Fallen Angel 1: Ashes of Eden Read online

  A silver drop plunged down, rolling a sparkling track down her pale cheek.

  Lucifer touched her jaw, the drop that was wet and warm trailing down his finger and tingling as if absorbing into his flesh. Gabriel gasped and looked right at him with her beautiful eyes that resembled the pools of water that were forming below. Scouring his features, she studied every part of his face. As the wonder in her own eyes brightened, Lucifer dared to glimpse his reflection in the rippling water they were crouched by. Unlike Gabriel, his flesh was golden as was his hair that reached his broad shoulders. His eyes were the same silver-blue color as hers, but his body was much larger and defined by bulges and ripples compared to her soft curved lines.

  “Lucifer.”

  His name from her lips was like a soft caress that cascaded over his entire body. With each fleeting moment that took but a second and eons at the same time, the blurry lines around Gabriel came into focus. Even his imagination could not have prepared him for this. The crystal clear sight of her, and even more than that, the raw emotion that sparkled from her wet eyes.

  Lucifer saw with total clarity the one being that would come to be the center of his universe—and the bane of his existence. “My Gabriel.”

  Chapter Three

  As time continued on, changing from infinite to measure, Lucifer remained by Gabriel’s side—where he belonged—watching over the rotating world below from the edge of the looking glass. Now draped in flowing silk and woven cloth to conceal the differences God had given them, it was not her naked flesh that consumed his thoughts to distraction. Even now, he remembered the first sunrise, an awe-inspiring sight that had parted Gabriel’s beautiful, blushed lips with an expression of wonder that he would never forget.

  Stealing fleeting glances at him from behind the veil of her long, silky hair, Gabriel marveled at how such a simple thing as light, or the lack of it, could change something so profoundly.

  The world below had evolved from mountains that spurted burning red to cool into hard rock and stone, dividing water that flooded the valleys and reflected pure blue from above in the vast expanses it covered. Sprouts of green flourished soon after. Trees grew tall enough to touch the sky, and the ground offered bountiful blooms.

  Lucifer was captivated too, though not even mostly because of the view. The words Gabriel spoke, the way her expressions changed, the slight rosy hue that attacked her pale cheeks when he caught her looking his way—the faraway world was nothing compared to the evolving being right beside him…or the thrill he felt at beholding her animation.

  Lucifer brushed his golden hair behind his ears as he glanced at her with a steadying breath. His hands that were clenched on the lap of his white robe uncurled, yearning to touch her ethereal face and feel the warmth of her pink cheeks.

  But then he noticed something across the motionless pool that acted like a mirror as well as a view to Below. Watching them with a furrowed brow from under his sand-colored hair, Remiel’s shifting eyes were at odds with his casual kneeling position.

  In confusion, and although he loathed the thought of distancing himself from Gabriel, Lucifer rolled onto his knees. “Rem—?”

  Gabriel’s soft, warm hand pinned him down and turned his body to stone. She released her grasp almost instantly, holding her hand to her stomach while curling her fingers in tight—as if she too had felt the spark between them. “Do you see, Lucifer? The waters flow from high up…” With wonder dancing in her eyes, she uncurled her hand and pointed to a sheer cliff that teased the darkening sky where gushing water tumbled down, splashing over jagged edges until it met the far-away gathering of water below. “…to disperse over the land, bringing growth and life.”

  A wide river stretched out from the lagoon, twisting and twining through luscious green and forking out to thinning rivers and streams.

  “This E-earth…” Gabriel’s widened eyes sought affirmation, making Lucifer smile as he nodded. “It is God’s greatest vision.” Her eyes sparkled while her long delicate fingers gripped the edge of the looking glass tighter. “We must protect it and help it grow.”

  Affected by her evolving language and the expression of wonder across her face, Lucifer shared her hope. But that was not all he felt. A desire for more than the world they were tasked to watch over and record on stone tablets swirled inside him. He felt it every time he let himself look at Gabriel. He felt it every time she spoke, especially whenever she said his name in the gentle lilt of her voice. And every time they accidentally touched…

  “Look, look!”

