Infernal: A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Marked Saga Book 4) Read online

  INFERNAL

  BIANCA SCARDONI

  THE MARKED BOOK FOUR

  COPYRIGHT © 2018 BIANCA SCARDONI

  All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without express written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in an article or book review.

  Thank you for purchasing this ebook and for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-9993874-1-9 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-9993874-0-2 (kindle)

  For my readers,

  who patiently (and not so patiently)

  waited for this book to be here.

  And for my dad, Victor,

  who is not allowed to read this book.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  1. RUN TO THE HILLS

  2. INTO THE VOID

  3. PULL ME UNDER

  4. EXODUS

  5. A TOUCH OF EVIL

  6. THE MARK OF THE BEAST

  7. RUNNING SCARED

  8. WHAT LIES BENEATH

  9. TRUTH BE DAMNED

  10. THREE’S COMPANY

  11. AFTERSHOCK

  12. FIGHTING TEMPTATION

  13. NIGHT VISITORS

  14. WICKED GAMES

  15. PAY IT IN BLOOD

  16. THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER

  17. SAY IT AIN’T SO

  18. THE BIG PLAN

  19. BLAST FROM THE PAST

  20. WILD CARD

  21. PERSON OF INTEREST

  22. A SHOT IN THE DARK

  23. A DREAMWALK TO REMEMBER

  24. WAKE AND BAKE

  25. DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

  26. HELLFIRE

  27. THE SWORD OF ANGELUS

  28. COUNTDOWN

  29. BLOODY DRIVE

  30. RING OF DEATH

  31. DRIVEN TO KILL

  32. THE BODYCOUNT

  33. DARKNESS RISING

  34. THE RECKONING

  35. KISS ME DEADLY

  36. NO TURNING BACK

  37. A DATE WITH THE DEVIL

  38. THE LIVING DEAD

  39. A RAY OF LIGHT

  40. JUDGEMENT DAY

  41. STRIPPED DOWN

  42. NO STRINGS ATTACHED

  43. ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  GLOSSARY

  ANAKIM INDEX

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Hell is empty.

  The Devil is here.

  1. RUN TO THE HILLS

  Dark, looming evergreens lined both sides of the road, as if to usher me head-first into my final chapter. The rain was still falling hard, battering down against the windshield and making it hard for us to see two feet in front of the black SUV. I could hear Dominic and Gabriel screaming at each other in the front seats, their voices loud and disjointed, but none of their words were registering. Nothing was registering except the memory of Trace’s vacant eyes.

  The haunting scene from Angel’s Peak replayed in my mind like a death wish I never wanted, an omen I couldn’t stop from happening. Dizzying flashbacks of the black smoke entering Trace’s body bombarded my mind. Each time, I scoured the memory looking for something that wasn’t there before…a clue…a kill switch…some way to undo it all. Each time praying that the memory wouldn’t unfold like the last time, that my horrifying new reality would instead disintegrate into nothingness and yield the happily-ever-after I had always dreamed of.

  But my happily-ever-after never came.

  I shook my head and pressed my palms down over my ears, blocking out the noise around me.

  The Roderick Sisters had opened the Gates of Hell and unleashed Lucifer onto our world—onto my world and into the boy I loved, and I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do to get him back. Frankly, I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. The only thing I knew for certain was that I was in Hell.

  Only I hadn’t gone to it…it had come to me.

  “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said yet,” snapped Dominic.

  “It’s the only way,” retorted Gabriel, his tone markedly calmer. “The Order will know what to do.”

  “Is that so? And when have they ever helped us before?”

  “Had we been transparent with them from the start—”

  “Had we been transparent?” scoffed Dominic. “All they’ve ever done is falsify facts and hide the truth from Jemma. The only help they provide is the kind that serves themselves.” Dominic turned in his seat to face me, beads of water dripping off his alabaster skin like falling gemstones. “Are you hearing this?”

  His muffled words faintly broke through my covered ears. I pressed my palms down harder.

  “Angel? Are you listening to me?”

  “Shut up. Just shut up.” I wasn’t sure the words actually sounded from my mouth or if I’d just thought them inside the slowly crumbling barricades of my mind.

  I didn’t want to listen to them argue about the Council or hear all the what ifs and could’ve beens. I just wanted them to shut the hell up so I could think. I needed to get my thoughts together and figure out a way to put all these broken pieces back together again—to put Trace back together again—and I couldn’t do that with them planting grenades inside my brain every two minutes.

  “She’s in shock,” said Gabriel, eyeing me from the rearview mirror. His dark brows pulled down over his olive eyes, as if to offer me sympathy. But it felt like pity. “Let her be.”

  “We need to get out of town, brother. Tonight. The Council can clean up their own mess.”

  “And the others?”

  I glanced over at my mother’s lifeless body slumped in the seat beside me. Gabriel had gone back to get her as soon as Trace and the Roderick sisters left the area. My stake was still protruding from her heart—a painful reminder of what I’d done, of the grave mistake I made believing a single word out of the sisters’ filthy mouths.

