Crown of Doom and Light Read online

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Rage.

  Desolation.

  Destruction.

  Things always at the forefront of her mind. Never afterthoughts. Never distant. Immediate. She pretended not to notice. And she was careful never to show anyone . . . especially him.

  It was easy to break shit. Bodies and buildings, even the ground. She could break the world if she set all those things free; rage, desolation and destruction. If she let them, if she just stepped back and let them, all of this would be over and gone.

  And then . . .

  Nothing.

  It wasn’t that long ago that she was serving up drinks at a bar called Patmos and slipping in and out of marriage proposals from goth boys and dirty old men. Eden hadn’t lived that life in what felt like an eternity. Less than a year ago, it had been real, but now it felt like she’d dreamed it. She’d wanted to open up her own nail shop, drown herself in polish and fingers and toes, find a nice man to marry, have a kid or two, maybe get a dog, and then age gracefully.

  But her fate had been set long before she was born. Eden had never had the benefit of choosing what she wanted to be when she grew up because the choice had been made for her.

  “You were born to save us all,” MyRose used to tell her when Eden was growing up.

  Eden could remember sitting on Rose’s lap and listening to her stories, all the way back to when she was four or five years old. Rose had raised her. She hadn’t been Eden’s mother by birth, but she was her mother in her heart and soul. And she was the sun to Eden. She was everything.

  “You are my brave girl,” she used to say to Eden.

  Rose had even bought Eden a cape, a symbol of Eden’s courage and her destiny. But Rose’s stories weren’t just stories. Rose foretold Eden’s true calling and her reason for being. It was Eden who would be responsible for saving this world. She had done that, and was still doing that—when all she wanted to do, truly, was die.

  A warm breeze blew across the open field, washing over her. She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and released her breath slowly.

  Is she sleeping?

  She must be. She is getting weary.

  Finally.

  I will miss her.

  I will not.

  There was a fine line between Eden and the Omen inside her. A line growing fainter every minute of every day as they waged a battle inside her for control. Eden had fought and died and lived more times than she cared to remember in the last year, and she was tired of fighting. Yes, she had saved her world from the ancient demon named Sakarabru. But it had cost her dearly. It had cost her Rose. It had cost her her soul. And it had cost her the freedom to die.

  To kill the Demon, she’d had to become like him. She had inherited and bonded with the Omen created from his essence, three of them. One like his mind, one like the warrior in him, and one indicative of his passion. Eden loathed their presence in her body. She felt soiled by them, and she hated that she could never feel clean. Now the glimmer of light that was still her was fading, and had been since the Demon’s death. The smaller she became, the larger they grew. Her own internal voice was becoming a whisper.

  She pities herself.

  She should.

  Her weakness is showing.

  Eden was transparent to the Omen inside her. The intimate relationship she shared with them was invasive and dangerous. They knew her thoughts, fears, hopes and dreams. They siphoned them off like milk, emptying her of herself and gradually taking over the space left behind.

  Let us have you, young one.

  We know how weary you are.

  Stop fighting and let go.

  She wanted to. It would’ve been easy to close her eyes and let herself be swallowed up by their incessant power. She had done her part. She’d sacrificed herself for her world and the people in it, and to her detriment. Surely, no one could expect her to do any more. Surely, she should be free to go, to rest and to fade away like smoke.

  Then let go.

  Yes.

  Give yourself to us.

  Yes.

  Rest.

  You have done your part.

  It’s easy, Eden thought, slowly closing her eyes and letting the darkness close in all around her small self. Letting the Omen take her was as easy as falling asleep. Relinquishing her self to them would end this private war she had been fighting on her own for such a long time. Eden could feel herself begin to ascend from the ground she’d been standing on, her mind and soul caught up by the breeze floating overhead, floating slowly toward the sun that burned bright in the sky.

  You’ve done your part.

  Now let go.

  Rest.

  Let go.

  Eden felt separated from her own body, but then gradually became aware of it. “Yes,” she murmured, resisting the urge to fight against the sensations of her flesh.

  Heat began to expand from her center as she felt her own conscience begin to quiet and distance itself from the here and now. Eden’s veins flooded with a rush of adrenaline. Her muscles tightened, and when she opened her eyes, her gaze began to singe the grasses at her feet. The ground began to fracture, splitting wide enough for her whole body to slip down into.

  Eden had given up and stopped fighting this constant battle for her soul. This was the liberation of turning herself over to the Omen! This was the overwhelming relief she felt in releasing all the rage, desolation, and destruction. The Omen hadn’t let her escape. Until this moment, they had only made her believe that she had before snatching her back inside herself to bear witness to their true nature. Eden was one with them now, not separate. And she joined them in the destruction of the world she’d fought so hard to save less than a year ago.

  She had created this wound in the ground, tracing the path that it took with her eyes as it stretched out in front of her, lengthening and drawing away from her. It was as easy as tearing paper. Eden focused on one thought, a vision of that fracture tearing open the ground, tearing apart this place, hurting it, torturing it.

