Addictive Paranormal Reads Halloween Box Set

by Nana Malone

  Now it was the Regent who began to sob. The General pulled his mate back against his chest and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, bending to whisper reassurances in her ear.

  “And then one day you realize you’ve been in love with that person all along,” Azrael said. “And you never saw it coming because it crept up on you so naturally, so quietly, that you can’t imagine any outcome other than spending eternity with your twin spark because no one in the universe will ever meld so perfectly with your soul. I ask you, Elisabeth Kaiser, to become my mate for life.”

  Tears welled in Elisabeth's eyes as she nodded, chewing on her lower lip. He squeezed her hands.

  “Elisabeth?” the Emperor asked.

  “Azrael,” Elisabeth said, her voice trembling with emotion. “All my life, I dreamed an angel watched over me, shadowing each painful step as I made my way through the world. No matter what hardship came, I always knew you were there, loaning me your quiet strength. Then one day I discovered you were real, the best friend my heart had been crying out to find.”

  She reached up to touch his face. As she spoke, her golden-white hair picked up the light, making it appear as though she wore a halo.

  “It took time for me to trust what my heart had always known,” Elisabeth said. “That no matter what happened, you would never abandon me to suffer alone. That no matter what forces tried to rent us apart, that somehow, you would always find me again. I love you. And I wish to never be parted from you.”

  This time, it was the General who wiped his eyes and covered the errant emotion with a cough. The Regent smiled and nestled further into her husband's wings. Darkness, gloriously subdued by the General's light.

  “I understand you wish to exchange mate-rings?” the Emperor asked. It was a rhetorical question. With Azrael prone to dissolve any matter he wore whenever his emotions were sufficiently aroused, the Emperor had gone all-out synthesizing a pair of mate-rings that were resistant to the vagaries of void-matter.

  “Sam?” Azrael asked.

  “Ring … oh … um,” Sam got a sheepish expression. He made a great show of pretending to rummage through his pockets.

  “Ho-ho-ho!” Shay’tan slapped his sides as he picked up on the fact it was all an act. The old dragon appeared to appreciate a little humor.

  Sam pulled the ring from his breast-pocket where it had been all along. He held out his fist and waited for Azrael to open the palm of his hand to drop them in since handing them to him was out of the question.

  “Very funny,” Azrael said. Emmett had warned him this was a favorite trick of Sata’an-hybrid males at weddings. He took the rings and turned back to his bride, her silver eyes gleaming with happiness as he took her left hand and placed the ring at the end of her finger.

  “My beautiful Elisabeth,” Azrael said as he slid the ring down into place, black tears streaming down his cheeks. “Take this ring as a symbol of my everlasting love. That no matter what forces may try to separate us, we will always find our way back to one another again.”

  Elisabeth’s eyes glittered silver with tears. She took the second ring and placed it at the end of Azrael’s finger.

  “My beloved Azrael,” Elisabeth said. “No matter what form you may take, whether it be the kiss of fog against my cheek or the caress of flesh upon flesh, know that somehow I will always know it is you.” She slid the ring down his finger into place.

  “And now you must recite the vow of our ancestors,” the General said.

  “We breathe,” Elisabeth said. “As one breath.”

  “Our hearts beat,” Azrael said, “as one heart.”

  “Our souls merge together,” they spoke in unison, “as one soul. So that come what may, not even death shall keep us apart.”

  “Then by the powers vested in me by … me,” the Eternal Emperor said. “I now pronounce you mated for life.”

  The deities in the launch bay began to clap. Behind them, two galactic empires' militaries gave a rousing cheer and threw their caps into the air.

  “You may kiss your bride,” Shay’tan rumbled, giving Hashem a poke. The old dragon was an earthy fellow. He wasn’t about to let his uptight chess partner forget the best part of a wedding ceremony.

