Fallen Angel 4: Cold-Blooded Fate Page 20

  “The child you planned to have killed before her first breath of life. Yet I sense your hesitation, Michael. Will you refuse a direct order?”

  Michael’s eyes burned with unexpected emotion he barely managed to hold back. He had done many things. Questionable things. Deplorable things. Things in the name of preservation and protection. But this? To kill a living newborn by his own hands… Gabriel would never forgive him. And she would be right not to. He did not think he could forgive himself either.

  “Kill her now…” God’s youthful voice was cold and detached.

  The command made the power that filled and spilled from Michael’s body hum brighter and with more severity, becoming painful with every quickening breath he took. Refusing this order would be his last act of Heaven. He would be shunned, banished. Would God burn off his wings too?

  Michael lifted the sword up, leveling it horizontally in front of him. The view down made him gulp, seeing the long glowing length of blue breaking in two the sight of the floating baby—right where her shoulders met her rounded face and trustful watching eyes. She cooed and Michael fought not to gag. He didn’t want to do this. Taking out Lucifer was one thing, but a child? A baby? How could he live with himself?

  Michael tensed to strike.

  “Or…”

  Michael froze, sucking air as his arm halted mid-air. His heart threatened to burst from his chest.

  “Accept her as your own. Raise her in light and teach her our ways. Raise her to be our savior rather than our destroyer, and I will let her live.”

  Michael withdrew the weapon, holding it raised at his side rather than within striking distance. “Let her live?”

  The boyish face of God was solemn. “But if you fail…” The angel sword pulsed with power, the blue that glowed from the metal like a warning that was not to be taken lightly. “If you cannot steer her into a path that will save us from extinction, then you, Michael, will take her life before it is too late. Those are the terms. Her death by your hands now, or you take responsibility for her from this day on, with the consequence of losing your wings should you fail. So what say you? Slayer or father? The choice is yours.”

  Michael didn’t utter a reply, his tongue refused to work with his mouth and voice box. But he didn’t need to. Even with his wings in jeopardy, God knew what his heart held. He knew what Michael’s decision was, even though Michael questioned if it was the right one to make. He may be condemning all that was light to darkness, but this innocence would live for now, and maybe Gabriel would one day forgive him his misdeeds if he succeeded. Only time would tell.

  Light grew around the boy in an instant, turning his small frame into a glowing sphere. All went silent, even the child’s cooing grew quiet in awe, and then the beacon pulsed out, exploding in an upward rain of dissipating light.

  Michael dropped the sword like a stone. It splashed as it cut through the water before settling on the base of the looking glass with a clatter. He scooped up the baby at once, cradling her in his warm and protective arms. She cooed once more and clung to his hair that draped down around his shoulders, giving a gentle tug. For the first time since kissing Gabriel, Michael had acted with his heart rather than his head. But would his choice ruin them all? Or would he one day have to end this innocent life to save Heaven and Earth?

  The answers were not his to know, and the task ahead of him was huge and terrifying. Michael didn’t know the first thing about being a parent. A father. But he had made his choice. And as that tug to his hair came again, he could not help but smile. “It seems you are stuck with me, Daughter.”

  Chapter Forty

  Lucifer heard shuffling hours later as he sat with his raw back to the rough stone wall of the cave. Since he’d been lowered from the height he’d been suspended at, he hadn’t been able to move or speak or even open his weary eyes. He had tried desperately to crawl to Gabriel, needing to gather her up in his bloody arms and whisper promises of escape, promises that he knew he could never deliver. But he had been too weak, too drained even to move. Even with his skin mesh back into existence, rippling with a burning sensation that grew stronger and stronger, the stab wounds inflicted by that dagger took so much longer to heal. That embedded shard was like poison—poison Cyrus had broken off the mended dagger tip and shoved into his body through the gaping hole the souls had escaped from.

  Which was the only reason Cyrus had left him alone to plot out his next move with his soldiers now that they were all trapped in Hell.

