Angel's Gambit

By Susan Harris

Monsters are real... but they look like angels.

Raven Cassidy has always known that the real evil in her world came disguised as angels. Imprisoned deep in the dungeons of the angelic citadel for attempting to assassinate the Imperium, Raven has spent the last three years at their mercy. When the Commander of the Imperium’s warrior angels offers Raven a deal to find the spy within the citadel in exchange for her freedom; Raven sees a way to finally finish what she started.

For her plan to succeed, she has to work closely with the creatures who have kept her prisoner since she was seventeen. When the lines between enemy and friend start to get blurred, Raven must rely on her rigorous training, and mental grit to stay alive.

But Raven is hiding a secret, one that if exposed, could mean a swift execution at the hands of the very angel who makes her feel things she shouldn’t.

Time is running out, and being an Angel’s Gambit is harder than you’d think!

Angel's Gambit is the first in the 5 book Wings of Deceit series. Book 2 coming January 2024.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CTP Publishing
• Release date: Apr 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781634225212

Susan Harris

Susan Harris is a writer from Cork in Ireland. An avid reader, she quickly grew to love books in the supernatural/fantasy genre. When she is not writing or reading, she loves music, oriental cultures, tattoos, anything Disney and psychology. If she wasn't a writer she would love to be a FBI profiler or a PA for Dave Grohl or Jared Leto.Susan Harris is the author of Shattered Memories.

Book preview

Iwas fully prepared to die tonight.

Everything I had done in the last three months was building to this moment, this flicker of time that would define me or destroy me. I wasn’t nervous, I wasn’t stressed, just resigned to the fact that I had been waiting my entire life for this moment.

Grant them no mercy.

Because the fucking monsters that walked around me certainly had not shown us humans mercy.

I stood at the entrance of the opulent throne room, scanning my eyes around the space, fighting not to bristle as the winged creatures laughed and drank and partied like they had not ruined the world around them and forced humans into servitude. With each rustle of their wings, I became more steadfast in my task as I shuffled slightly to the right.

A cold hilt was thrust into my hand and I quickly sheathed it in the waistband of my pants. I inclined my head to Hayes, his eyes filled with words he wanted to say yet, there was no time.

It was now or never.

It was do or die.

Closing my eyes, I reached inside myself for the part of me that I kept hidden, for the magic that was forbidden and would see me executed in the streets in order to show the humans just how powerful our oppressors were.

My magic was a subtle thing, yet, it did not feel like that to me. I felt it crawl along my skin, a coldness settling in my bones as it fell into place. When you spend so much time walking into a room and wanting to be invisible, sometimes, fate is cruel and gives you just what you want.

I tested my magic, plucking a fresh strawberry from a plate and popping it into my mouth, almost groaning at how succulent it tasted. It had been so long since I had eaten anything other than stale bread and broth.

But at least the creature I had stolen the fruit from frowned down at her plate, her flawless skin flushing as she continued on with her conversation. I was very careful not to touch her wings, a lush cream with tinges of pink along the tips.

I felt the heat of someone’s eyes on me and I glanced up, my lungs seizing as eyes the colour of a stormy night seemed to hold mine, a flicker of amusement in them.

But my magic was still up so there was no way he could see me, right?

His face looked as if it had been carved out of stone, his black hair unruly as it tumbled into his eyes. He was muscular, his onyx-coloured wings were folded tight to his back, and I could see the shimmer of the twin blades sheathed at his hips.

He glanced away and I almost let loose a sigh of relief.

An absolute monster with the face of a god.

My target finally strode into the room and every one of the creatures turned, their faces filled with admiration, with reverence, as the Imperium of their kind, a warrior with wings of molten gold that seemed like glitter on her feathers. She wore a crown of gold on her head, her Grecian style dress was to the knee and her sandals were of the same style.

The Imperium strode through her crowd of loyal followers and turned, waving at them to continue with the festivities, celebrating the anniversary of when they had destroyed the mortal world.

My grip on the dagger tightened, and I eased myself closer and closer to where the Imperium now lounged, a chalice in her grasp, the most serene expression on her face.

I stood beside her for a good five minutes, waiting for her to turn her amber gaze toward me. Perhaps it was reckless but I wanted her to know who I was, what I was, not human, not angel, but something in between.

Forbidden.

The Imperium turned her head away from me, and I knew I couldn’t risk delaying any longer. I slid the dagger from where I had it hidden, raised it up, and poised myself to strike.

Grant them no mercy.

Like I had practised so many times before, I lifted the blade, which had been blessed by every holy person we could find, and attacked, my heart suddenly pounding in my chest.

But my blade never hit its mark.

Instead of slicing through her neck, the blade lodged in her shoulder, the Imperium moving so fast it was a blur. I was tackled to the ground, my back hitting the tiled floor with such force I lost my hold on my magic and came face to face with the angel with stormy eyes.

He had my hands pinned over my head; his legs pressed on either side of my hips to stop me from moving. He looked into my eyes and for a second, I feared he could see into my soul, into my heart, and he knew exactly what I was.

What are you?

