Angel Breath by Racquel Kechagias (read along books .TXT) 📖

Isabelle could feel the darkness closing in as she rushed through the streets of Camden trying, desperately to get home. She knew that her father would be waiting there, waiting for her and she urged her feet on faster. The crack of lightning and the rumble of the upcoming storm also had her trying to run faster than she had ever run before. She could see him – her father – in the not-to-far distance, waiting outside of their front door. Isabelle hardly noticed the houses – with their same layout, style and colour – flying past her as her feet slapped against the ground. She could see the tension in his body a mile away, could see how his body was prepared for a fight; He knew. She could tell that he knew by the way that he watched the area around them, his eyes focused on nothing in the far distance rather than his icy blue eyes being fixed on hers, as she found them to be whenever they were in close proximity.  Some would have though it strange that she was running to her father for comfort but she didn’t, he had always been her strong hold, the one she could turn to when she couldn’t understand something or when things turned bad, he was the only one that was there for her as her mother had abandon them both when she was only five. A girl at that age needed their mother but alas she had had only her father and strangely it was okay with her.

“Isabelle, get inside. Quickly now,” Jonathan White said as Isabelle reached his side. Isabelle looked up to her father and nodded her head quickly but before she could get inside she felt a cold shiver run down her spine and she turned back to the street, feeling the tension in her father intensify.

“Xavier, or should I say Grim?” Isabelle heard her father sneer. Isabelle was surprised at the tone that her father’s voice had taken towards Adam’s father; Xavier, but what did he mean by Grim?

“Hush now Jonathan, Son of the Ophanium. Your daughter here is the one that I want. She made a promise to my son and she has broken it and you know as well as I that word is law where we are from.” Xavier sneered, his lips turning up into a wicked smirk. Isabelle had no idea what he was talking about, what promise had she made to Adam that she had not kept? There was none that she could think of and yet she backed away from the man standing in the shadows of the street as her father walked out of the security of their home.

“Over my dead body you will,” Jonathan yelled. Isabelle watched as Xavier’s attention turned from her to her father and she watched as his smirk grew on his face until it turned into a full fledge grin.

“With pleasure,” Xavier sneered. Isabelle watched as Jonathan stepped out onto the street she watched as much as she could until her vision blurred. Isabelle could have sworn that the two grown men had sprouted wings; she could have sworn that her father had pulled out a blazing sword of white fire, and that Xavier had pulled out a black sword that she could have sworn was pulling on the darkness growing around them, as if hungry for the dark energy. She could have sworn that the two men engaged in battle, the sound of their swords as they collided hidden underneath the rumble and cracking of the storm. She could have sworn that she witnessed all these things with her own eyes but her mind kept on telling her that it was impossible, that this type of thing just didn’t happen.

“As long as I’m around Grim you will never have my daughter,” Jonathan said, the glory and judgement of heaven shining through his voice and eyes as he looked down onto the man below him. Isabelle watched as her father pointed the blazing sword of fire at Xavier’s throat but she couldn’t make out the words being said between them even though she could obviously see their lips moving.

“I don’t need to have her; eventually the man that takes my place will have her, or should I say my son will eventually have her.” Xavier sneered. The sounds of the storm roared again and a white blinding light exploded from the tip of Jonathan’s sword as it pierced Xavier’s throat.

In the distance Isabelle could see Adam Black – Xavier’s son and her best friend – watching as her father killed his. Jonathan walked away from Xavier and towards his daughter pulling her into the house, shutting out the world around them. Isabelle turned to see Adam one last time and before her father could close the door their eyes met and even with all the distance separating between them and she knew that this wasn’t the end; that this battle between their parents may be over but the battle between them – two ex-best friends - was only beginning.

