Wraith Read online

  Wraith

  Angelis Series

  Book II

  Ebony Olson

  Published 2023

  Published by

  EbandMuse Publications

  Sydney, Australia

  * * *

  Copyright © 2022 by Ebony Olson.

  Cover by Frina Art

  Editing by Striding Ibis Editing

  All rights reserved. These books or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  http://ebonyolson.com/

  Contents

  Preface

  Prologue

  1. Spectra

  2. Bay

  3. Spectra

  4. Bay

  5. Spectra

  6. Bay

  7. Spectra

  8. Bay

  9. Spectra

  10. Bay

  11. Spectra

  12. Bay

  13. Spectra

  14. Bay

  15. Spectra

  16. Bay

  17. Spectra

  18. Bay

  19. Spectra

  20. Bay

  21. Spectra

  22. Bay

  23. Spectra

  24. Bay

  25. Spectra

  26. Bay

  27. Spectra

  28. Bay

  29. Bay

  30. Spectra

  31. Bay

  32. Spectra

  33. Mercury

  34. Spectra

  35. Bay

  36. Spectra

  37. Mercury

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Join the Beautiful and Deadly

  Dark Fantasy / Paranormal Romance by Ebony Olson

  Romance Suspense by Ebony Olson

  About the Author

  Preface

  Spectra

  I am the daughter of the Archangel Michael, and therefore, the only female Angelis walking the earth. I didn’t know I was anything more than human until I was nineteen, and then assumed I was a low-ranked Nephilim.

  Since Michael didn’t stick around to be a daddy, I wasn’t trained as a child. While I could syphon naturally without realising what I was doing, shielding has been a steep learning curve. One recently achieved by facing my greatest fear.

  When I was eighteen, I died. Thankfully, the soul remains with the body for three days. Before I could convert, my best friend, Alexander Williams—sorcerer and now L’Ordre of the Nachtwelt—enlisted the help of another Angelis to save me. When he did, Alexander tied part of my soul to his, binding us in a way that draws us like magnets to be together. The only way to save me was to bring me back as a Wraith. A ghost who can take corporeal form.

  I am an Angelis, a Wraith, an untrained balance, and an orphan.

  That’s what I am. It’s not who I am.

  Prologue

  Fantôme

  "It's this way."

  Miranda led the way into the basement of the Essence safe house. Her flame-red hair had regained its luster and her face its flawless complexion after a good feed.

  "I called you as soon as I got away, so it's been just over three hours,” Miranda reported. "Bay's people searched the building after getting Spectra out, but they didn't take Paul Samus."

  "Bay knows better," Nika grumbled.

  "Bay wasn't here," Miranda clarified. "He took off when I came to get her."

  Miranda looked over her shoulder at her beautiful sister. Nika’s grass-green eyes were livid. Miranda needed to defuse the situation, or more blood would be spilled before the night ended. "Gina can fill us in with that later. Spectra's alive; let's just focus on keeping her that way."

  Nika nodded. Miranda explained her cover had been blown by the very situation they'd set up to try and protect Spectra. Miranda's idea had been to get Spectra employed at Bay's security company, Pendant, and away from the Nachtwelt Security Intelligence Office, but Nika signed off on it.

  The first clue Nika had to Spectra being anything but human, was when Spectra was eighteen, lying dead in a morgue.

  Nika stood there looking over the corpse of the person she'd vowed to protect when Spectra started exhaling everything out of her lungs in a cry of pain.

  Nika, wide-eyed, concerned she'd been taken, checked for a pulse. Nika's eyes grew bigger when her hand passed through Spectra's skin. The loud pounding of feet stampeding the corridor forced Nika to retreat. Pulling the hood over her head, she passed Alexander Williams in the hall as he raced to reach Spectra.

  As Nika reached the exit, another hooded cloak stood blocking the door. Nika cursed beneath her breath. She didn't need to see his face to know who it was. She knew this Angelis by his sweet sugary smell of caramel. Just like his skin and hair, and as yummy to look at. Sadly, his personality was as cold and blue as his eyes.

  As Nika came close, he shifted to let her pass. "Was she meant to be yours?" The deep timbre of his voice vibrated every erogenous zone in her body. Death should never be this sexy.

  "No." Nika frowned at his query. "I would never do that to her."

  Lincoln Azangelis cocked his head. "Was I too late? Did she convert?"

  Nika was tempted to press her hand to her chest, her heart beating harder than the day she'd been adopted. "Should she?"

  "A balance of her level will always convert three days after death," Lincoln explained. He turned his face down the corridor. "She will be more now, not less. But first, she will need time to adapt, then I will come and find her."

  Nika moved, ramming the Angelis against the wall before his last consonant fell from his lips. "No. Whatever you think you will use her for, the answer is no."

  Lincoln smiled. Nika blinked, and she was against the wall, Lincoln pinning her without even touching her. "I do not use. I am not a predator. She is the only female of my kind known to exist. Had I known of her before this, I would have come for her sooner. She belongs with us."