  Lucifer reminded himself to breathe as she tugged on his wrist. Despite the tingles, she refused to let go as she used his arm to point out what kept her interest. Sparks of forking light captured his gaze, bolts driving from the thickening clouds along the sky and down through falling drops of water at the earth.

  “Heat raises the water, and then the skies cry. They wash the Earth clean and feed it for a new day.”

  As the tingling became bearable, Gabriel’s grip on his arm squeezed. Lucifer saw the gathering of her brows above her petite nose create an expression he had never seen before. “Gabriel…” He stalled his hand mid-air, refraining from touching her cheek. “What ails you?”

  Gabriel shook her head, and her silvery flaxen hair pooling around her robe-hidden waist shimmied. “Angels cannot succumb to an ailment. Not here above.”

  Lucifer gathered her soft hands in his, covering their small size with ease like a protective cocoon. He stared at her expression, confusion swirling. “Your face…it is…”

  The look melted away from her face, and Gabriel nodded through the looking glass. “I know it is part of their life cycle. I know this. Though I still feel…”

  Releasing her hands that made his body hum, he followed her pointed finger to what held her gaze. Far away from the rain, a formidable creature with golden fur and a thick mane of hair stalked through a grass plain. A lion. In the long shadows of sunset, he leaped, taking down a young fur-covered animal with spindly legs. With heaven-created large paws and powerful jaws, the lion tore into the smaller horned animal. Red spilled free, coating the lion’s fur and staining the flattened wiry grass. Watching them, Lucifer admired the strength of the beast and thought nothing much of the animal it fed upon.

  Gabriel’s words confused him as much as her expression had. “Feel?”

  Silver welled in her eyes, threatening to flood down her prominent cheeks. “Sad. I feel…saddened. But look,” Gabriel said before Lucifer could question the emotion he had never experienced. “Their herd.”

  Tearing his eyes away from Gabriel, Lucifer saw the gathering of long, thin-legged animals in a wooded clearing that lay a safe distance from the hungry lion. The many animals were unaffected and calm, eating the long golden grasses.

  “One life to feed another, while the rest grow and create from the cleansed earth.” Gabriel sniffed, but her tears had dried up. “See? Safe amongst the older animals, the deer?” At Lucifer’s nod—she could call them anything she wanted and he would agree, eager to hear the words spoken from her blushed lips—she continued. “The young ones are protected to thrive. They populate the world below and grow along with the lands.”

  Lucifer glimpsed the younger deer with their mothers, drinking of them while the others ate the long grass. New life, created by the creatures themselves, not by their light and God’s hand.

  “You feel it, yes?”

  Lucifer looked at Gabriel in confusion. “Feel it?” Gabriel reached for him, and he instinctively leaned back, though not enough to evade her. And then her delicate hand touched his chest, laying flat against the material that covered his flesh—and his beating—racing—heart.

  “In here. The warmth. The pain and joy all wrapped up together. The understanding that death is not the end of a life but the continuation of all life.”

  In Gabriel’s eternal hope for God’s creation, Lucifer felt a change. It was something new and frightening. It was infinitely more severe than al
l he had already experienced. The erratic beating beneath his ribs and her gentle hand felt like the organ inside was trying to punch free of his flesh and bone. In response to her unwavering hope? No. The reaction in him was from something even more amazing than her belief in all that God had created and its ability to sustain a total utopia upon the earth. As he looked down and saw her hand with her long, delicate fingers pressed over his heart, he came to know a truth that was undeniable. It was because of her touch. Gabriel’s touch. This was the birth of something new and profound, something that no one could change.

  After this moment, Lucifer would never be the same. His heart now beat faster…for Gabriel.

  No longer able to control the impulse, Lucifer reached for her face as her touch fell away—but then let his hand fall short, resting it so close to hers on the edge of the looking glass. Despite the anticipation of flooding tingles, another sensation suddenly awakened parts of his body he did not understand. Lower parts that confused and concerned him.