  Azrael pulled his bride in for a kiss, mindful not to accidentally zap any of their esteemed wedding guests as he encircled her in his arms and wings. He’d waited more than 2,300 years to find her again and another decade to be able to touch her. He wasn’t about to let either emperor's silly prohibitions against public displays of affection prevent him from letting the whole world know Elisabeth was his!

  “Does this mean I finally get to pin your wings to the bed and have my way with you?” Elisabeth whispered when he finally let her come up for air.

  “Mmmm.hmmmm.” Words flew out of his brain as that part of his anatomy he’d unconsciously reshaped centuries ago woke up and started clamoring for attention, a reaction it had never occurred to him to manifest until the day she’d given him his first-ever kiss.

  He glanced towards their wedding guests and realized Lucifer had absented himself from the post-wedding festivities. His back and snowy white wings were stiff as he stood at the bar, alone. The outcast. No matter how many hangers-on he gathered around him seeking political power or prestige, at the end of the day Lucifer always stood alone. They watched him pour himself a brandy, lips twitching in suppressed misery, and down the entire glass.

  “Go,” Elisabeth's eyes filled with compassion. “Keep your promise.”

  He reluctantly let go of her hand, ignoring the puzzled glances the others gave him as he left his bride’s side and plowed his way through well-wishers who dove out of his path. He stood, waiting, until Lucifer realized he was there.

  “Azrael?” Lucifer glanced behind him at the other deities staring with confusion in their direction.

  Azrael held out his hand.

  “I promised that when I found her again,” Azrael said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I would take your hand in friendship.”

  Emotion danced across Lucifer’s ethereally handsome face. Confusion. Surprise. Relief. He closed his eyes and sighed, his lips moving in silent prayer as he focused on the connection he could still feel to the mate he had loved, and lost.

  “Take good care of Elisabeth.”

  “No!!!” the Emperor shrieked. The old god who co-ruled the galaxy and now, more and more, the entire universe, leaped towards them.

  Lucifer’s hand closed around Azrael’s outstretched one, his lips curved up in a smile.

  “Thank you,” he exhaled with his dying breath.

  His mortal shell slid peacefully to the ground, snowy white wings forming a graceful arc as they settled around his body in a whisper of feathers.

  “Azrael!!!” She-who-is shrieked as she realized he’d just circumvented the protections she’d put in place to prevent Lucifer from killing himself.

  As an Agent of Ki, Azrael’s power came from a higher source than that of her daughter. In a flash, Azrael pulled Lucifer’s consciousness out of that place and flashed him to the entrance of the Dreamtime.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 56

  Is death the last sleep?

  No--it is the last and final awakening.

  -Sir Walter Scott

  Ascended Realms

  The Dreamtime

  The entrance loomed before them as it had always appeared to Azrael, a great, blank wall with no apparent entrance except for those who were welcome to enter. Only lifesparks that were between mortal shells could pass into the playpen known as the Dreamtime.

  “It’s blocked,” Lucifer said with an unhappy sigh. “It’s always blocked. I got you in trouble for nothing.” His snowy white wings drooped despondently as he waited for She-who-is to yank him back into his body.

  "Wait," Azrael said. "There must be a way to enter."

  Lucifer ran his hand across the veil.

  "Won't you destroy it if you touch it?" Lucifer asked.

  "That's
what I always assumed," Azrael said. "Actually … nobody knows. The one time I ever asked HER, she hit on me and then got angry when I turned down her advances."

  Lucifer rolled his eerie silver eyes. "Typical. Every time I plead with her to let me go, SHE waxes cryptic and tells me it's not up to her. You're here every day. What do you know about this place?"

  "Supposedly passage is a one-way ticket whose only exit is rebirth into a new body," Azrael said. "But Elisabeth’s brother passed through the veil when he died, and then he pulled himself back out again, frantic to find her. He wasn't evolved enough to reconstitute his body, but if you are evolved enough, I think you may be able to pass back and forth."

  "Like a child safety gate," Lucifer said. "The big people can just step over the gate, while the little people press their noses through the wire and whimper for snacks." He pressed his forehead against the veil and whispered: "Please, sister. Let me go?"

