Melkor & Purity: Book Two Read online

  Melkor & Purity - Book 2

  Kim Faulks

  Cover Designer

  Jacqueline Sweet

  Copyright © 2019 by Kim Faulks

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For the best Alpha reader imaginable.

  Jess, have I told you lately that I love you?

  Contents

  Join me in the Dragon’s Den

  Description

  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

  Melkor & Purity

  Book One

  By Kim Faulks

  Melkor, son of the finest Hellhound leader, wanted retribution for his father’s death.

  What he got was a mortal woman at his side.

  He got me.

  I was blessed by the Lord of Hell and given powers by the Nephilim leader, Arrow.

  Powers I’ll have to learn to control.

  And as the Soulless escape Hell and descend upon the mortal realm, I’ll learn to become a hunter and tackle whatever the immortal world can throw my way.

  Because I’m not just Melkor’s friend anymore.

  One perfect kiss wasn’t enough.

  I want more.

  And I’ll fight like hell to get it.

  Chapter One

  Purity

  "Again."

  The unflinching voice cracked through the air behind me.

  I clenched my jaw and dug my boots into the soft earth.

  The older woman at the end of the clearing was all I saw.

  Not the shadows in the forest.

  Not the Hellhound at my back.

  Not the wince, every time I missed my target, or the catch of his breath as I slipped and crashed to the ground.

  My heart took flight as I lunged, fists clenched, pumping through the air. My legs were like lead, my movements so slow...so achingly slow.

  A roar ripped from my lips, scattering the birds above as I dragged the wooden training knife from my sheath, dropped my shoulders, and swung.

  Alma barely moved, dark eyes seizing mine as I drove the knife through the air. A murmur of her lips, and she moved at the last moment, stepping to the side and disappearing in an instant.

  But momentum had already claimed me as I carved the blunt edge of the wooden knife through the empty air. Hands gripped my shoulders, tearing the knife from my grasp. I was turned and thrown, and hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud.

  My head cracked against the ground, wet leaves cold against my face. I lay there, trying to catch my breath. Trying to understand the movements—wishing there was a hole I could sink into.

  A shadow moved overhead, blocking shards of sunlight through the trees.

  “How can you fight what you can’t even see?”

  “Alma,” Melkor’s warning filtered to my ears.

  I closed my eyes at the sound and then rolled, shoved my trembling hands against the ground, and pushed to stand.

  “Come on, Purity. That’s enough.”

  There was pleading in his voice. Still I shook my head, fire burning in the back of my throat. “Again.”

  The finger prodding the middle of my chest was like a dagger. “You need to unlock whatever Arrow gave you. If you can’t find the portals, then you can’t connect to Hell, and if you can’t feel Hell…”

  Then I can’t hunt the Soulless.

  I lifted my head, catching the pain in Melkor’s eyes as I turned away. My chest ached, I felt like there was a stone wedged in the back of my throat.

  “At least have a rest, you’ve been going at it for six hours now.”

  I shook my head and turned away from him. Just as I’d done all day…just as I’d done all week, and almost all goddamn month.

  And still I was useless.

  I couldn’t find the portal to Hell. I couldn’t unlock whatever powers the Nephlim leader had given me. I couldn’t be what Melkor needed me to be.

  I was failing him.

  I was failing him when he needed me the most.

  Tears welled warm in my eyes as I turned and strode toward the end of the clearing once more. I’d tried chanting. I’d tried spells. I’d tried one of the thousand fucking amulets that I carried like a damn weight around my neck.

  I reached up, grasped the chains with trembling fingers, and yanked. The sting at the back of my neck was instant, and heat followed as I dropped the chains to the sodden forest floor, my heart as heavy as my entire bodyweight.

  I was too fat, couldn’t move fast enough, couldn’t do anything.

  A scream welled inside me. I swallowed the stone in my throat and lifted my head. “I fucking hate you!”

  Sunlight danced like sparks between the branches of the towering trees overhead. I sucked in a hard breath, lowered my gaze, and stared into nothing.

  Pain ripped across my chest as tears slipped and fell.

  “Purity,” my name was so soft on his lips. “Please.”

  And in the tsunami of pain, I felt my world tremble…but not break. No, it would not break. I sucked in a hard, savage breath, and lifted my hand. One swipe of the back of my hand and the tears were gone.

  I straightened my spine as the fire swelled inside my belly, then turned to the old woman once more. “Again.”

  She just watched me, calculating every move with unfeeling eyes, just as she’s always done. There was no give with Alma, you may as well wring a rock for a drop of blood.

  But she was just what I needed.

  One nod of her head, and she stepped to the same spot once more. “You need to focus, you need to see the change in the air, feel it in the middle of your chest.”

  I glanced at Melkor, and then turned. I was doing this for him. Everything for him. And I’d run myself into the ground if I had to.