His voice was a deep rumble that reminded me of thunder and I laughed, trying to snap my head up but I found I could not move. I tried to pull at my magic again, felt the camouflage sink over me but somehow, this monster could see right through my powers and he was looking at me like my death was his to dole out.

All humans out now! the Imperium ordered, as the angel with the eyes of storms yanked me to my feet and I stared defiantly at the Imperium.

Who sent you? How did you get so close without alerting my attention?

My answer was to spit at her feet, a series of growls rising up among the monsters as I smirked. Fuck you. You might as well kill me because I won’t tell you a thing.

An icy expression fell over the Imperium, her smile so cold it caused me to tremble involuntarily.

She reached out and grabbed my chin, her fingers digging into my skin as she said. Why would I kill you, dear? I may find a use for you yet. Take her to the dungeons.

Hands grabbed at me, and I kicked out, knowing I would rather be dead than held hostage in a cage. I kneed an angel in the balls and bolted, pulling my magic all around me as they screamed for someone to find me.

I was out through the archway a second later and ran smack into a wall of solid muscle, my eyes lifting to the angel who had stopped me from killing the Imperium as he inclined his head, another monster with eyes of silver and wings to match pressed two fingers to my forehead and I welcomed the darkness.

The end of the world did not happen with a sudden quaking of the earth, and no great rain descended to wash away humanity. It started with the flicker of lights, the downfall of technology, the engulfment of our world in shadows. Instead of a scream to usher in the end, the world fell apart the moment the first human heard the rustle of wings.

I didn’t know the world before the angels arrived in it. I was born after the fall of man but I had spent my childhood sat around campfires as those who knew life before regaled stories of a time when the sun shone and the world was a far different place.

My mother told me that when she was a teenager, humans were consumed with technology, with something called social media where people could pretend to be living their best lives even if it was all a mirage. You shopped by speaking out loud in your house and some technological wonder made sure that your parcel was delivered in record time.

I remember myself and my friends being fascinated as we listened eagerly to the stories, hating the winged creatures more as we mourned the loss of the lives we could have had if they had just stayed in their own world and never darkened our doorstep.

The warnings of the invasion had been coming for months, when power grids fell for days, and the world descended into chaos, with looting and riots rampant. My mother had only been nineteen at the time, a defence force soldier tasked with helping the Garda to maintain peace when everything went to shit. Scientists around the world could not figure out the sudden global downfall of technology, and it was only when the world was blanketed in darkness, that they realized that this was not something science could fix.

For it was a supernatural problem the world had never witnessed before.

One of my mother’s oldest friends and the Rebel historian had mused once or twice that he found it extremely ironic that an island renowned for its Catholic ethos, who had stared in wonder as angels appeared in the opaque sky, their wings beating as they were embroiled in a battle with one another, their unique powers smiting out innocent bystanders. No weapon that man could make could hold up against their powers, and many had even stood by, believing the angels were gifts from God.

Instead, they were architects of our downfall.

My mother had been standing in the middle of St. Patrick’s Street in Cork City centre when the sky seemed to crack apart and the first angels flew through, their wings beating the wind against the soldiers gathered below in complete shock. Then as more trickled in, the street lights blew, and windows shattered around the unsuspecting mortals. More and more angels came and never left.

At first they seemed more concerned with fighting amongst themselves, the war waged on for days until one group retreated, taking with them the means to go back to where they had come from. They left carnage and death in their wake as a female angel with wings of gold landed and declared herself the Imperium of all the angels, and that this island was now theirs and the humans would bow down or they would be exterminated.

In the first decade of my life, I learned all about how some of the politicians, and some of the wealthiest of society had allied themselves with the angels. They now lived comfortably inside the walls of the citadel that the angels had built, taking up half the country. Those became known as the Elites.

You then had the religious zealots who believed that the angels were the first steps in the resurrection of the lord and his disciples. Those humans were all holed up in a little monastery inside the walls of the citadel, built by the angels themselves, because the angels enjoyed being worshipped like gods.

The war had decimated Ireland’s infrastructure, with motorways and roads blown apart and the lands outside of their precious citadel were nothing more than scorched earth. The citadel was placed in the centre of Ireland, stretching from Mayo across to Sligo all the way over to Louth, then down slicing through Dublin to Wexford, then across through Kilkenny to Limerick and Clare, and back up towards Galway.

Outside the walls of the citadel, taking up parts of Waterford, Tipperary, and Limerick, lay the wastelands. The wastelands were a patch of the country where humans who had survived the horrors of the angelic war only to lose their grip on reality gathered. Their minds fractured beyond repair but the Imperium left them alone for they were a deterrent for those who opposed her rule, or intended to attack the citadel.

If you managed to traipse from Cork to the walls of the citadel in one piece, then under the cover of the never-ending darkness, the crazies in the wastelands probably would get you. Some were more animal than human now, and sometimes a human was the only food that passed by for days.

There had originally been a small group of people who had tried to fight back, mere thousands of citizens. Up until the moment I had been imprisoned, we were down to a couple of hundred at best. Who the hell knew how many more had died during the time I had been locked away in the dungeon in the furthest pit at the base of the citadel.

