Fallen Angel 1: Ashes of Eden Read online

  Gabriel touched his arm that shook violently with his clenched fist. Her first touch since finding him in the scribe vault. “The time has not yet come…”

  “The hell with the time!” Lucifer snatched his arm away, standing tall before her gentle touch could stop him. The black and white of the restrictions imposed on him and all angels while humans were free to commit any sin dawned on him like a slap to his face. All this time he had obeyed and abstained. He remained pure in His eyes when all he coveted tempted him every single day. All while God’s humans sinned at will. Lucifer grated out, “Innocence lays waste down there, and he watches from Above while doing not a damn thing. And I refuse to have it. I refuse to stand idly by and do nothing.”

  Gabriel called to Lucifer as his great wings spread wide, but the click of his fingers cut off the cry of his name from her lips. And then he was by the looking glass in a flash of bright light that startled his few gathered brothers. Unfurling his wings wider, Lucifer raised his arms out, his palms upward. To the light above he screamed, “Do you hold so little care for your free creations that you rejoice in their slaying? How can you watch from your pearly throne hearing and seeing all, their screams, their gushing blood, and still your all-powerful hand!”

  Remiel was beside Lucifer in an instant and pushed him back with fear in his wide eyes. “Hold your disloyal tongue.” Lucifer stumbled, but Remiel caught his forearm to help steady him. “This is not the way.”

  Lucifer shoved Remiel back as Azrael stood from the other side of the looking glass. They had both been here, watching it all unfold as he and Gabriel had. And they held no reservations in their orders, in the fact that God did nothing to intervene in the slaughter below.

  Lucifer cracked Remiel in the face and Azrael leaped over the glimpsing pool. Remiel recovered, spitting blood from his mouth. But he did not return serve. Instead, he held up a hand to halt Azrael’s incoming and stepped back, joining his hands behind him. “God sees and knows all.” The intensity in his silvery stare, along with his rising brows, seemed to hint at a hidden meaning. A deeper meaning. “He is aware of the goings-on below. All of them. And,” he added as Lucifer opened his mouth to intervene, “He will take action when he sees fit. When the time is right.”

  Lucifer snarled, ready to beat some sense into both of his brothers. Azrael’s wings stretched wider, his hands forming fists. But it was Remiel’s undefended steps forward that made him hesitate.

  “I know what you did,” Remiel whispered, his face close to Lucifer’s and the breath from his lips tickling Lucifer’s ear. “And I am not the only one. A cell awaits you. Michael longs to put you in it—permanently.”

  Shocked into silence, Lucifer worried that Michael had spilled his spied knowledge not only to the other archangels but also to God. The fact that he had not suffered excruciating pain and suffering gave him hope that he had not. Still, it was clear in Remiel’s admission that Michael was ready and willing to act. Willing to endanger Gabriel to punish Lucifer.

  At the same time, Lucifer remembered they were not alone. Looking at Azrael back by the looking glass’s edge, he saw the angel’s narrowed gaze dart to where one currently absent female angel usually watched the world below. His expression became distant with frozen strain, but then it was gone, cutting off as he cleared his throat and exited down a corridor.

  More consumed by inner thoughts than Lucifer’s own sins?

  The misplaced anger Lucifer held for Remiel dulled as the angel patted his arm, nodding with a tense smile before following after Azrael.

  Left alone with a deeper rage that had yet to be satiated, Lucifer knew any action would not change a thing. God valued the freedom he had bestowed upon his humans to do as they pleased more-so than each of their meager lives. Their sins were not punishable; they were a right. A right bestowed only upon each human, deserving or otherwise, while angels behaved in His perfect image, an image that was a prison of immortality. A prison Lucifer would one day soon break free of.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alone in the scribe vault, Lucifer scribbled furiously onto the papyrus rolled out on the glowing platform. The stem of the feather he’d plucked from his wing grew blunter by the second, and the indents he left as the ink was sliced across the page threatened to cut gouges in the thick paper. Perched atop the severed log and hunched over, every one of his muscles was on fire with strain. The cramping in his twitching calves and biceps was constant now, but he still refused to stop.

