Miscreants (Cursed Brothers Book 1) Read online

  Miscreants

  A Cursed Brothers novel

  Book 1

  R. Coffey

  Also by R. Coffey

  The Faerie Tale Series:

  Ashen

  Chamma

  Phalyn

  Lucus & Dhay

  Knox & Zane

  The Broken, Battered, and Bruised Trilogy:

  Broken Soul

  Battered Spirit

  Bruised Heart

  The Neverdom Stand-A-lone Series:

  Ugly Grace

  Beautiful Sin

  The Nether Trilogy:

  The Nether

  Ambrosia

  The When Series:

  When Night Falls

  The Cursed Brothers Trilogy

  Miscreants

  Procreants

  Recreant

  Disillusioned

  For Lily and Beth

  The first readers to fall in love with Abel and Azzy.

  (and, for some reason, Kai.)

  One

  The sound of my shoes slapping against the pocked asphalt echoed like thunder through the lifeless street as I picked my way toward a partially dilapidated stone bench. At one time, the granite pew had rested across from a fountain fit with a cherub that sprouted water. Now it lay on its side, reduced to a slab of marble teetering on a pile of broken rock. Burrowing deeper into my jacket, I lowered myself onto the wobbly rubble, overcome by my throbbing body. The arm of my coat was wet with blood, the laceration beneath open and gushing. Something on my forehead tingled each time the breeze danced across it.

  Warily, I took in my surroundings. In some spots, whole trees had been torn up, exposing tangles of roots that dusted the sidewalk with black earth. Rocks and debris littered the ground. Telephone lines snapped and sparked as they wiggled across the broken asphalt. None of the houses were left intact. Roofs were crushed in or torn out, side panels were missing, and huge craters lay everywhere. Some of the homes along the street still burned, sending plumes of smoke dancing into the sky. The smell of charred flesh was almost worse than the stink of blood.

  Almost.

  “Azzy!” The desperate screech sounded miles away, but when I jerked my chin toward the shrill cry, Finn was only standing across the street. He quickly negated the distance at an anxious sprint. “I thought for sure you weren’t coming back!” Wheezing laboriously, he came to a swift halt in front of me. “Azzy, what happened? Why did you run off?”

  My gaze skittered to my hands. Blood had congealed in the web of cracks and crevices crisscrossing my ripped palms. I’d barely noticed it until now, not even when small tremors had started to agitate my fingers, steaming from my shaking hands. The red goo was everywhere, on my skin, in my hair. During my walk back it had dried, but I could still feel it.

  In front of me, the skinny pillars holding up the ancient fountain gave away, and the structure collapsed, making me jump. Loose pebbles and dust flew in all directions just as a furnace exploded down the road. Angry flames shot into the sky as debris crashed against the ground.

  I steadied my gaze on Finn to block out the sight of the destruction.

  “Azzy, talk to me.” Finn’s normally calm tone had become rancorous to be heard above the wreckage. His broad forehead was brindled with ash, and his jeans were torn, exposing mushy red flesh. Flecks of dirt clung to his long brown hair. From the bruise on his high, oval cheek plus the barbed cut across his tapered jaw, it was apparent he’d been fighting.

  That wasn’t a surprise. Finn would have defended Oliver’s Lane with his dying breath.

  “Azzy . . . whose blood is that?” Finn grasped my wrists, and I jerked back, but he didn’t let go. “What happened?”

  “I wasn’t fast enough.” My voice was the barest whisper, hoarse and faded. My tongue lashed across my lips, but it was as dry as sandpaper, so it had little effect. At some point, my throat had turned into a desert oasis. “They ripped her apart. I tried to save her, but . . .” When I closed my eyes, I could still see my mom’s scared face.

  Long, muscular arms wrapped around me. The familiar fall-leaves-mixed-with-sweat scent momentarily blocked out the foul air. With my face pressed into Tristan’s shoulder, grief swelled in my eyes and locked in my throat. An overwhelming wave of pain pushed at the wall I’d carefully built around my heart when I’d left the woods.

  Before the first tear could fall, I pushed Finn away.

  My mother was dead. My home was destroyed. Comfort couldn’t change that; it would only make accepting it harder.

