The Glittering Halo Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Liddie Cain

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover and title art designed by Emily’s World of Design

  Connect with Liddie Cain:

  www.liddiecain.com

  Facebook

  Twitter

  Instagram

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Dedication

  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

  About Author

  For L

  You are always there when I need someone to talk to

  You’ll probably never ACTUALLY read the book, but just know this one is for you

  I couldn’t do any of this without you

  Sometimes, trouble will find you when you’re not even looking. I stood in a flurry of sequined dresses and clouds of hairspray when I felt that velvet-night-aura brush against my mind. The girls around me peered into mirrors to touch up makeup and hair without the smallest inclination that something wicked mingled in the audience. They chatted nervously and helped each other put those finishing touches on before it was time to walk the stage.

  The county beauty pageant in small town Steiner, Alabama isn’t where you would imagine finding the King of the Unseelie Court. But the strength of his presence was undeniable to my heightened senses. As was the familiar feral aura that followed right behind the Unseelie King’s. Relentless dark energy that thundered across the air made some more sensitive humans pause and look around uneasily. If they only knew what that moment of foreboding was. It was absolute trouble. The best kind of trouble. Felix.

  I stepped over to the stage door that led out into the auditorium and opened it just enough to look out and find the two of them. Conall, the Unseelie King, was playing human in his black jeans and fitted grey shirt that showed off the muscles in his broad shoulders and chest. His platinum blonde hair was half pulled back, leaving his strongly featured face and spring-leaf-green eyes unobscured. He was an inch or two taller than the man beside him that belonged to that wild and wicked energy.

  Felix was the very definition of tall, dark and handsome. His Indian subcontinent good looks with brown eyes, hair and skin were enough to turn a few heads as he stood there beside the pale Unseelie King. He likely would be getting very different looks if they realized they were looking at one of the most powerful archdemons that walked on Earth. And they were both here to see me.

  “Roz?” My mom, Evelyn Hunt, called my name from several feet away where she and her beauty-pageant-rival-turned-friend Joletta were pinning a dress that was poorly fitted to the girl that was wearing it.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Check and see if Emma or her mom are out in the auditorium or something? She was supposed to be here almost an hour ago.”

  Mom frowned as she held the dress for Joletta to finish pinning it, but there was a touch of worry around her brown eyes as she looked at me. She could have taken that stage right with the girls that were four decades younger than her and fit right in. Her dark hair was always perfectly styled, and she wore subtle makeup that suited her dark eyes even though her face was naturally lovely. Tall, picturesque and graceful, Mom was the essence of the southern small town homecoming queen that had married the football star and happily raised a family with him.

  Joletta was much the same, except for having been unlucky in love until recently. Then she had met one of my vampires.

  It was impatience that was reflected in her expression when she glanced my way, but not for me, as she pulled a pin out from between her lips to say, “If she has run off with that boy again, I’ll strangle her.”

  I hid my amusement while I nodded and went back to the door that led out into the auditorium. Joletta shared my job as the district blood medium. My ex-boyfriend Mac, the one I had thought had got away, had walked back into my life a few months before with a shiny new set of fangs. He had asked me to be the blood medium for the local vampires. It was my job to line up willing human donors and coordinate them with a feeding schedule for the vampires. Those old feelings from our teenage years had never really went away from me. He found his way back into my heart where he belonged.

  Felix was his boss, and we were instantly drawn to each other in a supernatural way. There was a reason for that. We had shared our lives together in the past, as angels, and had loved each other then. But we had both fallen to take deals with a demon named Devina. She had taken our wings and our memories. We had our memories back now, and Felix had even gained a pair of wings from a backwash of my angelic powers that had survived my fall into my mortal life. Now, I was regarded as a Nephilim, a name usually used from when a child was born of a human and an angel. My human parents were both mortal, but the powers that had survived through my soul’s connection to my angelic parents had turned me into a Nephilim.

  Felix found me the moment I opened the door from the backstage and walked into the auditorium. He smiled like he hadn’t seen me for days, when he had seen me only a couple hours ago. I could feel the faint sweep of power that he used to disguise himself as human. Before the wings, he passed as human without enchantment, but now he had to hide the large black wings that were tucked up against his back. He wore a coat over them just in case the power he used to conceal them was somehow disrupted, but the enchantment made the bulge of them disappear into a normal looking line of his back.

  His physical form was strong, just like his power. He had been the ultimate warrior when he had fallen from Heaven to save my immortal soul. Devina had used him to lead her demon army to take over the throne for Demon Overlord of the Earth Realm. Felix had been nicknamed Thrasher, for his willingness to cut through his enemies. She had even used him to imprison my angel parents, Azrael the archangel of death and Hanna, a guardian angel, as well as his angel father, Eziel the archangel of transformation. We had rescued them recently and the plan now was to imprison or kill Devina. Felix was firmly on team kill Devina.