  “Hundreds more perished,” he spat as he scribbled. “Men, women, and children were dragged from their dwellings out into the dead of night. Throats cut and bodies raped, their blood runs in rivers. Their corpses lay twisted in death, broken and putrid with the decay of their mortal flesh.” Lucifer cringed, seeing as his eyes closed the action of it all, the men wielding blades, swords, and spears that cut down their equals as if they were lambs to the slaughter. In the years that had dragged on, not a damn thing had changed. He smashed his fist down on the platform. A jagged crack rang out, making the inkpot jump and fall. Clay shattered in a spray of black across the overhanging length of the scroll he’d been working on for what felt like an eternity.

  Kneeling down, Lucifer retrieved a smaller blank scroll from a wicker basket and smeared at the mess. He paused in his aggravated wiping as a tingling ripped through his body like an electric current. At hearing the swish of feathers across the bright floor behind him, his breath caught, knowing exactly who approached. Letting his breath out slowly, he hesitated in rising to face Gabriel, struggling to contain his polluting anger. Instead, he looked at his stained, patchy black hands. In his mind he saw red, the color of spilled human blood.

  Lucifer had not once stopped himself from wondering why God allowed humans to commit the unthinkable, while what Lucifer craved was mercilessly forbidden. He was thinking it now—seething with a question that had never found its answer. How could what he felt in his body, mind, and heart for this ethereal being be so wrong?

  “All will be as it should be.” Gabriel’s voice was gentle and warm, free of the depression he had heard in it and seen across her face upon glimpsing through the pond in her garden that very first time. Still, there was desperation underlying it, a hint of upset that she could not hide from him. “God does naught without reason. His Earthly children are showing their true will. The innocent that are lost below are never truly lost—you taught me that. You reminded me of the cycle and eternity of all life. He welcomes the lost with open arms.”

  Lucifer whirled up to face her. His long wings brushed over the ground, collecting the spilled ink along their tips. “And all those who commit these heinous acts? What of them?”

  Gabriel shook her head and shifted to the other side of the platform as if to create a barrier between them. She drew her silvery tresses over her shoulder, worrying at the long length. “I do not know, though I trust in God’s plan—”

  “You trust in his plan?” Lucifer stalked around the platform and grasped Gabriel by her upper arms. She gasped as he squeezed, but she made no attempt to break free. “And what plan might that be? The one where he allows the humans to populate the world without worry for produce to feed them? The one where he allows the weak to starve and die? The one where he lets greed and bloodlust run rampant, while he delivers no orders and no punishments for the lives that are cut down every earthly day?” He squeezed harder, his rage burning bright as the sun. “What about how he allows greedy men to slice other men’s throats and then take their wives, laying them down and forcing themselves into their bodies while the women watch their husband’s blood pooling on the ground?”

  “God does not permit these things. Mortals choose their own path. We must trust that they will see the light, that they will see the peril they set upon the earth and change their ways. That his flood to end all that is good and bad will not wipe them all out.” Gabriel winced as Lucifer’s grip turned from squeezing to strangling, her beautiful guilt-ridden eyes pinching. “Lucifer, p
lease…you are hurting me.”

  Lucifer gasped, releasing his hands so fast it was like boiling water had scalded him. His palms throbbed and his heart went from steady thumping to a racing staccato. He had been holding her so tightly that his thick fingers and hands had left red welts across her pale arms. Silver welled where his nails had dug in, and a few fattening drops slid down to her elbows. “I—I never meant…Gabriel…” He reached for her, and her retreating step back felt like she’d punched into his chest cavity and ripped out his heart. He fell to one knee. “I am sorry. Gabriel, forgive me, please.”

