Welcome to the Kali Sweet Chronicles. Sweet Malice is the fifth book in the Kali Sweet Urban Fantasy series and will be released to retailers in February 2025. I’ll release a chapter twice a month here in my Magic Bites Membership, and I look forward to reading your comments! *Please note that these are UNEDITED and some story elements may change before the official book release in February. Enjoy!
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Sweet Malice, Kali Sweet Urban Fantasy Series
©2025 Misty Evans
With that slick smile still in place, he glided toward me. I had a split-second vision again—this one of him putting an arm around me.
I backpedaled, determined not to let him touch me. I ran into a wall of Rad and Cole. They radiated a menace that I felt right through my clothes. “No offense,” I growled at Thelesis, “but I can raise hell on my own. Tell me your plan, and let’s get on with it.”
Thelesis stopped his approach. The smile melted off his face. “Fine.” His snippy tone suggested I was a party pooper. He snapped his fingers, and two more entities joined the party.
Two more who also made my skin crawl. I stared at the female whose face showed nothing of her thousand-year-old existence. Instead, she appeared twenty at most, whip-thin and dewy-eyed. “Moira?” I whispered.
She took in the gathering with a quick once-over. “Her?” she said to Thelesis. “You never said I’d have to work with a vengeance demon.”
Frank chose that moment to stagger to his feet, chattering about demons and archangels. We all ignored him.
“Who is she?” Rad mumured in my right ear.
“It’s Faron,” the Fate answered for me. She was the personification of destiny, all tied up in a hundred-pound package. “I don’t go by Moira, Atropos, or any of those outdated names anymore.”
“And you?” Cole demanded of her male counterpart.
From the look of him—tall, broad-shouldered, and muscle-bound—he was Cole’s twin. His odd energy tasted bitter on my tongue. His eyes, sizing up Rad, were the silver of glittering smoke and vowed death to all who crossed him.
Wasn’t this going to be fun?
“That’s Bane,” Thelesis volunteered. “Since part of my divine purpose is ensuring harmony, and things have not been harmonious for a good long time, I’ve called in an expert to help us out.”
Things hadn’t gone well for me the last time I’d encountered the Fate. I wasn’t excited about this development. “How exactly?”
Faron withdrew a lollipop from her back pocket, unwrapped it, and stuck it in her mouth. Tossing the wrapper on the coffee table, she plopped down on the sofa, crossed her legs, and then popped it out of her mouth with a loud noise. “My sisters have other talents, but mine is eventuality. Everyone has to answer to me eventually, whether by death or consequences.” She took another pull on the candy. “Even angels. The thing is, fate is not one single outcome written in stone, like everyone believes. I offer your team guidance regarding which outcome is most likely to occur, depending on the circumstances you create with your actions.”
It sounded recited, as if she’d given the same speech a thousand times.
Maybe she had.
Lucifer crossed his arms, impatient. He summed it up for me. “There are six Fallen who will give us a better chance against Michael if we get to them before he does.”
“Faron can tell us which ones,” I added, clarifying this new plan.
“Eventually, harmony must be restored,” he said. “With Thelesis and Faron joining our quest, we have a leg up on Michael.”
Bane and Cole were locked in a staredown. Rad’s chaos energy was circling them both. In all honesty, the demon in me wanted to see the three of them in the ring. I still wasn’t sure what Faron’s partner was, but it wasn’t anything I’d encountered in my three hundred years.
Since she was considered outside the realm of gods, angels, and a host of other divine beings, I suspected he was, too. If she could serve up fate to any being in the universe, what—who—was to keep her in check?
Bane?
His steely gaze slid to mine as if he heard my thoughts. With a confidence I didn’t feel, I gave him a smile. His top lip curled, and he dismissed me with a lazy scan before returning his attention to my bodyguards. Interesting that he found Cole and Rad the most dangerous threats in the room.
I made a mental note to fix that.
