Melkor & Purity: Book One Read online

  Melkor & Purity - Book 1

  Kim Faulks

  Cover Designer

  Jacqueline Sweet

  To Alan,

  Purity & Melkor’s biggest fan…

  Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Afterword

  Ever sent a letter to the wrong person by mistake?

  I did when I was eight years old, and then I was visited by the Lord of Hell himself.

  But there was no real mistake. Not then when I was just a kid, and not now that I’m a woman.

  I wanted a puppy for Christmas.

  And a puppy is what I got.

  Only, Melkor, son of the Lord of Hell’s finest Hellhound warrior was given to me not as a gift, but as a Guardian.

  And when Melkor goes missing, I’m given the only option a best friend has.

  I fight fire with fire and become a woman possessed—a mortal woman, that is.

  He’s been my best friend, my Guardian, for almost my entire life…but now, as I travel to the Underworld to save him, I realize he’s so much more.

  Melkor says after me, Hell is easy.

  I guess I’m about to find out.

  Prologue

  Lucifer

  The door to my study opened, and I snarled at the interruption, not bothering to lift my gaze from the thick file on my desk.

  Images were spread across the surface.

  Blinding light blurred their faces, but I knew them just the same.

  My brothers were in full flight, wings outstretched, knees buckled as they punched from the earth’s surface on their way home once more.

  I hated them and loved them at the same time.

  Hated their freedom, loved their purpose.

  I once felt purpose. But not anymore.

  The hinges creaked as the door opened wider. “Sorry, my Lord,” Helkor growled.

  Darkness dipped into the soft white light from the lamp on my desk. I lifted my head to the leader of my Hounds. Blue flames of Hell usually raged in Helkor’s eyes, but in the last few days, they were washed out and dull. It seemed fatherhood was Hell.

  We lived outside of the pit, high up on the rocky ledge in a castle carved from Hellstone in the shape of a dragon, and my commander had been performing double duty, both at my side and to his mate, Helene, with her litter of four rowdy pups.

  Helkor handed me a thick stack of envelopes. Inwardly I groaned, not ready to reach out and take from him the nightmare waiting.

  “It’s time again,” he muttered.

  I jerked my gaze from the yellow and white paper to his gaze. “Will they never learn?”

  “Doesn’t seem that way.”

  I swallowed and left the black and white glossy images to take the thick stack. I could already see the scrawls…the shaking hands, the thick black ink. Tiny blue flowers drawn into the corners.

  And glitter.

  There was always fucking glitter.

  I’d only just finished vacuuming the fragments out of the Persian rug from last year.

  And now it was here again.

  Christmas.

  Dear Satan…

  I winced at the child’s handwriting and looked at all the envelopes before I snarled and reached underneath for the top drawer of my desk. I grabbed the fountain pen and the bottle of ink, slamming it down on the desk in front of me so the midnight liquid splashed the sides. Helkor flinched but said nothing.

  Children.

  I inhaled hard and stilled the shudder. Little humans haunted me. Their smiles. Their piercing, shrill screams of delight. Their damn sticky fingers.

  Ugh.

  I snatched the stopper off the ink and dipped the pen inside before tapping once and then stilled, poised over the first letter.

  One black strike and I fixed in an instant the goddamn issue.

  One simple second was all it’d take. One goddamn second to check the address before these parents slapped—I yanked the envelope closer and peered at the stamps in the corner, counting them before I looked to my commander once more. “Ten dollars? Ten goddamn dollars of stamps, and they can’t address it correctly?”

  Helkor just shrugged. I ground my teeth and put a strike through the name on the front of the envelope, then scrawled the correct name next to it. Dear Satan Santa. “Dear Santa…Dear Santa…” I snarled. “Why the Hell do I still get these, anyway?”

  “It’s part of your job, my Lord—”

  I snapped my gaze upwards, glaring at the man who’d served at my side for three hundred years. He wouldn’t make three hundred and one if he opened his mouth one more damn time.

  Dear Satan Santa.

  Dear Satan Santa.

  Dear Satan Santa.

  Hearts and flowers decorated the corners and the rear of the envelopes. Polka dots and glued glitter came free as I touched them. I winced, staring at the tips of my fingers as I moved one envelope after another from one pile to another, until I stilled.

  The small white folded corners had no glitter. I flipped the letter onto its back, and in a child’s stick figure drawing was a man dressed in a black cape with fangs.

  You. The word was scrawled underneath the image, with an arrow pointed to the figure’s armpit. Beside it was a small girl with a very big head and curly blonde hair. Me, was written underneath, and beside her was the biggest, ugliest dog I’d ever seen.

  I lowered the pen onto the desk beside me and stared at the mess of a drawing. I couldn’t help but smile. I lifted my gaze to the name scrawled in a child’s block letters.

  Purity Andersen

  1587 Morrison Avenue, South Harbor.

  “South Harbor,” I murmured and lifted the envelope closer. Purity, what a perfect name.