  She was kneeling before him on the ground in an instant, her warm hands soft as she captured his face. “You let your passion control you, your care for others—”

  “It is not my care for others that drives me. Not entirely.” Looking up at her, he could barely believe what he saw. His aggressive actions had not stunted her total and unwavering faith in him. Though she was healing, the marks fading and the crescent cuts closing over, she still stood by him. She still accepted him. Now, with her right in front of him, his raw emotions for her, as well as his feelings of injustice, bubbled up. With all the carnage on Earth, their maker—despite his long-ago warnings to Noah—refused to act. Refused to save innocence when he contained the power to do precisely that. Lucifer remembered the pain that had plagued him during his explicit thoughts of himself being Adam and Gabriel being his Eve. Then, as he let his gaze fall to Gabriel’s reddened lips, he conjured up the memory of their first and only kiss. To taste her like that again, to let his rough hands glide over her silky soft skin…it was worth that pain a thousand times over.

  Lucifer had seen the repercussions on humans who sinned. There were none. So even if God did punish him for following what his body and soul craved, how bad could it be? How long could it last? Lucifer could not know for sure, but he was willing to find out. A few moments in their eternal lives to feel Gabriel in his arms was worth the risk. It was worth everything.

  Gabriel’s thumb caressed his cheek, getting dangerously close to his parted lips. “Then tell me, Lucifer. What drives you?”

  Lucifer fought to control his breathing, to keep control of his body and its reactions. But he was failing. Still, he couldn’t utter all that fogged up his mind and made his body hum like a song. So he settled for a simple answer, one that spoke volumes in hidden meaning. “Your faith in me. Your total acceptance. They drive my every thought and my every action. You are my sun, and I will forever be your Morningstar. A light that beams brighter in your presence. A light that would surely die if I ever lost you.”

  Seeing her long lashes fall over her blushing cheeks as her tongue peeked out to wet her lips, Lucifer came undone. Touching her heated face with excruciating gentleness, he dipped his head. Their lips brushed, soft and sweet. Gabriel’s breath hitched, but she didn’t push him away. Staring up into his eyes, she seemed to be begging for him to do something. To let go? Or to touch her? The tempo of her heart that raced with his and the way she bit her bottom lip was his answer. And Lucifer responded, stepping slowly closer until their bodies were touching. His head dipped again, mouth hungry to taste her.

  “Lucifer…”

  Gabriel seemed to want to say more, her plump lips remaining parted and so close to his, but only an uneven gasp came out as he slowly slid his hand over her collarbone and down along the side of her pumping chest. Looking deep into her eyes, he felt his way to her waist and then her hip, his seeking hand sliding down between their bodies—

  “Huh-hm.”

  Gabriel gasped and Lucifer jerked back. Spinning around, he found Azrael looking back and forth between them from the entry. Even though Lucifer’s wings would have concealed their actions, a look of dark irritation crossed the archangel’s face. “Lucifer, a mission below awaits you. Extended cleanup.”

  Lucifer looked at Gabriel, desperate to gaze into her eyes after what he had done, desperate at the thought of being so far away from her. Except she refused to look at him, keeping her eyes down and hands clasped in a knot in front of her. “It will not be forev—”

  “God waits for no man, and certainly no angel.” Lucifer glared up at Azrael who hiked his chin. A gentle glow radiated from his hand. “Your Below attire is ready. And your immediate departure awaits.”

  Lucifer considered risking the pain Azrael had the potential to deliver with God’s gifted light—but he would not risk Gabriel being caught in the crossfire. Nodding once, he let his wings graze hers as he walked away. “I will return,” was all he said quietly as he looked back at her one last time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lucifer materialized beside the looking glass, falling to his knees. His wings over his back ached from the flight home, and his heart pounded at the exertion of racing away from Below. He couldn’t have gotten away from there fast enough. And yet, even with all the distance between him and Earth, the horror refused to leave him. He saw it with every blink of his eyes. Blood. Innards. The lifeless eyes of men, women, children…and babies.

