Fallen Angel 1: Ashes of Eden Read online

  Gabriel reached for Lucifer again, stroking his arms that glistened with sweat. “Lucifer? Lucifer, say someth—”

  Lucifer moved as fast as God’s power being delivered, pulling his arm from Gabriel’s touch. He lurched up and stumbled to his feet. “I…I am fine. I…I…” With eyes wide and hands raised, he backed up. “Forgive me. Please…” He spun away and pushed off, mighty wings beating to take him up through the eternal light above the looking glass—and away from her.

  As warm air from Lucifer’s departure batted his face, Michael shrank back into the endless light of the corridor. He could not dislodge how conflicted he felt. His duty had been completed, but having to act against his heavenly brother warred with his sense of achievement. He sighed as Gabriel’s upturned face left his sight. “It is done—as you wished.”

  Chapter Five

  Gabriel rushed through the labyrinth corridors of the Realm of Light, long feathered wings trailing in her wake and feet silent but fast. Her heart raced along with her steps over the glowing floor—it had started the moment God had excused her from Heaven. The moment she made a choice.

  “Lucifer.” His name instilled her with a sense of excitement, but as she rounded a bend, clearing chamber entries, she stopped short. Mingling with her excitement was a sensation she did not want to feel. Dread. Her hand lifted as she caught her breath, fingers tracing the edge of the glittering drapery that shielded the chamber she had stopped at.

  Lucifer’s chamber.

  All around there was no sight or sound of any of the eleven other archangels, no one to see and scrutinize her uncertain presence. Yet it was not the fear of being found that stalled her previously sure intent. It was Lucifer himself. He did not appear, but he did not need to. She could sense his closeness, his undeniable presence inside.

  Which meant…he could sense her too.

  She longed to see him, to say his name and see the way his face changed as he looked at her. The way he hadn’t looked at her for so long now. Since that fateful and terrifying day beside the looking glass, her closest and oldest friend, the man who had been at her side since their finite beginning, had shied away from her. Gabriel had thought his avoidance would improve with time, with patience, but she had waited too long.

  She missed him too much.

  So much…it hurt.

  With a steadying breath, Gabriel listened to the racing of her heart instead of the knots in her twisted stomach for once. Lips parting, she tried and failed to control her voice. “L-lucifer?” She’d intended to sound strong, to sound sure of herself. Instead, his name had escaped her in a weak whisper. A question. She cringed and, after hearing a clink followed by a moment of silence, she brushed the jangling drapery aside to enter Lucifer’s private chamber.

  Inside was warm with light, his reporting platform beside stacked tablets to one side, and curved steps up to a reflection zone of downy pillows and blankets to the other. Despite the tranquility, this curved chamber was anything but inviting—because the angel she’d been certain to find was nowhere in sight.

  But he was here.

  Gabriel knew the fact as she stepped further into the chamber, her sad eyes panning over the drapery that lined the luminous walls. In her hesitation, he had shrunk away, concealing himself from her.

  Gabriel’s heart fell, feeling like a heavy rock in her chest. A burden. She sniffed as she walked barefoot to his platform, trailing her fingers over the chiseled tablet he’d been carving into. With tiny clumps of stone cluttering the flat glowing surface, it was clear he had been busy recording…

  Gabriel snatched her hand back and sucked in a small breath. Her name.

  Lucifer had been recording a historical event from Below, yet the last word was not part of his reported story to be delivered to God. It was her name. Gabriel.

  Feeling bolder than she’d ever had the courage to feel, Gabriel spun away from the platform. This time, when she spoke, her voice was clear and unwavering.

  “I know you are here. I can feel you.”

  There was not a sound, leaving an ongoing silence that was deafening. But he was here. As she had since their bodies formed, she could sense his presence like a warm vibration that slipped through her like moving water. The sensation had weakened over the years, but it was still there, still connecting them.

