Presenting!
ARCHANGELS CREED 4.0
SUMMON LYGHT
By
Azure Boone & Kenra Daniels
© 2013 by Azure Boone & Kenra Daniels, LLC.
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Author's Notes:
This series contains explicit scenes of sexual activity between different couples, all committed to exclusive, monogamous relationships.
There are scenes of graphic violence, some directed toward women.
Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, by any of the characters within is entirely accidental.
We have taken extensive liberties with certain religious dogma and traditions – no offense intended – to fit the plot of our story. We've also fictionalized locations, historic events and public personas as needed to fulfil the series plot.
Finally, we genuinely hope you enjoy reading this "Archangels Creed" book as much as we enjoyed writing it. At the end of the book, we've included information on our other books and how readers can contact us. We love hearing from readers, so drop us a line!
Archangels Creed: The series ~
Satan has found a loophole in the rules that govern his battle against Good. The Archangel Uriel sends twelve Warrior Archangels to Earth on a mission to even the odds.
Each Archangel has one month to find a couple, unite them, and use their union's power to create the Holy Warriors needed to defend the world against Satan's unholy creations.
But the mission isn't so simple when inheriting Humanity comes with challenges beyond the Angel's training, and every milestone in the couple's relationship affects the triumvirate's strength.
"Archangels Creed" explores the story of each of the twelve Archangels as they struggle to complete their arm of the overall mission.
Archangels Creed Supplemental Series:
Archangels Creed Puzzle Pieces will give readers insight into the Enemy's overall plans and the Archangels' plans to combat them. This series of novellas will give glimpses of the hearts and minds capable of such depravities, and the impact on those who carry out the plans. You'll meet the masterminds, the go-betweens, the demon Over Lords and the human pawns, as well as some of the monsters themselves. These novellas will be filled with clues about both sides in the battle. What are their weaknesses and strengths? What vulnerabilities can be used against them? Find out where the whole thing originated, where it's going, and what will happen in between.
Archangels Creed Close Ups give a look at what the couples involved in all the Quads do between the main segments of the mission. You'll see more romance, more character development, more interpersonal relationships and get to know the characters as the real, multi-dimensional people they are. Best of all, there'll be more scorching intimate scenes. These novellas will greatly broaden the scope of the overall series plot and give a taste of what happens during downtime, as well as wrapping up details from the novels. Some of the characters will move forward with preliminary parts of future operations and others will handle minor missions. New characters will be introduced before they move into the novels and minor plot points will be explored and developed.
If you love Archangels Creed, you can't miss a single Puzzle Piece or Close Up!
Read The Creed in order:
1.0 Summon Kassern
2.0 Summon Dorn
3.0 Summon Toren
3.1 Wager
3.2 Flawed Warrior
3.3 Ante Up
4.0 Summon Lyght
Chapter One
Kassie roused a bit, reluctant to leave her dream world where she'd been snuggled on the couch with her Bill, just watching a movie and basking in his presence. Waking meant she had to continue life without him just as she'd done every day for the past four years.
Her eyes opened and an almost involuntary stretch began in her back muscles. And froze. What the hell?
Instead of the white ceiling of her airy room at the ranch there was only darkness above the dim and stuffy place she found herself in. And no wonder her back wanted to stretch, with the hard lumpy pallet jammed in her spine. A woolen blanket, stinking of various bodily secretions lay across her like a nasty prickly membrane, immediately triggering a skin crawling reflex.
She scooted out from under the blanket, crowding her back up against a rough wall, making the entire room shudder as though the thing weren't properly put together.
Panic tried to take root in Kassie's belly as memories flooded her. Shit, shit. Kidnapped. Three men had come for payment on a debt. Fury replaced her panic in a split second. That bastard father of Sam's had sold his own daughter to the highest bidder after all. Of course he goddamn did. She always knew it'd come to that eventually, knew his gambling would one day cost more than Kassie could pay.
If she never saw Sam again, so be it, as long as she could protect her. God, she'd never trusted that bastard, not once. After a night of drunken indiscretion at his bachelor party she'd found herself pregnant and the scum threatened her with trumped up murder charges to keep his ass clear of financial responsibility. Rather than support her and the baby, he would take the child for his barren new wife to raise. She'd thought then that she knew how dangerous he was. Wrong.
Kassie had begged for mercy and gratefully ended up as a house maid and sometimes whore to the goon just so she could be near her baby girl, Samantha. Sam. None of the bad shit mattered. She got what was important—a place in her daughter's life, even though Sam never knew the truth. She was Sam's mother in the important sense. She was there for her daughter, doing whatever it took to make sure she was safe. Nothing else mattered.
Tears stung her eyes as she considered everything, evaluated what kind of a job she'd actually done as a mother. Physically, her child had been okay, safe and with enough to eat. Mentally and emotionally, though, it had been a different matter. The poor girl suffered at the hands of that sexist fool, never realizing her own womanhood, raised to feel inadequate. And whenever Kassie intervened, both she and her daughter paid.