  Conall watched my approach with obvious interest and a hint of a smile, but he wasn’t one of my partners, so he hung back while Felix stepped up and pulled me into his arms. I went up on tiptoe to meet him for a kiss. That kiss strayed briefly over the line of a public friendly peck before I smiled and leaned back again. A devilish glint showed in his gaze, but he let me withdraw and turn to hug Conall.

  “You look lovely, Rozalyn,” he said as he pulled me against him. I had taken the time to curl my light brown hair and use some smoky lavender eyeshadow that complimented my brown eyes. The charcoal colored dress I wore was a plunge neckline with flutter sleeves. Jason had picked it out while I did my hair. He and Mac hadn’t come along tonight because they were dealing with the arrival of a new set of vampires, but I would be going home to all three of my men tonight.

  Conall was getting closer and closer to being included in th
at group with Mac, Felix and Jason. I smiled up at him and responded, “Thank you. You look handsome as always.”

  “You didn’t call me handsome,” Felix said playfully, pretending to be offended.

  “But, she kissed you. That is better than flattery,” Conall joked with him before I could respond.

  “True,” Felix replied proudly. I nudged my elbow into his ribs since he was standing close enough. He made a satisfactory grunt before directing that devilish grin at me again. “So violent.”

  “I did come out here for a reason other than to stroke both of your egos,” I stated dryly before scanning the crowd to see if I could spot Emma or her mom. The mark on my side hummed on my skin. It was Felix’s mark that he had laid there to bind us together. Mac had added his own mark on it later and Felix’s angelic mother, Ariel, had given me and Felix’s sister, my best friend Darby, angel marks for our protection. The three way mark laid on my right rib cage. It flaring to life meant that Felix was asking permission to slip into my thoughts. I relaxed those mental walls that normally kept us from stumbling over each other’s thoughts and felt his consciousness brush against mine. He didn’t dig through my thoughts, simply waited for me to reveal to him who I was looking for. Once I showed him, he retreated again, and those walls stretched back into place.

  “They aren’t here,” he told me after he used his otherworldly talents to sense the humans around him. I frowned.

  “I hope they are okay. Joletta is about to lose it over Emma being late back there.”

  “Need us to go check on them?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied, shaking my head and touching both of their arms since I stood between them. “There’s still time for them to arrive. I’m sure it’s nothing major.”

  “I will also be happy to help,” Conall added, “Maeve has Meredith organizing a party to welcome her Vegas vampires into town, so I am comfortable stepping away for a few hours.”

  Meredith was another archdemon that had arrived while Felix had been under Maeve’s enchantment, with Devina’s help, in an area of Fairy called the Neodrach. It kept him hidden. If Conall hadn’t heard rumors of him being there, we may have never found him. Maeve had switched sides and was now living here in the human realm and holding Meredith under the same kind of enchantment to keep her from revealing to Devina that we had released Azrael, Hanna and Eziel. Maeve was a Leánnan Sί, like a fairy succubus. She could use her power to keep someone under a love spell and feed off of the love and lust they felt toward her. With Devina’s help, her power was even strong enough to take down beings as strong as an archdemon such as Felix or Meredith when both of them would typically be immune.

  I squeezed Conall’s arm and said, “Thank you. I will let one of you know if a search party needs sent out. For now, let me get back here and finish helping Mom and Joletta get the pageant going.”

  I only made it a couple of steps away before I had to turn and look back at the two of them. Felix knew I would. Ego oozed out of his pores, making me roll my eyes at his satisfied smile. Still, I stood there and just looked at how beautiful they were, feeling my heart rate rise steadily. My breath stole out across my lips in a sigh of reluctance before I made myself walk backstage again. Joletta met me as I came through the door.

  “She’s not out there,” I told her before she asked.

  She huffed and looked over her shoulder at Mom and said, “I’ll go get my phone out of my bag and try to call. Are you okay out here?”

  “Sure, Jo. Go ahead. Roz is here and Darby should be walking in the door soon.”

  Darby turned the corner before Mom got the words out. Her sweep of red shiny curls stood out as she walked towards us with her Sidhe-like frame. Large blue eyes dominated a delicate face with a pristine complexion and she moved with dancer quality grace. I had never met another woman as lovely as Darby, except for my mom. There were times I couldn’t help but feel plain around them since my looks blended in with the crowd so much more than theirs. Both of them were emphatic in arguing with me over this, but I owned mirrors and knew when I was outclassed. Such thoughts never bothered me nearly as much as it bothered them. Joletta brushed by Darby without a greeting since she was focused on finding out what the hold up was with Emma.