  Lucifer almost laughed at the irony but stalled the rumble as his insides rattled and shook. Too many broken bones, too many holes that threatened to release like dams. After Cyrus’s efforts to dethrone Lucifer and take control over Hell, the last thing he had expected was to release the hellions while keeping himself and all his followers trapped.

  Fate was a bitch. A cold-blooded bitch. For his enemies and for himself.

  That shuffling came again, and this time Lucifer’s wet eyelids cracked open. Gabriel in the dirt and naked, her skin blotchy but no longer oozing silver from her wounds. He snapped awake as if jolted by God’s power. The need to get to her overrode the lack of ability his body should have had, allowing him to move through the paralyzing effects of the embedded shard. Lucifer fell to his hands with a clatter of chains. His teeth clenched as he dug his dirty nails into the dirt, bending them back when he hit the rocky surface below. He ignored the stabs of pain and all the others that riddled his body as broken bones rubbed together and scratched at muscle. He kept onward, crawling closer and closer… “Gabriel.”

  Lucifer reached out, cold metal touching his shaking forearm, and her hand landed in his. The sensation was a shock in itself. With all his nerve endings on fire, her touch assaulted his body with what felt like grabbing a burning chunk of coal. But he didn’t let go. He would never let her go.

  “Lucifer, stop. Please. Let me…” When he stilled, gasping for air, Gabriel shuffled nearer, shifting as she came as close as her chains would allow. Lucifer only realized then that he was at the end of his tethers. He’d been tugging furiously to get closer and unable to gain another hand’s length. Her fingers threaded through his as he struggled to remain upright. Tears plagued Gabriel’s eyes as she scoured over his broken body. “I will miss you so, so much.”

  Gabriel’s words that seemed to be a farewell stunned Lucifer mute. For a moment the pain he felt dulled to the fear that had suddenly speared him like a fish. “Miss me? Gabriel, what—”

  “Our daughter…” She gasped in a wheezy breath. “She is dead.”

  Agony a thousand times stronger than any physical torture Lucifer had ever endured tore through him. He wanted to scream, to roar in anger, to break free of these chains and bludgeon anyone in his path to a bloody pulp. But he didn’t, he couldn’t. Guards were waiting further up the tunnel, barely out of eyesight. He could not risk alerting them and beginning a new wave of torture on the woman he loved. Through gritted bloody teeth and cracked lips Lucifer all but snarled, “How? How do you know this?”

  Despite his clear aggression, Gabriel did not recoil. Her eyes released the dam of silver tears they’d been holding at bay. “Her light was too bright. She could not survive in Hell. But her darkness, it…it…” She seemed unable to get the words out, stricken by each one she had already said and all that had yet to pass her lips.

  Lucifer bowed his head, his own eyes burning with unshed tears. He knew what Gabriel refused to say, the blame she would not let leave her mouth. “Her darkness could not exist above. It killed her. My darkness killed her.”

  “It is not your fault. Lucifer, please…” Gabriel clung to his face, chains jostling and her firm grasp begging for him to look at her. “We cannot change the past. We cannot save what is lost. But there is still hope for us. There is a way out.”

  “A way out?” If it had only been Lucifer imprisoned in Hell, he would have gladly suffered in self-loathing, welcoming his recurring torture, praying never to die so he could suffer
infinite lifetimes for his mistakes. Except, he was not alone in this. The woman Lucifer loved, the one he would die for, the one he would kill for, if she could be saved he would give his life a thousand times over. He would suffer every breath that beat his broken heart at knowing he was responsible for the lost life of his innocent, precious child if it meant saving the last thing that mattered to him. “How?”

  Now Gabriel’s pleading eyes fell, spilling fat drops of silver. Each drop landed on Lucifer’s bent knees, stinging his healing flesh. He didn’t move. Her tone turned deadpan as her hands slid from his face with a clatter of chains. Planting them on the rough ground, she breathed in deeply. On her exhale she said, “Hell’s souls must be retrieved. They must be returned to Hell. You are the only one who can do it. Only you can reabsorb them.”

  The thought of having to welcome all those filthy souls back into himself made Lucifer shudder. But if the upside protected Gabriel… “And in exchange for my service, we will be freed of Hell? Lifted from its fiery pits?”

