Fallen Angel 1: Ashes of Eden Read online

  Fallen Angel

  Ashes of Eden

  J.L. Myers

  Fallen Angel Series Book 1

  Contents

  MORE BOOKS BY J.L. MYERS

  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

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Thank you for reading!

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  Connect with J.L. Myers

  About the Author

  MORE BOOKS BY J.L. MYERS

  THE BLOOD BOUND SERIES

  (New Adult Paranormal Romance)

  What Lies Inside

  Made By Design

  Web Of Lies

  Born To Die

  ~

  OTHER BOOKS

  Nerve Damage

  (A Chilling Psychological Thriller)

  ~

  FALLEN ANGEL SERIES

  Ashes of Eden

  Dawn of Reckoning

  Breaking Lucifer (Jan 2019)

  Cold-Blooded Fate (March 2019)

  Falling Stars (May 2019)

  Copyright © 2018 J.L. Myers

  The moral right of the author had been asserted.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  No part of this literary work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the author J.L. Myers.

  Cover art © 2018 J.L. Myers.

  ISBN: 978-1717982766

  Visit the Website:

  www.jlmyers.com

  Chapter One

  Gabriel writhed against the tree, flames entering her robe from the ground up. She cried out, the burn attacking her toes and climbing her legs, melting and burrowing through her skin. This was the end—her end—here in this grassy field. Here under a darkening sky before the eager eyes of all the human men who had captured her. Here—alone.

  With agony consuming her on the outside, Gabriel retreated into her mind, away from the smell of her cooking flesh and the sound of her bloodcurdling screams. No longer able to feel the wet tears that forged tracks down her face, she conjured the memory of her last encounter with Lucifer.

  He had come to watch her. To observe her down on Earth.

  But of course she had known the moment he landed nearby. As always, she had felt him.

  At first her heart had taken off in her chest, soaring like a bird’s rapid wings on the breeze. But her heart did not make the rules.

  “I want you to leave, Lucifer. Leave me be.”

  And he had, despite the tears she could not hold at bay. Despite how clearly his heart was breaking as he staggered away and took flight up into the twilight sky. Clinging to the image of his shell-shocked face, she remembered the sheen to his wide silver-blue eyes, the bunching of his tan brow, the way his lips trembled over clenched teeth as if he were fighting the temptation to refuse her demand. Her hand cupping his jaw had been their last touch, a touch that could never compare to the slide of his rough hands over her bared body or the hungry pressure of his mouth against hers. But that would never happen again.

  “As you wish.” Lucifer had surrendered to her refusal. He had granted her wish. And now…

  She would die alone.

  Gabriel’s screams shattered her memories as the blaze engulfing her robe-clothed body licked even higher. Legs bared and bloody, flames now lashed her stomach and arms. Renewed panic made it feel like her insides were smoldering too. This couldn’t be her end. It couldn’t be their end.

  Yanking her arms up to evade the burn, the lowest rope snapped around her hips, ripping skin away in its wake. Gabriel hissed at the sting, swallowing her screams. Raw hands snatching and tugging at the higher ropes, they refused to budge, her strength failing her.

  Darkness fell, teasing her senses with the promise of cold that could never combat the inferno of flames that climbed ever higher and renewed her tortured cries. Wings trapped to the tree behind her catching alight rapidly, even escape from her bindings would not spare her. Those men stood by, spears in hand and murder painted in their eager gazes.

  Strands of her windblown hair sizzled up to her scalp with flaming embers, and Gabriel’s eyes pinned shut. The burn attacking her arms had a hold of her ribs, eating away inside her, breaking her. Her heart felt hot, too hot. Soon her screams would turn to fire—with her final shriek.

  Unable to speak, parting words formed in her mind. A telepathic message, a goodbye…that would never reach its source. Never blame yourself, Lucifer. This was not your doing. It was mine. I was wrong. I need you. I have always needed you.

  A sudden commotion sounded, a booming ruckus as the ground shook. But the cause mattered not. Nothing mattered anymore. Her end was imminent.

  And then everything changed.

  Gabriel’s bindings suddenly released and she fell like the dead. A blanketing weight covered her, blocking the cooling breeze and dousing the consuming fires that coated her sticky body and wings. Skin stuck and peeled away, the sound joining her rattling sobs. And then she sucked in a choked breath—and smelled him.

  Unable to believe her senses, Gabriel cracked her melted eyelids open.

