Vampire Mage Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Description

  Copyright

  Books in the Rebel Verse

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  About the Author

  VAMPIRE MAGE

  REBEL ANGELS BOOK FOUR

  Rosemary A Johns

  VAMPIRE MAGE

  REBEL ANGELS BOOK FOUR

  In the supernatural war of angels vs vampires, magic is a savage prince.

  Nothing could’ve prepared Violet for initiation into the Legion of the Phoenix. Perilous. Nightmarish. Deadly. If the training doesn’t kill her, the sly hot shifter probably will for not saving their world from the fanatical cult leader. The lone female apprentice mage, Violet is trapped in the Brotherhood with an army of angels brainwashed to annihilate vampires.

  When three wishes offer her deepest desires, she should’ve known better than to trust them. Even if she lives through the hellish magic Initiation alongside the harem boy angel, she still must face the vicious Mage’s Challenge. If she doesn’t, the seductive vampire geek she loves will be kept forever as their pet, whilst her snarky angel lover will be executed, only to be resurrected as a slave.

  Violet must fight beside her monstrous half-brother, the prince, who hungers to force the world to kneel…or battle against him to become a hero to those she loves. Either way, dangerous magic is unfurling inside her, and new realms are about to open that threaten them all…

  VAMPIRE MAGE: REBEL ANGELS BOOK FOUR © copyright 2019 Rosemary A Johns

  www.rosemaryajohns.com

  First edition 2019

  Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Book Cover Designer: Rebecca Frank

  Fantasy Rebel Limited

  BOOKS IN THE REBEL VERSE

  REBEL ANGELS

  VAMPIRE HUNTRESS

  VAMPIRE PRINCESS

  VAMPIRE DEVIL

  VAMPIRE MAGE

  VAMPIRE GOD…COMING SOON!

  REBEL VAMPIRES

  BLOOD DRAGONS

  BLOOD SHACKLES

  BLOOD RENEGADES

  1

  Vampires? Angels?

  I ruled the bastards as both angelic princess and Queen of the Under World. Yet now I’m trapped with Lazarus Mages on a hidden island of resurrection and magic.

  And that makes me their bastard.

  Half vampire, half angel, I still lived out a human geek life, until my powers arose phoenix-like on my twenty-first birthday.

  To escape Lucifer, my dad, and an apocalypse, I sacrificed one father, only to be welcomed into the deadly arms of a charismatic mage who played at being a new dad to his lost boy cult.

  Splash.

  When I dived into the waters of the Lower Vault, I shivered. Spluttering on the salty seawater, which burnt down the back of my throat — the ocean crept inside this dank cellar below Mage Rahab Drake’s castle — I beat my black-and-violet wings, flaring fire down their feathers. Then I peered into the gloom.

  Burning eyes blinked back at me.

  Mischief was a brat of an angel, who’d tricked me into making a deal with Rahab to become the first female mage apprentice in the Brotherhood of the Phoenix. The Brotherhood dedicated themselves to the Legion and the Mage (or Rahab, as I pissed off the apprentices by calling the angel, who they’d elevated to godlike leader). Yet Mischief had also plotted the revolution to save the Under World and stop an apocalypse. So, the chance of it being easy to save him from his punishment for choosing my side over Rahab’s in the steel Lower Vault was less than those burning eyes belonging to a tapdancing unicorn.

  Come on, wishing up a tapdancing unicorn…

  I swam backwards, my ash-blonde hair and the ribbons on my bronze uniform — with added violet knee-high boots — coiling like snakes.

  The crimson eyes narrowed.

  Both the ancient angelic and vampiric powers inside me stirred, spitting out violet and black warnings against the creature in the dark.

  I’d never visited the sea because beachside sandcastle bonding hadn’t been a priority at Jerusalem Children’s home and Hackney wasn’t a neighbourhood where you held a shank in one hand and a Mr Whippy ice-cream in the other. This first trip to the ocean wasn’t winning me over to the swimming camp. Plus, I’d never tried doggy paddle with wings dragging me backwards before.

  Where the hell was Mischief?

  When I dragged Mischief out of the Lower Vault’s watery tomb, I’d kick his Fae Angel arse. He’d abandoned me to a world of magic that was less Harry Potter’s style and more Voldemort’s…if he’d had wings.

  Yet it burnt through me, singing wild rhapsodies of knowledge: a realm just behind a door, if I could only push through with the new mental powers that were being taught to me.

  Free myself.

  I shook, scrabbling to touch my feet to the bottom of the vault. When my head ducked beneath the foamy waters, I choked. Shards of lava-hot pain shot through the back of my skull. My new magic wove through my brain, pulsing behind my eye sockets, whilst I struggled not to sink, punishing me for breaking the Brotherhood’s sacred Phoenix Code and the First Reformer, Kunel’s, order.

  I battled against the inferno melting my mind. Mischief had once warned that his magic was alive, squirming inside him. In the Legion’s psycho cult, your mental powers were conditioned (and that’s a fancy word for brainwashed), in line with their Code.