  I felt Finn’s keen green eyes on me but refused to meet his stare. “What about Flora? Lindsey?”

  “They’re okay.” He tried to force a smile into his voice though it cracked anyway. “I got them away before . . .” When he ducked his head to catch my eye, he finally succeeded. “Hey—I wanted to help you too, but you ran off so fast.”

  “Your sister and Lindsey are more important than me,” I muttered, relishing the small amount of peace the news brought. “What about the others? The Cartwright family? The twins? Ellie and Dwaine?” An endless list of names chugged through my skull.

  Finn wrung his calloused palms together. “The miscreants took Ellie and Mary Lou with them when they left.”

  My blood turned into ice. Pressing a hand against my pounding heart, I tried to shake off tumultuous waves of affliction. Those poor girls. There wasn’t a worse way to die than by becoming a miscreant’s portable snack.

  Finn quietly added, “The Teagan brothers and Adam are with Lindsey and Flora. They’re the only survivors.”

  I continued to stare at him as I waited for hysteria to take over. Seven survivors? Fifty-two procreants had lived on this street, yet only seven remained? A sea of faces blurred through my skull. The ball of ice that had formed over my heart thickened.

  The gray twilight webbing the sky began to lighten as night broke into day, tossing a cool breeze across the rubble. The sudden gust carried with it the smell of death. Although my long hair sat in a tangle over my shoulder, I barely felt the cold on my clammy skin.

  When I wobbled to my feet, Finn reached out to steady me, but I backed away from him. If I leaned on him now, I wasn’t sure I’d ever stand on my own again. My injured leg protested the sudden tenacious weight, forcing me to wince, but there wasn’t much I could do. The movement was necessary.

  Finn said, “Jack and Marian are boarding up the old church along the north bend. Everyone’s staying there for now. We’ve got non-perishables, water . . . it’ll tide us over.”

  “Until?” I forced myself to investigate his tired, broken gaze. Finn had been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours. He’d watched miscreants rip our home into pieces. Who knew how many of our friends he’d personally seen killed? As if that weren’t enough, I could tell by the way his green eyes skirted away from mine that there was something he didn’t want to say to me.

  “Spill, Fi.” Was there anything worse than what had already happened?

  Finn’s thin lips drew into a line. After pushing a lock of sandy brown hair out of his eyes, he admitted, “Abel called.”

  A wave of nausea swept across my stomach. Abel . . . How had he heard about the attack so soon?

  With a shake of my head, I tried to stave off thoughts of him before they could fully take form. Pinpricks of unease tore through my chest that I desperately tried to ignore.

  “Flora and Lindsey want to go,” Finn said tersely, his voice taking on a serious undertone. “It’s time, Azreah. You can’t let your personal feelings cloud your judgment. We’ll be safe on Alpha land. Safe under Allah’s protection.”

  A wave of dizziness coasted across my head. Return to Akkadia? Live under
the same roof as Abel again?

  Akkadia was the last thing I wanted to think about right now, but Finn was right about one thing. It was safe there. Allah used to tease us with a story about an oracle who had blessed Akkadia with a charm preventing enemies from entering. I never knew if he was telling the truth or just a fanciful tale. Still, miscreants kept their distance, never stepping foot on Akkadian soil.

  That didn’t mean I wanted to rush back.

  My feet shuffled backward. “Going to Akkadia would be good for them. For you.” My already swollen throat tightened. “Allah’s a good man. A great Alpha.”

  Unsure of what else to say or do, I turned to slip away. My heart was a painful lump in my chest. My entire body ached; my emotions wrung tight. Fleeing to Allah and his pack of Akkadian soldiers felt like a defeat. Like we’d lost.

  “Azzy,” Finn’s strained voice momentarily stalled me. I didn’t turn back around but paused under a shattered streetlamp. “You should come. It isn’t safe out here. We can’t hide among humans anymore. Not when the miscreants are hunting us.”

  “Miscreants have been hunting procreants since the beginning of time,” I rebuffed. My words were nearly swallowed by the crackle of flames twisting along the rooftops. Beneath my feet, tiny shards of glass twinkled under the first rays of morning.

