Angel Hunter- Redemption Book 2 Read online

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

  Copyright 2018 by LaVerne Thompson

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever known, not known or hereafter invented, or stored in any storage or retrieval system, is forbidden and punishable by the fullest extent of the law without written permission of the author. LaVerne Thompson. [email protected]

  Editor- Leanore Elliott

  Line Editor- Refreshed Edits

  Cover Art- Fiona Jayde

  http://fionajaydemedia.com

  Cover Model-Adam Fletcher

  Photographer- Golden Czermak

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The second book in the Redemption Series has been a while in coming but I hope very much worth the wait. I have to acknowledge my readers who enjoyed the first book in the series and kept asking for more. This is for all of you. I write because of you all.

  I also want to thank all of my beta-readers for their insights on this one. You know who you are. Much love.

  Lastly, L reminded me that candy comes in many colors and we enjoy them all. So Skittles anyone?

  Prologue

  Heaven help us. They be angels. The soulless be banished angels.

  Tis day twas me visited by one such. Blindingly beautiful he was in his golden splendor and bright white wings. Hard ta believe, but believe ye did, ye must. My sisters and I ha been given a task we canna ignore. We are ta continue ta observe and bare witness ta the soulless deeds on earth. We who are merely human but blessed wid both gift and curse. But forbidden ta interfere until we too are called upon. I ha learned other humans are aware of the soulless and even now hunt them. Alas our task is to merely observe and bare witness ta the deeds of those who hunt too. We have been given a great responsibility and burden dat will be passed on ta those who come after us.

  Tread carefully future sisters mine. Do not forget. As ye judge so will ye be.

  Kalipia first Chronicler

  Warning to those who follow

  Translated by Minvera, 5th daughter of the Seventh House.

  Chapter One

  Clang

  The sound of naked steel clashing against the same had Devlin and the two other men with him running between the parked cars. Devlin was pretty sure the men hadn’t heard the sounds, but he did, and they trusted him enough to follow him blindly into battle. They were human—well at least the two with him were—but enlightened and highly trained hunters involved in a war few other mortals fathomed.

  They fought soulless immortal creatures to save human lives.

  The soulless, fallen angels banished to earth, stripped of emotion and charged with finding redemption, most called that bullshit. He did because most, too often, chose to prey on human emotions and destroy life. The soulless willingly turn blood vampire and emotional succubi. Feeding on blood and sex fueled by strong emotions to nourish the emptiness of their soulless existence. Eventually, their prey would give up their lives by force.

  Too bad when the soulless were stripped of emotion they weren’t also stripped of all their powers and strength. As punishment for whatever crimes they’d committed as angels, God ripped both soul and emotion from them and banished them to earth with one chance of gaining redemption. Even the memory that they were once angels had been taken from them, until recently. But hunters provide a balance. Humans who are aware of the soulless, specially trained, who stand together to protect humanity against these unearthly, beautiful, beguiling parasites. Devlin and others hunt them and stop them the only way they can be stopped: by divesting them of their heads.

  Devlin was thrilled at the knowledge he was about to send some of these fuckers into whatever passed for their hell. He slowed, narrowed his gaze, and scanned the area. The lights from several lampposts illuminated a wide section, making it appear as if it were the middle of the day. The men came to a stop in the large outdoor parking lot.

  “Where?” Tony asked. “I don’t see anything.”

  “It’s here,” Devlin responded.

  The music resonating from inside the domed stadium behind them was somewhat muted, but the sold out concert inside The Forum raged in full swing. So no one saw them. Just rows upon rows of empty parked cars. But not quite deserted, and the reason the men stood there poised to fight.

  Large gatherings of unsuspecting humans tended to attract the soulless. Looking to feed off both the positive and negative energies that places like concerts generated. Now only hunger drove them. An insatiable need to feel, the need to fill the hollowness inside with stolen emotions. Any emotion, self-inflicted or not. Mostly not. The soulless had a nasty habit of forcing negative emotions on unsuspecting humans.

  There were a few who did no harm, those merely drained already existing negative harmful emotions from humans leaving them in a more stable and better condition. Then there were the others. The ones that thrived on negative emotions, the ones who deliberately fueled it, caused it. Then sucked their prey dry, feeding off those emotions by draining humans of blood and life energies until they were dead. The vampires of their kind.

  Devlin was a hunter and he and others hunted these kinds of soulless. Problem was you usually couldn’t tell one kind from the other until they made a move, and sometimes by then, it could be too late.

  A dissonant cord came from the right and as one, all three men pivoted and took off running between the cars in that direction. Coming upon a picture which had the hunters momentarily stunned. Fangs gleaming in the moonlight, a soulless one fought with a lone human woman. A silver sword about twenty inches from tip to handle and an inch wide sliced through the air aiming to kill. The moment the woman jumped back to avoid the swipe of the soulless blade to her ribs, Devlin realized she fought back with a short sword of her own. In horror, he watched as she was backed up against the hood of a low hardtop sports car. It hampered her movement and the soulless pressed his advantage. The tip of his blade tore through her leather jacket, piercing her shoulder.

