Sin Eaters: Devotion Book One Read online

  Sin Eaters:

  Devotion Book One

  Kai Leakes

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  It is said that our kind was born on the cusp of life and death. Over the ages, many would become blinded by oblivion, but others will carry within them the truth as we do.

  Their creation spawned in love by which was forbidden for our kind. A child of unique heritage was born by a disciple, the true first disciple, later to be named an immortal. This disciple protected her child and was forever watched by her love, her mate, the first guardian.

  This union was specially chosen by the One God to produce a protector who would grow with his seed, the messiah, in order to walk the destined path of righteousness. Others would be born during the childhood of the messiah, called to protect, watch over, and defend innocents of the time.

  The protector, this first child, would grow to watch over the blessed seeds of the One God, his son, and his son’s cousin the Baptist. They would train and become cultured in all that is holy and all that is worldly to better understand their roles in society.

  This education would take place by the three disciples, chosen because of their wisdom to be at the birth of the One God’s son. These men would also be anointed with the gift of immortality to also advise the children born to protect the messiah, becoming the first council of true crusaders. Undeniably this would be considered to have occurred in the lost years of the One God’s child’s life. But who are we to interrupt the human world’s history?

  Much information about this tale of our heritage is lost to the normal human world and is protected by current disciples, prophets who were born into this chaotic world today. But in our world, a world where our history has been eradicated due to the First Fall, and later the Second War in protecting the young messiah, this tale of the First, the Light, and the creation of the Dark has been lost as our kind are hunted by our dark cousins.

  As is our right as heavenly beings and our right to save our kind from being hunted and eliminated, they now innately fight our eternal enemies without the true knowledge of what we are. The history of our generational battle encoded in all of our blood has left our kind blind from the truth that they need to win and protect the innocent.

  With the altered tale of the young messiah which is now taught to the younglings of our kind. The tale of the first protector, who would change with the death and rising of the messiah, forever shifting into what we are now, is also lost, and our greatest weapons know not who they are and their purpose, and are shunned from their own kind, as it should not be.

  Chapter 1

  Today . . .

  Metallic, sweet, and mind-intense flavor filled the air. The quiet that floated around made the hair on passers-bys in the night stand up, as if the already chilly wind wasn’t enough to have them shivering from its touch. Rich, ebony-black swallowed the alleyway, keeping the individuals occupying it secure and sequestered away from all who dared peek down the tight tunnel. Water idly slid down the asphalt street, mixing with oil, the shiny slurry causing trash to skate against the cracked asphalt surface, where cushioned, midnight-colored Timberlands stalked back and forth. The quick glint of light cascaded like a pulse near the booted body.

  The individual inhaled in even, shallow breaths while listening. All sound seemed to be absorbed away as if in a tornado. This marked silence instantly triggered the timed attack, an attack that had the individual’s body expand with power, velocity, and well-checked strength in anticipation.

  If you were one of the many idle flies hovering in the nearby dumpster, you would’ve been amazed at the sight of the superhuman individual running in an almost flying position and landing on the second hulking form in the alley. The rise of a scent that had cats meowing and arched in defense on the railings of a window and under a parked car filled the air again.

  The crisp, white glint of light slashed through the night air, landing against the second bulked individual as the attacker hissed. In a fraction of a blink, claws the size of an oversized lion’s hacked the air as tentacles dipped out near the blind spot of the attacker, making the being jump in the air. Bringing down a well-honed piece of metal onto the second bulked individual, a wash of headlights momentarily revealed a male human, his contorted body stretched into a crude form. The precise slash against the horrendous entity’s flesh resulted in the familiar smell filling the air once more.

  The Attacker crouched low in a resting battle position. Taking in shallow, calm breaths, the Attacker watched as the thing turned to attack again, running full speed.

  A tapping rhythm on the alleyway due to the entity’s Italian leather wingtip shoes caused the Attacker to hum, throwing the entity off mark. A light sheen of perspiration kissed the Attacker’s forehead with each calm intake of breath and hummed note. The Attacker lived for this. Loved it and desired the hunt of creatures such as this.

  Strategizing the next move, the Attacker thought back to how this prey was hunted. A quiet smile flashed across the Attacker’s lips. It wasn’t hard to get to the sick bastard. The Attacker posed as the entity’s preferred choice of target, an angry teenager, who wanted nothing but to get away from his parent. It made the Attacker clutch the blade that nestled comfortably against his palm in anger at the obscene and pornographic discussions that occurred with the demon.

  It made it even easier to identify that this monster wasn’t the shrewd Italian entrepreneur he portrayed himself to be, but was in fact a succubus-level, soul-polluter demon. These were the most degenerate of demons, feasting off the pain of the victims through lewd sexual means, debilitating torture, and flesh eating.

  Knowing this, it silently pleased the Attacker to stalk and mentally threaten the demon’s territory by baiting it, since these demons were known for their territorial nature.

