“Is your name Kaitlyn Lightson, and do you swear to tell the whole truth to the Rights of Angels?” the angel in the middle asks me, his voice echoing around the room. I notice how none of them are dark angels, all of them are light, but their wings aren’t like mine. They are falling apart with barely any feathers on them. “Do answer us!”
“Y-yes,” I shudder out, and silence rings out around the room. A throat clears behind me, and I turn around to see I’m not alone. The room is full of guards, at least thirty of them, and I recognise one of them straight away: Riley. He stands in the middle of the guards at the front, and his uniform has two silver pins on the breast pocket, and the weapons on his belt look expensive, dipped in gold. The once pale, skinny guy he turned into under the vampires’ control is long gone now. His eyes meet mine, and for a moment, I think back to the two kids who used to sneak into my mum’s kitchen and steal the cookies she just got out of the oven before running across the garden to eat them. We were once so innocent of the world around us, and it never had a chance to corrupt us both. I see the reality of the world, the cruelty of the angels, and the mistakes of the vampires, but I know Riley will only ever love the angels. The vampires are his enemy, and they are my home.
Things have changed for us both, and there isn’t a way back from this anymore. I could never forgive him for the actions he took, and he could never forgive me for loving the vampires.
“We find you guilty of betraying the angels; how do you plead?” the angel asks me, and I turn back to him.
If I’m going to go down, I might as well go in flames. They will never, ever let me be free after what I did, and this might be the only chance I have to tell the angels what I really think.
“I find every single angel here guilty of killing their children,” I shout, clasping my hands together behind my back and lifting my head high. “Vampires were born from angel blood, they are your children, and you kill them like they are nothing to you. How could you kill an entire race who are related to you? What gives you the right to kill them all? How can you live with yourselves?”
Of course, no one answers me, but I do hear the guards whispering behind me. “Three goddesses came to earth. One of them bore an angel’s child, and that’s how the vampires were created. Why is this not in your history books? Why do you care so little for the child of an angel and a goddess?”
“You speak lies, and they will not save you from your sentence,” the middle angel plainly states, though I see a little wobble in his eyes. Seems my words have hit a nerve somewhere.
My hands shake as I meet the angel eyes who spoke. “I’m a light angel, and it’s hard for me to lie. It’s impossible for me to lie so easily, and you know that.”
“The vampire blood in your system means you do not follow the rules of most light angels,” he effortlessly responds. “Now answer us. How do you plead?”
“If believing the vampires should be saved means I am guilty, then I plead guilty,” I answer, and like a vise is wrapped around my throat, I suddenly can’t breathe. Light blasts around my eyes, and my feet leave the ground as I scratch at my throat, but there is nothing there. Air slowly leaves me as I hear Riley shouting something, and suddenly the vise around my neck disappears, and I slam onto the cold ground. I look up to see Riley in front of me, his back to me and his hands in the air.
“The light above should see her first.” I catch the end of his sentence as he lowers his hands, and I cough, sucking in much-needed air. “She is important to him, and I don’t believe he wants her dead. He told me as much.”
“Fine,” one of the angels responds, and light burns a circle around me once more. Riley looks down at me and steps closer to the light as I gasp for air, trying to breathe in what I can.
“You saved my life once, and now we are even. I hope you don’t hate me,” he softly tells me, like I’m a wounded child he is trying to soothe. Like he did when I was eight and fell sideways off the slide at the park, cutting all my back. I needed ten stitches, and Riley was at my side the whole time, holding my hand while my mother held my other hand. My dad couldn’t stand blood and had to sit down in the corner of the room because the nurses were scared he would pass out. There are so many memories between us, even when we have come to a point where we are not on each other’s side anymore. “Stay alive, Katy. Please. Just see the light above is right. Your future is with me and the angels, not them.”
I don’t give him an answer as the light hurts my eyes, and I close them, hoping the light above is in a good mood.
Knowing my luck...that is not going to happen.
Chapter 53
When the light finally burns away, I open my eyes only to find myself in a new room with blue walls covered in silver symbols. On the other side of the room is an archway with grey slate stone doors that are held open, and I can see three angel guards outside. This room is dome-shaped, and in the centre is a floating sphere of yellow light that feels so wrong to me. I scramble back, pushing my back against the dome wall as the light moves and speaks, shimmering with each word. It’s alive…it’s a real being inside an actual light. I never thought the light above would be a literal light. That’s not even the weirdest thing though. Around the sphere of light are three ghosts, women in long white gowns, and they all turn to me. They have floor-length blonde hair, long white cloaks hanging from their shoulders made from a blue material. They both look nearly the same, and only one thing is different about them. The woman on the left has a long scar down her cheek. They scare me silly, even when they are enchantingly beautiful. They each place a finger to their lips before they disappear…literally vanish.
What in the name of ghosts?
“You were my saviour, and you betrayed your people for love,” the voice says, and I stare at the light. “Yet one of my most loyal angels loves you. Wishes for you to be born again, your memories taken and reshaped.”
“You’re the Great Light. The light above, the creator of angels,” I whisper in awe and a little fear. “Were you ever real? Or were you always a light?”
I don’t expect it to answer me as I try to crawl across the room, and it moves closer. Dammit. This thing is creepy.
“I once had a body that women loved and the world worshipped until my creator decided I had gone mad and banished me from the earth,” he growls, his voice filled with spite. “I made my own world, my own people, and in time earth will be ours. We are so close, but you have made it harder for us.”
“How did I?” I demand. “Why do you hate the vampires so much? Why am I important to you?”
“The vampires are not a creation I wanted. The angels I made were not meant to take the goddess as their lover. The goddess betrayed me! She was meant to be with me!” he shouts, and the power from his voice pushes my whole body against the wall, hurting me. The tension in the room crushes me like a bug, and I scream, holding my hands against my own ears until it finally stops, and I drop to the floor, gasping for air.
“Why am I your saviour? Why me?” I demand, and the pressure slowly drifts away.
“When the angels made vampires, I became curious about the creatures, so I created my own vampires with the last of my power, with the magic that held my body together...your ancestors. They had hair spun like golden silk, skin paler than the moon, and I loved them as much as I loved the vampires...but it didn’t last.” He pauses and the light flickers. “My vampires wanted to be with their own kind and left their home and made friends with the other vampires. They had half-breed children...they ruined the perfection I had created, so I had no other option.”