  “My Lord?” Helkor murmured.

  My hands moved on their own, catching the corner of the paper and yanked. The rip tore through the room before I delved inside. This was no ordinary child. No boring goddamn slip of the pen. My heart gave a weak thud.

  The letter inside came free in an instant and tumbled onto the desk. I smoothed the paper and took my time, reading line by line.

  Dear Satan,

  This Christmas you can keep your Barbie dolls, and your new bikes. I want one thing. I want a puppy. Not just any puppy. I want one of yours.

  I promise to love him, feed him every night and morning. I promise to lie to Momma and Dad when they ask why the house is on fire. I promise above all not to make him change. If he’s in trouble, then I want to be too.

  P.S. Momma doesn’t know, okay? So can you put a bow on him and leave him on the doorstep. Just ring the bell, I’ll be waiting.

  Yours forever and ever.

  Purity.

  “Trouble, huh?” I muttered and lifted my gaze.

  Helkor just looked at me like I’d stroked out. Maybe I had. The hollow pit inside my chest gave a tremble again, fighting for a fucking reason to pulse once more.

  I glanced at the black and white images shoved to the side once more.

  Maybe this was it? Maybe this was all the reason I needed? I lifted my gaze to my exhausted, battle-weary warrior, and yet he hadn’t stood on the front lines f
or more than a hundred years. I snatched the letter from the desk and rose to my feet. “How about a trip topside, Helkor?”

  He blanched and his eyes were filled with panic. “Lord…I…”

  “I what, you don’t want to accompany me?”

  “It’s not that…I just…it’s…”

  I sighed, pushed my hands against the edge of the desk to stand. “It’s what?”

  There was a mixture of horror and trauma the likes of which I’ve never known, and hopefully will never know. “It’s my turn to take care of the heathens.”

  “Ah,” I murmured and nodded.

  “I’m sorry, I…” he started.

  I lifted my hand, stopping him mid-sentence. “Don’t be. It’s fine, I can go on my own.”

  Torture filled his gaze. “No. I can’t allow it. Let me talk to Helene. I can just change my day.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly fine in a city filled with mortals.”

  “Half a city,” he corrected.

  He was right. Harbor had the highest population of immortals hiding in its city streets. But they remained confined to the darkness, hidden by contacts and high-collared shirts. Even witches remained quiet, practicing in hidden lairs and secret rooms, unable to stand tall for the powers they possess.

  I had hope that one day the mortal world would come to understand the myriad of creatures they shared the world with, to take strength and a sense of kinship for all creatures.

  But not today. Today, immortals remained hidden, and I…I was without a companion. “Don’t even worry. I can take another. That young pup, Rykor. I’ll take him instead.”

  Helkor’s top lip curled. “No, not him. He’s not ready.” There was a grumble and a mutter under his breath.

  I hadn’t had much time for the new recruits, leaving the training and the supervising to my second. I looked at him, at his slumped shoulders and his lackluster hair. Maybe I had put too much responsibility on him.

  I stepped from behind my desk and took a step closer. There were very few people in this godforsaken realm I had any time for, but he was one of them. He was more than my commander. He was a friend.

  I lifted a hand and placed it on his shoulder. “Don’t even worry yourself. It was a silly idea. Go, take care of your litter and your mate.”

  He lifted his head, eyes widening. “Are you sure?”

  I forced a smile. The thing felt alien on my lips. But for him, I tried. “Positive. Off you go. Give my best to Helene.”

  With a nod, I left him, sliding my hand from his shoulder, and turned back to the mess on my desk.

  I remained quiet, returning to my chair without another glance in his direction. He knew me too well, hovering for a moment before he turned on his heel and strode from the room.

  I stared not at the photographs, but at the letter and the back of the envelope. The child had drawn me as a damn Vampire. But I was willing to forgive her mistake.

  I reached up and smoothed the slick black mane from my forehead. It’d been ages since I left Hell’s realm. Twenty, thirty years? A nerve jumped near the corner of my eye. It was too long, too long since I’d graced Harbor City’s streets with my presence.

  I lifted my gaze, listening to the fading steps of the commander of the Hellhound army, before I grabbed the letter and slid it back inside the envelope.

  Helkor was concerned about my welfare. I glanced at the images of my brothers and felt a twinge of jealously. Gabriel and Michael came and went as they chose.

  Now it was my turn. I closed my fist around the letter, glancing once more at the address on the back, and made for the door.

  It was time to have a little Hellish fun.

  The Dragon’s Breath raged from deep in the eye of the sunken pit, spitting crimson Hellfire like a ruptured vein into the sky.

  I lifted my head to the searing wind and felt the panic inside me ease. The Keep was quiet now. Quiet but not forgotten, and a time when men and mortals were growing bolder.

  I swallowed a tremor as the unease grew. There’d been talk of an attack on Hell itself by a militant group who called themselves The Nine, but for now they were only whispers in dark alleys on a drunken breath.

