Fallen Angel 4: Cold-Blooded Fate Read online

  Cyrus smiled, wiping the wet blood from his chin as he watched the boy scurry back up the cave tunnel. The wait was excruciating, but it would be worth everything he had suffered through the moment he saw the disbelieving shock in Lucifer’s eyes. To take the prince’s child, lover, and life…what better revenge could he wish for?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  With the help of his warriors and that of Remiel, Michael’s plan was coming to fruition. For months they’d stolen down to the Earth, scouring villages for unmarried women to impregnate. Michael had expected them to have to use the power of their compelling gazes to get the women to submit. But, more often than not, the young maidens or lonely widows were too awed by their presences to deny their romantic advances. They’d beheld their wings, even his black ones, and known what they were. They had accepted their intentions, their bodies, and their seed readily, knowing only that what they created would one day save the world.

  Now phase two had come.

  To ensure each and every maiden that swelled with their angelic progeny lived up to the task at hand. Many villages had been visited, so there was much to do, much to secure.

  Michael led their descent, landing down with the sound of snapping crop stalks and the whoosh of his majestic wings as they tucked in close to his back. His warriors touched down behind him, equally lathered in hybrid blood to conceal their actions and location from Above. Michael hiked his chin, anticipation making his pulse race.

  The angel warriors responded, stealing after him through the night and weaving through corn fields. Mud brick and wooden dwellings of the large village came into view as they cleared the crops. Each of his men, over twenty in total, disappeared silently through doors and window openings without further instruction.

  Michael watched as maidens were ushered from their beds and homes, stumbling barefoot sleepily. But none of them fell. The angels leading them on made sure of that, holding a hand or elbow, or even curling an arm around their woman’s waist in support. Michael eased back into the stalks of corn, returning to their landing place that had flatted a rounded area amongst the reeds. The air was warm tonight, a breeze whispering through the tall crops as if spreading secrets.

  The maidens appeared through the shielding border then, mouths parting at the sight of Michael, the largest of all the angels they’d glimpsed. It wasn’t the coating of dried blood that startled them. They’d seen the cloaking layer on the angels who had bedded them. Their widened eyes that ventured behind revealed their concern. His great black wings. Some of the women looked scared, confused by his differing appearance. Except for one. The black-haired maiden who had accepted him into her so many months ago. She came to him now, falling to his feet. “You have returned.”

  Michael nodded, but he did not speak her name. She had told him what it was, but he had chosen to forget. The use of another woman’s body was not an intimate act like it had been with Gabriel. It was a means to an end. A necessary step.

  Michael knelt down to the woman, her swelling belly holding his gaze. Like all the women who now knelt around him or were held in the arms of their angel lover, she was ripe with life. In a few scarce months these new lives, part human and part angel, would come into existence. A glimmer of light in a world that was darkening by the day.

  The hybrids now outnumbered Heaven’s army two-fold.

  “Your seed is strong.”

  Michael lifted the chin of the woman, hand going to her belly. Her statement was pure fact. The kicks and tumbles inside of her were full of power and strength. Black bruising was visible beneath the pale sheath that draped down from her shoulders to conceal her body. The same as each of the other young women, he noticed as he scanned around. They had done their duty, and their reward would be short but sweet.

  Removing his gentle touch from the woman, Michael stood tall. “Hear me now.” His eyes shifted slowly from the one at his feet and to each of the other women that surrounded him. “In ten years, on the first eve of winter, you shall deliver what your body has brought into this world unto me. And you will leave.”

  The women shrank away, and some even pulled from the supportive arms of the angelic warrior that supported them. Fear resonated in their eyes, illuminated by the yellow glow of the full moon that shone down over them. Their hands and arms held their bellies as if they could somehow protect what was theirs.

  “No.”

  “You cannot have them.”

  “Please do not take our babies.”

  The words were shaky, their reluctance to comply clear as a few darted to escape through the tall corn stalks.

  Their angel partners caught them and led them back. Their hands held on like they were made of stone as the women struggled, but their silver-blue eyes betrayed them. They had volunteered for this, but it was clear that although they’d now bedded handfuls of women each, they had grown attached to them in some way. Some of them even visited their women, bringing them gifts of fine cloth or fresh fruit. But they knew this had to end.

  Michael blew air through his nose as the woman at his feet tugged at his leathers. “Please, I beg you.” Tears gathered and fell. “Ten years? How can you expect us to give up the flesh of our blood and walk away?”

  Michael pursed his lips, biting his tongue between his teeth. He knew the pain of losing something—someone—he loved, and no part of him relished the thought of stealing the children of maidens and widows. But this had been his plan, an angelic race to help fight and win the war that was to come. To protect the light before darkness devoured Earth and Heaven. “Your sacrifice will one day be immortalized in angelic history—”

  Screams and cries ensued, but the woman at his feet remained still, trapped by Michael’s angelic gaze. Tears plunged down her face.

  Lifting his head, Michael watched as his warriors caught their woman in from of them, one arm over their chest and the other holding their faces forward. Capturing each of the woman’s terrified gazes in a panning circle from left to right, they all stared at him. Michael’s voice enforced the command of his angelic gaze that could never be denied. “Surrender.”