“Who are these chosen six?” I asked.
Thelesis pointed at Faron. “She has the list and will get you started.”
Hauling herself up, she gave a disgusted sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”
“I don’t work well with others,” I said, holding Lucifer’s gaze. “We’ve had this discussion.”
Zayfeer chuckled. “All I know is I’m glad to be rid of her.”
“Stop complaining,” Lucifer barked, and the room vibrated with power. I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to his nanny or me. “We find the six and restore Paradise. Then you can be on your merry way.”
Several things about his statement made me pause, but one idea had been bugging me now for days. “Humans call on Michael for protection and guidance. If you succeed, they’ll no longer need either, right?”
“Correct,” he bit out. “They’ll no longer pray to my brother for help. What of it?”
Not only would they no longer need Michael, they wouldn’t need God. There would be no Hell, no sin. They wouldn’t need a savior, commandments, or freedom from oppression.
No wonder Michael wanted to stop this. Who would he be without their adulation and obsession?
Bane wasn’t the only one who could read my mind. I saw Lucifer tense, the lightbulb flashing over his head like a strobe light. “No wonder he’s so determined to stop you,” I uttered. “Here, I thought he was just pissing in your sandbox, but in reality, he’ll cease to exist if Paradise is restored. Humans won’t need him or you.”
Faron found that amusing. “That is one possibility,” she said with a wink. “It’s that be careful what you wish for outcome.”
Thelesis whipped his head to look at Lucifer. Even he hadn’t considered that hazard. “Are you confident you want to continue down this path, brother?”
“It’s what’s best for humanity,” I insisted. All turned their attention to me as if my statement were heresy. I didn’t back down. “Isn’t it supposed to be about them?”
Faron rolled her eyes. “I see you haven’t changed a bit. Still rooting for the underdog.”
Our encounter a hundred years ago had been over the fate of a human-demon hybrid. A being who’d had no say in their heritage but was being used as a pawn by both sides of their family to try and destroy the other. Caught in the middle, the fourteen-year-old female had come into her demonic powers when puberty kicked in. She’d been provoked into horrible outbursts after being kept in a dank basement, beaten, and starved until the abuse had woken her evil side.
The Bridge Council had sent me to investigate after we received an anonymous call about her, but I’d been too late to save her and exact the justice she deserved. Her demonic father sent her to wipe out her human mother’s side of the family when she was in one of her rage fits. She was captured by human police and ended up committing suicide while in a psych ward for young offenders. The night she decided to take her own life, I met Faron outside the girl’s locked door. I was determined to break her out of the institution and take her to the Council, where she would learn how to control her powers and understand it wasn’t her fault. Faron had prevented my intervention. I still carried the guilt on my conscience.
“I value many things,” I snarled at her, “including the underdogs of this world. What I don’t value is the idea that free will only works up to a point. Fate, destiny, prophecies…those are tricks of the mind. False beliefs that power mongers like you and Michael force down our throats to make us compliant and weak.”
Bane bristled. His lip curled again, and he reached for a steel blade that could gut any living thing in seconds. His touch caused it to glow. “Watch it,” he growled.
Cole and Rad matched his fury and became bookends on each side of me. “She’s right,” Rad said. “You’re all playing games and using us as pawns to get your way.” His chaos wind kicked up and slammed into the Fate and her lapdog, knocking them off their feet. Good thing the sofa was there to catch them. “Don’t forget who you’re messing with.”
Zayfeer set down his glass. “That’s my cue to leave.” He winked out.
Bane bounded to his feet, pulling his blade, but Faron was equally fast, grasping his arm to stop him. Her eyes went milky white for a second before they flicked back to their usual turquoise. “Fighting amongst ourselves won’t end well.”
Guess she would know.
Rad allowed the wind to die. Frank backed toward the exit, plastering himself against the door. “I’ll just wait downstairs.”
