Wings of a Phranoy
by
Stacy Lee
The Cloud Riders
of Da-Nigh
Book One
Wings of a Phranoy
Copyright 2014 by Stacy Lee
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
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
About Stacy Lee
Contact the Author
More by Stacy Lee
Acknowledgments
To B.J., C.J., T.J., and D.J. with all my love!
Also to M.D., this series for you Marybelle!
Chapter One
I crack my eyes open to barely-there slits to survey the room I’m in. Stark white walls, sterile smells and a hard mattress under me tells me it is some kind of medical room but how did I get here? I search my brain for anything useful but only one thing keeps coming up, one terrifying image. The only thing I remember of my life is the last five minutes before my death.
I lay crumpled and bleeding on asphalt, my entire being wrought with excruciating pain that intensifies with each slowing heartbeat as silent tears slip from the corners of my eyes. My darkening vision has me dismissing the shadow that crosses over me till I hear someone kneel beside me. I was no longer alone in my hell. Hauntingly beautiful, however incredibly abnormal glowing sapphire eyes that seem eerily familiar, peer down at me as the figure leans into my ever narrowing vision. I feel a feather soft brush of fingers across my cheek but swear the figure never moved. My pain vanishes. I tilt my head back on an appreciative sigh keeping my eyes on the two blue orbs that are the only thing left of my surroundings. A deep masculine voice flits through my head, whispering to me gently.
“It will be over soon, sweet Evangelina. Then you will fulfil your destiny.” My mind registers the strangeness of his statement as the sluggish thug-thug of my hearts stops completely.
My name was Samantha, not Evangelina…….
Sitting up abruptly the scene plays over and over in my head as dizziness swirls around me. Pushing it away I try my legs but can’t hold myself up yet, so I sit there and stare at the white walls of the clean room, a million things running through my head but only one screaming for attention.
I died, I know I died. So how am I here? Is this heaven? It couldn’t be hell, to white and to cool. Hell would surely be hotter than this, wouldn’t it? Other than the table I am sitting on and a door across from me there is nothing in the room. No shelves, no sink, no chair, no people. Just me and a table/bed.
As I try and fail to stand once more I take note of the shimmering iridescent material clinging to my body. No longer in the blood soaked shorts and t-shirt I had been wearing in the memory but a dress similar to a sun-dress hangs from my still maturing curves. At seventeen I was petite in size everywhere. I don’t know why I know my age when nothing else but that single terrifying memory inhabits my head, however I know deep down that that is how old I am. My red hair is loose in waves over my shoulders, the bright color standing out against the pale material.
The door abruptly opens causing me to scoot back against the wall and tuck my knees into myself. A tall woman with a white coat draped over her overly thick shoulders stands in the doorway silently staring at me. She cocks her head, her eerily bright green eyes searching my body from head to toe. Without so much as a word, she is gone and the door slides shut behind her, she never touched the door. Why that oddity is what I cling to I have no idea but the idea she could move the door without touching it sends shivers through me. What else could she do without touching? Could she touch me? Hurt me if she wanted? Keep me in here forever?
This was getting weirder and weirder by the minute. With my imagination running completely rampant it was only going to get worse. Not sure what else to do but knowing I needed to get out of this room, I force myself to my feet. Wobbly at first I soon steady myself as I make my way to the door. I grab the knob and turn it but nothing happens. It doesn’t feel locked it just won’t turn, like it’s stuck or was never meant to function to begin with. After a few minutes of trying I place my head and hands against it in desperation and silently pray for the door to open. To my utter shock, it does.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth I stick my head out to find no one in the long sterile hallway so I slip out and take the way to the left. One way was as good as the other beings I had no clue where I was. A slight tingle on my back draws my attention for a brief second but I ignore it as I continue down the hall. Further down I come to a stop as something nags at the back of my mind. Something was wrong with this place. I turn in circles for a second then continue on when nothing comes to me. However the further I go the more I become aware of what bugged me. There were no doors. The plain white hallway stretched out in front and behind me but there wasn’t a door in sight. With a small shutter I continue on wondering what I had gotten myself into this time. There was almost something familiar about the feel of this place but what it was I didn’t know.
After what felt like hours of walking I lean against the wall in aggravation and exhaustion. There simply was no way out of this stupid hall. With my temper flaring I spin in a circle searching the empty hallway.
“Where is the dang exit?!” I shout no longer caring about someone finding me here. It was quite possible if they didn’t I would be lost in here forever. Maybe that was my destiny, to be lost in this hall for all eternity. I had no clue about anything except the fact I know I was dead, at least for a second or two. What happened after that was anyone’s guess. As I turn back to the way I was going a doorway shimmers into being in front of me blocking the hallway. I stare at it agape as I absently scratch at my back, the tingle has returned.
That door wasn’t there a minute ago, I know it wasn’t. Why was it there now? Where did it come from? I slowly approach it waiting for it to disappear once more but it remains. The knob doesn’t turn just as the one in my room didn’t so I repeat the same actions as before and lean my head and hands upon it and pray, it slides open. A cacophony of voices and noises come from within making me pause and rethink this action. I look back over my shoulder but no other doors have appeared. This seemed to be the only way out. With a deep fortifying breath I walk through the open door and stop dead in my tracks.