  Sister?

  Azrael was surprised She-who-is hadn't appeared herself by now to stop them. Had this place been created by She-who-is? Or had she had help from her now-abandoned husband, the Dark Lord? Or her mother-goddess, Ki? Or maybe it was one of those constructs like humans built? Like a bridge? Once it had been built, anybody could cross it, not just the architect who had designed it.

  "Perhaps now that I can control my power a little better," Azrael said, "I can touch the wall and see if I can't make just a tiny hole?"

  "Won't that disrupt it?" Lucifer's brow furrowed with concern. "I'm selfish, but not that selfish. She built this place to keep the soul-sparks safe from Moloch."

  "I touched HER once," Azrael said. "Back before I learned to control my power. It interrupted her hold on her mortal shell, but it didn't hurt her. If this place is an extension of her consciousness, then touching this barrier shouldn't cause any lasting harm. I hope…"

  Lucifer's chiseled features glistened with a hope that was almost giddy. That side of Lucifer he'd only ever caught glimpses of, the side he suspected would have been the dominant one had Moloch not gotten his hands on him and warped his personality, made the Fallen Angelic appear almost brilliantly innocent.

  'Morning Star…' Ki whispered into Azrael's brain.

  “This should not inconvenience you for long, your Majesty,” Azrael apologized to the thick, white veil which blocked entry. Using one finger, he touched a spot above his head and drew a line all the way down to the floor. The veil parted.

  “Thank you,” Lucifer's white wings trembled with emotion. He slipped through the entrance Azrael held open like a curtain.

  Azrael hesitated, not sure whether he should step inside. Now that he knew he could get in, he was confident he could get out again the same way. He sensed other consciousnesses waiting for Lucifer's long-overdue reunification. He heard a dismayed cry.

  “He’s not here!”

  Azrael decided now was as good a time as any to peek into the paradise he’d been barred from entering. Careful to touch the veil as little as possible, he parted the curtain and slipped inside the place he'd visited several times each day for millennia, yet never seen. As described, it was a simple white room, but beyond it swirled whorls of light. A beautiful, dark-winged Angelic who was otherwise the spitting image of Lucifer kissed his head as though he were a little boy. Her eyes were filled with tears.

  “He’s not here, son,” Asherah said. “Ki took him.”

  "SHE lied to me?" Lucifer clenched his fist.

  "SHE never told you he was here," Asherah said. "What she said was…"

  "I could never reunite with my mate in the Dreamtime," Lucifer sighed. "I thought it was meant to be a punishment."

  Asherah turned to a square-jawed, white-winged Angelic at her side who possessed the same white hair and silver eyes as Lucifer.

  “Lucifer, this is Shemijaza. Your real father. Or at least your biological one. He was determined to be here when you finally crossed over.”

  The tall, fair-haired Angelic held out his hand. Lucifer hesitated. His wings trembled with emotion as he faced the Angelic who had sired him. Shemijaza. Moloch’s prior unwilling host until the bastard had realized he had a more malleable option available in Shemijaza’s fifteen-year-old boy. Father and son embraced.

  “How am I supposed to reunite with him?” Lucifer cried out. “I’m not evolved enough to access Ki's realm!”

  Azrael's lip twitched with regret. He'd gone there once, after Ki had saved him, but he was no more knowledgeable about how to get there on his own than Lucifer was … or any of the other old gods stuck hanging around She-who-is's universe. He'd killed Lucifer for nothing.

  “Ki released your mate from the upper realms around the same time he released Elisabeth,” Shemijaza said. “He’s back on Earth in a new mortal shell.”

  Lucifer's resolve stiffened. “Where?”

  “I don’t have that information,” Shemijaza said. "All I know is that you finally improved Earth's bloodlines enough for Ki's other Morning Stars to incarnate back into mortal form through the children of the fallen."

  "There's a war coming," Asherah said. "And once again, chol beag, you are at the center of it."

  "A war?" Azrael asked.