  It was like chivalrous medieval knights but without the chivalry.

  In the last four weeks — and I’d tracked the days by scoring my nails through the rotting wood of the whipping post in the Bailey of Drake’s castle — I’d rebelled so many times, I’d finally collapsed under the torment of the magic. I’d been isolated from my fam: even Drake had been banned from speaking to me. The magic had cleaved to the deep ache inside, where they should’ve been.

  Hollowed me.

  Sighing, Kunel had finally given in and cooled the new magic, until it’d done nothing to my punk arse anymore but slink snake-like, coiling cold and heavy around my throat.

  Epic fail on taming the Queen of Chaos.

  Now it was back to torching me, however, just as the water froze.

  Someone wasn’t happy.

  I smirked, even t
hrough the agony. The bastard shouldn’t have trusted me out alone: newbie mistake.

  A shrill shriek.

  I howled, as my eardrums throbbed like they’d been pierced by needles. When I raised my hands to protect my ears from the high-pitched wail that pulsed from the shadows, I sank under the water, swallowing briny mouthfuls.

  Thrashing wildly, as my wings churned the waters, I dragged myself back to the surface.

  Burning eyes scrutinized me…hovering just above my head.

  A slender beak, sharp and hooked, sizzled against my cheek. Long curved talons carved into my shoulders, lifting me out of the water and up into the air, whilst wings of fire feathers cocooned around me: their heat shimmered, blistering.

  A phoenix.

  Hell, I’d been waiting on discovering one of these Mage Traps.

  I grinned. ‘Come on, fire-bitch, flame me.’

  Another shrill shriek.

  I howled.

  Time to arm your knight, J, so I can ride on my white horse to save the fair damsel.

  You’re the one offering yourself up as the princess sacrifice to the fire breathing bitch with feathers.

  I’m revoking your squire status. Violet fire me before — knight or princess — I’m a chargrilled special.

  The Lower Vault? Phoenixes? You’re showboating, Violet-love: who’s the audience?

  I’m on a rescue mission. My fam is trapped down here.

  Lie to the Legion, but I’ll whip you sweet as apple ass if you lie to me.

  If you shake your thing at the Mage, you’d better be certain it’s his knee you want to sit on.

  There’s no way Rahab will ever be my sugar daddy.

  Oh, girl, every boy here wishes he was special enough to be noticed by Rahab.

  Chosen.

  You’ve spent your life seeking someone to raise you up. Can you resist if this shady dick sees the extraordinary in you? Who will you sacrifice? And where’s the righteousness in that?

  I wriggled against the talons digging into my shoulder. ‘J’ was the sassy voice in my head who’d both raised and controlled me, since I’d been discovered as a baby in Hackney Cemetery on a gravestone.

  Who the hell knew if J was real… But when I was staring into the swirling vortex glare of a mythical creature, in the bowels of a castle whose walls thrummed with magic as if alive, on a hidden island in the middle of the Atlantic, whilst my wings drip, drip, dripped… I wasn’t going to disrespect on the real front.

  Since my segregation with the apprentices, I’d faded to a shade. Sometimes I even doubted whether my own wings were authentic or would drop off back to the blood that’d birthed both them and an entire species of Blood Angels from the Broken slaves on Angel World.

  I still twisted my wings, however, swinging them in blazing arcs at the phoenix.

  Hiss — my wings surged through the phoenix…and out the other side.

  I screamed at the searing of my delicate feathers, whilst the phoenix stared back at me, unruffled.

  Fire doesn’t beat fire: check.

  Instead, I reached inside, tugging at my magic. It scorched me in punishment for breaking three of the Codes. “For real? Get your freaky arsed magical mojo sorted.”

  It hiccupped in agonising flames, before cooling, looping out towards the phoenix and noosing its neck.

  The phoenix jerked backwards, flailing, as its shrill call became nothing but a strangled squawk. I held onto the magic, tightening and freezing.

  Death. The end. Destroyer. Is this what you are now, Violet-death? What your magic is?

  It’s a phoenix. It’ll come back to life, yeah?

  So, resurrection means that death no longer matters…? Or the resurrected don’t…?

  Bam! You’ve become an asshole Lazarus Mage already. Or tell me this, hooker, is it life that doesn’t matter?

  I gritted my teeth and yanked.

  Golden sparks sprayed in the black. I yelped as I tumbled backwards, and the phoenix exploded, blasting me against the wall of the Lower Vault with a wave of shadow babies born on death.

  The shadows shimmered silver edged; their eyes glinted like rubies.

  I edged against the unexpected brick wall in the steel cellar. I traced my fingers across the wall and the holes between the bricks.

  Why the hell had this been built and what was behind it?

  “Good little creepy freakshows. Fly away home to your magical master…” I edged out a loose brick by my head, and it tumbled into the water below with a loud smack. I winced. “…If you don’t mess with the cold, wet, currently Queen of Nothing, who’s killed your…” I looked down. “Then I won’t mess with you.”

