Chapter One
Midnight’s Letter, Thursday September 5th
MIDNIGHT
To my king, Fox, and future queen, Magenta,
Your love makes my blood sing.
Please, let me serve you.
Once, I served the King of the Under World's Court. I trained every day to become Lucifer's knight because I yearned for his Light. His spark burned temptingly bright.
I’d have walked into the fire for him because he was the flames.
Yet I was cast into the darkness. But didn’t I deserve to be, since I failed him?
I was the Cursed One. How had I ever thought that the moon would be allowed to love the sun?
When you read this, will you push me down to my knees in the shadows, silence my tongue, and curse me as nothing more than whipping boy?
Want me, want me, want...
I'll be your loyal knight forever, and for a vampire, forever is an eternity of love and blood.
The day in the Under World that I became Lucifer's Cursed, started with dad, Commander Scalds, dragging me into the Crypt for judgment. Scalds’ back was military straight, and his large ash wings beat in a display of dominance.
I curled my own wings around myself, wincing at the way that Scalds’ fingers dug into my arm.
I bit my tongue hard enough to taste my own tangy blood.
Don't make a sound, look down, or flinch at the taunts of the regiment who'd trained alongside me for decades (who would've been my friends if I hadn't been the Cursed One), at my nakedness.
After all, I'd failed the trials to become a knight in the ranks of the First Fallen, the FF. We were the first to Fall from Angel World with Lucifer, even if humans believed that we were vampires.
I wouldn't make trouble now. Didn't I deserve the shame?
I stumbled on a pile of bones, catching my foot on a skull. Scalds tutted, hauling me faster after him, and I hit my hip against a crypt. My world lit up with pain. I curled my hands into fists to keep in the cry.
Bones and blood, what would be the judgment for my failure?
Was I about to die?
My breath hitched, and my pulse pounded in my ears.
The Fallen sprawled on the dusty floor or leaned against the marble walls, watching like this was just another show in the wildness of the Under World.
My chest ached worse, when I caught the pitying gazes of my Midnight Gang. They were my best friends, who sneaked me out at night from under dad’s strict supervision to show me the revelry of the true Under World. We’d swagger to bet on the cage fights in the Bone Carnival or dance for hours in the arms of Blood Lovers.
Lost in a haze of tequila, blood, and the beat, beat, beat of the music, I’d never wanted to open my eyes the next morning to find myself back as Commander Scalds’ cursed son.
Don’t make me open my eyes.
My gang tried to blank their expressions, but their distress trembled through me.
I didn’t deserve their sympathy.
They’d passed the trial. I was the Commander’s own son, and I’d failed.
I’d brought shame on my name.
The fiery violet tips of the Fallens’ gray wings lit up the gloom of the medieval arched court room. I shuddered. This had once been a human cathedral that'd been bombed during one of the human wars. Our Under World was beneath London and built upon their dead.
It'd be a fine thing to explore the living human world, but I'd never even been above ground. There was nothing but the darkness and Lucifer's Light.
Don't let Lucifer kill me. Let dad wield the sword...
My waves of midnight black hair shielded my modesty down to my waist, but I blushed, covering my prick with my hand. On my fangs, I'd dreamed many times of Lucifer summoning me to him and then being stripped. Yet I'd have been a willing alabaster sacrifice on my king's silk sheets. I'd lost myself late at night in the fantasy of his eyes, which would hold me mesmerized beneath him like twin suns.
Without Lucifer there was only shadow.
Had he even noticed me? Even though he'd never spoken to me, could the king love me?
I don't deserve love. I was born to obey. I'm nothing but a curse.
I groaned, as the thought knifed through me. As always, it split my head with a wave of nauseating pain, until I mouthed the words against my will.
"I don't deserve love. I was born to obey. I'm nothing but a curse," I muttered.
Scalds slammed me against a column, chaining my arms above my head, until I scrabbled to stand on tiptoes. The back of my thighs burned, and my arms ached.
To be Fallen was to embrace pleasure in the bedlam of our freedom, but Scalds kept me locked up, forcing me to study harder than any other soldier because he was terrified that I'd infect the rest of the FF. He didn’t know that my brave Midnight Gang broke the rules to show me a glimpse of how joyful life could be. They’d promised me that once the trial came, I’d pass it and become a full FF.
Then I’d be free.
How many nights had I shook, dreaming of my freedom? How many days had I suffered, holding on because of that promise?
Promises were nothing but pain. I’d never be tricked by them again. They were lies, lies, lies…
What was wrong with me?
I swallowed. Why had I been born the Cursed One?
Don't touch, speak, or listen to me, and never, ever love me.
I never knew another name, until I became a Fallen Angel and dared to believe that a creature like me was worthy to claim one.
Midnight.
As dark as my hair, eyes, wings against the paleness of my skin, and the blackness, in which I was hidden away.
"Cursed One," a boy angel once hissed at me. "I see the wickedness bleeding from you."
I'd drawn back, certain not to touch him. I'd infect him. Then he'd be cursed and unloved as well. I'd wrapped my wings around myself, flushing. My heartbeat had been too rapid, and my breathing had become ragged.
Was the curse in my feathers? The tumble of my hair or the strangeness of my mind?
Scalds tilted up my chin; I hadn't even realized that I'd ducked my head. "Never drop your gaze, see, that's for cowards."
I studied the furious gleam in Scalds’ black eyes. His hair was molded like gleaming oil, but he was quivering. I didn't know whether with rage or fear for me. He wore the chocolate blazer of all the FF, which was open over his bronzed muscled chest, and bondage trousers with a thick belt. I glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the regiment who were the devoted enforcers for Lucifer. Today, I should've been standing at their side, rather than hanging in chains.
I gazed longingly at Scalds’ feathered tattoo that marked him out as an initiated FF. The tattoo was inked on his neck, as if his loyalty to his king was the only way that he could breathe.
Lucifer was my breath, even if today, he stole mine.
I tilted up my chin. "I don’t lack courage, Commander.”
Scalds considered me. “You only lack everything else.”
I flushed. Why had I failed the test? I’d fought hard, taken the trial, and studied almost without sleep for the exams. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself demanding that on the heart of pain tell me how I could’ve still failed.
Yet defiance when you were bound for punishment only made things doubly worse.