by Sophia Sharp
Suddenly, a bright flash appeared across her vision. The creature staggered away, looking absolutely stunned. Nora’s vision was blurred, but she saw – she thought she saw – a shape approaching from the side. A human shape.
No. Two human shapes.
Again, Nora felt her grasp on reality slipping away. She felt herself fading. She was losing her grip on herself and knew darkness was forthcoming.
Another flash. The creature stumbled back.
Nora opened her eyes and squinted, straining to see. She could not. There were…shapes…in front of her. But what…?
Wait. She recognized the shape. It was…Madison? In front of her, with her back turned. That hair, that figure, it could only belong to her. And there was someone else beside her. Someone with her. Someone…she should recognize.
Her mind tried to work, but it was too hard. Her eyes drifted shut, and all she could hear was a dull ringing in her ears. Groggily, she opened her eyes…
She saw a blur at the creature’s feet. Just like that, it was gone, and the creature stumbled down. It swiped angrily at the spot, but another blur came, faster than before. And Nora saw blood pour out of two gashes on the creature’s legs. It fell forward. The earth shook.
Nora was drifting weightlessly in midair. Hovering above a dark cloud of nothingness. She felt heavy, like she was being weighed down, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t care.
She opened her eyes again. And she saw the creature trying to get up, thrashing wildly at…something. Still, the dull ringing was the only sound she heard. The creature stumbled and fell to its chest. Nora’s eyes were closing again. She was losing herself…and darkness came.
No. Her eyes popped open. Something in the back of her mind kept her there. A small pocket of determination she didn’t know existed. She tried to see, but everything in her vision had become one indistinctive blur.
All of a sudden, a face appeared past the blurring. Near her. A face that she recognized.
Hunter?
He seemed to shine, to push away the darkness that threatened to creep up at the edges of Nora’s vision. His lips moved. He was saying something. To her.
She couldn’t hear him. His face was full of worry, and she saw his hands moving toward her, brushing her hair away. His lips moved again, slowly, as if underwater, and no sound came.
Darkness covered her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
~Afterlife~
Nora opened her eyes slowly. She was lying on a hard surface, staring at the ceiling in a dimly lit room she didn’t recognize.
“She’s up!”
A voice sounded, but Nora couldn’t place it. She knew she’d heard it before, but where…?
She felt a gust of wind against her face and suddenly felt hands around her shoulders. And then she saw a face appear in front of her. Hunter.
“You’re up,” he whispered, in disbelief. His eyes scanned her face quickly. He looked terribly worried, and tired, too. But he grabbed her and held her tight. “I never want to let go again. I never want to lose you again.”
Nora closed her eyes and melted into his arms. It felt…right. But suddenly she realized, really realized, what was going on. And immediately, she recoiled against his grip. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded. “What are you doing? Let go of me!”
Startled, Hunter backed off. But he still held her shoulders. “What are you doing?” she asked again. “Where did you come from?” She tried to move her arms, but they felt as heavy as lead pipes. “I said let go!”
Shock touched Hunter’s face, shock and…disappointment. Carefully, Nora felt herself being lowered as he released her shoulders. But he didn’t say anything.
Wait a minute. Hunter was here. And Nora was…alive. Abruptly, she remembered the fight. The one she was going to lose. The one she was going to be killed in. But…somebody had stopped the creature. And…she had lived.
“What happened?” she asked again. “What did—”
“You’re alive, and that’s all that matters,” he told her.
“Did you…did you save me?”
“I had some help,” he smiled.
“What?” None of this was making any sense. He had left, abandoning her in the woods, and now here he was, a knight in shining armor, looking over her with worry creasing his beautiful features, admitting to…saving her? If that was true, it changed everything. “But…why?” she stammered. “If you saved me, why did you…why did you leave in the first place?”
“There were other Vassiz coming after us. Madison picked up on them before either Alexander or I had. They had my trail, but not yours. They didn’t know your scent. If we split, you would be safe. Madison volunteered to go with me to throw them off. We made them believe she was you.”
Nora’s head spun. Her body still didn’t want to respond, but she felt a cacophony of emotions overcome her. That one short explanation was enough to make her heart melt. But at the same time, she was furious with Hunter for abandoning her. And forever grateful to him for coming back. She was smitten with him again, and yet beyond angry for what he did. Her heart said one thing and her mind another.
Hunter looked at her patiently. Nora felt the blood return slowly to her arm, then felt the tingles that accompanied it across her palm and fingers.
And with as much force as she could muster, she swung her hand toward Hunter, catching him across the cheek with a deafening full-handed slap.
His head jerked to the side. It stayed there for a moment, until he brought a hand up to his face. “Ow.” He worked his jaw slowly. Then he grinned at her. “I probably deserved that.”
Nora tried again, this time with her other hand, but he caught her arm. And smiled devilishly at her. “But not that one.”
He knelt down and kissed her.