  “Amulet this time,” Alma commanded.

  I bent and grabbed the amulets from the ground, capturing the symbol of Lucifer between my fingers.

  “You can do this,” Melkor murmured.

  And I gritted my teeth, focusing on the air around her for the hundredth time today. I can do this…I have to do this.

  Pain tore through my knee as I turned. It was speed, it was agility, it was strength, but more than that, it was heart…and it was all I had left to give.

  “Go!” Alma commanded.

  I leapt, fingers smashing the amulet into the flesh of my palm. My boots pounded the ground as I hurtled toward Alma. Melkor took a step, tearing my focus away. My heart lunged, driving panic through my veins, and the air around Alma wavered.

  Hope flared like a firecracker in the dead of night. I focused on the shimmer and swung my fist toward her. Still she stepped to the side, slipping through the portal and into Hell’s realm with a whisper of words.

  Still she grasped my arms, only this time, her fingers slipped from the slick on my skin.

  “Purity!” Melkor roared.

  My footing slipped as the embankment rushed toward me.

  All I could see was the ravine.

  All I could see was pai
n rising toward me in a blur.

  Hands grabbed me, warmth found me. Melkor was there in an instant, lifting me off my feet and spinning me toward safety. His boots slipped against the slick ground, and we fell, crashing to the wet forest floor in a heartbeat.

  His arms were around me, cradling my head as he took the brunt and I fell on top of him, arms wound around him, the thunder of his heart pressed against my ear. Strong arms went around me, holding me against him.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured. “You’re okay…you’re all okay.”

  Panic was a bird trapped in my chest.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself,” brittle words husky with pain filled my ears. “You’re going to hurt yourself and it’ll all be my fault.”

  I sucked in hard breaths and lifted my head. Tiny flames slowly flickered and danced in his eyes. They were almost gone now, almost succumbed to the emptiness.

  “I can’t lose you, too,” he murmured, and swallowed hard. “I just can’t.”

  His hands tightened, holding me in place as he lay on the sodden forest floor and I crushed him with my weight.

  We had not spoken about the death of his father. Not spoken about the things that’d happened in those last moments when I plunged headlong into Hell and met his father’s murderer, Deimos.

  We hadn’t spoken about how the cold, savage Hellhound had thrown me into the pit, and how I’d been saved by the Fallen Angel, and the Lord of Hell himself.

  We hadn’t spoken about anything, actually.

  The cavern of his pain was consuming.

  I saw it in his eyes. I heard it in his words.

  At first, we’d focused on surviving…but as the days turned into weeks…he’d fallen away from me.

  My Melkor was trapped…and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do to save him. Except this. Except try and keep trying…and keep trying. “I saw something.”

  He stiffened, and lifted his head. “What did you say?”

  “I saw something, just before we got there. I saw the air move.”

  His eyes widened and his hand shoved against the ground, pushing both of us up. “Purity, do you know how huge that is?”

  All I felt was failure.

  But in his eyes…

  In this moment, there was a glimmer of hope.

  Melkor turned his head, found Alma standing beside the tree, and yelled, “She saw something!”

  “Finally,” the old woman snarled. “Thought I’d die of old age by the time it happened.”

  He grasped my arms and helped me stand, stilling to brush the leaves from my hands, even though his jacket back was soaked through. “You saw something. I’m so proud of you…so proud.”

  Something shifted inside me, like a counterweight I’d held inside lifted. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Hey,” he grasped my arms, and looked into my eyes. “It is a very big deal. You’re human. You shouldn’t be able to do any of this, and yet…you are.”

  His words hit me like the cold ground. In his eyes I saw the truth…his truth. Love mingled with sadness in his perfect eyes, and I wanted to rise up, wanted to kiss him like I’d never wanted to kiss him before in my life.

  Melkor was once my friend, but now he was so much more. He was my partner, he was my world. I’d leave behind everyone to be with him. He consumed me…he was my Hellfire.

  But I didn’t reach up and capture his cheek in my hand. I didn’t press my lips to his. Instead, I turned my head, found Alma waiting, and said, “Again.”

  Sparks burned in her eyes as she gave a hard nod. I caught the curl of her lips before she turned away. I stepped away, leaving Melkor’s hand hovering in the air where I’d once stood before it fell away.

  And I carried the power of his love with me as I made my way back to the starting point.

  “This time, I want you to not focus on me, but on you,” Alma commanded. “I want you to find the change inside your heart and your mind. I want you to run as hard as you can…and in your mind, I want you to capture the feeling of when you left the mortal realm behind and stepped into Hell. Can you do that?”

  I nodded. I could do anything…and if I couldn’t, I’d damn well run myself into the ground to figure it out.