  Staring down at her was the one face she had never expected to see again. Tan, rugged, and filled with a fear of losing her that resonated in his eyes with silver tears. “Lucifer. You came—” she rasped, realizing this was real. Realizing Lucifer had returned to this field on Earth and was surrounded by murderous men. Tongue feeling like it was on fire, she gasped out, “No. Oh, no. Please. Leave before they get—”

  There were screams, men barking orders out of sight that refused to break through the sound of rushing blood in Gabriel’s ears. The look of relief across Lucifer’s face morphed with animalistic fury. “No being will ever hurt you again. I vow it.”

  And then he was gone.

  Chilled air swept in at his absence, fighting the burn that clawed at her bloody body and causing a fresh wave of agony to dance across her melted skin. Grunts and shouts rose up, and then wet thumps—bodies hitting mud. Dread hooked into her insides as if worms had suddenly risen up to devour her charred remains. Murder of men was a heinous sin. A sin so much worse than her forbidden interactions with Lucifer. She needed to stop him. She needed to—

  With a gasp of pain, Gabriel rolled to her side, seeing movement through the long brown grass as men fell injured but still alive. Her eyes scoured through the mass of men screaming commands to kill. Finally locating Lucifer, she saw a dagger in his hands as he caught the throat of the man who had led this village of men and ordered her death. The man’s face t
urned red then purple as he was lifted from the ground. Spit sprayed from his lips, but no sound escaped. The grip on his jugular was too tight. A death grip.

  “You attacked the wrong angel, you disgusting excuse for a human.” Lucifer’s smile was a promise as he pointed the dagger at the man’s wide eyes.

  Gabriel struggled to her hands and knees, the grass ripping more of her raw skin away. About to fall in a heap, she grunted through the agony.

  “And now you die.”

  Gabriel pushed upright, choked words flying from her bloody mouth. “Lucifer, no!”

  Dagger freezing mid-air, Lucifer’s head cranked sideways. His eyes widened and flung the man aside to run at her. “Gabriel, look—”

  Something punched into Gabriel’s back, stealing a gasp from her as it tunneled through her heart and exploded out through her chest. Her head fell forward, and a bloody spearhead gleamed up at her.

  The end of Gabriel and Lucifer’s story was upon them…but this is far from where this devastating love story began.

  Chapter Two

  Lucifer felt the change the moment God’s almighty power surged. Circled around the concaved pool that glimpsed into infinity, he witnessed the phenomenon as their levitating creator glowed brighter than the sun. Every one of his nerve endings tingled with warmth, forcing the light he was made up of to burn brighter and brighter. Yet he was not afraid. He believed in his maker with his grandiose plans, and he was far from alone. The eleven other archangels glowed brighter too, the luminosity that made up their essence burning with intensity in reaction to God’s will.

  Then the warmth and serenity they had come to trust in the Realm of Light shifted.

  Lucifer choked back a cry as agony ripped through his soul. The shock of sound heightened a sudden panic in him. The other angels gasped and screamed too, vocalizing their pain as the trustful offering of their light took a brutal turn. It was the first vocalization that had ever been made since their maker forged them from his own radiance. The beginning of language that was passed from lips rather than telepathically—because with this torturous pain, something epic was happening. Luminous strands tangled through the air around the concaved looking glass, the brilliant white being drawn from the twelve angels and into their God. With each passing moment, the ground vibrated and the pool rippled. Sounds of shifting and forming crashed and rattled behind them. The angels’ glorious light dimmed too, growing fainter and fainter.

  Lucifer was the first to feel the change, the weakening of the power God had infused them all with. Yet he did not question it or give in to alarm as his essence was floored. He trusted the one who had brought him and his heavenly brothers and sisters into existence. He trusted God’s plan. His vision for a future unlike anything that had ever existed.

  Still now and forevermore immortal, Lucifer watched in awe as the angels’ spherical forms dimmed. Glowing curves and lines evolved, becoming more an more clear as something in him expanded, forcing breath to fill what had never needed air before. Folded and hunched around the edge of the water that glimpsed below, he saw cuts of flesh form and stretch over the others, all the while feeling the cutting phenomenon morphing his essence into something more…tangible.

  A quiet cry to his side sent a strike of fear through Lucifer. He reached out fast with a hand that appeared in bone and then flesh—the names came to him as if God were telepathically implanting the knowledge of their new forms—to grasp onto a much smaller and more delicate hand. The instant touch of her dulled the striking agony that felt more like Lucifer was being torn apart piece by piece rather than being created into more than what he or any of them had ever been. The sigh she expelled at his touch eased his consuming worry for her. He had never felt anyone before, never had flesh and bone to reach out and touch her with. The one angel who had been beside him in light since the dawn of existence. “Gabriel.”