  Gabriel opened her mouth to demand he reveal himself, but the words choked back down before any sound could pass her lips. Eyes set ahead, she meandered past the stacked blocks that needed sorting and climbed the steps. When she reached the flurry of large pillows, her chest constricted. Bending down, her sapphire robe bunched as she plucked up the item that had stolen her words and compelled her movements. Lucifer’s feather. One he had shed in his haste to hide away from her?

  Biting her lip, she shook her head. Letting her mind wander, she recalled the day she’d last been at Lucifer’s side, watching Adam and Eve. Their actions had affected her, yet it was her memory of Lucifer that came to her now. The way he had fallen sideways in agony. The tightening and bulging strain of his body. The fact that naught she had done had helped. And then it had all stopped: his pain—and their companionship. Yet the confusion remained. No amount of questioning had encouraged Lucifer to explain, not then and certainly not now.

  Gabriel sighed, dropping his feather onto the soft, puffy layers as she straightened her back and gathered her long hair over her shoulder. Turning away, she returned to his writing platform, vision becoming more and more hazy with each step. “I am tasked to venture below. To Eden. There is a message I am to deliver. Mayhap I will see you upon my return?” She sighed once more when all remained quiet, the hope she had arrived with struggling to stay alive. Her voice fell to a whisper as a single tear fell onto the platform. “Mayhap not.”

  Bringing her hand up, Gabriel clicked her fingers as Lucifer called out, “Gabriel, wait!” But it was too late. Spears of white light shot from her body like a million-pointed star, drowning out the sound of Lucifer’s voice. And then she was gone, traversing from the Realm of Light to fly below.

  “Gabriel, wait!”

  Lucifer rushed out from behind the concealing drapery—too late. The flash of blinding light that had been Gabriel—his Gabriel—vanished, stealing the sight of her away along with the tingle her presence awakened in him.

  Suddenly alone, he stumbled down the steps toward where she had been, her departure resonating in him like a profound and burdening loss. With each step, a word arose in his mind, one that he felt suited given he had been hiding from the one angel he could not imagine staying invisible to. Coward.

  He had wanted, needed, to go to her, to respond to her presence and her voice. And it was this want, this weakness that had forced him to stay hidden. Not only on this day but all the long days that had passed since he ruined it all. For so long he had locked down his desperate need for physical closeness with Gabriel and resigned himself to merely existing in the background, watching the developing world on different rotations, turning and walking in the opposite direction at the sight of her in the long corridors. And now…hiding when they both knew he was there.

  Deep down he knew the stolen glimpses and fleeting glances would never be enough. To feel as he did and to know it was forbidden was like a culmination of Heaven and a term he’d come to name as Hell.

  His vision blurred as he reached his writing platform, conjuring the memory of her standing there as he fingered the letters of her chiseled name. It felt like forever since he had seen her this close. Yet the interaction so long ago between them remained fresh in his mind. He’d felt things for this heavenly creature that were not his to feel. Inside, his body had blistered with sensation and heat. His thoughts had been uncontrollable and compelling. So compelling that he had thought to give in to them. To want for himself what the humans below acted out between a man and a woman. Why give him those distinguishing parts if they were forbidden to be used? The answer was not his to know.

  All of that seemed like a dr
eam now—if angels could dream, or sleep, which they could not. But her being here, wanting him, needing him…

  Lucifer blinked his vision clear and a small glimmer of light drew his gaze down. Somehow brighter than the glowing platform, a small glistening drop of silver beamed up at him. He sucked in air, seeing in his mind Gabriel’s back as he hid, her wings hanging low from her shoulders as she sniffed. Crying—out of sadness Lucifer inflicted with his cowardice.

  Frowning as his heart ached at the thought, he reached out, letting his finger connect with the iridescent drop. “Gabriel, forgive—” His words cut off as a zap of power struck through his finger and up his arm. God’s power. Power she’d shed in sadness. He remembered then the words he had been too stunned to hear. Tasked. Below. Eden. And now her essence was calling to him, fully revived by the tear she had shed. The depression he had instilled in her along with the potential dangers of venturing below caused panic to take control of Lucifer’s heart and mind. He could not be near her, but…he had to protect her. To show her he cared, even in his avoidance.