  I turned, focused on the air around her, and then brought my focus inside myself, to the memory…the pure terror I’d felt when I left this world behind. I drove my boots into the ground, racing toward the shift in the air.

  I was fueled with desperation.

  Choked with love.

  I needed to find Melkor.

  I needed to save him and, as I hurtled toward Alma, I felt my soul leap from this world and into the next and, in an instant, the world changed…gone was the bitter cold forest air and it was replaced with the arid fury of Hell.

  I stumbled forward, arms cartwheeling as I tried to find my balance, and wrenched my gaze to the red skies above.

  The world was on fire.

  Raging above…and below, in the pit they call the Dragon’s Breath.

  “You did it!” Melkor roared, grabbing me from the side, and he wrapped his arms around me. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe a mortal can just step through the portal and into Hell.”

  He stilled, and then pulled me away, staring into my eyes. “I should’ve known…I should’ve known if anyone could do it, it’d be you.” He dragged me closer, hand running along my back, proud words whispered in my ear…as I just stared at the place where I’d almost died.

  It won’t hurt…for long.

  The sickening snarl of the Hellhound filled my ears. I tried to shove away the memory of his hands on my shoulders, tried to tear from the memory of the blazing wind in my face as I stared into the raging furnace below.

  My last thoughts weren’t of my family.

  They weren’t even of friends.

  They were of Melkor…always Melkor. Just as they were now.

  “You okay?”

  I glanced toward him, forced a smile and a nod. The murky gray outline of a Dragon’s head made me lift my gaze, and even though I stood amongst the blazing heat of the Underworld…an icy touch trailed along my spine.

  I knew them now, knew what kind of terror lay behind the pretense and the smiles. Knew the Lord of Hell for something more than the kindly older man who’d darkened my doorstep and showed me the letter I’d written to him instead of Santa.

  He’d stopped being just Lucifer…and started to become the Dark Lord himself. I’d thought I was strong, thought I was special. But I was just as naive as the rest of the mortal race.

  I didn’t really know what lay on the other side of the portal. Didn’t really know what kind of place Hell really was. I still didn’t…but I was starting to learn.

  “Do you want to see your mom and your sister?” I murmured, tearing myself away from the obsidian walls of Lucifer’s home.

  “No,” he murmured and glanced at the flames down below. “Not just yet.”

  He wasn’t ready, I knew that.

  Not to face those he loved, or the truth.

  “We need to get back,” he murmured, turning to take one look at Lucifer’s stony mansion overlooking the pit of Hell.

  I gave him a nod, letting him take my hand. I opened myself up to the power of the portal once more, pushing my spirit not into this world, but into my own.

  And just like before, I felt the air around me shift, red skies bled into blue…and I was swallowed by the icy grasp of the mortal realm.

  Alma leaned against a giant pine tree, cleaning her fingernails with the tip of a knife.

  “Well done,” the stony words were softened…just a little. “You can feel the portal, and Hell itself. It’s the first step, but we still have a long way to go. You can’t hunt what you can’t see…and you can’t see with mortal eyes. Grab your stuff, we’re out of here. The next stage is going to be tough…and we’re going to need some help.”

  She shoved off the tree and strode to where our packs and weapons sat on top of a fal
len log. My stomach tightened, both in fear and excitement. For the last month it’d been just us, out here all alone.

  We trained every day. I ran most of them, sprinting the marked-out lines where the veil between worlds was the thinnest.

  Every day, I’d tried to break through the portal to Hell.

  Every day, I’d failed.

  And every day, I grew more and more determined.

  I ached, and hurt, limping and crying, with tense muscles and strained joints. I’d lost count of how many times I pleaded for mercy…

  But I remember every fucking time Alma gave me none.

  She was hard, and she was cruel.

  She was the person I screamed at when I really wanted to scream at myself.

  She was the one I aimed for with blunt training knives and shining amulets steeped in magic. But now, as I strode toward her and threw my arms out wide, she was the one I hugged.

  Alma stiffened as I pulled her close, strands of gray hair tickling my cheek. “Thank you,” I murmured and closed my eyes. “Thank you for everything.”

  There was a long second where she never answered, until quietly, “Don’t thank me yet, girly. You’re about to meet someone who makes me look like a damn marshmallow. You’ll be cursing me before the day’s out, guaranteed.”

  I shook my head, opened my eyes, and smiled. “You can’t just take it, can you? Can’t take even a fraction of comfort and appreciation.”

  I pulled away. The old woman met my gaze, and then turned, and I wondered for the hundredth damn time why she invested so much in me when she could be at home with family.

  I knew she had a granddaughter, Lorn, but other than that, the woman remained a mystery. She’d built walls a realm deep and there was no way in. Instead, she gave me an awkward nod and glanced at Melkor before walking toward the rest of our belongings.