  The Earth cries!

  Listen! Listen!

  Bravo, young one! Bravo!

  In this moment, the nature of Eden was almost completely gone. She was a shadow of herself, barely present, and grateful to give herself over to them. Let them deal with fate and destinies. Eden was tired. Satisfaction spread her lips into a smile. Relief. Release. Relief. Release.

  This was the beginning. This is what it felt like to give them all that was left of her. Their power surged through her like bolts of lightning. This world and its inhabitants no longer mattered. It was a dot in a universe too big to even notice it if was gone. Insignificant. Meaningless. Nothing.

  It would start right here in this place, with this crack in the Earth’s crust, like pulling a thread from a seam and watching the whole thing fall apart. The Omen relished the sound of the ground tearing open like a wound. Oh, they wanted this. The remnant of Eden, still barely aware of her own existence, wanted this. Sh
e wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, “I wasted myself on you sorry bastards! You didn’t deserve me!”

  Easy. The ground shook. She did that. The wind blew harder. She had captured it and now she used it as a weapon.

  The fracture stretched a hundred feet in front of her, a hundred and fifty. Widening. Deepening. Eden was doing this. Because she could. She should.

  She held the power of this world’s salvation or destruction in her hands. It was as it should be. She had sacrificed herself for it. The Omen held her world hostage. Even if she wanted to give up the ghost and let them have her, it would ultimately cost everything she’d fought so hard to prevent. Eden had saved the world, and she was still saving it each and every day by staving off the Omen. It was a brutal price to pay for doing the right thing.

  “Don’t,” her small voice murmured.

  Don’t? Don’t what? Don’t—who? Don’t break the ground? Don’t—stop them? Eden couldn’t stop them now. It was too late. No! They had taken her because she’d stopped resisting them. She’d grown tired and weak. The Omen knew how weak she was. They knew better than anyone how exhausted she was, and that there were moments when all she wanted to do was rest.

  The fracture continued because they willed it too. This was what they wanted, but did she? Yes. No. Yes again.

  “Stop,” she heard the small voice echo in her head. It was soft, barely above a whisper, and afraid. “Stop. Please!” she whimpered, louder this time.

  Shut up!

  Shut up, young one!

  Hush!

  A part of her wanted to be quiet, to stop resisting, to submit to them. Another part of her still needed to fight, but that part was weak and tired. It wanted to be done with all of this, removed from any responsibility to the Omen, to her world, to everything and everyone. Then suddenly, it appeared. That one thing even more potent than her own pleas, the one thing powerful enough to stop the Omen from finishing what they’d started, the one thing standing between them and her and the end of this world.

  The fracture in the ground suddenly stopped growing. Standing to one side of it was the Guardian, Prophet.

  Eden stared at him, less than twenty feet away from her. He hadn’t flinched at the sight of the ground split open at his feet. He hadn’t cringed at the sight of her.

  More time, she thought with tears filling her eyes.

  Yes. Another month. Another week. A day. An hour. A minute. She would take whatever time she could get to be with him.

  “Are you ready to go, Beloved?” he said, as if she hadn’t just opened a wound in the ground.

  Eden nodded, and casually shrugged. “Yeah. I am.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The beautiful, muscular mound of his ass was tantalizing, and Andromeda could only imagine how lovely it must’ve been to fuck this giant. Did she say that out loud? Or did she just think it? The Guardian started to stir from his sleep, turned his head in her direction and stared back at her with his metallic eyes.

  “What are you doing in my bedroom, Seer?” he asked, calmly.

  He lay prone, clutching his pillow underneath his head. Nearly seven feet of him stretched out like a log, but she couldn’t stop looking at his booty.

  “I came to talk,” she said, smoothing the ruffles of her full Victorian skirt. Andromeda had always loved the fashion of this era, and now preferred to wear it as often as possible.

  Prophet rolled over on his side. That massive cock of his hadn’t awakened but it was still quite impressive. He sat up, planted his feet on the floor, rested his elbows on his knees, and sighed.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you purposefully sought me out when you knew I’d be naked.”

  Andromeda smiled. “But you certainly know better.”

  It had been nearly a week since she’d last seen him. Corvus, the leader and oldest of all the Guardians, had nearly killed him. Prophet looked no worse for wear from the inconvenience.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Where is Eden?” she replied, curious as to why Prophet’s lover had left him in bed alone. If he were Andromeda’s man, he’d never be left alone. Not even to pee.

  He looked so thoughtful at the mention of her name. A forlorn expression shadowed his handsome face, but he gave no indication of where Eden was.

  For nearly a week, time seemed to stand still. The Ancients, who had come together to fight against Sakarabru’s Brood Army, had scattered, left to wallow in their hopelessness and the dread of what they all knew to be their inevitable end.

