by Sasha Leigh
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
About the Author
Other Books by Author
Fate’s Return
Pulled Away
By
Sasha Leigh
DEDICATION
For Callandra
Pulled Away, A Twisted Fate Novella
Copyright © 2014 by Sasha Leigh
Published: September 19, 2014
First Edition
Cover Design: Sasha Leigh
All Images Purchased for use at www.Bigstock.com
Logo Wings: Fiery Wings by blackmoon979
Exterior Photos:
Dark Spooky Forest with Silhouette of a man walking by ando6
Tunnel of Light by rolffimages
Hooded figures in barren landscape by rolffimages
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, if forbidden without the written permission of the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Find out more about the author and upcoming books online at www.SashaLeigh.Weebly.com or @SashaLeighS.
CHAPTER ONE
Duty. Of all the four letter words, it was the worst, making me feel as dark as the wall I stared at was black.
Ripped from Alyssa’s dream without a chance to say goodbye induced pain I never knew existed, all without inflicting a single physical wound. But no matter the distance, whenever I closed my eyes, it was as though she was still at my side. The connection we formed hummed with her confusion and heartbreak, reflections of my own forbidden reaction. How could I set things right? Angels in Heaven weren’t known for their flexibility, and unless I became an angel out of Heaven, fallen like so many before, our fate as a couple was decided.
Now, my duty was calling.
Coming back to the Celestial Realm was stifling, too warm and restrictive by unseen binds, obedience, and servitude. Comformity.
I thought the Brothers had pulled me from Alyssa, but no. It was my obligations, the responsibilities I held defined by thousands of years of experience. Never before had I resented it, but after meeting Alyssa? Spending time getting to know the coveted human and having no idea where she fit in the bigger picture? Of all the humans, Alyssa was the only one I could have been chosen to protect that could sway my distaste of mortals to love.
The exterior I'd held on to for so long withered and died as completely as my time amongst mortals. I looked down to see my true form's return as soon as the dream ended. There would never be another visit, but not even He could diminish the feelings that remained. I couldn't set our time together aside to add to the thousands of memories the longevity of my existence had procured. It was the only truth I’ve known, having experienced it rather than having been told to feel it.
Angels were created to adore Him, to add to the power of His Glory, but I had chosen to love her.
It was my free will, and a choice I had known couldn't end well. Who was I kidding? Being with her hadn't been a decision. It was a cosmic inevitability created the moment we'd been thrown together, and by the time I realized it, my heart was too immersed in the emotion to run.
And now it was over.
“You're back to being yourself, I see,” the First Brother said, pausing in the open doorway before joining me in the room that housed the looking wall—a waterfall, really, of the clearest, most purest water in Heaven. It could display images the viewer most desired to see, but like Heaven's creations, it didn't lie, and wasn’t always a guarantee.
The wall remained dark now, my connection to Alyssa severed by my grief. I had been instrumental in helping her reach whatever experience the Sisters had deemed necessary, but my participation was at an end. I would be unable to watch what it was needed for when it reached fruition on her eighteenth birthday.
“My duties called to me.” Keeping my eyes on the wall, my voice fell flat, dejected. He couldn’t expect me to elaborate after what happened, not when we both knew he was privy to more about Alyssa than he would say.
“I'm sure they did,” he said. “I haven't completed any of your tasks since David's passing.”
I looked up to see that he was back to wearing the white robe that we all wore whilst completing our duties. Consumed with tasks, it was all we ever wore. Only . . . I had been familiarized with the comfort of jeans and t-shirts, and after that, the robe had been stored along with my sense of obligation in the dark recesses of my chambers.
Was this his subtle way of telling me it was time to move on? That the time for back's to be turned was complete? What would he say if he knew I wasn't ready? That I couldn't let her go? I wouldn’t.
Drawing in a deep breath, I pushed my palms against my thighs and stood to my full height. After David died, my true form added three full inches to his six-two stature. My hair grew darker, longer, and the tanned skin of the mortal boy bronzed deeper, showcasing the muscle earned by the gruelling nature of our work. Nothing would ever be the same, except maybe the blue of my eyes—the window into a never-changing soul.
“I'm going to retire now, Brother,” I said, and stepped around him to reach the door, feeling his gaze follow my every move. Turning slowly, I added, “I wish I could say it's good to be back but . . . well, we both know that I cannot lie.”
“What about your duties?”
I shrugged. “They can wait.”
“Brother—”
Without looking back, I paused to say, “If you are worried about my duties, you know what needs to be done, and after doing them so well, a little longer won’t hurt you.”
The consequences I might face didn’t register as I walked away, not because they didn’t matter, but because I no longer cared.