  But I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  The death of my childhood naivety had come to pass. I trusted no one and I feared nothing, not even death itself, for everything I loved in this world had already been taken away from me. Ripped from my heart like a bandage. There was nothing left inside but darkness…darkness breeding darkness, and I was at one with it now.

  “What of her Keeper?” continued Gabriel. “We can’t just—”

  “He’s as good as dead, if he isn’t already.”

  More bombs exploded in my head as his words sounded back to me.

  He’s as good as dead…

  Trace was as good as dead.

  A guttural scream ripped out of my lungs, the force of it so sharp and anguished that it blew out every window in the car, sending shattered glass raining through the air like shrapnel. Dominic and Gabriel threw their hands over their heads as the car hit the medium and then swerved off the road towards the embankment.

  My eyes locked onto the tree ahead of us as we barreled straight for it.

  It was the last thing I saw.

  A thick, familiar fog passed over my legs as I sat up and glanced around at my surroundings. Crumbling headstones peeked out from the hallowed ground, letting me know in no uncertain terms that I was in a cemetery, but I had no idea how I had gotten there or what had happened to the car.

  And where the heck were Dominic and Gabriel?
br />   I parted my lips to call for them as a strange aftertaste of rain settled on my tongue. It felt sticky and wrong—unnatural in the way that it weighed down my voice. I pushed up from the dewy grass and straightened myself. Had I been thrown from the car? My eyes scanned the area looking for signs of a wreckage, but there was none to be found.

  Something wasn’t right.

  This scene wasn’t right.

  A dark silhouette appeared in the distance, too far for me to make out any of its features but close enough to know I wasn’t alone.

  “Dominic?” His name fermented on my lips as I waited for the shadowy figure to call back at me.

  No response. Instead, it moved closer to me, its husky form becoming clearer as inky black hair and a pair of eyes as blue as the Caribbean Sea made an appearance through the mist. My breath hitched because I knew it was him.

  My happily ever after.

  “Trace!” My skin buzzed with electricity as he closed the gap between us.

  “We need to talk, Jemma, and we don’t have much time.”

  Dumfounded, I stared at him like an apparition from a past life. He wasn’t supposed to be here, couldn’t be, and yet he was. The wind howled around me, ruffling my hair as it hissed its warnings to tread ever so carefully.

  “Jemma—”

  “No.” I shook my head. This wasn’t Trace. It couldn’t be. I watched Lucifer enter his body with my own eyes. This was a trick. A trap. I stumbled backwards, putting as much distance between us as I could.

  He let me back away, as though he could hear the faint whispers of my suspicions. “Please don’t be afraid, Jemma. You’re fast asleep. It’s only a dream.” With a wave of his hand, the cemetery faded away, and suddenly, we were standing on my old street back in the Cape.

  What the hell was going on?

  Another trap?

  A new game?

  I took another step back.

  Then again, Trace was the only one who knew about this place. We came here all those months ago when he took me to the past to visit my father. Could this really be him?

  “We’re dreamwalking, Jemma. It’s the only way I can see you now.” His head lowered as his broad shoulders slumped down. “He’s taken over. I can’t fight him off.”

  “I’m…you’re…this…” Okay, so I couldn’t create an actual sentence anymore. I shook my head as I tried to dislodge all the cobwebs swirling around my brain. “This is a dream?”

  “Yes. Well, sort of.” He took a cautious step towards me, intensifying the electricity zipping over my skin. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold on, Jemma. It’s so cold now,” he said as his teeth clattered together. “S-so dark.”

  The defeated look on his face sent a bolt of panic through my abdomen.

  “I needed to s-see you…one m-more time, in case—”

  “Stop!” I couldn’t stomach hearing him finish that sentence. I’d sooner die than put that out into the world where the Angels of death could hear it and make it true. “You have to hold on, Trace! I’m going to find a way to get you back. Everything’s going to be fine,” I promised blindly and then moved in to touch him, but he took a step back from me—forever and always just out of my reach.

  “I’ve never f-felt evil like this before, Jemma.” He shook his head as though conceding the war. “He’s too s-strong.”

  “You’re stronger!”

  “Jemma, I’m so sor—”

  “No! Don’t you dare say it!” I quickly cut in. “It isn’t over yet! Do you hear me? I’m not giving up on you, Trace!”

  His lashes lowered and covered the full blue of his eyes as his body slowly began to fade away.

  “Trace! Wait!” I lunged forward to trap him inside my arms, to barricade him against my body, but there was nothing but air left in his place. I was too late. I’d lost him again.

  I crumbled to my knees as tears brimmed in my eyes.

  “Jemma, can you hear me?”

  My head snapped back up at the sound of a warm, familiar voice.

  “Open your eyes.”

  Gabriel?!

  I looked around, frantically searching for him as the scene from the Cape began to tremble and then bleed away like water running down an oil painting. I dug my hands into the earth, bracing myself as it all disappeared into nothingness.