  Allowing the demon to believe they were to meet up outside of a popular artist’s concert, the Attacker led the demon to the alleyway through simple mind manipulation, and the rest is history. Shuddering with a lethal dose of pleasure and battle tactics, the Attacker’s body tightened with the wait as the breeze in the alley lightly brushed against skin.

  Sidestepping within the low crouch, the Attacker pivoted and flipped forward with the agility of a panther and produced a silver gun. Suddenly, bullets exploded in the air. Glimmering and glowing metallic objects penetrated the thrown-back body of the beast, causing it to howl in pain.

  The Attacker ran full speed, his gaze locked on the bullets as they hit each expertly calculated point on the demon’s body. Landing a blow to the entity’s ribcage, the muscles in the Attacker’s bicep tightened with the impact of breaking bones and tearing flesh.

  Seething with anger, contempt, disbelief, and hate, the demon attempted to slash at the Attacker with its claws. Its teeth dripped with a mixture of its own blood and a liquid miasma. The beast slammed the Attacker into the side of a building, breaking
bricks and creating a crater in the wall. Elated, the demon rushed like a bull, ready to launch another attack of teeth and claws.

  The Attacker was not amused as he braced himself, pivoting out of the way with a deep guttural grunt. He released another round of bullets into the slashing, bleeding beast and watched him fall.

  High-pitched human screams erupted from the beast as it lay on the cold, glistening, wet pavement, its twisted, contorted body writhing as the Attacker casually walked over it, kneeled down, and grabbed it by its neck.

  Watching slowly, the entity howled and hissed. Its eyes begged to be left alone while fleetingly fighting back. Its tentacles and claws melted away into a very human hand as the once demonic thing revealed its true form during its wails. A disheveled-looking, handsome, muscular man dressed in an Italian-designed, straight-from-the-runway suit coughed up blood and wheezed in agony. The clawing man murmured in unintelligible sentences, his sun-kissed olive skin slowly fading into a murky grey. Wrinkles of decay and diseases emitting from his once-handsome frame seemed to slosh away with every scream of pain and anger, and flowing oak-colored hair drifted away like dust in the wind.

  The man reached out and attempted to tear at the Attacker’s throat. Flashes of the demon’s past life of darkness flowed into his vision; they showed through the eyes, and a briefly-flashed smile of the Attacker’s photogenic face.

  Hunching over in a swift movement that would rival and shame a snake—if a snake could be shamed—the Attacker hissed. He clutched at the man’s engorged heart to pull it to its surface, and the man screamed in garbled terror.

  “Ashes to ashes . . . ” was whispered in the air as the Attacker pulled the heart from the man’s cavity. He ferociously bit into the side of the screaming man’s neck, tearing and biting, until his mouth seemed to fuse with the writhing man’s jugular as rivers of blood sloshed everywhere.

  The scent that filled the air seemed to get darker and richer, almost chocolate-scented as the Attacker drank and twisted the pulsating warm heart from the man’s chest, forcing him to release a shrill in the air so loud, the nearby cats in the alley ran off in fear. The man in the suit lifted from the ground as the Attacker embraced the body into a tight hug.

  Light filled the once-dark alleyway as blade-like feathers exploded from the Attacker’s body. The man in the suit evaporated into a thick, ruby red-visceral mist that slowly expanded in the air, and as if it had a mind of its own, the mist hit the Attacker’s body in a strange embrace.

  The Attacker’s wings spastically arched into a blinding, glowing width, spreading in the air, as he arched up and cried out in an almost passionate euphoria. The emotions, the pains, the suffering, the lust, the passions, everything that made up the structural sins and lives of the entity’s past victims, filled the Attacker. The satisfying fear the attacker had embedded inside of the demon’s own DNA during the battle added an erotic tranquility to the sinful richness of the souls being reclaimed within.

  As the Attacker drank, the miasmic evil of the demon, the forced taint of innocent victims and those humans who were just as dark as the demon who fed on them connected with his pure essence. The Attacker’s body shook with the intake of the mist, making him genuflect and reach up in the air. A new pulsating and glinting silver light exited the Attacker’s body and propelled into the stars, out of the atmosphere.

  The release made the Attacker land into a quiet crouch, with him standing and taking slow intakes of breath. Glowing perspiration rested on the Attacker’s brow, while swirling tribal tattoos kissed his biceps and hard abs, blending into the muck of the entity’s remains.

  Brushing off the particles of demonic flesh, claws, and blood from the fight, the Attacker ran an idle hand over his face. His eyes briefly closed while taking a moment to step back into reality and his battle wounds healed on their own. Licking the remaining blood from his lips, his fangs slowly retracted, as did his silver dark wings, disappearing altogether, to reveal his well-toned, chiseled, milk-chocolate skin.

  The Attacker’s well-kept ebon locks brushed down his back, reminding him to knot it into a ponytail. He sheathed and hid his once bloody blade into his spinal shield and restored the much-needed moonlight to what had been a death-silent alley, letting the voices of oblivious innocents fill the void around him.

  He smoothed his black slacks and made his tailored black jacket appear. Then he slid it over his now freshly cleaned linen white shirt and walked out of the alley, whispering a cleansing protection prayer. The prayer would take care of any residue of evil from the entity, and block the memory of anyone who might have been in the alley during the fight.