The Brothers preached about right and wrong choices for so long they forgot to heed their own advice. By forcing this task upon me, they made a choice. The Sisters, the Brothers . . . He had made the choice to send me to Alyssa.
My withdrawal from duties was their consequence.
***
Weeks ticked by without my noticing the passage of time, though without Alyssa, it still felt like forever. I didn't speak unless asked a question. I didn't govern over our inferiors, and completed the most basic of duties, and then only when the problems grew too large to ignore. But by the time a situation became that important, the First swept in to clean up my mess.
I was too broken to care.
Every day I went to the viewing room and the wall remained black. Empty. But even though I left each time with a pit of sorrow kneading my stomach, I kept returning in hope that this day would be the one to change, and the hall I walked would quit becoming longer after each failure. Today I would see her. She was okay without me, and maybe—just maybe—I could move on.
I
t didn’t happen.
Stepping out of my room, I began the trek down the familiar path to the Viewing Room. It was a new day; it was a new hope. If Alyssa eluded me, my mind hadn't forgotten, and I saw her every time I closed my eyes. The radiance shining from within, how her entire face lit with each smile . . . and if I kept my eyes shut tight enough, shutting all sight and sound off to the point where breathing ceased, I could even smell the vanilla in her hair. Nothing could replicate how it felt to touch her though, so as good as it was to remember, I was always left feeling lost, wanting more.
Stopping at the end of the hall, I took a deep breath and reached for the handle on the door. “Today is the day,” I whispered. “I will see Alyssa today.”
Slinking, into the room, I paused. Each of my brothers was present, wearing dutiful robes and expressions carved of stone. I glanced behind me and then forward, and let the door fall shut at my back. Why are they here? I didn't know. Gatherings such as this were confined to special circumstances, situations that grew beyond a single authority, and were always held in the Meeting Room.
“Brothers.” I nodded in respect for each while a quick glance at the wall showed that today wasn't the day I would see Alyssa. My heart dropped. As the second eldest—the second most worthy—I was inferior to only one: the First Brother. Clenching my jaw, I held his gaze without blinking. If he knew what I was thinking . . . .
“We've come to speak with you, Brother,” the First said, and stepped away from the others. Darting his gaze around the room, he swept his arm from left to right. “Since it is so rare to find you out outside of your chambers, and you barely complete your duties, this is the only place that we thought to find you.”
I shifted my weight and crossed my arms, forcing my expression not to betray my reaction. It was at this point that I would sit on the bench, pensive over what I had lost, but with the Brothers blocking my path, it was impossible. I wanted to return to my room, and this—intervention?—prolonged that from happening.
“What is this about?” I finally asked, breaking the silence to hurry the conversation along.
“The girl. You. What you risk losing if this . . . retreat continues.”
“Why do you care, Brother? Aren't you the one who insisted I complete the task?” I watched the First for an indication of deceit, but found none. The others watched, remaining silent, but wouldn’t make eye contact. Alarms sounded like bullhorns pressed against my ears, one at each side to blare in unison. “What is there left to discuss?”
“We have a proposition for you, something that will allow you to move past this and rejoin our ranks.”
“I don't know what you are saying.” Rejoin? Had I left?
The others looked to the floor so that I couldn't read them and I was left with no choice but to meet the gaze of the First. To his credit, I couldn't read him, either, which meant that I would have to listen if I wanted to decipher what he meant.
“Your duties will be distributed amongst the rest of us,” he said in a flat tone, once again looking around the room.
I blinked, sure I had heard him wrong. “Excuse me?”
“It’s just temporary, Brother. We all agreed to allow you time to adjust back into your role once your task was complete, but it has been weeks without improvement,” he said, and began to pace, three steps to my left and three steps back, and then again. “You’ve spent all this time . . . It’s been millennia since Creation, and not once have you faltered. That provides you with a level of allowance, surely. You’ve never, in all that time, placed yourself in a position where an attachment could form with a human. Of course you questioned the responsibility we retain.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “The responsibility? I don’t question what we do is important for humans. Without us, Darkness would be able to take a firm hold and block the light.” Taking a deep breath, I closed an inner door on the sudden anger—the complete feeling of betrayal—that roared to life to replace my amusement. An outburst would do me no favours. I clenched my teeth and said, “Only He can reassign my duties.”
“He has agreed,” the First said. “What you went through was hard. We might not understand what that is, but we have all tried to respect it out of our regard for you. Now, the time has come to let go of the experience and move forward.”
“If I can't?”
An answer wasn’t necessary. Our kind was never “fired” and rarely “destroyed”, which really was just a polite term for killed. Punishment was so much worse: The Lake of Fire. It was a stopping ground along the way towards a discipline that would never come to pass, the place where our darkest, most traitorous sin replayed over and over until nothing else remained. In a word, it was Hell.