  “Not on this scale.” Finn lifted his arms out as if to showcase the damage they’d done. “Colonies used to be safe, but they aren’t anymore. It feels like the miscreants are trying to exterminate us.”

  My lips cracked into a sardonic smile. “They can’t exterminate us, Finn. What would they eat? Humans?”

  Finn cocked his oval head to the side, causing long brown hair to fan out around his shoulders. The look he gave me wasn’t amused. “Don’t be silly. Obviously, they aren’t going to eat humans. Miscreants wouldn’t lower themselves to snack on diseased meat. But if they aren’t trying to kill us off, then what are they doing, Azzy?” He shifted his eyes around the chaos. Somehow it looked worse when touched by the gray light of the slowly rising sun.

  “I’m not going to Akkadia.” I set my chin in determination. Memories of the beautiful seven-hundred acres of forested land flashed across my mind. “I can’t.”

  Finn’s jaw locked, making his pointed chin lift stubbornly. “You won’t be able to use that excuse forever. Not if Abel has anything to say about it.”

  Curling my hands into fists, I finally threw a glance back at him. Finn and Flora had been my best friends for as long as I could remember. I couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing them again. But I had promised myself when I’d left Akkadia that I would never go back. No matter what.

  Abel had already called, which didn’t leave a lot of time to get gone. Within hours, Allah would appear in Oliver’s Lane himself, or he would send a couple brawny members of his procreant soldier squad to ‘rescue’ whoever had survived. “Will you do me a favor?”

  Finn released a weary breath. “Of course. Anything.”

  The blood on my hands prickled as if reminding me it was there. “When the Akkadian’s get here, I want you to tell them that I died in the south forest alongside my mother.” Finn opened his mouth to protest, but I silenced him by raising my hand. “Please.”

  My friend’s handsome face crumbled. He wanted to argue with me. It was written all over his flashing eyes and wry frown. He was smart, though, and knew it wouldn’t do any good. As I watched, his broad shoulders slumped in defeat.

  After several tense moments, he swatted at the moisture on his face and nodded. “I love you, Azzy.”

  My fingers dug into my already ravaged palms. “Bye, Fi.”

  Ducking my head, I hurried down the road before he could try and convince me to stay. Barring it wasn’t burned to the ground, I wanted to go home and wash up before fleeing.

  I had no intention of sticking around to welcome the Akkadians.

  Two

  With my teeth, I severed the end of the fishing line, untangled the hook, and tossed it back into the tackle box at my feet. With gentle fingers, I inspected the gash on my arm. Aside from the Frankenstein-like stitches and the puffy pink ring outlining the torn skin, it didn’t look that bad.

  After snatching a bottle of whiskey off the floor, I took a long, hard swallow. The liquid tore up my throat and burned its way into my stomach, creating a faint, fuzzy web around my brain. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tipped the remaining alcohol over the angry wound. White-hot pain licked across my skin. With a sharp gasp, I slammed the bottle back on the tile.

  The most I’d been able to salvage from my home was a mangled mop bucket and a bottle of hot sauce. Luckily, mom had buried our life savings in an old soup can in the backyard. After leaving Finn, I’d stumbled across Timothy Master’s tackle box scattered beside the ashes of his family shed. Ten minutes later, not only had I dutifully dug up the soup can, but I also had the tackle box wedged under my arm as I scouted for a place to clean up.

  “Run, Azreah!” My mother’s plea reverberated through my skull. The image of her blood-splattered face was burned into my brain.

  “Damn it, mom!” My sharp tone bounced around the pristine bathroom. A wedge of anger had latched onto my heart in the wake of her death. There were so many things I wanted to ask her. Why today, of all days, had she gone into that forest? Why had we gotten into that stupid fight?

  Why had she died before I could tell her I loved her?

  Every question remained locked on my tongue, tingling the muscle like bitter nettles.

  After getting to my feet, I padded over to the oval mirror suspended above a marble sink to inspect the cut on my forehead. It was longer than it was deep, so I was done playing surgeon for the day. My fingers dropped to the peppering of bruises fanning my jaw and collarbone. They were already turning a dark, irritated purple.

