm, the other stretched out in front of him. A large medieval sword sat across his lap. Pulling the bright silver blade from its sheath, he’d slowly push it back inside, the metal making a sharp screech as it scraped against the case. He brought the sword out once again, the sound of the metal swishing through the air. Bringing it close to his face, he swiped his forefinger along the sharp blade and a satisfied smirk cast on his face. His eyes moved back to me, and one brow pointed down as he shoved the sword back into the metal holder.

Azaal
leaned the instrument against the wall and pulled his leg from the arm of the chair. “Something you wanted to ask me?” he said, leaning up to rest his elbows on his knees.

Focusing
on him, I brushed a stray strand of hair from my face. “Why? I mean, what are you gonna do after you kill him? What will that do for you?”

Azaal
raised one eyebrow and rubbed his hands together. “Well, I’ll be the last Fallen. Which means I’ll finally be the most powerful being in existence.”

“So?”

His eyebrows drew down into points and his head jerked to the side. “So? I’ll be the master. All things will bow to
me
. Any mortals that managed to escape death will be forced to bow down to me – just as I was once asked to bow down to them.” His eyes grew drunk with power.

I
couldn’t stand to look at him. Glancing out the window at the void that the world had become, I stretched my arm out and pointed through the glass. “What a world to rule!” I cried out. “Everything’s been destroyed. Everything’s gone and covered in darkness.”

Azaa
l’s lips curled up into a treacherous smile. His voice trembled from the anticipation of it all. “I know,” he said, and rose from his chair. He stared out the window, his eyes flickering as he gazed out over the void earth. “Darkness. The color of terror. The light that stirs fear in the heart of man. It’s breathtaking, isn’t it, doll?”

Spinning around, I made my way to the door
.

“And just where do you think you’re going?”
he asked.

I stopped mid-
stride, keeping my back turned toward him. “To talk to my friend.”

“
Friend?
Demons don’t have friends.” He paused and his eyes glared at me from across the room. “Don’t think of trying to find a way to get her out of here. They won’t let her leave here.”

My feet
carried me across the floor and he continued, “Hope you can resist your urge to feed from her. That one there – she’s a delicacy, a rarity any immortal would love to taste. Would hate for you to kill her before Gavin had a chance to tell her goodbye.”

I exited the room, slamming the door behind me.

“Watch it, Constance,” Azaal called out through the wooden door.

Stopping outside of Brooke’s room,
I could hear the strong drumming of her heart through the thick wood. I leaned my forehead against the rugged door facing. My palm flattened against it as I swallowed back the saliva pooling inside my mouth. The scratch of my nails splintering through the wood broke the silence as my nails clenched down into my palm, ribbons of wood falling to the floor around my bare feet. I still hadn’t learned how to control the strength I’d acquired.

The rhythmic sound of her pulse quickened at the noise and
I couldn’t keep my mouth from salivating. I swallowed and tried to convince myself that I still had enough of my human emotions to keep myself from killing her. I wanted to see her. I wanted to explain things to her, to tell her how much she’d meant to me. I needed to tell her how sorry I was.

Brooke let out
a loud, hate-filled scream, and a thud came through the door followed by the sound of something hitting the floor. I pulled in a short breath and pushed down on the handle. The door creaked open and I peered into the room.

“I’m no
t scared of death, I’m not –” she stopped mid-sentence when she saw it was me that was coming through the door instead of Azaal.

Brooke quickly rose from the bed.
Her face relaxed and her eyes watered. Bending over, I picked the wooden brush that she’d flung at the door up from the floor. I walked over to the dresser and gently set it down.

Brooke stared at me, her eyes slowly traced over e
ach detail of my face. “How…” her voice trailed off.

“Oh
, you know,” I said, and rubbed my hand over my arm in an effort to warm my cold body up. “I can get talked into just about anything in the middle of sex.”

Brooke laughed
, tears rolling down her cheeks as a soft smile formed on her lips. “Glad to see you still have your personality.”

“Are you scared of me?” I asked
rashly, afraid of what her answer would be.

She shook her head and locked her eyes onto mine. “No.”

“Good.”

She
reached out, wrapping her arms around me, and hugged me. The warmth from her skin wrapped around me. Brooke stood inches from me, the heat of her body warming me like a raging fire. I fought to keep my eyes from straying down to her neck, but failed. They quickly focused on her neck and I could see the blood pumping through her artery. The pulsating throb under her flesh caused my skin to tingle. Swallowing, I cautiously backed away from her.

Brooke released
a long sigh and walked back to the bed to sit down. “So, looks like I should’ve listened to you.”

My eyebrows scrunched up. “What? Listened to me
? About what?”

“That club. You said it
creeped you out. If I remember correctly, you even said it reminded you of a place vampires would hang out!” Nervous laughter came from her and she fell back on the bed, her hands covered her face, and she let out a soft groan. “God! This just can’t be real!”

Bringing my hands up, I
started picking at my cuticles. The paleness of my skin still shocked me. The greyish tinge made it hard to deny that I was no longer human. Had I really escaped death? After all, I had to die to be made immortal – My self-reflection was interrupted by Brooke’s voice.

“Why is he doing this?”

Shaking my head, I walked toward the bed but stopped at the footboard. As badly as I wanted to console my friend, as much of a relief as it was to see her, I knew I needed something separating me from her. Azaal was right. Something about Brooke made the urge to take her so damn irresistible. I relied on the human emotions I still possessed as a crutch to keep myself from killing her.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He’s fucking evil and crazy! He hasn’t really told me more than he has to.”

“I don’t believe him. I don’t believe that he could kill Gavin.”

I stared at her from across the room. “He can’t.
But you can. That’s why he came for you.” I paused and glanced back down to my hands. “He’s killed the rest of them.”

“The rest of who?” Brooke sat up.

“The other angels. Azaal and Gavin are the only ones left.”

Brooke’s eyes widened and her mouth hung loosely open
as she gasped. The heavy beats of her heart quickened and intensified. I had to turn my back to her and close my eyes. I covered my ears with my hands, but that did nothing to drown out the alluring sound. Yanking my hands from my ears, I blurted out, “I love you.” And I ran to the door.

“I love you to
o. Constance – did it hurt?”

M
y hand gripped the metal handle, just wanting to leave that room and the fucking temptation I had to rip her flesh from her neck and greedily gulp down her blood. I turned back to face her.

Brooke
drew her legs to her chest. Looking me directly in the eyes, she asked, “Does death hurt?”

Wanting to hurry up and get out of the room, I said, “At first, but toward
the end all I can remember is feeling peace and not caring if my eyes ever opened again. Acceptance – there’s acceptance before you draw your last breath.”

Brooke rested her chin on her knees and stared off. I wished that I could have told her not to worry about
it, told her that she was far away from having to experience that – but I knew I would be lying.

Slamming my body into the door, I made my way out into the hallway
. As I pulled the door shut behind me, I feared that was the last time I’d see her alive.