“There is a school . . .”
“A school?” I scoffed. “You are joking, right? Tasking me to attend school is part of what started all this.” Shaking my head, I laughed, looking around again before refocusing on the First to ask, “Tell me, Brother, how does school fit into your “proposal”?”
“You have two choices. You can be cast out—punished—and we would reassign the duties that you rule. You would cease to be a Brother.”
“Or?” There had to be something better, or I would find out if the time it takes to fall felt shorter or longer than it actually was.
“Or . . . we reassign your duties while you find a way to move past your issues,” he said, and the others nodded, each in agreement. “We do not want to lose you, Brother, but you’ve become unreliable. We can’t complete our own duties to the best of our abilities when we worry about what you’re neglecting.”
“Then don’t do them.”
“Oh, doing them isn’t a problem. It’s not knowing if you are that is making it difficult to foresee what we have to do. We can plan to include your duties with our own instead of trying to pick up the slack not knowing where you dropped the ball.”
“Explain how school factors into this,” I said, and the First smiled as though he’d just gotten what he wanted. Was he really that confident? His so-called options weren’t the only choices, and I only asked in order to understand what he was offering, and then compare it with what I knew I could do.
“There is a school that has developed since the beginning of your time as David Parson, right here in Heaven, in this building. Glory Academy. It is where new angels learn and hone their natural affinities for the ranks of angels that they will one day join.”
“There are never new angels, Brother, and none who must “learn” how to become one. He made us so that our abilities were an innate knowledge born to each of us upon creation, which, might I add, hasn't happened since Creation.”
“Things have changed. The fact that you have not realized this is further evidence of your disregard for your duties,” he said.
It was one thing to discuss the completion of neglected duties when trying to pick up the slack, but using it to be ignorant? Speaking in such a way in front of the younger Brothers? If my reassignment was temporary, I would once again be their superior, and if so, I would not allow any reason for them to view me as anything but their elder. I looked behind the First and said, “Leave us.”
The Brothers' eyes widened in surprise. One-by-one they all looked to the First for confirmation. So it begins. My demotion. I didn't know how that made me feel—I'd never been questioned before—but I guess that’s how my recent behaviour must be like for them. Biting my cheek, I kept my laughter from emerging.
“Its fine,” the First agreed. “You may go.”
Two of the brothers walked past me, hesitant, while the other three faded from sight. Likely they were heading back to their duties, made even more cumbersome by my negligence. I looked back to the First and met his gaze, and for the next few minutes, we studied one another in silence.
Being alone in a quiet room with the First made me want to flee from its unfulfilled promises, and my feet began to itch. But, deciding to speak instead of run, I said, “I could fall.”
“And where
would that lead you?”
The First stepped back and sat on the edge of the green marble bench opposite the seeing wall. He nodded to his left for me to join him, but I leaned against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest to endure the silence until he spoke again, pinching the skin above my ribs to remain distracted.
He sighed. “If you fall, the girl would not know you. Are you willing to lose everything for something that does not exist? To become a shadow of who you are meant to be?”
Was I?
“Explain the new angels to me,” I said by way of answering. To make a choice, I needed to understand what he was proposing. “Angels are created, never born.”
“These angels are what you would call “reborn”.”
“Re-born form what?”
The First shrugged. “Humans.”
“That is ridiculous!” I dropped my arms to my sides, overwhelmed by the concept. “Humans do not become angels, Brother. Spirit guides, maybe . . . but angels? He would never allow it.”
“It is happening, Brother.”
Narrowing my gaze, I searched his eyes for deceit, but knew he couldn’t tell such a bold-faced lie. “How?”
“The rise of the human's population has brought a rise in corruption—to sin—and there is not enough goodness to counter its effects. There is no longer an even balance, and if that continues, Darkness will blanket the light.”
My shoulders slumped and I sat beside him on the bench. How did I miss so much? Ignoring my duties, focusing on my desires, had left me ignorant. Was I selfish? Darkness loved nothing more than to block the light, be it Heaven’s Glory or the rare ray of purity in a human’s soul. But never had I heard of it being like this, bad enough to warrant new angels? From humans? Free will made it impossible. Mortals couldn’t obey . . . .
“And the school?” I met his gaze with interest now.
“It’s for the new angels. A training ground to test and then hone their natural talents so that our numbers grow to meet the demands of balance,” he explained with more emotion than I could remember seeing. Known as “The Brother of Judgement”, the First resembled the dedications carved of stone more than any one of us. Cold. Hard. Unmoving.
“These angels were once humans?”
