A Dark Kiss of Rapture Read Free

their voices to be heard.
“I’d say I was more of a bouncer. One who’s going to bounce all
your nutty asses into Hell.”
    “Where are your friends? Surely you didn’t
come to such an occasion alone?”
    “Yeah, it’s just me. I tried to round up
more of a party, but everyone said it’d be a dud. They were right.”
Although he kept his descent easy and casual, Raze was hyperaware
of new participants to the game as black-clad minions crawled
toward him like ants. “Who are you?”
    “Don’t you remember me?”
    “Nope. You don’t ring any bells.” He could
tell being forgotten really chafed and that made him smile. In the
back of his mind, he considered the possibility that Adrian might
leave him hanging in the wind—the Sentinel hadn’t actually agreed
to show up. But Raze had no choice but to proceed as if
reinforcements were on the way. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”
    “That’s my goal.” The man walked closer, his
arms extended in dramatic fashion. “The Fallen are so busy wishing
to be the angels you once were that you never enjoy being what you
are.”
    Raze pulled one katana out of its sheath,
the moonlight glinting off the silver-plated blade. “The only thing
I don’t like about what I am now is how much time I have to waste
hunting dickheads like you.”
    “Ah... you’d prefer to continue your quest
to fuck everything willing to sate your lust. Of all the Fallen,
you’re one of the most pitiable. At least the others fell for love.
You fell only because you can’t keep you dick out of warm, wet
holes.”
    Pivoting, Raze sliced the head off the
minion who’d attempted to come at him from behind. He took out two
more who lunged from the sides, his speed and strength fueled by
the bitter truth that had been thrown in his face. Grimm’s eternal
love bullshit was why Raze had volunteered to hunt him down to
begin with. The twisting of love to achieve an even more twisted
end stirred violence and fury inside him. He’d watched his fellow
Watchers give up their wings for it, and Grimm’s doctrine made a
mockery of that terrible, heartrending sacrifice.
    “See how he slays the bravest of us?” the
idiot prophet asked his minions. “His own people. Weakening us from
within. This is who we’ve elected to follow and yet they lead us
nowhere! We remain in the shadows, hidden from the world,
while—”
    “Are you going to shut him up,” Adrian
asked, landing gracefully on a bench and swatting away the incoming
surge of minions with an impatient swat of his massive wings, “or
is that what you needed me for?”
    The vampires on the field had staggered to
their feet when Adrian appeared and now they scrambled in every
direction. It was a natural, instinctive urge to run from an apex
predator, but the Sentinel leader himself inspired a unique awe and
fear. Like Syre, Adrian had been blessed by the Creator, gifted
with a face and form that was the height of angelic perfection. The
thirty-foot expanse of his alabaster wings glimmered in the
moonlight, the pure pristine white of the feathers framed by
crimson tips, as if he’d trailed the edges through freshly spilled
blood. That band of red was a vivid reminder of what he was—a
weapon tasked with punishing the Fallen and containing their
minions.
    “He’s mine.” Raze raced down the steps and
vaulted onto the field at the same moment a dozen lycans in lupine
form hit the grass, converging on the panicked mass. He went after
the leader, who surprisingly stood his ground and faced off with a
pistol in hand.
    “I could change your life, Raze.”
    “Gimme your name.”
    “Does it matter?”
    Raze shrugged and twirled his blade with
practiced ease. “Always good to have a name to go with a kill.”
    The man smiled. “You won’t kill me. You need
me to tell you if there are more of us, and if so, how many more
and where they are. And I won’t kill you because I need you, too.
If you’d think outside the box, you’d realize that you