We had hid ourselves in the ruins of Cork City, with a few camps spread out and I had grown up in the remains of what had been Collin’s Barracks, where my mother had been stationed as a soldier. She had fought against the angels for two years until she became pregnant with me.

Even as a young child I knew from the look in her eyes that some part of her hated me for being born.

The cold wind swept through the cell I was held in and I shivered, pulling my knees to my chest and rested my chin on my knees. I had been tossed into this cell almost three years ago after I failed in my mission to kill the Imperium. I had been training since I could walk for the day I could sneak into the citadel, and kill the head bitch in charge who had inserted herself as the monarch of our country.

As one of the rebel elders used to say, an actual monarch had once tried to take our country from us, and we had fought tooth and nail to reclaim it as our own, even if it killed us. This fight was no different.

The wind howled again and I felt my teeth chatter, the chains on my ankles and wrists turning icy cold against my exposed skin. I sometimes wondered how long they would leave me to rot down here. Time passed agonizingly slow and days went by before the angels remembered to feed me. I suppose time was inconsequential to beings who were immortal, and a human lifespan mattered little.

When I was first apprehended, the Imperium had her guard dogs try and get as much information from me as possible, but despite the fact that I had screamed in pain and bucked against the restraints, they had not been able to get anything from me. It was the first time I had been grateful for the training my mother and the other Rebels had forced upon me and my friends when we were younger.

In polite society, it would have been considered some kind of abuse to lock a group of children under the age of ten in darkness for days with no food or water, then waterboard each of us in front of the others to see if someone would break first. We all knew how to use weapons, and fight, and our last test before we were allowed to go on missions was to be dropped alone, with no supplies, and one weapon into the wastelands and find our way back to camp.

And still that was a picnic compared to this isolation, waiting for the sound of footsteps, the unmistakable rustle of wings as the angels came forth to take me to my death. The waiting was the worst part, and now, I really began to feel like I had been forgotten about down in the depths of hell.

I had a Spanish prisoner in the cell next to mine for the first few months of my captivity and he kept muttering that this place was el abismo, the abyss, or just hell. He was dragged from his cell screaming about six months after the failed assassination attempt, and to this day I have no idea what happened to him.

Hopefully the poor bastard was dead.

Closing my eyes, I tried to reach out for my power, but I was too malnourished and weak to draw any semblance of it to me. The angels had questioned me for days as to how I, a lowly human, had the ability to render myself invisible to all…well not all, because the angel with wings the colour of darkness and eyes of rainy days was immune and could see me when no one else could.

This was something my mother had prepared me for, spending years concocting the story that I had told so many times that I started to believe it myself. With my eyes closed I could picture my mother crouched down in front of me, a weary smile on her lips and that cautious look in her eyes.

What do we say when people ask us about how you can play hide and seek better than anyone else?

I smiled at my mom, felt my eyes brighten a little as I repeated the story burned into my brain for as long as I could remember. You were struck by angel lightning when you were pregnant with me and that’s how I can disappear.

My mother patted my cheek, then rose, and leaving me to stand and watch as she went over to the other grown-ups, then glanced over her shoulder at me before turning away again.

I stood there watching her, wishing I could grow up to be just as strong as she was, until Hayes grabbed my hand and pulled me from the room so we could play.

And that was the story that I told the angels after they continued to question me. I feigned sleep deprivation, giving them a little so that they would think that they had the upper hand. They mulled over my words, as if trying to find the hole in my lies, and yet, the angel with the white hair and a handprint burned onto his neck looked at me suspiciously as if he knew I was pretending.

My story had appeased them and then they had tossed me in the cell and left me to rot. At first, when I still had a little strength, I used to make myself invisible, or as Hayes called it, camouflage myself so that when the angels charged with guarding the room checked on me, they would panic and think I had escaped, but then the angel who saw through my power starting checking in, not saying anything to me, but his deep voice rumbled as he confirmed I was indeed still a prisoner.

For weeks I clung to the hope that my mother would not leave me in the clutches of the angels, that she would storm the citadel and rescue me. That Hayes would come searching for me, his oldest friend and closest friend, and bring me home. But as the weeks trickled into months, the months to years, I soon gave up on any foolish notions that I would be free of the chains that kept me bound to this place.

Not a day passed by that I didn’t wonder what my family and friends were doing now.

For the second time today, I glanced over at the open window that was wide enough for an angel to fly out from. With the length of my chain, I could just get to the ledge and while we were below ground, someone had decided to dig a moat around the dungeons so if anyone managed to escape from the chains, and tried to escape out the window, then they would fall hundreds of feet to their deaths.

But even that might have been better than this perpetual purgatory.

Once, when we were younger, me and a few of the other children found an old bible in the archives and we read all about angels and demons and how the zealots perceived the angels. We laughed at how fluffy and just the book made the angels sound, but these were not angels from the bible, these were the stuff of horror stories.

There were times when I used to stare up at the sky and see wings of all different colours, some blue, some green, some purple, and though I never admitted it to anyone, I always wondered what it would be like to soar above