  Mind made up, Lucifer acted without a plan.

  Without permission.

  One second he was caught up in the grief he had caused her and the loss of her renewed presence. The next second his fingers clicked of their own accord, and he was transported far from the Realm of Light and its infinite expanse of warmth and light.

  Below a late afternoon sun, Lucifer tilted facedown, tucking his wings in tight to his back—and then he fell. As fast as a projectile, he plunged downward through the sky, following the setting sun as wind assaulted his face, batted his feathers, and flailed his white robe. The fall felt eternal, but finally, finally, Eden came into view.

  Wings flinging out, vast and powerful, he fought the painful uprush to slow his descent. Banking sideways, he zigzagged through clouds, using the bordering mountains to keep his arrival from sight. Landing on a tall rocky ledge, a click of his fingers had his body vanishing and reforming amongst a grove of trees that were twice as tall as himself. A worthy hiding place where Lucifer’s sense of Gabriel directed his seeking eyes straight to her. Seeing her through the dense foliage, he clung to a thick branch to hold himself back, to remind himself of his need to remain distant.

  Out beyond the shadows of the planted area, a meadow rolled on, filled with purple and yellow blooms. Gabriel stood amongst the beauty. In her rope-tied robe, her silver-flaxen hair blowing in the fragrant wind was a thing of envy to the surroundings.

  And she was far from alone.

  Standing naked before her was a woman with dark auburn hair down to her waist. Eve. The same woman Lucifer had seen lying with Adam. He breathed deeply at the memory of what he had witnessed them doing, though not because he held any thoughts for this human who seemed bewildered in an angel’s presence. Even naked with Gabriel covered before her, Lucifer’s thoughts were only of the archangel who was his stationed equal—the angel that could never be more. In spite of the path he was created to walk, Lucifer found himself watching Gabriel’s lips as she spoke. Not to hear the words. No. He could care less what message she was presenting from their maker. He was captivated by the fast pace at which she spoke, and the way her brows furrowed as her eyes sparked with intensity. Continuing to watch her budding lips move, the thoughts and instincts he had been trying to ignore since he’d flown away from her so long ago rose up again, compelling and unyielding. His grip on the tree limb tightened, nails biting into the rough bark. He wanted…

  He could not say it. He could not think it.

  But he was not in control anymore. Not when it came to her. Something in him was changing. It had started on that first day when they had become flesh and bone. All the eons before melted away, because with that first sight and the sound of her soothing voice, something that was supposed to remain pure and angelic in him broke. Deep down he knew it. He feared she knew it too almost more than he feared the fact that God had seen the changes.

  Biting his lip, Lucifer tried to stem the thoughts as if trying to reattach a severed arm. His eyes squeezed shut, but the image of her lips when she had been beside him at the looking glass attacked his mind. He licked his bottom lip, envisioning how he would hold her jaw to draw her closer. How he would feel her surprised breath across his chin and neck. How he would lean in as his lids became hooded. And then…how their lips would meet, hers soft and supple and his hungry and desperate for a taste as his tongue swept inside—

  A new sound, a sort of creaking and brushing brought his eyes wide open. Lucifer gasped, seeing red swells growing from all over the tree he clung to—with his glowing hand. The same hand he’d absorbed her silver tear through. Every branch bloomed with the fruit, each growing ample and glossy, ripe for picking. Jaw slackened, he plucked one from its hanging place and turned it over in his hand. Its rosy color matched…Gabriel’s lips.

  Lucifer’s eyes darted through the thicker branches, seeing the empty field. He felt it then too. Gabriel was gone.

  “Who be you?”

  Lucifer flinched at the soft voice and twisted away from the tree to find the bared woman Gabriel had been exchanging words with. Eve. His eyes darted up to where the white clouds turned blue as the sky took on a purple-blushed hue. There was no trace of the archangel. It was time to go before Gabriel went looking for him. “No one. I must be away.” With no need for the fruit—being an immortal meant he didn’t require sustenance to survive—he tossed the red bounty to the woman.