  The Attacker, as if nothing had happened, coolly strolled to his black-and-silver Escalade while texting on his cell. He flashed a fangless smile to a pair of gawking women as he closed the door then pulled into the exiting traffic of departing clubgoers. The soft, thumping music in his truck blended into the busy sounds of the night, while the purring of the cats returned to the alleyway, resuming the frigid tranquility of the city nightlife.

  Chapter 2

  Her body ached from standing for twelve hours. It was overheating from the constant steam and Dutch oven-feel of the sweltering confines she was in. Her muscles kept clinching with the onset of a cramp, and she was just downright tired. Yet none of this could stop the constant thoughts of what needed to get done. She had a flux of customers flowing into her establishment, demanding her signature work—no, her art, as she preferred to think of it. And people yelled all around her as they busied themselves with the many orders going out.

  Sanna’s lips slightly tilted up into a soft smile as she let her gift flow through her. She painted her vision on the plate in front of her and sprinkled the seasonings of her love over the roasted beef loin braised in a Creole wine and onion reduction sauce. The roasted loin nestled on a pillow of grits, asparagus spears, and sautéed collard greens.

  Yes, Sanna was a culinary artist, and her restaurant, Aset, was a five-star hit in St. Louis. She was proud of her baby. She paired the culinary art with her passion for soul food, while showcasing other artists in the St. Louis and East St. Louis area. She loved it. Her restaurant was creating such a buzz, people from Chicago, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. had been blowing up her phone with catering requests and offers to open up another restaurant. She was blessed, and she knew it. And she was always grateful for her blessings.

  But if she didn’t close her kitchen down soon, she was going to pass out. She had forgotten that she had promised her godsister that she would stop working overtime in the restaurant. She had hired a trusted crew of people, her friends from culinary school. They would shut the restaurant down by one in the morning and get everything done before having to get up again and arrive at the restaurant again at eight in the morning to start all over again. It was grueling, and she was always tired. But she had learned to balance running the restaurant and having a life.

  She was twenty-seven, a curvaceous and healthy size fourteen, with thick curly black hair, and long, caramelized crème brulé legs on a five eight frame. It took a long time for her to come to a place where she was happy with her ample bosom, slightly plump rear, and overall plus-size glory. She had overcome the teases and harassment of her youth and didn’t give a bit about how men or women judged her looks.

  She knew she was pretty. Had many tell her they loved her milk chocolate-colored eyes that exquisitely formed into an almond shape that framed her delicately curved face and pouty lips. She also had many tell her how they loved the feel of her skin, and marveled at how soft yet firm she was. Her godnieces loved to lay on her and just sleep while feeling secure against her.

  She smiled as she put the final touches on her chocolate truffle soufflé cake with caramel mousse and lavender powdered sugar.

  Yet, even though she had learned to love herself, she was insecure. She couldn’t help it, not with the ghosts of her teen years still peering from locked and closed doors in her mind. She had dealt with th
ose demons, but it didn’t mean that they didn’t try to scratch at her from time to time. She often felt those demons were the reason why she had become so afraid of relationships, and why she hadn’t had a serious one in years, but she was fine with it as best as she could be. This is who she was now. The young girl in her past wasn’t the mature successful woman she had become. She had plenty who had tried to date her now because of her elevating status, but she was blessed with a mother who’d taught her all about the games men play and what the loss of true love could do.

  Closing her eyes as the final plate went out, her chocolate-covered hands rested splayed out against her workstation as a sharp pain suddenly tore through her temples. Her brows furrowed as she tried to deal with the sensation.

  “Damn!” escaped her lips. She rode the pain as flashes slashed across her vision. This was the tenth migraine she’d had this month, each one getting worse, with more flashes of light.

  She couldn’t understand it, and she prayed every night that they would stop. Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, as the headaches and flashes interrupted her sleep. She thought one day she was going to pass out from it at work, but it never happened.

  Sanna had decided then to go get a complete physical, which turned out to be of no use. Her doctor couldn’t figure it out, nor could the other five doctors she had gone to. Her mother was worried for her but kept saying that she’d get used to it. All she could do was look at her mom, mouth slightly dropped, staring at her as if she had been drinking.

  Get used to it? The hell, she would get used to these attacks on her brain, she was very close to saying, but before she could, another stab to her mind caused her to blank out, experiencing flashes of many different people, some she didn’t know, places and situations she never could understand juggling around in her mind.

  These flashes were like her own mini-movies. Sometimes she liked what she saw, but many times they scared her to her core. She could never remember the full tales or details, but she’d learned to begin to write down whatever she could remember, especially the constant erotic dreams she kept having about her and a mystery man. She could never see his face or anything. The only thing she could do was sense him, his body, his scent, his heat, and feel the slickness of his skin as he lay near her side, tracing her body with his large hands. She could also feel his weight as he sat at the foot of her bed. Yeah, he kept her comfortable at night, safe, so she couldn’t complain.