  “Look, Lucifer!” He tried to follow her pointed finger below, seeing movement as his enhanced vision made sense out of the mingling shapes and colors as sunlight streaked over mountains. “Horses, wild and free. They are…what is the word?”

  Gabriel’s brushed into Lucifer’s side, and he sucked in a sharp breath as inundating sensation ripped downward through his entire body. Trying not to make a noise, he contained the shudder that made his insides squirm as he leaned away. He coughed. As the powerful sensation faded, a desperate need to connect in a profound way rose inside him. His hand edged closer, his smallest finger almost near enough to kiss hers. His face had neared too, lips parting as he licked them. “They are…beautiful.” Though not nearly as beautiful as—

  Lucifer stopped the internal thought, body freezing as a strange weight settled over him. His searching eyes skimmed across the looking glass. Beyond his heavenly brothers and sisters who he’d all but forgotten were watching alongside—the few who were not currently recording their findings or investigating Below—he realized he was being watched.

  This time it was not by Remiel—but the angel he nudged before glancing away.

  Framed by soaring pillars that led to one of four corridors, Michael sat still as a statue across the looking glass, his muscled legs dangling in the tepid water. With his black hair tied back, his face looked more severe than usual. Though it was nothing he saw below that was encouraging the threatening look. Staring right at Lucifer, Michael’s lips pressed together tight. His arms were crossed over the dark material draped down over his chest. His piercing silver-blue gaze shot to Gabriel then back at Lucifer. He shook his head, his nostrils flaring.

  Lucifer knew his reaction to Gabriel had been seen by the one angel who was tasked to watch over and command all the archangels, and from the look on Michael’s face, his reaction was forbidden.

  Lucifer dropped his gaze down to his folded legs, shameful and confused, shifting in discomfort as he tried to force himself further away from Gabriel. Every fraction of distance hit him like a loss—like he was cutting off his own arms or legs, vital pieces of his body that were now part of him and belonged with him. It wasn’t the space between them so much, but more of the realization that whatever was simmering inside of him was wrong. Whatever he was feeling towards Gabriel could not be. Not for her. And especially, not for him.

  Chapter Four

  Michael watched from afar, the saturated light surrounding him keeping his presence unnoticed as he peered out from behind one of the twin pillars surrounding the circular space. There was no doubt the two gathered angels peering down through the looking glass could sense him, but without being able to distinguish one from another, they would assume the sensation came from each other. Lucifer and Gabriel. Michael’s jaw clenched, his fists tightening at the closeness. As the commander of all his heavenly brothers and sisters, he had ordered the others away from this location in the Realm of Light. Histories needed to be etched in stone, souls awaited retrieval from the Angel of Death, and ground teams had much to do to steer God’s developing Earth into its full potential.

  The gathering of only these two angels was not by accident or inconsequential planning.

  It was a setup. A test.

  From where Michael stood, his white robe and pure white wings blending into the brightness surrounding him, he could not ignore the same churning of his insides that he had experienced already too many times before. Lucifer sat closely beside Gabriel, his knees folded to one side as he leaned into his muscled arm. Air barely separated Lucifer from the angel he leaned in close to, the edge of his great wings at his back almost stroking Gabriel’s with his measured breaths. His hands on the golden rim of the glass were tense, bones jutting with his tight grip.

  Gabriel’s soulful eyes watching through the still water were full of wonder at the utopia Michael had ordered them to watch over. Eden was but a small part of the rotating orb below, a haven of lush green and every blooming or sprouting color imaginable. Life filled the land within the protective mountain walls, furred creatures big and small living and roaming with the purpose of a life cycle that could sustain itself for eternity. A life cycle that would give mankind a form of Heaven on Earth. “Can you imagine the whole of Earth like this?”

  Her rosy lips remained parted as she looked at Lucifer, a small intake of breath revealing her surprise to find him already gazing at her. As the bones in Lucifer’s fingers and hand tensed further, Michael felt a jab of irritation. The look in his brother’s eyes as he failed to keep them off of her lips told Michael all he needed to know. Gabriel noticed the lingering gaze too, eliciting a small bloom of color to creep across her cheeks as she glanced away. What Michael was witnessing was not pure or heavenly. It was not part of their purpose or order as God’s first created, his righteous and pure archangels.