Nora’s heart stopped as his lips brushed against hers for the first time. They were soft and warm, tender and full of smoldering passion. Her breath caught as she kissed him back, using the strength in her arms to bring him closer, to press his body against hers. All thought evaporated and all hurt was forgotten as she shared with him a moment of unbridled passion. A tingling feeling blossomed in the middle of her stomach and slowly expanded until it encompassed her entire body. She shivered for more.
Slowly, he drew back and looked deeply into her eyes. “I will never let you go.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
~Angels~
When Hunter released her, Nora fell back dreamily. ¬She felt all warm inside, and for the moment, everything was right. She closed her eyes happily as a tingle of shivers ran down her spine. When she opened them again, Hunter was still right there, smiling down at her.
“I was so worried about you,” he said, as he traced a thumb along her cheek. “I didn’t know where you were, or if you were safe, or if I would ever see you again.” The tone of his voice was genuine. His words were genuine. “You cannot imagine how much it pained me to leave you like that.”
“Then why did you?” Nora asked softly.
“I had to,” he told her. “It was the only way to keep you safe. I know you’re stubborn, sometimes – don’t frown at me, you know it too! – and if I had told you the truth, I feared you would want to come with me.”
“Of course I would have come with you!” she exclaimed.
He smiled at her again. “And that’s why it had to be the way it was.”
“And…Madison?”
“She does not hate you. She realized other Vassiz were close behind us the night we first met. That is why she acted toward you…the way she did.”
“To keep me away?”
“To alienate you from her. And when she told me and Alexander what was going on that night, we all agreed that splitting was for the best. To keep you safe.”
“So that means,” Nora began, somewhat hesitantly, “that there’s nothing…going on… between you two?”
Hunter smiled. “No,” he said. “It was all an act.” He chuckled lightly, and Nora
sighed. She loved hearing him laugh and missed it when he was gone. “To be honest, I thought my part in it had been so poorly done as to give it all away.”
“So that means the fight I overheard? Between her and Alexander…?”
Hunter shook his head. “Those two lovebirds have been at each other’s side for hundreds of years. Nothing could come between them anymore.” He pushed himself up and offered Nora a hand. “Come. There are some that are eager to meet you.”
Nora took his hand and looked around her for the first time. She was in a fairly spacious room, with no windows and only one grand door leading out. The floor that she had been lying on was hard marble and a spectacular white. So were the walls. If she didn’t know any better, she would have said this was part of the same structure as that great corridor had been. “Who are they?” she asked.
“You’ll see.” Hunter smiled. He slipped his hand around the small of her back and led her forward. Nora took her first step – and nearly fell. She hadn’t realized it before, but her legs felt weak, as if they hadn’t been used for a very long time. But, strangely, based on what she could remember of her condition after the fight with that…creature…she should have been teetering on the edge of death right now. Except she wasn’t. Her body felt weak, yes, but nothing in particular stood out. She was in no pain.
“How long was I out?” she asked Hunter.
“A few hours, at most.”
“What?” Surprise painted her tone. How could she have healed so quickly in only a few hours? She remembered hitting her head and brought a hand up to where she thought she’d made impact. To her surprise, there was nothing there. No scab, or gash, or bump. But she distinctively remembered finding blood there before. “How?”
“Those people that want to meet you?” he replied, a twinkle in his eye, “one of them was able to heal you after the battle.”
“Heal me?”
Hunter smiled at her again. “You’ll see. Come.”
She put a hand around his back and walked beside him to the door. Twisting the handle, he pushed it open, and Nora gasped.
They were looking right at the grand chamber where she had encountered that vile creature. The same shining pool spread across the floor, but its waters looked calmer, somehow. Slightly more relaxed. She looked up at the ceiling and was relieved to find that the crystals there were blue. It meant this was the chamber on the first side of that curtain of black.
Quickly, her eyes followed the hall down to where she remembered flying through a tear in that terrible darkness. She saw the black shadow was still there, but the gnash the creature had cut was gone, replaced by solid black. For some reason, seeing that was reassuring to her.
Then she noticed a bundle of shapes in a far corner. She saw Alexander and Madison first, staring deeply into each other’s eyes. Behind them…a group of people she did not immediately recognize. They were tall and muscular – taller than anybody here by a head. Their bodies were lean and perfectly proportioned. They were also completely unclothed.
A light seemed to radiate from the group, encircling all their bodies like a halo. Nora realized it was much the same as the light that graced this hall, the one that came from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
There were three men and three women in the group, and they were all facing away from her. But as the door Hunter had pushed swung completely open, all six immediately turned to face her. And she gasped again. The people were the same ones she had seen in the pool earlier. And she had been right in her estimation of their beauty. When their faces were not twisted in pain, they simply had the most beautiful, most perfect proportions she could imagine.
Each of the six people looked slightly different, each in their own way, but each was still perfect and more beautiful than the last. She remembered seeing Madison for the first time and being struck by her beauty. Seeing these six, however, was like holding a glowing star to a flickering candle to compare which was brighter. Nora didn’t even want to think where she stood on that hierarchy.
One of the people – a man – stepped forward.