  The small lifeless bodies of babes were the worst.

  The sounds of their shrill cries falling silent—it was torture, leaving a ringing in his ears that was maddening.

  Lucifer screamed out his torment, causing murmurs from the few angels he had not noticed on his arrival who calmly watched through the pool of still water.

  Fifteen years of horror. Fifteen years.

  The devastation had broken him. Cleaning up the mess God refused to prevent had maddened him. It still did now. And now he knew what he needed to heal his stained soul and strip the memories from the backs of his eyelids.

  “Gabriel.”

  Standing on shaky legs, he stalked away from the quiet looking glass—and came to an abrupt halt. A flare of light coalesced into a dark-winged angel, blocking the columned entry to their private chambers.

  “Azrael,” Lucifer grated the Angel of Death’s name. His lips curled back at knowing the angel had now returned from reaping the souls Lucifer had been powerless to save. “Remove yourself from my path.”

  Azrael folded his dark olive arms over his dirty, yet bloodless, gray robe. His lips thinned and his eyes narrowed. “Do no go to her, Lucifer.” His wings unfolded enough to block off the wide corridor.

  “So I can be spineless like you?” Lucifer shoved at the angel’s chest. “So I can lie to myself and all who surround me? So I can be alone?”

  Azrael steadied on his feet, fists clenching. “Has fifteen years below taught you nothing?”

  Lucifer saw the horror all over again as he blinked. A shiver stabbed down his spine. “It has shown me more than I could ever have imagined. Mostly, it has proven God’s inability to deliver on his dire threats. Now move, or I will remove you myself.”

  Face in a snarl, Azrael stared for a moment, then he put his back to the wall, allowing Lucifer to pass. “I warned you, brother. I tried to help you.”

  Lucifer ignored the threat as intermittent flashes continued to spark around him. And as a click vanished the Angel of Death, Lucifer knew his time to act was now—while God was busy judging souls in Heaven.

  Rushing through the bright corridor, Lucifer headed away from the looking glass and his gathered brothers and sisters that watched idly. After fleeing all the death and destruction, his entire body was shaking with anger. It was his duty to record his findings, but he was nowhere near the scribe vault, heading in an entirely different direction. He couldn’t stand to make immortal what he’d witnessed in the last fifteen years. Babies torn from their mother’s breasts, strung up and cut open like goats to bleed out. The horror had worsened exponentially with each passing day he’d been trapped below. And still, there was no action. Not from God.

  But today…today Lucifer would take action.

  Since his last close encounter with Gabriel, he had allowed his thoughts of her to roam, to grow and reenter that forbidden place of flesh and want. He needed her, her tenderness, her comfort. He needed to feel her hope i
n not only Earth and its humans but in her unwavering acceptance of him.

  As Lucifer passed glittering drapery that shielded the entries to chamber rooms, the third one had his heart rate spiking as he stole inside. In a pure white robe on her knees, Gabriel’s hands that had been connected in prayer fell to her sides. “You have returned.” Her instant smile fell at the sight of Lucifer in his leathers that were stained bloody. Rising up to dart over the plush pillows that surrounded her, she raced up the steps from the circular space that made up the first half of her chamber. She looked him over, eyes seeking and hands trembling in the air as if she feared the red blood might hide his own. “What is wrong, Morningstar?”

  Her tender name for him brought Lucifer to his knees, and as she reached him with worry on her face, he caught hold of her hips. Staring up at her, he could not still his tongue. “I need you. I need to forget the horror from below. I need to feel…”

  “What?”

  Gabriel’s breathy question was the last of his undoing, and Lucifer rose up. Holding her body close to his, he felt every curve of her mold against him. “Luci—” He captured her lips with his own, and when she didn’t push away, he kissed her with everything he had. His tongue slid over hers, and the taste of her awakened a deep need in him that he couldn’t shut down. He had wanted her, wanted this for so long. To have her in his arms, taking her mouth with his own, was better than anything he could ever have imagined.