“No,” Lucifer said. There was no menace, but the angelic mojo rippling off him made my bones tremble. I swear, I saw the outline of his black wings. “Your skills are needed.”
“I shall take my leave now, though,” Thelesis said. His wings rippled with a shudder. “Time for Kali and I to go our separate ways.” Like Zayfeer, he disappeared.
“Divide and conquer?” I asked, hoping I wouldn’t have to work with the Fate and her bulldog. “They can search for three, and Cole and I will search for the others.”
“I’m going with you,” Rad insisted.
Lucifer looked like he wanted to be anywhere but stuck in the apartment with us. “We don’t know where they are.”
I did a double-take. “What do you mean? You have the list.”
“I have been unable to determine their whereabouts. They are not on Earth nor in the Lost City.”
Nothing was ever easy. “But they exist, right? Are they in some kind of purgatory? Did they end up in Hell? Can’t you just use your angel GPS to find them?”
The suggestion he might not know the six Fallen were in Hell earned me a searing glare. “They exist, and we will find them.”
“How?”
Yep, he was pissed—the outline of those black, glossy wings became sharper. The boss didn’t like being questioned.
The Fate interceded. “Seven angels held high esteem in Heaven but left their powers to follow Lucifer. As with all Fallen, they’ve received a bad wrap on earth, thanks to Christianity.”
The number seven was continually cropping up. “Are you referencing the seven principles and powers?” I asked.
“Been studying your Bible?” Faron asked.
Thanks to Salmad, more than I cared to. “Why are we only looking for six?”
Lucifer glanced at Frank. “You’ve already found one.”
If Frank could have melted into the floor, he would have. His gaze bounced around between all of us, finally landing on me and sticking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a demonologist. That’s all.”
“We haven’t had the full talk yet,” I explained to Lucifer. I gave Frank a weak smile, trying to force some sincerity into it. “You’re Fallen, Frank. One of the original angels who gave God the finger and rebelled against Heaven. I brought you to the Institute so you can learn about them and how to help yourself and Lucifer with the coming war.”
His nervous laugh filled the room. “Right. Good one.”
When none of us laughed with him, he cut off abruptly and widened his eyes in shock. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
I turned back to Lucifer and Faron. “I know where the other six are.”
“Where?” Lucifer demanded.
He wasn’t going to like this. I hated what I was about to suggest, too, but it was the only way for us to rescue them. “Michael has them imprisoned in a desert where he’s king. That’s where I found Frank.”
Why had he agreed to give me this one of the crucial seven that Lucifer needed to sway the outcome in his favor? Did he not realize their importance to the war? Was it some kind of trick?
“How do we get to them?” Rad asked. “And don’t say that you’re going to make a deal with that asswipe.”
“She already did,” Frank said. He pointed a finger. “She’s bloodbound to Michael!”
Always the hard way.
Lucifer bore down on me, and it was all I could do not to cower. “You betrayed me?”
My insides went fiery. “Wasn’t my idea! But you need a double agent to uncover what he’s up to.” I swallowed the hot agony rising in my throat. He was going to fry me from the inside out. “I am bloodbound to him, which gives you an advantage.” I fell to my knees at his feet, my joints turning liquid.
“Stop it,” Rad threatened, reaching for my arm. His chaos scent of the wild ocean filled my nostrils. The sofa lamp careened into the wall, shattering the base. The salt and pepper shakers on the table smacked Lucifer in the back of the head with enough force to rock him.
Rad went flying, slamming into the wall so hard that the room shook. Hell, the building felt it.
Lucifer lifted me off the floor, my feet dangling. Cole stepped in front of Rad’s prone body. He knew he could do nothing for me; protecting Rad was what I wanted.
“Michael has your principalities…” I force-whispered through the neck vise Lucifer held me in. “I can free them.”
“Not if I exterminate you,” he growled.
My body burst into flames.
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Ouch! Will Lucifer kill Kali? Find out in the next chapter.