  I hugged Darby when she reached me and mom while she asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “Emma Donaldson is late,” Mom replied before scooping Darby up into a hug next. She considered Darby just as much her daughter as I was. Ariel, Darby and Felix’s angelic mom, had chosen my human parents for me to be born to because of their goodness. Ellison and Evelyn Hunt, or Eve ‘n Ell as they were commonly referred to as, had been the safe place that Ariel knew Darby would need when her soul had recycled out to an addicted and abusive mom. Ariel didn’t find Darby’s outgoing soul in time to save her from that domestic fate, but she found mine and had faith that me and Darby would find each other again if she put us close enough together. We did, and Darby lived with us more than she lived with her biological mom.

  “Oh, that stinks. She’s running out of time.”

  Mom had finished securing the loose fit of the pageant dress of one of the participants and waved us to follow her over to the hair and makeup tables. We split up to check on the girls and their families before show time began. Joletta and Mom were on the board of directors for this pageant since they had both been crowned county queen. One of Joletta’s side jobs was pageant coaching, and Mom worked with her clients. Joletta was certain that Emma was the next Miss Alabama, but if she didn’t show up to win the county title tonight, she would not be able to participate in the state competition.

  “Roz? I forgot my glasses. Can you do Audrey’s eyeliner?” Mrs. Evans asked before I walked by them. I smiled at her, then at her granddaughter Audrey.

  “Of course,” I replied and picked up the eyeliner pen, leaning in over Audrey’s face and carefully rolling the black liquid over her eyelid.

  “Are you and Mac going to get married finally?” Mrs. Evans asked conversationally as I worked.

  “I’m not sure, he hasn’t asked me,” I responded with a little laugh. Mrs. Evans meant well, she was one of our frequent customers at the spa. She was always very friendly to any of the vampires that were there. Rose, one of Mac’s assigned vampires, did most of the daily management. She was short, blond and soft spoken. For the last few weeks, she and Lear had been seeing one another. Lear had been reassigned to our district by the Imperium, the vampire version of congress, after Felix had gone missing and Meredith had arrived to try to take over. He was the oldest vampire in our area while Rose was the youngest. Sylvia, another one of our vampires, also worked at the spa sometimes, but she and Darby had recently gone through a breakup and had been giving each other some space.

  “There you go,” I told Audrey as I leaned back after finishing both eyes.

  “Dating a vampire must be amazing,” she said wistfully as she peered into the mirror to check my work, looking so much older than the high school age she was. She and Emma were both seniors this year.

  “Mac is amazing, yes. But it has nothing to do with him being a vampire. It’s just who he is,” I told her.

  Mrs. Evans patted my arm affectionately and said, “Teenage girls love a bad boy and vampires are the ultimate bad boy.”

  “Gran!” Audrey gasped out, horrified.

  Mrs. Evans rolled her eyes. “I was your age once too.”

  “Gran,” Audrey groaned. I kept my face neutral because I knew that she had to be embarrassed, but the knowing look that Mrs. Evans shot at me almost made me laugh. I excused myself while I hid my smile and went over to ask the last few girls on my side of the room if they needed anything. While I wasn’t officially involved with the pageant board, I wasn’t going to tell Mom no when she asked me to do something. Darby and I eventually made our way back around to each other.

  “Doing okay?” I asked. The split from Sylvia was still fresh, so I hadn’t been pushing her to talk about it much.

&nb
sp; “Yeah, I am.” There was a small sigh in her words perhaps, but she did seem okay. I bumped my hip against hers, which drew her gaze up to mine with a smile before she bumped me back hard enough that I took a step sideways. I was reaching up to playfully aggravate her further by flipping her hair into her face when Joletta came back with a pale complexion.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Emma is missing,” she said, shocked. “Taken by a vampire.”

  Darby and I reached for Joletta at the same moment, guiding her into the depths of the backstage area where no one would hear what we were saying. I paused long enough to motion for Mom to follow.

  “What happened?” Darby asked.

  “I don’t know. Cindy was pretty upset. She said Emma never came inside after they heard her car pull up this afternoon. The police are there and they know that it was a vampire because the door of Emma’s car was forced open and the metal is bent in the shape of a hand.”

  Felix had sensed my distress, and I felt him walking up behind me. He paused, and I knew that he had overheard and was already speaking to Mac telepathically. I glanced over my shoulder at him and he gestured for me to walk over to him. I nodded, but looked back at Joletta and said, “I’ll talk to Mac right away.” Mom and Darby closed in around Joletta, speaking in quiet voices as I walked away toward Felix.

  “I’ll need to leave,” he told me as soon as I reached him.

  “I know. Once the Imperium hears about the investigation, they will send their own team.”

  “Yeah and they definitely don’t need to see me hanging around while Devina is still out there.”

  “No. We have no idea how many eyes and ears she has there,” I replied quietly.

  His large hand slid up my back to the back of my neck, where he gently tugged me forward to lay his lips against my forehead in a soft kiss. I clung to his waist and buried myself against his chest after he had kissed me. “I don’t want you to leave again.”