Catching Moonlight: The Sunrise Prophecy, #2

Other Books by Emily Mah

The Sunrise Prophecy Series

Chasing Sunrise

Catching Moonlight

Conquering Starlight

Emily Mah also writes as E.M. Tippetts

Books By

The Fairytale Series

Someone Else’s Fairytale

Nobody’s Damsel

The Hunt for the Big Bad Wolf

My Wicked Half Sister

Whatever After

Fairytale Spinoffs

Break It Up

(takes place just after Nobody’s Damsel)

A Safe Space

(contemporaneous with The Hunt for the Big Bad Wolf)

Each book has a standalone story in it, so they can be read in any order.

The Shattered Castles Series

Castles on the Sand

Love in Darkness

Standalone Novels

Time & Eternity

Paint Me True

To my sister-in-law, Tianne, her husband Jeff, and kids Carsyn, Ty, Elly and Kinsley. Here's hoping for no more collapsing garage ceilings or muskrat invasions! (These two events were not directly related.)

Table of Contents

Title Page

Other Books by Emily Mah

Dedication

About the Book

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

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Acknowledgments

Copyright

Corban Alexander has a dark side, and ever since a chance encounter with Liana Linacre, a girl he was supposed to protect, it's darker and more addictive than ever. Every minute of every hour of every day he fights to resist succumbing to his worst instincts. If he doesn't, he will fall, and gain the power to scourge and wreak havoc upon humanity, feeding off their pain. It would take a legion of angels to stop him.

So when he learns that Liana needs help once again, he knows he is the last person to provide it. The problem is, no one else is willing.

Corban must return to the side of the girl he loves, and pray that he is strong enough to save both her and himself.

W e wanted to know how you fare, Corban Alexander, said the genderless voice of the tribunal.

They had me sitting interrogation style. A light shone in my face so that I couldn’t see who spoke. As if it wasn’t any of my business who sat in judgment over me.

Don’t snap at them, said the little voice of conscience in my head. My nerves were raw and had been for years. Gone was the time when a decade could pass in the blink of an eye. Now every day was long, and slow, and difficult. I was always on the verge of losing my temper.

Well, I’m still here, aren’t I? I said. I showed up when you summoned me, I added in my mind. At least it was peaceful in the Citadel. No humans for at least a mile, which meant no human emotion in the air.

Up until yesterday, I’d been working in a refugee field hospital in Northern Africa. That place had enough pain and anguish and frustration and fear roiling through it to choke a being like me. Or it should have. The truth was, I could have gobbled it all and still been hungry for more.

Be honest, the tribunal demanded, as if reading my thoughts.

I’ll keep fighting the good fight, but as I’ve asked before: Are you sure there’s no procedure to deal with the likes of me? You really wanna wait until I lose control before you hunt me down?

That is not funny.

I wasn’t joking. I’d ascended two thousand years ago, after a brief mortal life as a Roman citizen. I’d seen when a coterie of angels broke their vows, fell, and took Rome and much of its empire down with them. The battles had seared themselves into my memory, and the most dangerous fallen angels had been the oldest ones. Now, I was older than any member of that coterie had been. I was a ticking time bomb. There was a time when the angelic order’s forgiving nature comforted me. Now it scared me spitless.

And I hated sitting still. I hated feeling exposed under the light. I wanted to run, to climb, to get away from all scrutiny.

Must you always be a pessimist? chided the tribunal.

Yes. The consequences of pride were dangerous for supernaturals like me. After the fall of Rome, I’d thrown myself into my work completely, honoring my covenants, serving and protecting humanity, and keeping humans at arm’s length—they were never friends, and certainly never anything more. Until…

Did you summon me to talk about Liana? I asked. Is she safe? Did something happen?

Her name put a stab of grief through my heart. I’d met her when she was eighteen. She would be twenty-two now. She’d been infected with vampirism, yet somehow managed what no one else in human history ever had: to fight it and retain her human soul. Every morning she would face sunrise to burn the vampiric taint out of her body. Few could withstand that pain, and any normal vampire would die trying such a stunt.

And even with vampirism in her system, she could see me. She always saw me, no matter how I’d drawn my supernatural veil around myself.

I’d done my best to help her along. My healing touches also helped keep the vampirism at bay, and when she’d turned fully vampire in order to access her supernatural powers and kill her grandsire, I’d healed her in the ultimate, most intimate way possible for an angel. I’d kissed her, letting har vampirism burn me to the core so that I lost my powers for a full year and blasted the evil taint out of her for good.

It hadn’t been an entirely selfless act, though. While I had been able to ignore pretty faces and hourglass bodies at my age, I hadn’t been able to ignore someone who fought so hard against such long odds. When she began to look at me not as an angel, but as a man, my heart had been hers. Even so, I’d had no idea what a big mistake that kiss would be.