“Sooner or later, when the time is right, you know that I’ll be waiting here, and I’m sure you’ll find your way to me.” Little Angel – Bad Company

Five years later

Darkness; No light just complete, terrifying darkness. Emptiness; Isabelle could feel her heartbeat smashing against her rib cage – She could hear the desperate pounding of her pulse. Stumbling, Falling, Falling down and down into nothing but damp and musty darkness. She had never felt more alone. Earth; coating her hands, seeping into her fingernails. Blood; The bitter taste of blood in her mouth; an acidic taste. Her stomach lurched. She could hear ragged breathing behind her. Spinning, She could see nothing but a never ending veil of darkness. She could see her tomb. A hand reaches out, cold and filthy. She can’t scream – She opens her mouth but nothing comes out. The grasp is hard, tight. There is no face to this person, just hands, filthy and terrible upon my bare shoulders. She can’t see his face and yet she knows by the feel of him that she doesn’t want. She starts to scream but no sound comes out there’s no sound but his haunting laughter; A laugh that chills her to the core.

“There’s no escape, your mine.” A voice breathes in her ear, the voice rattling as it speaks and yet even though it haunts her, makes her feel her imminent death closing in, she knows the words of her freedom.

“I will never be yours Grim; nor your masters.” And with those words spoken from her free lips she feel his grip lesson; a blind light explodes around her and in it she can feel her freedom approaching.

Isabelle sat up quickly in her bed, looking around her at the obvious light of morning. She releases at breath that she had been holding as she’s realizes that it had been just a dream. She had had the same dream ever since that night. It had been five years and her father had protected her in that time without her learning of anything that had to do with that night, that had to do with her father’s past but now her father was gone, he had died a few weeks ago, in a car crash and it was his funeral today, she could feel the tears brimming in her eyes, threatening to fall over but with a sniffle she pulled herself out of her bed and made her way to the bathroom, hoping that a good bath with a ton of bubbles would help her feel at least a little better about the whole situation.

As she soaked in the bath a singular memory curled around her mind. It was one from when she was five years old. Her father had been helping her take a bath until her mother had called him away from her.

“Jonathan, why do you keep these things a secret from me? It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore.” Her mother screeched and Isabelle flinched from the onslaught her father was taking.

“Why would I keep secrets from you? You’re my wife!” Jonathan replied but Isabelle could sense that he was telling the entire truth.

“Than what is this! This, this top secret document. Another thing from your ‘top secret’ job! I wish you would just tell me these things, I wish you would just communicate with me.” Her mother continued her voice reaching higher levels, Isabelle couldn’t understand the complexity of what was going on but she knew that this was a fight to top all of their fights; which happened quite occasionally.

“Look, just forget it. I’m sick and tired of you and all of your secrets. Don’t come looking for me Jonathan, I don’t want you to find me,” and with those final words leaving her mother’s thin lips. She could hear the slaps of her mother’s footsteps as she walked away from her father; and in adjunction herself. Isabelle could feel the frown forming on her five-year-old brow; No, she couldn’t understand the complexity of what their fight was over but Isabelle realized that the mother that didn’t love her completely had just walked out of the house’s front door, not even stopping to look back.

The memory of her five-year-old self abandon the twenty three year old sitting in her bath tub, the bubbles reaching up to the tips of her shoulders. She let out a sigh as she sunk lower into the bath tub. She started to understand the complexity of that final argument as she got older and she realized more and more her father’s constant absence. It was the fact that - during the years she spent growing up – her father’s absence which was indeed constant that it now felt as if he was on another ‘top secret’ job. That he was only away for a little way rather than soon-to-be lying in a coffin six feet below ground. Isabelle spent time washing her hair to the point where it was silky smooth and smelling of a combination of coconut’s and banana’s, her skin smooth and moisturized and her legs and arm’s completely free of the dark hair that covered them with a few quick strokes of a razor blade on the now-smooth skin.

Her bath had proven to be useful, relaxing but she could still feel the threat that hanged over her head. She had known ever since that night that one day she would have to continue the battle that her father fought with her best friend; well, ex-best friend. Still, she wouldn’t allow thoughts of Adam to sinking into her today; Heck, she hadn’t allowed thoughts of Adam to fill her ever since she learned of her father’s death. She quickly slipped on the simple black dress that she had brought for today and she applied a simply layer of natural makeup. She didn’t need to bring attention to herself to do. Today was the day that she would dedicate