  The shadows circled closer.

  I peered into the gap in the wall.

  Mischief slumped, bricked up underwater. A silver gleam illuminated his head. His eyes were closed, and his long silver hair bobbed around him like sparkling seaweed.

  Four weeks walled up beneath the water…

  Now just cool it, Feathers-fear, before you choose the Fae Angel over the cult leader with the keys to the castle and your freedom.

  Rahab killed Mischief. There’s no bastard choice anymore. No one hurts my blokes.

  No one but you…

  I gasped, as my heart thundered.

  Mine, mine, mine…

  How hadn’t I sensed Mischief’s death…?

  I’d reached out; my magic trailed towards Mischief’s. Wouldn’t I have known, if one of my fam…? I choked on a sob. How had Mischief been elevated, even though he wasn’t a Marked or bonded like my punk angel Rebel, and I didn’t love him, not like my vampire geek Ash, to mine?

  But if Mischief wasn’t, why were my cheeks wet with tears and not seawater?

  I growled: I’d take down the Legion and his cult, just like the phoenix. There’d be nothing left but shadows.

  When the phoenix babies nudged at my nose, undulating across my boots, I shooed them away.

  They flashed dangerously. Then they swarmed, covering me head-to-toe in a tar tide of blackness. I yelped, before swallowing the shadows too: bitter and thick down my throat. My eyes were soaked in stinging darkness. I shuddered, as the new power, crackling and nipping, twined with my other warring powers already inside. I convulsed, splashing further down into the water and against the wall in violent jerks, cracking the wall.

  I tipped back my head, as black seeped from my eyes, clouting the wall with my fist. The masonry crumbled.

  Hiss.

  Water snakes, disturbed by my pounding, swam through the holes in the wall, eel-like. Another impossible in the freezing waters of the Atlantic. But there was nothing…real…in the shifting Castle Drake.

  Four weeks walled up underwater with snakes…

  I flinched, as my bleeding nails caught against the bricks, whilst I demolished the wall brick by brick.

  I wasn’t bastard crying: I wasn’t.

  Then I was snatching Mischief out of his grave and soaring up, clutching him to my chest. I landed on the edge of the Lower Vault, laying him out, whilst I knelt over him. The gleam gilded his entire body. He lay still and silent. Hell, I even missed his snarky insults. I tidied his silver leather trousers and tunic, pulling my fingers through his hair to detangle it, as if somehow that would help.

  Bring him to life.

  Yeah, like it’d make up for the fact that I hadn’t fought harder to save him from this punishment. That I’d dived into freeing my mind to magic because despite the torment, Phoenix Code, and the First Reformer’s rules, being part of the Legion was the closest to a family — where I fitted — that I’d ever experienced.

  And all I’d had to sacrifice were my true fam.

  When I bent over Mischief, my tears dripped onto his cheeks. Then even though in the Under World I’d shattered all fairy tales, making an enemy of my Blood Lover sister, who was deluded by the romance of vampires (Fallen angels caught in an epic war with Angel World and angel mages), I tried for Sleeping Beauty.

  I kissed
my princess.

  Magic: it crackled like popcorn. Sparks lit Mischief’s cold lips, as answering static danced against mine. My eyes widened, whilst my arms tightened around him.

  Please…using up every ounce of karma I’ve earnt for saving the world…please…

  Mischief’s eyes fluttered open, as the gilt gleam faded.

  I grinned against his mouth; my fingers trailed down his warming arm.

  Mischief’s confused gaze met mine, as our snog continued, swapping our magic between us like our tongues with an electric hum.

  Coming around from four weeks of torture to being molested… It put a whole new spin on Prince Charming.

  I flushed, pulling back. Our magic fought to hold us together: silver and violet spiralled in the air between us. I dragged in my angelic power with an embarrassed snap.

  Awkward.

  I’d expected Mischief to puke water. Instead, he blinked at me, studying the Legion’s adapted uniform for its one and only female apprentice: bronze ribbons wrapped around my thighs, tiny bronze skirt, tight shirt and scarf in rich velvet: like an aristocratic anime. He sniffed. “Oh, I shan’t call you beast anymore,” his voice was raspy but not like he’d swallowed water into his lungs. “You shall be my Sailor Moon.”

  I blushed, pulling at my shirt self-consciously.

  Maybe I hadn’t missed those snarky insults.

  “You were dead…” I pointed a shaky finger at him. “I just brought you to life.”

  He caught my hand, brushing his lips against the back of it. “My hero.” His lips quirked, mockingly. “What diversion would Mage Drake have if I was dead? He walls you in…then the water creeps up inch by inch…” Mischief pulled himself up on his elbows. “Finally, just before you drown, he allows you to paint yourself in protective magic. You still feel the dark, fear, and isolation but you don’t drown. My, what a shame for the Mage: he doesn’t have a new Brother with equal imagination.”