  “You will be. For a time…”

  “And you?” When Gabriel refused to answer, her eyes pinning shut and lips trembling, Lucifer almost snapped. “No. No way in Hell. I will not leave you here—”

  “You have to.” Gabriel gathered up his hands, squeezing them gently as their chains pooled over their bent knees. The light from far-off torches hit her face, painting her desperation in severe shades of orange and shadow. “Or we are both doomed to eternal Hell. Accept and succeed, and you will be reinstated as the Prince of Hell. You will have the power to eliminate everyone that betrayed you. Refuse…and we will both be trapped here forever.”

  “I do not want that title. Your suffering here is not worth all the power in the world. I will not let you suffer for my own gain.”

  “What if it would free me? What if it could reinstate my position in Heaven?” Gabriel’s hand grazed his face, settling at his jaw. “The reorder of Hell is what God wants. Our lives, your title, and my freedom in exchange for your service. Or we stay here as we now are. Trapped. Suffering.” She trembled before him, her fear at that end so apparent. “I cannot bear to witness you in agony for the rest of time. Not after all we have lost. It will break me. Please, Lucifer, there is no other way.”

  Lucifer did not have the words to refuse her. He could not bear to see her tortured day after day, either. But to leave her here without him… “Cyrus will kill you if I leave. You know he will.”

  Gabriel nodded. “He will try, that is certain. But I am protected.” A steady glow beamed from Gabriel’s healing body, cocooning her in a hue of gentle pure white. It retreated a moment later, sinking beneath her healing skin. Heaven’s light. And now that Lucifer looked closer at her, he could see she was in a better state of rejuvenation than she should have been after their ordeal and subsequent torture. The multiple sword stabs through her abdomen were gone as if the place she had protected their child in had not been skewered like a sacrificial offering. “If you keep to the bargain. If you return to me in Hell.”

  Lucifer sighed, the loss of his daughter and the impending loss of Gabriel for the second time threatening to drown him. “I don’t want to lose you too.”

  Gabriel’s voice was soft, barely above a whisper. “I know. I don’t, either.”

  Her tears that reflected fire as she peered into his eyes laid out the harsh reality. They did not have a choice. Once again, their lives and their existences rested on God’s good graces. On cold-blooded fate that was their only option. And once again, Lucifer felt powerless, trapped, and like the world was ending—at least for him and Gabriel.

  Dropping his forehead against hers, Lucifer took a moment to breathe in Gabriel’s scent, to commit it to memory. When he looked up, he did the same with her features, tracing down her silver hair to her shoulders, up to her pointed chin, to her small sloped nose, and then to her eyes—eyes that despair and hope mingled within. Lucifer would never forget her eyes. He would never forget any of it. Not the sight of her. Not the feel of her in his arms. Not the way she loved him and how devastatingly his heart drummed for her. Not how she was his everything. And not how their love had created a life that held so much promise. To have had Gabriel in his arms as he held their child within his own hands—that would have been Heaven. A moment in time he would give anything to have gotten the chance to experience.

  But that was all gone now. Lucifer had failed to save his daughter. His own flesh and blood.

  He would not fail Gabriel too. “With God as my witness, I will never stop loving you. Not for Heaven or Hell. They can tear us apart. They can break me to pieces, but I will never ever stop.” Lucifer grunted as he flung the dead weight of his hand around the back of her neck, driving his intensity home. “Do you hear me? Heart and soul, I love you, Gabriel.”

  “Forevermore.” Tears plummeted down her blushed cheeks as Gabriel captured Lucifer’s lips. The connection was quick yet measured, ravenous yet sensual. A kiss of desperation as their tongues met and entwined. A kiss goodbye as they tasted each other for the last time.

  A shock of light had Lucifer jerking away too soon. It fired from her mouth and into his, striking down into his heart like a brand on his soul. His hands, now on her bared sides, ricocheted back as if hit by lightning. “What did you—?”

  A clamor of footfalls sounded.