But the deal Kassie had struck with that sick sack of sperm was broken the day those men came for Samantha. The piece of shit had betrayed her child for the last time. Kassie had done the unthinkable with nary a thought, no regrets. Then she went willingly with her head held high to whatever horror awaited. Her baby was safe and happy with the man she loved. Nothing else mattered.
That's all she wrote.
"Hello?"
Kassie jolted, startled by a low voice on the other side of the wall. It sounded weak and scared, young even. "Is someone there?" Kassie looked around and the question escaped her lips like a reflexive prayer. "Where are we?"
"I don't know. I feel sleepy, I think they gave me something. I just woke up a little bit ago."
/>
Kassie pressed her ear to the wall, listening intently. That child. Oh God, he was still there. She remembered him from the auction. She closed her eyes and resumed the fervent prayer she'd taken up the second he'd appeared. Please God spare him. Let me pay for his freedom. Let the sins of his family be on my head. Grant the boy mercy. Amen. She was likely as good as dead already, so she might as well do as much charity as she could before leaving this world. "What's your name sweetheart?"
"T-Tyler." The quaver in his voice brought images of a thin frame shuddering in the damp chill. "What are they going to do to us?"
Kassie took a deep breath and focused on keeping the panic out of her voice. "I…don't really know, Tyler." She bit her tongue to keep from telling him it was going to be okay. No way could she make that kind of promise no matter how much she wanted to. It was bad enough she had too clear an idea what waited for him, maybe both of them. "But I'm going to try and find a way to get us out of here. Can you help with that?"
"Like how? I can't really move. They tied my hands." Deep breaths accompanied grunts and scuffling. "What do I do?"
Kassie looked around, searching for something that might tell her where they were or offer a way out. "Well, Tyler, I don't know yet. We'll figure something out. Look around the room you're in and tell me everything you see."
While he described his surroundings, she compared it to her own. The same raw plywood walls, damp concrete floor and lumpy pallet with the stinking blanket. The door consisted of flimsily hung wood on too small hinges with dim light filtering in around the edges.
"There's only one way out," Tyler described. "A metal door is on the right and there's like, upside down stairs beside it."
"Upside down stairs?"
"Like the side of the stairs you see if you're hiding under them."
They must be in a basement of some sort. The whole setup seemed as though it had been intended as a temporary holding area pushed into long term service. The boy must be near the exit. Maybe that's why he was tied and she wasn't. There were no stairs anywhere in Kassie's space.
Kassie pushed on the wall experimentally and found it as flimsy as it looked. The lower part of the wood had softened and blackened with repeated exposure to excessive moisture. Maybe she could break through it and get to the side with the exit. She would need a quick way to deal with the maybe-locked exit door first, though.
"What does the bottom of the wall look like on your side, Tyler?"
After a bit of scuffling and grunting, he said, "Kinda black and crummy."
"Shhh! Stop talking or they'll come!" The new small-sounding male voice came from behind Kassie's cubicle.
"Who's there? What do you mean?" She tried a couple more times to learn who this third person was but he took his own warning seriously. Judging by the amount of fear in the voice, whoever they were was really bad news.
Kassie leaned close to the wall next to Tyler. "Did you hear what that person said?"
"Yes." His barely audible whisper held more fear than his voice had earlier.
"We have to be quiet. Look for anything we can use to get out of here. If you need me, tap on the wall here, softly."
"Okay."
Now what? Kassie looked around. Nothing on the damp grime-coated floor looked helpful. On hands and knees, she looked closer, crawling to inspect every inch of the concrete with her fingertips. Other than a spot in one corner that had softened a little from the dampness, she didn't find anything out of the ordinary.
She sighed and sat back, trying to force her brain to come up with something. Part of her wanted to kick and scream and demand answers, but common sense put a damper on the tantrum. As much as she hated to admit it, waiting to see what would happen was starting to seem like the only sensible option. Probably she should wait and just do whatever their captors wanted. That could be her only chance for survival, and despite her resignation, the fighter in her wouldn't let her just give up and die nicely.
A distant rumble, like thunder far off across the plains, insinuated itself into her awareness. A storm? If so it was coming closer, the sound developing into a vibration over her head.
One of the captives near her let out a high-pitched keening wail, the sound swelling in volume until it drowned out the creaks and groans above.
Kassie stood and turned, trying to pinpoint what the hell it was. As near she could figure, the sound came from that exit Tyler described on his side of their hell.
****
"Lyght!"
The heavy hand on his shoulder stopped him in his fast track to Earth. His wings tinkled faintly with the abrupt down-stroke required to hover. The uncomfortable heat increase in his diamond components signaled Toren's touch. "I'm in a hurry." A change in temperature, sometimes intense, always accompanied physical contact with the Mercury Warrior. And Toren's mood determined the degree—extremely hot meant extremely pissed.