  The women quit their struggling, but fear remained in their wide eyes.

  “You will deliver your angelic children in ten years as I demanded to a secret place you will learn of when the time comes…”

  Michael had hoped for the women’s support without the need for force, but he had always known this was a possibility, a choice he may have to make. Now there was no going back…and so many more villages to visit. Michael sighed again, deciding to start with his angelic gaze next time and strip the emotion from them first. Then he would not be haunted by the many eyes of the women who knew they would one day have to abandon their children for a greater cause.

  The life to come for these women, and especially their spawn, would not be an easy one. A few meager years of normality would never be enough, but it would have to be…

  Michael cleared his throat and sealed the order with his last words. “And then you will leave and never return, carrying with you the knowledge that you have helped save the world by offering up your children, the very first of the Nephilim race.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Lucifer rushed from his chamber. After finishing his rounds of torture early, retreating to the comfort of Gabriel’s arms was all he sought. But she wasn’t in their chamber. And neither were her hounds. The pendant shard had revealed a glimpse of her, unmoving and in a dark place. Heart lodged in his throat, Lucifer could barely breathe as he raced down the open-air hallway. Belial flew overhead quietly, wings flapping to keep up. In Gabriel’s delicate condition, she was vulnerable. Her life and the life she carried.

  “Where are you?” Lucifer’s voice was a desperate choked gasp. But then he felt something as he got halfway to her rooftop garden. Belial swooped back from ahead of him and cawed. Stalling, Lucifer faced the tall, glossy hallway that snaked back through the middle of the castle. Her presence called to his soul, faint but undeniable.
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  She was alive.

  Air released from his lungs in a whoosh. For a moment he had feared the worst. Now he walked on at speed down the twisting hallways, desperate to prove to his eyes what his soul promised. Wall torches blazed with fire as he passed, and the further he went, the surer he was of her destination.

  The nursery.

  Jogging down the last long straight, he met the double doors and edged one side open. Gabriel sat on the ground, her legs bent under her to one side and her gray wings splayed around her. The two hellhounds flanking her lifted their heads, chests rising off the floor. Seeing only Lucifer entering, they lowered back down.

  “Gabriel?”

  She had one arm resting on the edge of the crib he had carved out of black wood, her head of long, silvery hair resting on her raised elbow. She didn’t reply as the sounds of her soft breathing reached his ears. She didn’t even flinch as Belial came to land on one corner of the curved crib.

  Lucifer knelt, his thoroughly cleansed hand gentle as he cupped her shoulder. He gave a little squeeze. “Gabriel?”

  Gabriel startled with a gasp, resting pose straightening and head snapping up and sideways as Belial fluffed his wings. The fear that widened her eyes dissolved at the sight of Lucifer, but a glimmer of something remained. “Lucifer, I thought…” She glanced up through one of the speared windows where the swirling red sky dimmed with the approach of night. “I did not think you would be back so soon.”

  “Why are you here?” Lucifer asked, grasping her arms to hoist her up. “And on the floor? Are you—”

  “We are fine,” she cut him off, noticing the way he glanced down at her swollen belly. With the size of her, their child could arrive at any day.

  “Come…” Lucifer swooped her up into his arms, nodding to order Belial to swoop out of one of the five window openings. “I had this lounging bed made for a purpose.” Because it was not the first time he had found her asleep on the hard floor of the nursery. Bypassing the new furnishings he’d carved, he neared the wall mural where the blue sky met fluffy clouds and a rainbow of arched, earthy colors. He laid Gabriel down on the long lounge that was padded and curved up for elevated reclining and stretched out beside her.

  Gabriel looked tired and he pulled her to him, flicking his hands to shoo her pets out the door. “Lucifer, I—”

  “Shhh,” he soothed, reclining onto his back. “Rest. I will be right here.” Gabriel’s head settling on his shoulder was utter perfection, stealing away the echo of screams he had torn from his victims today. Curled into his side, her arm bent over his stomach and her hand rested against his chest. Right over his steady heart. Sliding his own hand to her belly between them, a tumble and strong kick bounced Lucifer’s palm. The images of the day, blood and gore that always lingered behind his eyes, affects he hid from Gabriel, receded too. He couldn’t think of anywhere else in all the realms he would rather be than right here with them both in his arms.

  For a fleeting moment, Lucifer didn’t care that he was in Hell.

  He didn’t care that God had shunned him.

  He didn’t care that his wings were gone.

  All that mattered was right here within Lucifer’s reach, safe and sound. He felt whole and fulfilled. Like he was right where he was meant to be, where he’d always been destined to end up.

  Gabriel’s sniffed, withdrawing her hand from his chest in a way that popped Lucifer’s fleeting bubble of bliss.

  Instantly he stiffened, his head lifting to glimpse across the nursery. The doors were still ajar, the silhouettes of her pets shining in from the crackling wall torches outside. But her body almost trembled beside him. “What is it?”

  Gabriel’s hand went to his neck as she arched up higher on her elbow. Peering down at him, he could not mistake the sadness in her misty eyes. A sadness that was like a fist around his heart that suddenly beat faster. Had she noticed all he withheld from her—the darkness he fought to contain?