  The name he had never spoken out loud—and now he wanted to say it again, over and over. Instead, the reflection in the shimmering water stole his focus as his stinging flesh continued to take shape. Sight blurred, their two evolving forms rippled. Lucifer looked toward her, squinted eyes traveling up over the radiance still obscuring her developing form. His sudden need to behold her compelled his actions—but before he could see her face, he was brought to the glowing ground. Lancing pain shot up from behind him, high on his raw back and his mouth gaped to scream. Other screams joined the chorus, different in tone to the deep timbre of his voice.

  The hand he still held squeezed tighter, trembling as Gabriel clung to him. “Lucifer…”

  Her soft voice gasping his name for the first time sent a wave of chills through him. He squeezed back, struggling to form words, desperate to let her know she was not alone in this, that she would never be alone as long as he was alive. What had once been telepathic words in his mind solidified into clumsy speech. “I am…here.”

  With a last surge of power, light was stripped from every one of the twelve angels, leaving a gentle glow that haloed each of their—bodies. Lucifer gaped at the reflection in the water, seeing the distorted reality of what he and all his heavenly brothers and sisters had been transformed into. He didn’t look up as the sounds of shuffling and groaning reached his ears. The siphoned light centering them all in a levitating sphere above the rippling water was not enough to hold his gaze. Gabriel’s hand slid free of his, and he felt an instant loss as her warm touch faded. Worry overtook his senses, yet he could not move to sit like he could hear the others were doing. A burdening weight pressed down over him, covering him in a velvety blanket of warmth. Yet it was not what continued to keep him floor bound. Vision blinking crystal clear, it was what encompassed his sight that kept him down.

  He could do naught but stare.

  Draped in magnificent white wings, Gabriel gasped short, yet slowing breaths beside him. The arch of her feathered attachments covered her shoulders. The tips stretched so long that they sheltered her entirely from view. And then she shifted. Back levering up, her concealing wings moved with her. Little glimpses of her long limbs and equally pale body peeked out from the iridescent feathers. Her skin was the softest thing Lucifer could ever imagine seeing. Even softer than his own feathers that brushed over his new and sensitive flesh that prickled and tingled with each breath. Studying all he could glimpse, his eyes traveled from her legs that were folded beneath her to her petite bottom, slight hips, to the silvery hair that cascaded down over her shoulders to pool between her legs. Letting his gaze travel higher, he counted each rib bone beneath her—

  Lucifer sucked in a breath as he saw the small swells that ballooned out further up her chest. With the rest of her skin so pale, the blushing circles with their own pointed peaks captivated him. Her shimmering hair curled gently around her breasts that swelled from her chest as if to draw and keep his stare.

  Gabriel’s vast wings cocooned her body then, cutting off Lucifer’s view and causing him to finally shift to sit upright. “L…look.” The gentle lilt of her voice caused a flurry inside him as her delicate hand reached out from beneath her wings, pointing to the area above the looking glass.

  The heat all around them spiked, that centering brilliance so bright it was almost blinding. Lucifer wondered if all the heat solely came from the visible and powerful source. He breathed in as if inhaling her angelic words into himself. Something forever changing was on the precipice of happening, and he was here as a witness as much as a source of power to be called upon. God had put his light into all of them in the beginning, and now that power was needed for something else. Something new.

  Yet he could not bring himself to look away from her.

  He had to see more. He had to behold every detail of the angel he’d been spiritually—soulfully—connected to for more than a millennia.

  A sudden explosion of light shook the realm. Gabriel shielded her eyes from the sight, watching lower as God sent his and their combined power down into the darkness of the great beyond. There was a sound of colli
sions and a resounding BOOM that shook the luminous ground beneath them.

  This was the moment they were meant to witness, the creation of Below, a new realm of physical and living things.

  Lucifer couldn’t do it.

  He could not bear witness to all the beauty that was being forged below, because what he was fixated on at this very moment was the most beautiful thing he could ever have imagined. Even obscured in clarity by the intensity of the brightness all around them, he studied every detail, seeing in his mind what was beneath the blurry edges that were like looking through water. Her chin was round yet pointed, leading back to a jaw that disappeared below her long silvery hair. He gaped as he studied her lips that were both full and rosy, so living in color that they made him think of her swelling chest hidden below. But the one thing that stole his gaze and kept it there was none of that. Above her little nose, he found her eyes. The first eyes he had ever seen. Rimmed in black lashes, the pools of her eyes glittered with blue and silver, and as he stared, he saw something welling in them that he did not understand. Something that intrigued and fascinated him. Her eyes were misty as she peered down at the changing sight below. And then she blinked.