  “Hell no!” Devlin roared. He felt that prick in his soul. The coppery scent of her blood washed over his senses. He knew this woman. Snarling, he leaped the last few feet onto the hood of a car to gain momentum, then somersaulted up and over their heads. As he rotated, he raised his blade and swung it down in an arc. Before his feet hit the asphalt beside the woman, he’d taken the bastard’s head.

  The body crumbled at his feet and the head rolled near the wheel of a car; he didn’t bother to look down at either. He didn’t need to see the pieces turn to ash as his heart thundered in anger against his breast, and he didn’t acknowledge the weird wind blowing against his hair, or watch it lift up the ashes of the soulless to spirit it away. To hell for all he cared. The only good thing about destroying a soulless creature was no body to get rid of. Even the man’s sword was gone. Nothing to show he ever existed. He turned and his gaze locked on the woman leaning against the hood of the car clutching her shoulder.

  The scent of her blood was stronger now, inciting him to want to kill the bastard again. �
��What the hell are you doing here?” he growled, but there was no time for her to answer. Two more soulless rushed them from the shadows.

  The other hunters moved to intercept one and Devlin took on the other, who seemed determined to get to the woman leaning on the car.

  Over his dead body.

  Rage infused Devlin’s normal calm. Twice in one night, the woman’s life was in danger. The soulless he fought raised his sword arm too high, leaving an opening, a mistake, and Devlin used it. With all his strength, he brought his blade down and chopped his arm off from the shoulder. Dark red blood gushed from the wound like an open faucet and his howl of pain shook the ground. The soulless dropped to his knees. Devlin raised his blade again to send the bastard to where he should have been sent in the first place: Hell.

  “No! Stop! Don’t kill him.”

  At the shouted words, Devlin’s blade halted mid-swing. Only years of well honed skills allowed him to do this. Still, his muscles trembled with the effort.

  The plea in Evangeline’s voice stopped him. The other soulless, seeing he was outnumbered and losing against the well-trained hunters, scrambled across two cars and rushed into the night. The other hunters chased after him, but Devlin didn’t expect them to catch him. The bastards could move like the wind when they ran.

  He turned to the woman, but kept his sword aimed at the male on the ground. “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  “Yes. I’ll be fine. But please don’t kill him. Let him go.” Her gaze rested on the being beside them.

  The creature on his knees raised his head. The man could have made a fortune from the exquisiteness of his features alone. Like all soulless, he was hauntingly beautiful, but he watched her with the dark dead eyes of a soulless one. Eyes no human could hope to look into and not become enthralled, a slave to their will, and a participant in their own demise. “You plead for me?” the male hissed.

  “Yes,” Evangeline whispered without staring directly into his eyes.

  Devlin kept a close watch on them both.

  “Why? I would have killed you and gorged myself on your fear. Still would. Why would you spare me, let me go?” the soulless asked.

  “Because you’re one of God’s creatures and you need to remember who and what you are,” she replied.

  The fallen barked a laugh. Not an ounce of warmth in the sound. “Yes, I have heard the story, we were once angels banished to earth, but we are angels no more.” With the speed of his kind he surged to his feet, his remaining hand outstretched reaching for her throat.

  Devlin stood ready for him, with no intention of letting him touch her. Moving faster than the soulless, Devlin cut off the bastard’s head.

  The woman in front of him bowed her own.

  Without missing a beat, he continued his questions. “You didn’t answer my question, Evangeline. What the hell are you doing here?” From one blink to the next, he picked up right where he’d left off, like the encounter with the soulless didn’t faze him—it didn’t. He knew killing bothered her, though.

  “It’s been several months, and that’s how you greet me?” she asked, still not looking at him.

  Months ago, back in New York when they’d first met, Evangeline found out he was a hunter and killing was what he did. She wanted nothing more to do with him. He’d tried to talk to her but she’d refused his calls, only dealing with him about Chronicler and hunter business. She was a Chronicler of the soulless and hunters, keeping records on both sides. Her reaction to what he did and not wanting to have anything to do with him beyond business, both saddened and angered him at the same time. Right now, he knew he shouldn’t yell at her. She’d had quite a scare, but dammit, she’d scared his shit when he saw her about to get her ass handed to the heavens on a silver platter.

  Four months and four days since he’d last spoken to Evangeline. “That was your choice. You blocked my fucking account, blocked my calls and told me via text, you thought it best that I find someone else to consult with.” He snorted. “Even though hunter and Chroniclers now have an agreement. It means shit to you.” He was pissed and he let her know it.

  “We have different beliefs.”