  She caught it with a fumble as Lucifer’s broad wings unfurled with a proud whoosh. Her voice stalled him from lifting off, “What do you call it?”

  Lucifer peered around at the other trees, seeing orange, green, and yellow fruits. Nothing resembled what he had sprouted from his secret and sinful yearning. “It is an…apple.” And with that, he batted his wings and took off up into the endless sky.

  Chapter Six

  “To the looking glass. At once.”

  God’s telepathic summons punched into Lucifer’s head as he materialized in the warm ambiance of the Realm of Light. His heart stopped momentarily, then thundered back to life. He braced, expecting a sudden dose of pain to floor him in the glowing corridor outside his chamber, to punish him for his impure thoughts down on Earth. When no pain came, he quickly scanned ahead and behind himself, worried he would encounter Gabriel. With not a single angel in sight, he breathed through his mouth and followed the order toward the looking glass, keeping his guilty face down while wondering if somehow his musings had gone unnoticed.

  Any thoughts on escaping retaliation for his misdeeds stalled as he came through the thick towering columns that ended the corridor.

  She was here.

  His gaze was like a magnet that could not stop from settling on her. Though the second Gabriel felt his presence and looked up with relief on her beautiful face, Lucifer glanced away. Keeping his head down, he ignored the other ten angels as he took his spot beside her, desperate to look at her and afraid to do so at the same time. He could not control his thoughts, maybe not even his actions, when it came to her.

  “You were not above when I returned.” Had she not sensed him below? Gabriel leaned closer to him and the scent of her, like fresh blooms in spring, overwhelmed him, preventing him from uttering a word. There had been no accusation in her tone, only happiness mixed with wariness, but he was certain she could see the guilt all over his face. Her hand that she leaned into slid closer on the ground between them. To touch him? To show how grateful she was to be near him? She stopped before she could graze his knee, seeming to notice the rigidness that suddenly froze Lucifer’s body. If only she knew what ran rampant through his mind… “I have missed you, Lucifer.”

  For the second time today Lucifer’s heart stopped, then it lurched back to life, drumming exponentially faster. His mouth parted to utter a lame reply, but the clearing of another angel’s throat stopped him. Glancing up, he found Michael glaring at him from across the looking glass. His tall arching wings and his ar
ms crossed over his bulky chest made his expression even more formidable. A directive to abstain from any physical or even verbal contact with Gabriel. Or was the look induced by knowledge of Lucifer’s sins?

  The angels alongside his angelic brother looked up too, frowns taking shape in confusion of their silent interaction.

  Lucifer relented first, as always, glancing down through the still water over the concaved looking glass. His eyes slammed shut as a sudden beacon of light flared into existence to center the gathered circle. Vision adjusting, Lucifer blinked as God’s voice shook the realm and his racing heart. “You are all gathered here on this day to bear witness…”

  A strike of humming light shot from God’s glowing sphere—right into Michael.

  All eyes trained on their heavenly leader as he went down to one knee with gritted teeth. The light subsided, leaving a brighter glow that haloed his muscular body as he pushed back up to his full towering height—to set his intensely silver eyes back on Lucifer.

  When all remained silent, Remiel questioned from beside Michael with open interest, “Witness to whom or what?”

  Fearing he already knew, Lucifer held Michael’s narrowed gaze, watching as the angel brimming with God’s infinite power brought his fingers together. “To this.”

  Michael vanished with a click of his fingers, but when the Angel of Death pointed, “down there,” all the remaining angels followed Azrael’s view down through the water as a location appeared. Eden. There among the serene landscape with its plunging waterfalls and bordering mountains to keep the rest of the world out was Michael. Infused with God’s power, the travel below had been instant. Adam and Eve were there too, and they both hastily stood from their reclined place against a tree at his arrival, ditching items from their hands.