“Nora Cubus.”
She spun around. The voice had appeared in her head, but it wasn’t her own.
“Do not be alarmed.” The man from across the hall was looking straight at her and smiled with easy eyes. “This is the way in which we speak.”
Nora looked to Hunter, but he was completely unfazed. “Can you hear him?” she whispered in his ear. Hunter shook his head. “If he is speaking to you, you will be the only one to know.”
Nora frowned. “Hello?” she said in her head. There was no reply.
“You need to speak out loud for them to hear you,” Hunter told her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Oh.” That was…a little discomforting. “Hello?” she said again, raising her voice. Alexander and Madison looked up to her, and both of them smiled. Alexander’s arm – the one that had been burnt so badly – and his shoulder, looked completely healed.
“I am thankful you are feeling better. Were it not for you, we would not be here.”
“Oh. Uh…thank you?” Then she remembered what Hunter said. “Were you the ones who healed me?”
The man smiled at her. “Yes.”
“Thank you,” Nora said, and this time she meant it. “You know who I am – but I do not know you. I have seen your reflections in the pool. Was that…really you?”
“We have been imprisoned there for thousands of years, held captive by the beast who tried to take your life.”
Whoa. Just who were these people? If they had the power to heal her…and the power to communicate like this…who knew what other gifts they shared? Who could possible imprison them?
“But thanks to you, we are now free again. For that, we are forever in your service.” As one, all six of the people dropped down to one knee and bowed their head. Each placed their left first firmly on the ground and two fingers on their forehead. Nora was taken aback by the gesture.
“But I… I didn’t do anything,” she admitted, feeling flustered. “You can stand – you should not do that for me. I couldn’t possibly have…freed you. I wasn’t even the one who defeated the beast that held you captive! That was Hunter, and Madison.” She heard Hunter chuckle lightly under his breath. And the six did not move from their positions. They looked like glowing Greek statues, perfectly sculpted in every way in their stillness.
“The prophecy told of your coming.”
“Prophecy?” She remembered Alexander telling her something about a prophecy the night they first met. That there was a fleeting mention of some vague prophecy somewhere in the Vassiz creed. But she couldn’t possibly believe it could be related to her. “What prophecy?”
“When the darkness comes, and hope is lost, a shimmering star shall be revealed. And she will free the fallen ones, restoring order to the rule of man.”
Nora frowned. That sounded…prophetically epic. And…completely vague. “What does it mean?” she asked. “And how can it possibly have anything to do with me?”
“There is more, of course. A tome dedicated entirely to the prophecy, writ long ago. What I quoted you is a glimmer of the surface.”
“So what does it say?” Nora asked.
“It says many things, of course. Debate has raged through the eons about its true meaning. But some things are certain. It speaks of a new coming order, a realignment in the place of all. There is mention of a human child, taken in the dream and ripped to reality. She is the shimmering star of hope. It is told that before her eighteenth namesday she will return to her world of birth, and with it she shall set the fallen free. The order of rule will be realigned in those who set the prisons, but she shall come both as one of them, yet set apart. It speaks of you, Nora.”
“Wha…?” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. You…are the fallen?”
“Yes.”
“The fallen what?” She asked the question, but in the back of her mind, a growing suspicion was telling
her what they were going to say.
“We are the fallen angels, both ancestors and descendants of the first life on earth.”
Fallen angels? She may have been surprised by it, once, but not after everything she’d seen in the past few hours.
“Our realm is that of the dream, and that is the world we are properly set to inhabit. It is where we stayed, before we found ourselves held captive.”
“And who exactly imprisoned you?” Nora asked. Again, she had a feeling she knew the answer…
“Our brothers, the Vassiz.”
“Brothers?” That, Nora was not expecting. “What do you mean, brothers?”
“The Vassiz are descendants of our kind. They are a hybrid, a mixture of human and angel flesh. The powers they hold come directly from our lineage. The story of their ancestry is not well known, but I will share it with you. It is a story of love, and sadness.
“The first came to be when one of our kind forsook everything given to us in the dream world to come into the world of humans. He spied a mortal woman and fell strongly in love with her. He came to her dreams, spending time with her there, at first, but on waking she would not remember anything that happened while she slept. Every night, he would see her in the dream, and every night she would meet him as if someone new. This lasted for many years, until the woman he loved became burdened with age and frailty. But he did not want to lose her to the embrace of death, and so – against all advice and rationality – he crossed the prohibited barrier from the dream world to the human world.
“He came into the human world in the flesh. It was there where he met his true love again, and she fell into his arms. They lived happily together, but time was short. He did not want to lose her, and so, desperate to extend her life, granted her the gift of angelic blood. He did this by extracting his own blood and feeding it to her. He thought it would keep her alive and with him forever.
“He was wrong. The transformation gripped her very soul, and she lost everything about her that made her human. She became little more than wild beast. And she thirsted for human blood. When he saw what he had created, it pained him greatly, and he took recluse from his love. He locked her away, barring her from him forever.