  2. INTO THE VOID

  My lids sprang open, and I blinked the sleep and confusion from my eyes. Gabriel was standing by my side, his eyebrows knitted as he looked down at me, staring as though I were some newly discovered alien life form. Apparently, I wasn’t in the Cape anymore, or at the cemetery, or in the car. I was indoors now. That is, unless this was a dream too…

  Freaked out and thoroughly confused, I immediately tried to lift myself up, but the room twirled around me like some out of control carnival ride that no longer had a working off switch. Or maybe I was the broken one who just couldn’t stop spinning myself into Hell.

  That definitely seemed more likely.

  “I was starting to worry about you,” he said with a tight smile as he wrapped his hand around my elbow and helped me sit myself up.

  I could see the fire burning at the far end of the room, and I knew we were back at Huntington Manor, though I had no recollection of how we’d gotten here. My body shook as I tried to fit the hazy pieces back together, but nothing seemed to fit. Everything was disjointed and out of sorts, like puzzle pieces thrown into the air with nobody there to catch them.

  “You hit your head pretty hard,” he said, his voice calming and soft. “But you’re okay.”

  I wasn’t, though. Not by a long shot.

  “How long have I been asleep for?” I asked him as I rubbed the hazy clouds from my eyes. Every part of my body ached something terrible, and despite the fact that I had obviously just been asleep, I felt utterly drained.

  “You’ve been out for a few hours.”

  A few hours? My eyes snapped back to his. “Where’s Trace?”

  “Trace?” His brows furrowed as though he didn’t understand my question. Or maybe he just didn’t want to answer it. Either way, I knew I was headed for Shit’s Creek.

  “Yes, Gabriel. Trace. Where is he?” My eyes scanned the room and immediately stumbled onto my mother’s incapacitated body sitting lifelessly on a chair in the corner of the room.

  “You remember what happened at Angel’s Peak, don’t you?”

  The look on his face coupled with the daunting presence of my mother’s body let me know that it hadn’t all just been a horrible dream.

  This was real.

  Hell on earth had come, and Trace was really gone.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as my teeth clattered together painfully.

  “I’m sorry, Jemma,” he said as everything came back to me all at once.

  The pain of it slashed through my body in nauseating waves before settling heavily in the pit of my belly. I tried to hold it together, to hold it down, but I couldn’t. Overcome, I bent over my knees just as my stomach emptied itself all over the wooden floor. Gabriel quickly moved out of the way to avoid the backsplash and then grabbed a throw blanket from behind me, wrapping it around my shoulders.

  My body continued to shake uncontrollably as I tried to stop myself from heaving.

  “Drink this,” he said as he handed me a water bottle from the coffee table. “You need to get something in your stomach. It’ll help you feel better.”

  I highly doubted that. I wasn’t sure there was anything that could help me now.

  “Please.”

  Lifting my head, I took the bottle from his hand and twisted off the cap, but the bottle never made it to my lips. My eyes magnetized back to my mother and remained there, as though unable to look away. For the first time in my life, I found myself longing for her—for that safe place from the storm that only a mother could provide.

  “Why haven’t you reanimated her?” I asked him, my voice teetering along the edge of breaking into a million pieces.

  She was s
lumped back in the chair as wisps of her dark hair cascaded across her face. She looked as though she were fast asleep in a peaceful slumber. Well, minus the ash color of her skin and the stake protruding from her chest, that is.

  The stake I planted…

  I slapped the horrifying memory away from my consciousness. It was just another painful reminder of how I’d played right into the Roderick sister’s bloody hands.

  “I thought it was best to wait for Tessa to get here,” he answered, his tone soft but cautious.

  “Why?” I asked as he ran a hand through his short dark hair and leveled his eyes at me.

  “She should be here for this.”

  “She should be here for a lot of things,” I retorted without bothering to hide the bitterness from my words.

  “Jemma—”

  “Forget it,” I said, cutting him off. “I don’t want to hear it.” I wasn’t in the mood to hear the Tessa-is-so-great speech. The one about how everything she does is for me. And that she’s just trying to keep me safe. Honestly, if that was really the case, she was doing a piss poor job of it so far.

  “I just thought it was best for the two of you to decide this together. As a family.”

  I huffed out a humorless laugh as the world’s worst family reunion flashed through my mind.

  And still, as hard as it was for me to digest the very concept of a family, the notion of it still tugged on something inside of me, because deep down in the gallows of my truth, I still longed for exactly that. Family. Love. Normalcy. All the things that were destined to never be mine.

  I looked up at Gabriel as a hollow, hopeless feeling pressed down inside of me. The Hellgate had been opened, and I still had no idea what that meant for all of us. “How do we find him?” I asked, hoping he had some kind of plan, because I sure as shit didn’t.

  “I’m not sure we can. Not unless he wants to be found.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” That was so not the answer I wanted to hear. “So, what the hell do we do in the meantime?”

  “We wait.”