  “Through your eyes…”

  Tempted to act as he’d been granted to do, Michael stalled when Lucifer’s words trailed off and he leaned away from Gabriel.

  Furrows lined Lucifer’s forehead. His golden locks fell over his face as he shifted his hand away and redirected his hungry eyes below. “Through your eyes, I can imagine anything is possible.”

  Gabriel reached out, slowly lowering her hand over Lucifer’s. He drew in air through his flared nostrils and seemed to turn to stone before gently pulling away. The action relaxed Michael’s worry. He did not want to have to report or act against any of his heavenly brothers or sisters.

  “Adam and Eve.” Lucifer pointed below, his finger dipping into the iridescent water to create ripples over the surface. “There they…are.” The already tense angel gulped. Every visible muscle up his arm and between his folded wings strained and popped.

  Gabriel followed his direction, mouth opening in scrutiny as she stared below. Renewed pink bloomed over her porcelain cheeks. “I believe that is how they…it is… We do not have a word for it yet.”

  Michael wished he knew what they could see, but his view below from this angle was blurred and of an entirely different plain that was brown and desolate. Michael was almost tempted to make his presence known, to enter and see what had enticed their strange and varying reactions.

  Before he could, Lucifer gravitated closer to Gabriel, his watchful eyes still unwaveringly set below. The hand he had pulled out from under Gabriel’s touch planted back over hers, fingers curling around her delicate bones and milky skin. The hasty contact surprised Michael into stillness, but as his mobility returned, a flurry of images inundated his mind. Swirls of white, gold, and cream coalesced into a moving scene, revealing Lucifer standing so close to Gabriel that there was no air between them. His hands shook as he brushed her hair back from her shoulders and slid the pinned robe from her slight frame. Bared naked in his mind, Michael struggled not to utter a sound at the sudden and sinful thoughts that assaulted him. He wanted to cup her face in his hands and taste her rosy lips. He wanted to run the backs of his hands from her neck and down her perfect pale skin
, venturing over her womanly curves lower and lower. Seeing flashes of Adam and Eve in their created form, touching and caressing, joining as one amidst a grove of trees with round, orange fruit, he felt an insidious urge to act on all that filled his mind. To be with Gabriel in a raw and primal human sense.

  But these were not Michael’s thoughts.

  They were in his head, but they were not of his heart, his devotion as a pure being. Michael knew this was true as he felt a surge of power like a tiny ember spark inside of him that grew to a roaring blaze. God’s power. The reason he was ordered here to watch over God’s messenger and his Morningstar.

  The light that saturated the Realm of Light intensified, noticed by Michael but not by Lucifer who now moved his hand to cup Gabriel’s blushing face. All he had seen had been delivered from Lucifer’s mind into his own. By God. The infused power bursting inside of him was a command, an order to obey—to punish.

  Still connected to Lucifer’s mind, the disgusting images warped, turning the sight of Adam and Eve into Lucifer and Gabriel. Bared of cloth, Lucifer lay atop Gabriel, her legs around his tight body and ready to accept—

  Michael’s clenched hands flung out, releasing the coiling power that needed to explode from inside him. Lucifer’s hand retreated from Gabriel’s blushed face as if zapped by lightning. Crying out, Lucifer doubled over, moisture sprouting all over his skin as he screamed.

  “Lucifer!” Gabriel scrambled to roll Lucifer onto his back, clinging to his taut arms in an attempt to still the shakes that claimed his convulsing body. Her lovely features were a mask of fear that made Michael want to relent. But this was not his doing, nor his will to reject. “Lucifer, what is wrong? What is happening!”

  Michael snapped his hands closed, cutting off the energy as quickly as he’d released it. Lucifer slumped, gasping to return his breathing to normal. At the same time, Michael ignored the drain of vitality he felt to ensure his ordered punishment had delivered the message intended.