The room before me is massive, at least two football stadiums if not bigger. The back wall is only a shadow it is so far away, the sides are only a bit easier to see. Throughout the room are sections of people each doing some kind of job or hobby. To my left are at least two hundred sewing machines with women and men alike sitting in front of them stitching the iridescent material together. To my right are three large contraptions that might be looms. Several people surround them feeding lengths of the shining material through it making a rug of some sort. Ahead are many other things, boys fletching arrows, carving out and stringing bows, pottery being shaped and placed into kilns, by the smell drifting to me someone was cooking somewhere and the loud sound of metal hitting metal way
in the back suggested a blacksmith of some sort.
However none of this is what stopped me. Every person in the room, man, woman and child, has a beautiful pair of wings sprouting from their backs. The men and boys are shirtless with a pair of baggy light weight pants covering their lower halves, while the women are wearing a dress similar to mine. The back of it made to form a ‘t’ which fits between the two wings then splits to continue over the shoulders as thin straps like a tank-top would have. There had to be hundreds maybe thousands of people in this room and not two pair of wings looked to be the same color. Where there were five sets of red wings at the sewing machines, none of the reds matched. One pair is a deep crimson, almost black, where another pair are practically pink but not quite. Each were made of a thin membrane of shimmering color on the inside however a two inch strip lined the outer edges from the top exit point to the bottom entrance point with feathers of varying sizes. They weren’t shaped like angels or fairies or even butterflies wings, more like a mixture of all the above. And like the colors no two sets seemed to be the same.
So intent I am in studying the woman closest to me that I have failed to realize the room has grown eerily quiet. Following the curve of the woman’s wing I stop when our eyes meet, hers the same crimson as her wings. Slowly I turn to take in that everyone in the room is now staring at me. I try to take a step back but run into something hard and unmoving. I whip around to find a solid male chest with arms crossed upon it. I follow his body up and up and up to meet violent violet eyes holding barely restrained rage.
“How did you get in here?” He spits out. The language he speaks isn’t English but I have no problem understanding his words. His wings spread further out behind him almost as if they are snapping to attention. They are the same violet as his eyes however they are much less threatening than his glare. “I asked you a question mortal! How did you get in here?” He all but hollers out, his voice reverberating around the silent room.
“I don’t know.” I state calmly, a calm I’m surprised I’m able to portray as I am feeling anything but calm at the moment. Especially when my words come out in their language not mine. The use of the word mortal throws me but then again these winged people can be anything except human.
“Do not lie to me. Where did you come from?” He asks in a deceptively soft voice.
“I don’t know. I woke up in a room, walked down a hall and here I am. You tell me how I got here because I am thoroughly confused.” Antagonizing him wasn’t the best idea in the world. His hand shoots up to grab my throat, I think I might be dead again soon. However he stops mere millimeters from my skin when someone grabs his shoulder. A strong scent of basil washes over me from the one who moved to stop him but I stand strong and unwavering as I search Violet’s face to see if he would continue his action. He is a handsome man. His appearance put him maybe in his late teens, early twenties with a lean face, shoulder length straight dark hair and muscular frame that stood at least six and a half feet tall.
When he makes no further move to strangle me, nor remove his hand, I cut my eyes to the one who had stopped him. Metallic silver greets me and holds me prisoner immediately. I feel my breathing stop, my body tremble, my heart race and try as I might I couldn’t look away. I hear a rumble go through the crowd and try to see what had disturbed them but still couldn’t force my eyes from his.
‘Don’t fight it. I won’t hurt you, Masu.’ A masculine voice flits through my head but didn’t sound like it began outside of it. It didn’t come in my ears but rattled inside my brain just like the blue eyed man’s did at my death. Who or what Masu was I didn’t know and didn’t want to find out right now. With every bit of strength I possess I put all my efforts in shutting my eyes. If I could only break the contact with him he would let me go. When only a small sliver remains open I feel the link break causing me to stumble back a step. The crowd’s noise behind me grows louder instantly as my body begins to function again. The tingle on my back is almost painful but I try to ignore it while under the scrutiny of so many people.
“Who are you?” The violet eyed man’s voice is no longer angry but confused. I turn my head to him hoping it was safe to open my eyes again. Slowly, for safeties sake, I raise my lids and am happy to find I am still my own person.
“My name is Samantha. I think…” I mumble the last part not really meaning to say it aloud.
“Why do you not know if that is your name?” He asks in disbelief.
“All I can remember is dying and a man telling me something about it being time to fulfil my destiny then he called me by a name. I remember thinking it wasn’t my name, Samantha was.” He cocks his head at me his eyes growing large.
“What name did he call you?” His voice is once again soft with an underlying current to it.
“Evangelina.” The room grows perfectly still then as one every winged person in the room hits the floor on their knees in a bow. Everyone except Violet and Silver, that is. They both remain standing however they do bow their heads. In a whisper I lean towards Violet, not willing to take a chance looking at Silver, and ask, “Why are they doing that?” He raises his head to meet my eyes.
“You are the prophesized one, the one who will save us from damnation, you will be our Queen.” Too much. This was all too much for me to take in. First dying, the man with the blue glowing eyes, waking in the sterile room, the doors, the hallway, winged people, Violet, Silver and his hypnotizing stare, now I’m their Queen? With a small hysterical giggle I fall into unconsciousness but not before I feel a set of warm arms catch me.