  "She loves Alexander," Nika gritted, fighting against the invisible restraint.

  Lincoln smirked. He lifted his hand and traced the line of her collarbone. Nika bit her lip on the moan her body produced, all of her muscles contracting in all the right places. "The sorcerer has his part in all this."

  Lincoln peered down the corridor. Nika followed his eyes to see Alexander carrying Spectra up the hospital corridor. Nika's eyes locked on the ghostly figure in the sorcerer's arms. Spectra barely looked like the striking and confident college student she had been a week ago. "What did you do to her?"

  "She'll recover." Lincoln opened the egress door and stepped out. He held the door while Alexander stepped by her.

  "Nika?" Miranda's voice broke through Nika's memory.

  "What?"

  "This is the room," Miranda pointed to a door.

  Nika stepped into the room and observed the mess, taking a deep breath. A large bed was upturned and thrown against the far wall. From beneath the bed, a pair of legs were sticking out.

  "That's very Wizard of Oz," Nika said out loud.

  "Ding, dong, Paul Samus is dead," Miranda said dryly. "He was missing his head before the bed landed on him."

  Miranda moved to the middle of the room, where a large pool of blood was coagulating.

  "This is where I found her." Miranda peered around the room. "I'll see if I can find a mop or towel to soak up most of this blood." Miranda's lean body moved gracefully out of the room.

  Nika knelt by the puddle of Spectra's blood. She lowered her face and inhaled. The sweet scent of toffee and the crunch of apple filled Nika's senses. Sugary, just li
ke every other Nephilim she'd met. Nika hadn't understood that sweetness was a way of identifying Celestial descendants until that night in the morgue, but Spectra had always smelled human. It was only now, up close with a large pool of Spectra's blood, that Nika could smell her species.

  Leaning closer, Nika let the tip of her tongue dip into the blood. Lightning and fireworks flashed in her eyes. Pressing away, Nika took her feet, a snarl reverberating in her throat.

  "They are wed."

  "Who are?" Miranda inquired cautiously as she wheeled a mop and bucket full of bleach into the room.

  "Bay and Spectra," Nika snapped. "I couldn't think of a worse match. What is he doing, putting her life at risk like this? What was she thinking? I warned her what it meant to give her body to a sorcerer, and he's immortal."

  Miranda hesitated. "He loves her; I saw it in his eyes. Maybe she feels the same."

  "She loves the Angelis."

  "Love can be multifaceted, sister."

  Nika huffed. "Let's clean this up before the Essence finds it and realizes Spectra is what they've been looking for."

  Miranda used the mop to soak up the blood, then rinsed it in the bleach.

  "Here, I'll do that. You call Gina and organize to meet her tonight."

  "Nika, is everything okay?" Miranda worried.

  "No, Miranda. Essence came after Spectra once, and someone killed to protect her. They'll want to know why, and they'll come looking for that answer."

  Miranda pouted. "Just when things get interesting, you take me off her watch. I'll go call Gina." She all but stomped out of the room.

  It made Nika smile slightly. Miranda needed a break from babysitting, but that didn't mean she would miss out on the fun of hunting anyone who came after Spectra.

  Nika looked back at the floor and shook her head.

  "Too close a call, Spec. Too close by far."

  Chapter 1

  Spectra

  "You look beautiful." Gina smiled in the mirror behind me, golden-brown eyes sparkling behind her long black lashes. Her blond hair was falling in soft curls around her shoulders, and the dress she wore accentuated her figure in all the right places. "Hair up or down?" she asked, combing her lacquered nails through my long black tresses.

  "Up would accentuate your cheekbones," a female voice declared by the door.

  Gina and I turned to see the hooded figure standing in the doorway. The predator's presence ignited a ball of fear inside me. Immediately behind that alarm was an emotional upheaval too immense for words.

  "Nika, you made it." Smiling, Gina assessed the predator's ripped jeans and hoodie, and she lifted a manicured brow. "Nice to see you made an effort. It's a wedding. Was a dress that impossible to come by?"

  The predator closed the door securely. "You know my face can't be seen here. Formal dresses look even more conspicuous when teamed with a hoodie."

  "You could have gone with a balaclava." Gina shrugged. "Ooh, what about a niqab?"

  Pushing her hood back to expose her pale face, Nika rolled her grass-green eyes. "It's a Catholic Church, Gina. Can I have a few minutes with Spectra?" She shook her dead straight, pale blonde hair free from the hoodie.

  When I nodded, Gina walked over and handed the predator the hairbrush. "I'll wait outside." The door closed with an audible click that made my body jolt.

  "I thought de Sang presence wouldn't be so big a deal for you anymore." Nika narrowed her eyes.

  "Bay is different."

  "Don't I know it." Nika took a step toward me. "Powerful, strong, and moral. It didn't stop him from stealing another man's balance when the opportunity presented itself."

  "It wasn't like that," I defended.

  The de Sang stopped in front of me. "Explain it to me while I do your hair."