  “Stupid monsters.” I craned my neck from side-to-side, taking stock of the damage. It was hard to tell if I’d sustained any other injuries under all the dirt hiding my usually pale white skin. Not that it mattered. At the current moment, my injuries were the last thing on my mind.

  I’d gone my whole life having people tell me I looked like my mother, but it wasn’t until now when I stood glaring at my own reflection that I finally saw it. Not only did we share the same heart-shaped face and rounded chin, but the arch of our brows fell in the exact same midway location. While I’d always known I’d inherited her pin-straight dark auburn hair, mine fell past my shoulders, and mom had always kept hers short. My plump mouth was hers too, but the eyes were different. Mom’s had remained wide and dewy right until the end, but mine had hardened into chips of blue ice a long time ago.

  Barely able to look at myself without seeing my deceased mother, I focused on the reflection of a glass-encased shower and decided it was time to bathe. Everything else could wait.

  After stripping off my sticky clothing, I kicked them into the corner. The people that had belonged to this home were dead, so my abandoned garments wouldn’t bother them.

  Once the hot water was cranked up, I slipped behind the curtain and tipped my face into the pulsing stream. Tiny beads of heat splashed across my skin and gushed down my body, driving out the chill that had tunneled into my muscles. Keeping my eyelids clamped shut, I rested my head against the tile as the blistering flow pebbled my tense neck.

  “Azzy, run! Save yourself!” Mom’s jeweled eyes widened in panic. When she pushed at my legs, my feet skidded across the soil.

  “There’s nowhere to go!” My harsh response was clouded with fear. “They’re all over Oliver’s Lane! They’re ripping it apart, mom, killing everything they see!” Slipping my arm around her shoulders, I trained my gaze on her round face to keep from looking at her ruinous leg that gave the term minced meat new meaning. “We can both make it if we go north,” I encouraged.

  My gaze sliced toward the fallen miscreant bucking and thrashing by the pond. Death was circling him. Under drab dapples of moonlight, blood rushed out from the puncture i
n his chest. He wasn’t a problem anymore.

  His friends were.

  Down the path, the boom of footfalls proceeded a rancorous burst of snarls.

  “I’m not going to make it, Azreah.” When my mom shoved at my side again, my feet finally lost their hold on the slick ground. We both tumbled into the mud, blasting dirt into the air.

  When I looked at my mom, she had tears in her eyes. “I’m dead weight. Please don’t die because of me.” Underneath her shaky voice was a desperate plea. Her hands grasped mine weakly. “Please, Azzy.”

  The creatures thundered closer. Short breaths tore from my chest in alarm, making my lungs burn. Impulsively, I leap back to my feet.

  “I can fight them, Mom,” I promised. “Abel taught me. I can keep you safe.”

  My eyes sprang open. Just under the showerhead, my fists had obliterated the tile. With dead eyes, I held my hands under the water and watched the blood swirl around my feet. At that moment, I was positive that thoughts about my mother would forever be clouded in pain. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face, heard her screams.

  After grabbing a bottle of body wash from a built-in cubby, I lathered up a porous loofa and started to purge myself of the south forest. I scrubbed for what felt like hours, going over every inch of my body until nothing remained but pink, slightly chafed skin. When the smell of death no longer hid in my pores, I let the sponge slip from my fingers into the bottom of the tub. At some point, I’d gained control of my breathing, and the deep throbbing pain in my chest had quieted to a morose twang.

  My hair took five shampoos and two conditioner treatments before the water ran clear. My scalp tingled and burned by the time I was done. Bits of squiggly pink tissue caught in the drain, too large to fall into the tiny holes. There was no way to know who it belonged to. My mom? One of the creatures I’d killed? Myself?

  My stomach heaved, threatening revolt.

  Gritting my teeth, I slapped the faucet off and shoved the glass door open. An unfamiliar mix of black and blue tile greeted me. Stepping onto a cheetah print bathmat, I yanked a towel off the shelf by the toilet and wrapped myself up in it. Mom would never have owned fancy towels monogrammed with the family name. Had she known such things existed in the Claymores’ bathroom, we both would have laughed about it.