Now, my fall was inevitable; I ached to push he boundaries, break all my vows, and let go. I spent every day putting it off another hour, another minute, any amount of time I could buy with faith and sacrifice.

The tribunal sighed. Melanie has discovered that her sister, Darissa, is dead.

My silent, stoney heart sank.

Darissa, whom Liana had killed, had been one of three powerful vampire sisters who loved each other with the kind of love only family and long association could foster. Born over two millennia ago in the Nabatean Empire, they were some of the strongest, wiliest vamps in all of history.

The oldest sister, Gamlat, had disappeared a few hundred years ago and was likely dead. We couldn’t say for sure. She had rarely strayed far from her original home, even though her civilization was now ruins in modern-day Jordan. She’d also kept her Nabatean name, even during her long stints in New England to spend time with her sisters. The second sister, who went by Melanie nowadays, had become a hermit around the time Gamlat had disappeared. Whenever we found her, she seemed to be doing arcane research that we weren’t equipped to analyze.

Especially not after all of the damage the order had suffered at the hands of Darissa, the youngest.

She’d been the bane of our existence. Her relentless, twenty-five hundred year campaign had almost destroyed us dozens of times. Her attacks had hollowed us out as she exterminated all of our scholars and archivists. All of the support roles that allowed us to remember our history and secrets of who and what we were now stood empty. She’d also nearly destroyed our archives and the Citadel itself. None of our warriors had been able to prevail against her, but little, mortal Liana had caught her off guard and ended the nightmare.

My being ached at that memory too. How could I get over someone like her? I didn’t even want to try. When someone like that looked twice at you, you didn’t look away.

We’d known that hiding Darissa’s death from Melanie wouldn’t be possible, long term, but I had hoped we could manage it for a few more years, or even decades. Apparently the jig was up.

So Liana is in danger, I said.

Yes, Liana is in danger.

But… she lives? I tried to hide the curiosity that burned like a beacon in me.

She does. Her vampirism is also returning, though. Slowly, but unmistakably.

What? I’d thought I had cured her vampirism with my kiss. I hadn’t even managed that? I slouched in my seat. Is she well? I asked. Is she happy?

Why don’t you ask her yourself?

It took me a moment to absorb that. Once I did, though, I shot to my feet, hands balled into fists. No. I wanted to see her more than anything, and that was the problem. Besides, she’d suffered enough in her life. She didn’t need an unstable immortal in the mix.

Corban…

"No. Send someone else. You are a fool if you send me to her. An idiot."

I can’t send anyone else. The council has ruled against extending her protection, but you, I know, will say that’s wrong.

The council was the legislature of sorts that ruled the angelic order. Lately, they’d made some questionable decisions. I promised Liana the order would look out for her, I said. She has a human soul. We can’t abandon her.

Yes, yes, I know your feelings on this. That is why I’m offering you the chance to go to her. To be clear, it’s the only chance she has for angelic protection.

Did my protection even count as angelic? I was an angel, but my feelings for her… You’re offering this against the wishes of the council?

That is the right of the inner circle. We, who hold the secrets of what it means to be ascended, sometimes see things that the rest of you do not.

Then you go protect her. Or send someone else from the inner circle. The higher level politics of the order gave me a headache. The ‘inner circle’ was a shadowy organization that operated on its own, able to do what it wanted no matter what the council said. I wanted nothing to do with them, despite their repeated invitations that I join.

It is you or no one.

But it can’t be me!

Why not? You promised her you would see her again.

Th-that… that was a private conversation… The words came out weak. The order had a right to listen in on my phone calls. I shouldn’t have made that promise. It was another sign that I wasn’t fit to serve anymore.

Well, now you can keep your promise, said the tribunal.

I love her, I confessed. I’m weak around her. That’s why I need to stay away from her. She’s only a girl—a child compared to me.

Yes, well… You won’t be anything more than her protector. And as I’ve said, old friend, it is you or no one. You are being offered this chance once and only once. Decide.

Going to her was a fool’s errand, and my kind was supposed to fear to tread where fools rushed in. This moment was a test, like Eve being offered the apple. If I made the wrong choice, the consequences could be catastrophic for the world.

And yet, I’d already made the choice. All I was struggling with was whether or not to voice it. Send me to her, I said.

THREE HOURS LATER I was on a plane tearing through the sky to Newark, New Jersey. I and the other passengers were packed like sardines into a noisy metal tube, the air awash with mild anxiety and anticipation that did not even begin to sate my hunger.

Since I couldn’t sit still, I stalked the aisles. My kind had what we referred to as a veil, an ability similar to invisibility that made people either not see us, or if they saw us, not take note of us or remember much about us. I hadn’t realized how powerful it was until it was gone for the year after I kissed Liana.

