Read Online Malcolm (Book 1, The Redemption Series) by S.J. West - Free Book Online

power. He lifts his hand and slashes the portrait of my mother which has always hung over the fireplace in my sitting room, cutting it in half and causing it to catch on fire.
    I feel my heart race but try to hold back my fear. Fear isn't an emotion I want to show the creature standing in front of me.
    “What are you?” I ask in a whisper.
    “I hate to sound cliché, but I'm what's known as your worst nightmare.”
    “Why do you hate me so much?”
    “Oh, where to start,” he chuckles. His gaze is drawn to what remains of my mother's portrait. “We could start with her I guess.”
    “You knew my mother?”
    “I've known your family since the beginning of it,” he tells me, sounding sickened by the fact of the association. “You come from a long line of thorns in my side.”
    “Sounds like I would have liked them,” I taunt.
    “Well, you will be happy to know that little smart ass mouth of yours was inherited honestly.” The man snorts derisively. “The knowledge won't do you much good I'm afraid. You won't live long enough to have time to really think about it.”
    “Are you going to kill me?”
    “Absolutely not,” he says, looking offended by such a notion. “I wouldn't want to dirty the emperor's hands with such a task.”
    “Where is Auggie?” I ask again, hoping his arrogance will prod him into flaunting the truth in my face.
    “Standing right before you,” the man says with a devilish grin.
    “You are not Auggie.”
    “But I am in his body.”
    “How?”
    “I took it.”
    “How do you just take over a body? Are you remotely controlling him somehow?”
    The man laughs and shakes his head at me like I must be the most ignorant person on the planet.
    “No, I forced his soul out so mine could wear his skin.”
    “Who are you?” I demand.
    “Allow me to introduce myself,” the man says, bowing to me exaggeratedly at the waist. “I am the Archangel Levi, one of the seven princes of Hell, at your service, my lady.”
    My father had of course shared his religious beliefs with me, but I didn't remember him ever mentioning Hell having princes.
    “Where is Auggie's soul?”
    “I guess that depends on how well-behaved a boy he was while he was still alive. However, my guess would be Heaven since he seemed to be such a do-gooder.”
    “Then he's dead?” I ask, my voice breaking uncontrollably over my loss.
    “Afraid so.”
    I take a moment to absorb this fact, pushing back my emotions for now because if I let them surface they will incapacitate me, and right now I know I will need all of my senses to outwit the creature standing before me.
    “Why do you hate me so much?” I ask. “Why do you hate my family?”
    “As I said, your predecessors have been a thorn in my side for many, many years. It seems like each generation is worse than the last. If I kill you, I can end your line and be done with you once and for all. I've simply been waiting for the right time before revealing myself again. It's been a thousand years since I took a mortal's form. After I heard about your birth, I knew the time had finally arrived for me to come back.”
    “Why me?” I ask. “What makes me so special?”
    “Because of who your father is.”
    “Do you have a grudge against my father's family too? Is that why you banished him off- world?”
    Levi looks at me like I've completely lost my mind.
    “Don't you know who your real father is? They didn't keep that from you too, did they? Unbelievable! They've just made this far too easy for me.”
    I feel my breath catch in my throat but force myself to ask, “My real father?”
    Levi chuckles. “I hate to be the one to inform you... no scratch that...I'm pleased to be the one who informs you, dear Annalisse, that Andre Greco is not your real father. Not the one who spewed into your mother and knocked her up with you anyway.”
    “You're lying,” I say, my jaw clenching in anger. “You're just saying that to upset me. It won't work. I know who my father