  "A war," Shemijaza turned to him. "Moloch set in motion terrible things while he inhabited my body. Ki contained him for as long as she could, but the same bloodline that allows the soul-fragments of his devoured children to risk a second chance at existence also provides opportunity for Moloch to find a new host. If you don't find your soul-siblings before he does, he may just get his hands on one of them."

  "The last universe he got free into collapsed," Asherah said.

  "As soon as you leave here," Shemijaza said, "Asherah and I will incarnate back into mortal form, but we will likely be too young to help when the Morning Stars reawaken."

  "You mean there will be a wave of Prophets?" Azrael asked. That was what they called old souls who'd evolved enough to remember fragments of their past lifetimes, but had not enough to become gods.

  "Pre-ascended beings," Shemijaza said. "Just like your wife. It is prophesized that someday all of the Morning Stars will awaken at once, and their combined brilliance shall either shine bright enough to destroy Moloch once and for all, or he shall seize that power for himself and destroy Ki. It's imperative you find them before Moloch does."

  “You must return to Earth, ceann beag,” Asherah tussled Lucifer's hair as though he were a small boy, "and use the lessons you have learned this lifetime to make the right choices this time. Your mate incarnated back into human form to do battle at your side, but he is without his memories. You will need to find him.”

  Lucifer gave Azrael a hopeless look. "How will I find him if I don't know what he looks like and he doesn't know to look for me? I mean, really? He's going to go searching for a Fallen angel?"

  Azrael remembered what Elisabeth had told him about how she'd talked to imaginary angels even before she'd had her accident.

  “Around the time Elisabeth’s new mortal shell would have been conceived," Azrael said, "I began to feel drawn to Chicago. I couldn’t understand why I suddenly found that city so fascinating, but it became my favorite place. I found myself returning there again and again. Has something like that happened to you?”

  A smile lit up Lucifer’s face. A genuine one; not that fake one he flashed to sway politicians and woo women into his bed. It struck Azrael how much Lucifer looked like Elisabeth.

  “Will you guide me home, old friend?” Lucifer held out his hand. His expression was wary, not the practiced handshake of a politician, nor a plea to undo his own death, but a query of a different sort. Are you my friend? It was the personality Azrael caught glimpses of whenever Lucifer wasn’t busy acting like an asshole, pretending to be somebody else.

  “I just killed you,” Azrael reminded him. “Remember? I’ve never been able to put a spirit back into a body I’ve touched.”

  “He’s an ascended being,” Asherah said. “All he has to do is will his consc
iousness back into his body. No harm's been done except a bit of oxygen deprivation. He’ll be disoriented due to cell-damage, but he’s evolved enough to heal it himself.”

  “What is it humans say?” Azrael clasped his forearm to Lucifer's. “The horse knows its own way back to the barn?”

  “That’s car, nimrod,” Lucifer said. “The car knows its own way home. Horses went out of fashion with the last century.”

  “I can’t ride in a car,” Azrael said. “The electrical system shorts out any time I get near one.”

  “You can’t ride a horse either,” Lucifer said. “Not without killing it.”

  In a flash, Azrael transported them back to Ceres Station.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 57

  Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go,

  That I may awake him out of sleep.

  John 11:11

  Sol System: December 25, 2003

  Ceres Station

  Elisabeth watched the Eternal Emperor cradle Lucifer's body, tears streaming out of his golden eyes as he tried to will his Fallen son back to life. If seeing the Regent nestle into the General's arms was weird, nothing had prepared her for meeting the deity she'd assumed was god with a capital 'G' … and then learning his touch did not contain the spark of life as was depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

  …but the man -was- a walking defibrillator…

  “Son, please!” the Emperor touched Lucifer's chest. “Wake up!”

  “He’s gone, old friend,” Shay’tan rumbled. One clawed hand reached out to touch the Emperor's shoulder. “This is what he wanted.”

  “Why?” the Emperor wept. “Why did he leave without saying goodbye?”