One toddler saw me as I took in her frilly little dress, perfectly stitched and embroidered in rich purple, a dye that had been so rare in Roman times that only royalty wore it. People had so much clothing these days, so many outfits. Her blue eyes fixed on me every time I walked past. I gave her what I hoped was a beneficent smile—things that had once been second nature to me were now a struggle.

Little voices at the back of my mind taunted me. This miraculous flying contraption was flimsy enough that if I stormed the cockpit and sent it into a dive, delicious fear would explode from all these helpless passengers. If I stabbed someone and produced a gushing wound, delectable screams would fill the air. I wanted to be awash in human pain and guzzle it down until my whole being buzzed with power. This was my normal these days.

I could feel the sheath of my dagger strapped to my forearm every time I flexed my muscles. I skimmed off everyone’s anxiety even though it was like licking up raindrops while I was parched and famished.

Liana needed help, but she was getting me instead. What would she think of what I’d become? I wasn’t the benevolent angel-boy I’d been when we’d last met.

I hadn’t been for years.

Iarrived on campus in the mid-morning. Princeton had already been abandoned by most of the students. Those who remained to pack up their masses of belongings were nervous, but not nervous enough to make the air shimmer even a little bit. I climbed out of my Uber and into the sweltering humidity. Some groundskeepers were mowing the lawns and I could smell the fresh cut, sun-baked greenery. Being back in the US meant being even more in the world of machines; Northern Africa had cars and tractors and such, but here it was as if half the population was mechanical or computerized or both. It was so far beyond what I thought I’d ever live to see, and so far beyond what I could have explained to my long dead family.

None of the gardeners looked up as I climbed the stairs to Liana’s dorm. They probably didn’t even see me.

Inside, the hallways were quiet. I ghosted along, checking the door numbers until I found hers. The sound of someone coughing in the distance echoed off the tile floors and through the empty rooms. I took a deep breath before knocking.

A girl with deep olive skin, dark hair, and copious amounts of silver and turquoise jewelry opened the door. I took a step back. This wasn’t Liana, but rather Gina Rodriguez, one of Liana’s friends from Taos High. She couldn’t see me, and was looking up and down the hall with a bemused frown, no doubt wondering why she’d opened the door.

Behind her was a girl with even darker skin and hair, and much less jewelry: Amy Blackhawk, Liana’s other close friend from high school. She craned her neck to see what Gina was doing, but soon turned back to stuffing clothes into a plastic bin.

Who is it? asked a way too familiar voice.

Her voice. Liana’s.

No one, said Gina. I think I’m just hearing things. She moved to close the door.

But a pale hand stopped her and pulled the door open wider. A young woman leaned around to see who it was. As always, my veil did not work on her. At the sight of me, she froze.

So did I. My memories of how she looked had faded in the last four years. Seeing her face brought them back with a vengeance. She hadn’t aged much, but who does in four years? Her brown hair was about waist length and her dark eyes were the same deep pools I’d risked getting lost in countless times. Her skin was porcelain pale and she and her two friends could have been on a tourism poster advertising the three cultures of New Mexico: Anglo (Liana), Hispanic (Gina), and Native (Amy.)

Slowly she stood up straight and stepped all the way into view. Corban, she said, with an uneasy glance at Gina.

That always lifted my veil for others, when a person talked to me in plain view like this.

Gina blinked. Oh, hi.

Hey, Corban, said Amy, looking up.

Their minds would have manufactured a narrative to make my sudden appearance make sense. I’d just walked up, or they’d overlooked me before. These two knew me as a former classmate in high school. They wouldn’t be able to name any classes I’d taken with them, or the grade I was supposed to be in, but they at least knew my face because they’d interacted with me before.

Hi, I said.

Liana bit her lip. She was not happy to see me.

Well, what did I expect? I’d crashed into her life, then out of it. Neither had been what she’d wanted at the time.

Gina looked from Liana to me and back, then did what she always did, took charge. We’re going to take boxes down to the car.

Amy complied—people usually did when Gina barked orders.

A moment later they were bustling through the door with plastic bins hefted in their arms. They each gave me a nod on their way past.

Liana retreated to the middle of the room, hands clutched awkwardly, eyes full of questions.

Those eyes.

I slipped inside and shut the door behind me, like a guilty man facing his executioner.

The place had been stripped bare. Grungy white walls with little smudges where posters had been tacked up and a bare mattress stacked with boxes were all that remained. The closet door was open, revealing an assortment of empty hangers. Hints of Febreeze and Pine Sol hung in the air. Now that Liana’s friends had left, the room was clear of emotion. Liana knew how to block me and