  “Well, I believe you have no fucking business hanging out in places where you can get yourself killed.” Yelling at her was the last thing he wanted to do. He hadn’t been this close to her or spoken to her in months. He’d missed her so much. Missed their online talks. Then suddenly, it was all over. No not suddenly, it hadn’t been until he’d left New York for LA and she’d made it clear their once friendship was over that he realized how much she meant to him.

  She straightened up and got right in his face. “That is not your call. What hunters do is my business,” she yelled right back. Turning her anger on him.

  They’d met online, sharing a love for computers and accessing information through back doors; they were both hackers. They’d become gaming friends, but it wasn’t until they’d actually come face to face that they’d learned who and what else they each really were. Their people might have an understanding, but that didn’t mean their goals were the same. Hunters, like Devlin, wanted the soulless dead. Chroniclers like Evangeline and her aunts refused to pass judgment and condemn them for the hunt. Even though they were supposed to be neutral in this war between hunter and soulless, yet even that had been somewhat changed when the leader of the hunters took a soulless one as his lover. And she was now his wife.

  Still, all Devlin wanted to do was take Eva into his arms. Kiss her. No. He wanted to bury himself so deeply inside her, you’d have to use a nuclear blast to pry him lose. But their relationship never got to that point and now it never would. She hated him and what he did.

  Ever since he’d moved to LA, even before that, ever since she’d found out what he was. A hunter with a touch of soulless blood. She’d distanced herself from him. She couldn’t get past the fact that he was a hunter of soulless and she was a Chronicler of their lives. Sworn to neutrality between the war of soulless and hunter, but more than that, she didn’t believe in the killing he had to do.

  “Look we’re never going to agree. But we’re damn well going to have to work together,” she continued.

  “This will never work.” Devlin understood she believed the soulless could be saved. That the hunters were wrong to condemn them all without at least giving them a chance to show they were harmless to humans or redeemable. To her, that was the whole point of their banishment, a chance for redemption. Especially now, since they knew these creatures were once freaking angels. He sheathed his blade and raked his fingers through his hair.

  She appeared shocked. “The agreement means a lot to me. Thalya and Samuel have proven they can be trusted.”

  He snorted. This was an old argument between them. She liked to use his friend Samuel and his wife Thalya to prove her points. Samuel was a master hunter, the best they had, as well as a hybrid. His father had been soulless, his mother human. And Thalya had been soulless but found her redemption through Samuel’s love for her, and now had a soul. To Eva and the other Chroniclers, they were living proof the soulless could be saved.

  Like Samuel, Devlin was a hybrid of sorts, his grandfather was soulless, and like Samuel’s father, regained his soul. “You and I both know those who regained their souls are few and far between. All of the soulless I’ve ever met, with the exception of Thalya, are nothing but deadly parasites feeding and encouraging the negative emotions of humans. They bring nothing but death. So I’ll be damned if I stand back and chat one up to determine which kind he is in the middle of a sword fight.” As far as he was concerned, if a soulless was a bloodsucker, they needed to be a dead one. A philosophy of life Eva couldn’t completely agree with.

  “And what of your own grandparent and Samuel’s father? And there are others,” she countered.

  Only the rise and fall of her shoulders and the sound of her soft tears caused Devlin to relent his off limits stance with her and take her into his arms. He knew she was in pain from her wound. He�
�d also promised Samuel and her aunts, the other Chroniclers, he’d watch out for her. Hard to do when the woman you wanted more than your cells needed oxygen hated you and everything you stood for. “There are exceptions, but you know by the time we can tell it would be too late. Your own records support that,” he argued.

  Evangeline was the youngest but the first of the next generation of Chroniclers. He knew she was well aware of what most of them contained, more so than he did. She was in LA to set up a storefront for them there. She’d found a location and the work on the store would be finished in a few weeks. He should know since the contractor was a hunter. As far as the world was concerned, her family were rare book collectors who owned stores in the US, Canada, and other parts of the world. But they did a hell of a lot more than that.

  “Were you following them or me?” She tried to push away from him but he couldn’t quite release her and merely looked down at her.

  She’d been in LA for almost three months; he’d seen her when she first arrived at the airport, but she hadn’t known he was there, he’d kept his distance. Knowing she wanted nothing to do with him. The only reason she saw him now was because she’d been in trouble. Damn good thing he’d taken to tailing her, but his hunters had already been planning on hanging around the concert venue anyway, knowing soulless would show up there.

  Devlin shrugged. “Yes, damned right I was following you.” The soulless were assembling in the area. It was why he’d been sent to oversee LA. Tonight proved it wasn’t safe for her here. He’d even watched over her at night a few times, making sure she got home safe. But always, he’d made sure she didn’t see him. He felt like a Peeping Tom at times, but couldn’t help himself.

  “Th-thank you,” she stuttered and trembled slightly in his arms.