  But I was waiting. I was always waiting.

  I lowered my gaze to the pit as the tension inside trembled. The envelope crumpled as I moved. A different purpose waited. One bestowed upon me by my fall from grace.

  I stepped down off the stony bridge and left the Keep behind. The journey beneath was fast as I sank into the hate and the horror of this place. I moved through the first level, listening to the screams and the hate of all the newcomers.

  They’d get used to this place soon enough—or they wouldn’t.

  Either way, there was no returning to the light for them.

  I lengthened my stride in the darkness, knowing this place by energy alone, and made my way toward the home of my second. Terrifying screams filtered out, punctured by a guttural male roar. But this was no tortured soul—this was my Hellhound warrior…

  This was his day to take care of the Hellions.

  “Wouldn’t go in there, if I were you, my Lord.”

  I stilled at the quiet voice in the darkness and turned to Helkor’s eldest boy. “You hiding out here, Rykor?”

  He stepped out of the darkness, all two feet of his scrawny frame, and glanced toward the bloodcurdling screams of young pups. “Wouldn’t you?”

  I couldn’t help but smile at the eight-year-old as I stepped closer and reached out to tussle his dark hair. He was just a pup himself, but I had no doubt he’d make one helluva fine warrior as he grew. After all, he carried his father’s lineage.

  “Dad said they’re Hell until they turn ten, only five more years to go. Said I’m more grown up than most kids.”

  “I bet he did.”

  His chest swelled with pride. “Did you need something, my Lord?”

  The kid looked at me with hope in his eyes. He wanted to serve and fight, and, for a second, I could see it all in his eyes, the hate, the darkness…the pain. He’d serve me well, this one…he’d serve me very well, indeed. My smile faded, slipping away from me like the ground beneath my feet. “No, I just…”

  “I can protect you,” he claimed, taking a step closer, and lifted his small fists.

  Tendons strained under his skin, and in an instant, the fires of Hell grew inside his dark eyes. “I have no doubt about that, no doubt at all. But I just came to check on your father, to make sure he was still sane…” and occupied.

  His clenched fist eased, and the blood-red flames died away to amber as he kicked an unseen stone. “Yeah, he’s gonna be busy. Kelor screams the loudest, Dad says she’s Hell on wheels.”

  A bark of laughter tore from my lips and bounced against the walls of Hell as the piercing howl of a young pup raged inside my commander’s house. “Yes, so I can hear. Don’t tell him I stopped by, let’s just keep this to ourselves, okay?”

  There was a solemn nod as the kid looked into my gaze. I reached out, ruffled his dark hair once more and then turned. “Take care of your mother, Rykor. Lord knows your father isn’t equipped to handle all this Hell on his own.”

  I left the boy behind and closed my eyes, this time not heading for the Keep…but somewhere much higher.

  The dark city streets of Harbor were a reprieve from the heat of Hell. I stepped out from the shadows of an alley downtown and listened to the blare of a car horn and call of a male, “Hey! Are you blind?! Stupid sonofabitch.”

  Ah, humans.

  The envelope rubbed against my hip as I moved. I wanted to go to the house of the youngster, and see this human child called Purity for myself. But it was nighttime here in the mortal world. A time where constraints of work were over and humans allowed themselves to be who they were born to be.

  Sadistic.

  Cruel.

  Filled with sin.

  “He walks among us!” the street corner preacher screamed, carrying a sandwich board filled with scrip
ture. “You must learn the signs of the Devil, for Lucifer was once an angel cast out from the glory of Heaven.”

  I ground my jaw and stepped around the corner, catching from the corner of my eye as the preacher glanced my way.

  “You, sir! Are you not tortured by sin? I watched you step out of that darkened alley seeking flesh and poison, did you not?”

  I stepped to the side, but the human was relentless, hounding me as I walked. “You are not without God’s presence!”

  I stopped on a dime and jerked my gaze toward him, letting him see the burning pit of Hell in my eyes. “Yes, in actual fact…I am.”

  He stilled, hands falling from the air just like his self-righteousness. I wanted to show him just what fallen feels like…to be cast aside from your home and everything you’d known your entire life.

  To lose your purpose…

  And then to find it once more, in the darkness and the decay.

  To be the one mortals turn to when their God leaves them in the darkness.

  I was not born a monster.

  But I was created.

  I left him then, and stepped down from the sidewalk to cross the street. The human world was a diseased, foul place…one step away from Hell.

  God, I missed the hate of it all.

  An icy touch crawled along the nape of my neck as I turned into Slipknot Lane and headed for the blacked-out doors of Midnight’s only outed Supernatural bar.

  Humans knew the kind of creatures who came here, and yet they pretended it wasn’t what it seemed. It wasn’t the start of the most important revolution of my kind. It was the moment humans were dethroned.

  They were not the apex predators any longer.

  We were.

  I shoved through the doors, and swallowed my power, even the tiniest tendril would reveal who I was. Helkor was right, it was dangerous times.