  The guards, or Cyrus, or all of the above were marching their way.

  “We will always be connected,” Gabriel rushed as she scuttled back to the cave wall her chains were suspended from. She dug into the ground then shoved a dirty white feather into his hands, closing his rough fingers around it. “Until we meet again, my love.”

  Lucifer smiled, though inside he was breaking. He knew this was it. Their last moment together. Despite telling him to return to her in Hell, he knew God would never allow it. The moment he returned, she’d be gone.

  This was it for them.

  Releasing one hand from around the feather that heated in Lucifer’s enclosed palm, he reached out to cup Gabriel’s face. Hating how the tingles that inundated his hand muted the feeling of her warm, wet cheeks, he drew her to him one last time. His mouth crushed over hers, a tear spilling free as his eyes pinned shut with a click of his fingers and the eruption of glorious light. His body and soul became intangible, his hold on her failing and the brush of her lips fleeting.

  A shout came from Cyrus at the mouth of the tunnel. “I will kill you!”

  “I love you with all my heart,” Lucifer breathed as he vanished from sight.

  . . ☆¸.•°*。☆。*。☆。*°•.¸☆. .

  Torn apart and a world away, can Lucifer regain control over Hell and free the love of his immortal life from endless torture?

  Continue reading for a special glimpse into Falling Stars.

  Thank you for reading!

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for reading Cold-Blooded Fate. If you enjoyed this book please turn to the last page an select a star rating, or if you have a moment to spare, you can leave a review. It doesn’t have to be long—one or two sentences would be amazing. The more reviews a book has the more Amazon is willing to put it in front of potential readers. As an indie author, I don’t have a big publishing company promoting my work, so every little bit helps and I’d love for my audience to be a part of it. I read every one of my reviews and completely appreciate the thoughts and opinions of all my readers.

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  Thank you, J.L. Myers

  Continue reading for a sneak peek at Falling Stars - Releasing in May 2019!

  FALLEN ANGEL 5 - FALLING STARS

  Lucifer stalked forward, but his gaze was wary. Four easy kills, and quite a few others without any commotion to alert their hybrid leader? They’d cleared the city so easily. Too easily. Something didn’t feel right. But as Lucifer reached the entry, he knew there was no turning back. They had the numbers, and they had the intent. Today was the day to end this all. The day he saved Gabr
iel.

  “Take away their fight and render them useless.” Lucifer eyed Thanatos then Bathory before panning over the waiting crowd of allies. “I will do the rest.” To Zachias he said, “Time to prove yourself.”

  Shortly later, they were deep down in the tunnels under the castle. Thanatos and Zachias took to the left and Bathory veered to the right with their backup, leaving Lucifer to the stairs right in front of him. Lucifer waited and listened, hearing the wet and raspy breaths of the hellions asleep below, and then he descended too. Double-tipped dagger ready in his hand, mounted saucers burning bright with oils offered minimal light, bouncing off the glimmering metal he held.

  Six more steps…

  Red ignited from one end of the dagger, dripping down into a long live wire ready for action.

  Three more steps…

  Blue blazed from the opposite end, the curved metal delivering an eerie glow to the darkness.

  “Pleasant dreams, Hell’s souls.” Lucifer cracked the burning whip out into the air, waking the sea of monsters that squeezed into the cramped space, laying intertwined and on top of each other like worms underground. Every one of them roused at once. Their soulless black eyes settled on Lucifer as hisses and squeals of interest escaped their mouths. Not a single one of them was a hellion-hybrid. “Dammit.” Which meant that prevailing here was only one step to closer success. “Time to die. Now!”

  The hellions were up like lightning, rushing for Lucifer, looking only at him. But they didn’t get far.

  Surrounded from the entering stairs to the left and right, Lucifer’s newest allies and the vampires sprang into action to join the fray. Swords and daggers flashed in the minimal light, cutting into ligaments and muscles to take out the hellions’ legs first and then their clawing arms. Bodies fell one by one from the outside in, creating a barrier to trap the unharmed hellions from lashing out or escaping. Their plan was working.