  The alpha Were leaders were calling their packs to their compounds, ensuring that families remained together and that all of those who remained alive were accounted for. In Andromeda’s travels, she had overheard discussions and plans being made about how to lessen the number of lives lost in the event that this world fell as the ancient world Theia had fallen so long ago. Then the ancients, or what remained of them, had been left to try to build new lives in this one. Now the Fey were so caught up in the glamor of their lavish lives that they had barely been touched by the hardships that had befallen this world. They hid in their magic inside condos and castles, wearing titles like Senator, CEO, and Your Highness like shields. But even they worried that all those good and pretty things they’d created for themselves would end with the world, when Eden finally succumbed to the Omen.

  Only the oily and seedy vamps seemed to relish the impending doom hanging heavy overhead like a storm cloud. They were partying like it was 1999 because there was no one to stop them, crush them, or remind them that in the grand scheme of all things, they were nothing more than the disgusting mosquitoes of this world.

  Lesser shifters gathered together, hoarding food, water, and supplies, again preparing for the worst. Other ancients, including the vamps, had found a way to thrive in those outlying places where humankind had gone to hide when the Brood was hunting them. They’d found power in human fear and desperation, fed on it, literally siphoned the life from those hapless beings like sipping soda through straws, convincing them that the vamps were gods, saviors who capable of great things. Shit! Vamps were faster and stronger than humans, and they had that blood-sucking thing happening, which some humans found absolutely mesmerizing for some odd reason. But they truly were disgusting creatures. Nasty and unsanitary.

  The part of humanity that had been forgotten and left to its own devices during the worst part of the Demon’s rule were ignorant creatures who’d fall for just about anything—and did. Gangs were born out of those human communities, some siding with the vamps, others fighting against them. Fighting broke out over things like water, food, shelter, and weapons. And while the world was beginning to mend itself and put its cities back together, these fools insisted on acting like it was the Dark Ages. Human capital had become the most sought-after commodity. People bought and sold and traded other people for sex, labor, and blood. All because, for a short while, the world had turned on its ear.

  Some ancients, like Prophet, had fought alongside Eden and her human friends to try and save the humans fighting the vamps and their gangs. It had been a way to kill time, Andromeda supposed, to keep their minds off the real threat to survival—which always circled back to Eden.

  Prophet and Eden had come back here to this place, their secluded home in Vermont, to do what? Wait?

  “Who will stop her now, Guardian?” Andromeda asked, assaulting him with this hard question before he’d fully shaken the sleep from his head.

  His race, the Guardians of Theia, had never fully embraced Earth as their home. The winged, silver-eyed, gorgeous bunch were elusive and reclusive. They had abandoned Prophet long ago because his mate, Mkombozi, Eden’s predecessor, had been responsible for killing many of their mates. Guardians mated once during their lives. If they had the misfortune of losing a mate to death before meeting their own demise, then they were destined to suffer through the rest of their long lives alone. Prophet had been the only one to get a do-over because his mate had been reincarna
ted as Eden. It was the fine print to end all fine print, and his kind hated him even more because of it.

  “It’s been months,” he snapped irritably. “Months since she bonded with the final Omen and killed the Demon. Eden is fine, Seer. She’s made your so-called prophecy a lie.”

  “It’s not my prophecy and it’s not a lie,” Andromeda countered. “And yes, Guardian, she has lived with the bonds of the Omen longer than any of us anticipated, but the truth is still inevitable. She will succumb to them. They will overwhelm her someday, and when they do, who will stop her? She has killed the only one who ever could.”

  Khale, the Dragon and Great Shifter, had been the sole being capable of undoing Eden. She had been the leader of the ancient army on Theia fighting the world war against Sakarabru, the Demon. She had been Mkombozi’s mother—and the one responsible for her daughter’s demise when the Omen had overpowered Mkombozi, the original Redeemer and the one for whom the Omen was made.

  “You didn’t foresee this?” he asked. “Seer of the Ages, the great Andromeda. I thought you saw it all. I thought you knew all. And yet the death of Khale slipped past you.”

  It was true. Andromeda, unlike her sisters who were also Seers, had the ability to transcend time and space to see all: the past, present, and future, heaven and hell. But she hadn’t seen Khale’s death.

  “I see . . . I see what I see, Guardian,” she responded, choking back frustration.

  If his intent was to blame her for Khale’s untimely death, he wasted his time. She blamed herself for failing to see it. Not that it mattered. Andromeda couldn’t have stopped Eden from killing Khale. Andromeda couldn’t have interfered even if she’d wanted to.

  “The fact remains that there is no one who can stop Eden when the Omen take her. The fact remains that Eden is not fine, as you or she would like to believe.” Andromeda didn’t bother to try and hide the dread in her words. “This world is living on borrowed time,” she warned. “Your girlfriend is going to go nuclear, and when she does . . .” Andromeda shook her head. “May whatever gods exist help us all,” she said in an overly dramatic fashion.