"Yes, I know." Toren's tone held barely contained humor, belying the heat in his hand. "Just a couple of last minute points. You know our time is cut in half now, so you're allowed to appear to your human without miraculous interventions."
Lyght bristled with annoyance. "Yes, yes, I know." Was the mercury bastard deliberately trying to aggravate him? He raised his wings for the sweep that would send him hurtling once more toward Earth.
Toren cleared his throat. "And you can't take the boy."
Lyght partially folded his wings and spun to face him. "But she's—"
"Wavered."
Frustration colored Lyght's wings dull purple and he growled. He should have gone faster, should have got to her before she could lose one iota of such an unquestioningly pure faith. How could he forgive himself this failure?
Toren clapped him on the shoulder. "She's scared Brother. Nothing unusual about that."
His diamond shield amplified the negative energies of his attitude and the urge to smash things leached into his system. "She could gain strength." The pathetic attempt to improve his mood and energy was laughable. Lame or not, it better fool his shield because he didn't have time to waste antagonizing Toren and getting his ass justifiably kicked. But if his diamond shield continued to jack up his aggravation that was exactly how it would end up.
Toren nodded, bringing Lyght back to the conversation. "Yes, she could, and if so, you're free to bring the boy, of course. But you know how Uriel likes to be prepared for the worst. He wants to know what your plan is if her faith isn't restored."
Lyght squared his shoulders and faced his Brother—a fellow member of the Archangels' Brotherhood of War, not a biological relation, but just as close if not closer.
With Toren nearly half a head taller, looking him directly in the eye wasn't exactly easy but that didn't stop Lyght from doing so. "Since we can appear to humanity before our couples kiss, my plan was walk in, then walk out with both of them in the Blink."
Lyght was entirely pleased with their Commander's change. Having only half the time was well worth the tradeoff of not being required to bait humans with his powers. Automatic visibility meant immediate action. He'd hit the nearby humans with temporary blindness, and be out of there in a flash. Clean and precise, no dealing with the excruciating snail-paced speeds of the humans' get a clue mechanism that could take a few days to trip.
Toren nodded, seeming somewhat satisfied. "Let's assume she gains courage and her faith is restored. That leaves you one miracle to use for your human couple."
"Or one miracle to use for the boy."
"Yes."
Lyght shrugged. "And that's enough." Toren stood grinning at him until Lyght became thoroughly annoyed. "For heaven's sake, what?"
The grin widened. "Just…I never figured the hard-ass diamond warrior would fall so fast. And for a human female, at that."
Lyght shot out a laugh, not bothered in the least with the ridicule. "Do not tell me you didn't feel every one of our available Brothers' eagerness to fly out of there for her. Faith like that is a rare treasure, one to be revered and prot
ected."
Toren chuckled. "Yes. I did. And I agree, the faith is a precious thing. But the woman who possesses it is far more precious. Remember that, Brother, in your dealings with her. Her kindness and goodness are just as rare, and she holds a very special place in my wife's heart. I trust you to take care of Kassie."
Lyght's turn to clap Toren on the shoulder in silent promise. He mused discreetly, "I have to admit, when we were first assigned to this mission, I was appalled with the concept of archangels going to earth to be with humans. I don't have to tell you how very blasphemous that both sounded and felt. Nauseatingly so."
"Yes. And now?"
Lyght met the mercury angel's amused smile and let a melodic whistle sail through his lips. "Did you not hear her power? Father in heaven, the woman is as rare as…a repentant devil."
Toren laughed. "Quite rare indeed."
Lyght shook his head, realizing he'd only planned out the initial leg of the journey in the mere minutes since he'd barged out of the Chamber. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do about my human couple if I'm out of miracles, though. Any suggestions if they require dramatic coaxing toward one another?"
Toren looked around at the Third Heaven's clear green hiddenite-colored sky, seeming to consider his reply carefully. "I guess if push comes to shove you can…" he angled a sheepish look at Lyght. "Push. And shove."
Lyght chuckled at his brother's carefully phrased get the job done one way or another suggestion. "I can't use force." For so many Ages, they'd had the policy of strict adherence to the letter and the spirit of the rules drilled into them. "I find it strange thinking creatively around the usual limitations. Nearly as strange as dealing directly with frail humans." Lyght let his wings loose in a rush of clinking, ready to fly.
Toren's wings seemed to answer with a metallic shink. "Indeed Brother. And on the coaxing part, there's nothing wrong with a little irresistible persuasion."
Lyght grinned. "Irresistible persuasion, I like that. Shouldn't be an issue for me. I'm fraught with charm." Lyght shuddered his wings creating a chorus of crystalline music.
Summon Lyght (Archangels Creed) Page 1