  "Alexander and I had grown apart," I mourned, feeling that tug in my soul connected to his. "He strung me along letting me think I could be what he needed after he’d already decided I wasn’t. But he's found someone else." Staring at my hands in my lap, my mind passed over everything that had happened over the last three weeks. I thought of how it felt when Alexander split the ether with me in his arms compared to Bay, the difference in how their raw power affected me and realized something. It didn’t undo the hurt of Alexander’s actions, but it relieved my guilt. “Which is good because I’m not who Alexander needs.”

  Nika brushed my long black hair while I talked, ensuring it was knot-free and silky smooth while I spoke.

  "Bay came to me for work. He didn't know what I was. But there was a connection with him that drove me past my fear. He asked for one night. Initially, I thought it was an opportunity to become Alexander's balance that brought Bay to me, so I took it. I impassioned him and enabled him to feed himself again. In return, he exposed me to his raw power and forced me to learn my ability as a balance. That's all it was. Until it wasn't."

  Lifting my topaz blue eyes, I dared to meet Nika's. The predator watched me while she sectioned and twisted my hair. "But you are here to marry the Angelis?"

  "Yes. Bay agreed it was the best way forward. It was the best choice for many reasons."

  "The main one being your safety," she declared.

  "No. The main one is that I love Mercury. Not because our souls are connected or our bodies, but because I fell in love with him without any mystical connection forcing us. Yes, it will bring me safety, a disconnect from powerful sorcerers in a quiet war, but that was all secondary. I love Merc. We will be happy, have children—"

  "Spectra"—the predator yanked my hair a little—"you wed your physical being to a sorcerer. You are his balance for the rest of your mortal existence. You will only conceive if he wants you to."

  Shocked by this revelation, I blinked at her reflection in the mirror. "You didn't tell me that when you told me to hold out on Alexander."

  "You were barely coherent by the time I explained my being there. Taking in your perilous existence was going to be difficult enough. I didn't want to overburden you." Placing a few pins, Nika stepped back to appraise her work. "You look stunning." She turned to leave.

  "Wait," I called, standing to face her. "How did you know? That I had given my core to Bay?"

  Reaching out, Nika caressed my face. "Your blood told me."

  Meeting her eyes, the room I'd been held in by an Essence member flashed in my mind—a chaotic mess. The large timber bed was tossed aside like it weighed nothing and a blood pool was in the middle of the floor.

  Snapping back to the here and now, peridot eyes swimming in an ocean of scarlet madness pulled me back, and I stumbled into my chair, breathless. Nika's eyes cleared to her natural beauty. "I couldn't leave your blood there for them to find. They would have forgotten Bay, forgotten the cure, after one taste of your non-existence."

  Lifting her hood over her head to hide her features, Nika sighed. "Keep a low profile, Spec. They are still looking for that cure, and now that they have seen it works, they are willing to come into the light of day."

  "I don't believe there is a cure," I murmured. "Not the one they are looking for, anyway."

  The predator met my eyes, not directly, but I could feel them burning through the hood of her sweatshirt. "No cure comes without side effects. Just ask your Angelis."

  Understanding precisely what Nika meant, I swallowed. Her hand touched the door. "Will you stay for the ceremony?" I asked quietly. Her lips tilted up at the side. "I'd like you to be there."

  "I always am, Spec. Even if it's through my minions, I'll always watch over you like your own blood-thirsty guardian angel."

  When Nika opened the door, Gina lifted her brow at her. "Who are you calling a minion, sweetheart?"

  "Do you ever not eavesdrop?" The de Sang huffed.

  "Rarely," Gina shrugged. "It is the job you recruited me for." She moved back into the room while Nika shook her head with a laugh. "Good job with the hair, but you need to make yourself scarce. The groom is growing impatient, and the boss is on his way."

  "Keep h
er safe," Nika cautioned.

  "She's a ghost. She does a pretty good job of doing that herself." Gina rolled her eyes. "But, fine."

  "What was I thinking, recruiting you?"

  "God knows, but you did, so stiff titties," Gina teased.

  "I think the saying is stiff shit," I corrected.

  Gina lifted a brow. "She gets what I meant."

  "Sadly," Nika bemoaned. "I get how she is uncouth" -she gestured to Gina- "trailer trash she is. But, when did your vocabulary die a hellion's death?"

  "Probably when I was dragged through hell to be brought back. Or it could be the company I keep. The Angelis are depraved souls."

  The de Sang smirked. "I've noticed. None more so than that watcher you associate with."

  Thinking of Tommy and how my demeanor probably had deteriorated from his education, I smiled.

  "A bunch of lost souls, the lot of you," Nika sighed as she walked off.

  "Takes one to know one," Gina called after her before shutting the door. "Bloody de Sangs! Even the good ones think they are above everyone."

  "The more prim-and-proper they act, the more I have learned to doubt their goodness. It is a mask. The harder someone wears it, the more you know they have something to hide."

  "You know, I think you are right." Looking me over, Gina teared up. "You do look beautiful."