  “What do you think he or she will be?”

  Lucifer frowned at the question, surprised at her direction of thought. “Male or female, it matters not to me.” He could not help the smile he beamed down at her belly. “I love the life we have created already, regardless of that. From you and I, there is no doubt in my mind that he or she will be strong and inspiring. Our child will be perfect.”

  Gabriel sank back down, but he could feel that his answer had failed to alleviate her worry. On a breath, she said, “The danger…what if he or she is not perfect? Not…good?”

  Lucifer stopped breathing. Now he understood her worry, her concern. The prophecy had painted their child into a role that would destroy all that was light. Their child was destined to bring about the destruction of Heaven and rain darkness upon all. But Lucifer refused to believe it. Judgment passed onto himself had helped mold him into the despicable man he had been for so very long on Earth. Condemnation and the loss of the only thing he had ever wanted had been the catalyst that had swayed his will. He had reacted out of pain, and of anger. But if God had never cast from Heaven—if he’d never been shunned…

  Lucifer would never have committed any of the heinous things he had orchestrated.

  He would have had no reason to.

  Now he refused to paint his child into the same corner. He refused to judge him or her on acts that were out of their control, that if he did pass judgment on, would only expedite his child’s role in this prophecy.

  His child was innocent. And Lucifer would protect and nurture, showing him or her that the future was not set in stone. That his child, like them all, had a choice.

  Lucifer curled his arm tighter around Gabriel as he turned to face her on the reclining bed. He pressed his lips to her forehead before gazing into her saddened eyes. “Our child will be whatever he or she chooses. Whatever we help him or her to become. Of your soul and light, our child could never be bad.” He lifted his hand from her belly and brushed over her blushed cheeks, fingers curling around the back of her neck. “We can’t let others’ fears taint their life. To influence who our child becomes. If you can save me,”—Lucifer smiled down at her belly before lifting his gaze back up to her teary eyes—“if you can both save me, then how could that be bad? You know I am right.”

  Gabriel took a settling breath, her hope in his words so clear as she reached for his face. Her thumb grazed his bottom lip, delivering sparks with her touch. “Then the only other question is, wings or no wings?”

  Lucifer laughed quietly, loving her all the more. “Does it matter?”

  Once his wings had been the second most important thing that had been taken from him. But he did not need them. Not anymore. Heaven was no longer his home. Gabriel and their child were his home, and with them by his side, he felt as though he were soaring above the clouds.

  Gabriel shook her head. “Not to me.”

  “Nor me.” Lucifer kissed her quickly and sweetly, taking Gabriel’s mouth and tasting her tongue. She fitted beside him perfectly, even with her swollen belly. And he had never been more hungry for her. Her breasts were engorged, pressing against the fabric over her chest as if dying to break free, to be held, and to be tasted. Lucifer toyed with the clasp at her shoulder, desperate to free them. Gabriel gasped when the binding sprang loose and clattered over the bed’s edge to the ground. There was a shuffle—probably the hellhounds inspecting the commotion through the door. Lucifer shooed them away with one hand without looking as Gabriel took his mouth with need.

  Twin growls preceded a rapping on the doors that had Lucifer snarling. Gabriel gasped and drew back from him, covering herself as he snapped words at the barrier. “What?”

  “My apologies,” Zachias said without coming inside. “The newcomers are prepped for their initiation.”

  Irritation flared through Lucifer like searing lava. He had hoped the preparation would take longer.

  “I will be there when I am ready,” Lucifer grated through rough breaths.

  “As you wish.” The soldier’s dep
arting footsteps were soundless, but it was clear he’d left when the hellhounds’ quit growling outside the doors.

  Still breathing fast, Lucifer brought his hand back to Gabriel’s face. “I am sorry. I must…”

  Gabriel’s response surprised him. “What if our child has your fire? The curse of Hell to transport souls?” Her eyes were narrowed on his—on the flames that had spiked at the interruption and were only now dwindling from his gaze. She looked away. “What if he or she has your darkness?”

  And there was her true fear, a fear Lucifer could not deny he shared.

  Controlling his darkness was a burden Lucifer struggled with every day. Despite fleeting moments, he was never rid of it. Even now, lying beside her with his heart still racing from their intimacy, the urge to get out and give the newcomers the hellish welcoming they deserved called to him, tempting and luring him.

  This life would not be kind to their child. It would not be safe—and that was true whether he or she inherited his dark calling or not.

  “Whatever our child is born as, whatever he or she becomes, I vow to you this: I will love and accept our child no matter what. I will protect him or her with my life and show this innocent life how to contain any darkness that may exist or grow. And no matter what, I will not fail. Not this day and not any day for all of eternity. Our child’s life comes first. His happiness. His survival. I will die before I ever let any harm come to either of you, whether by external or internal threat. Do you believe me?”

  “His?”

  Lucifer shrugged. It didn’t matter to him if he had a son or a daughter. “Or her.”

  Some of the fear melted from Gabriel’s eyes. She sniffed but nodded, placing her hand over his heart. “I believe you.”