by Liddie Cain
I whimpered, in fear and pain, looking for anything around me that I could use against him. His fangs pressed against my neck, and I froze.
“If you spill a drop of her blood, I will kill you where you stand,” an angry male voice thundered. He stepped through a doorway in front of me, and I felt that archdemon aura fill the room. Monroe was tall and slender with long black curly hair and a handsome strong featured face. He was not at all what I expected. There was resolve in the set of his jaw as he glared at Tate with angry grey eyes.
“Let her go and get outside and stand watch.”
Tate growled, taking his time before finally setting me back down and releasing his hold on my hair. I did not move once he had released me. Monroe waited until Tate had left before looking back at me.
“Diana has shown you why your blood holds power, yes?”
I nodded. “You know Felix will kill you for this.”
“He will try, but he will no longer have the power.” Then he motioned to Gloria, “Lock her into the Hecate Sphere. Take her robe.”
Gloria slid the robe off of my shoulders, letting it hit the floor and leaving me nude. I tried to cover myself as she made me step into the circular cage. She latched it back in place then held her hand over the latch and whispered a chant quickly. The latch disappeared into the wooded branches, which grew solid together and sealed me inside. The walls of the sphere were not solid; I could see what was going on around me through the gaps in the branches and stick my arm through some of them.
Then Monroe pulled on a chain that had been on the wall behind him. It lifted the cage, knocking me off balance and making me fall as he lifted to touch the ten foot ceiling.
“You must remember it all before the sphere can work.”
Diana walked into the room then. She stood to the left of the cage while Monroe stood to the right, making me inside the cage the top point of a triangle of power between them. Gloria stood beneath me being the catalyst. I felt the power in the room move between them. Gloria raised her arms beneath me and cast it into the sphere. The crystals caught it, glittering with their own inner glow. That glow spread out across the branches until the entire thing was a ball of power. Monroe lifted his hands to me at the same time Diana did. The power directed to me, and light from the crystals shot onto my skin. The pain was immediate. It felt as if I was being torn apart. Control of my mind was ripped away from me as Diana’s abilities, strengthened by Monroe, invaded and snatched me back into the past, to another life.
One of Naomi’s blonde curls was lifted by the breeze and swept across my face as we watched the human child play on the side of the river. He was safe now, and we could enjoy watching him be happy. His mother, shaken, walked across the lawn because she wanted to be near him. It had been luck to be close to him in his time of need.
When he woke that morning, he decided to go out to the mill to bring in the grain he had taken to the miller the day before. He wanted to impress his mother. His father was a ranking Roman soldier and had been gone for weeks, leaving his mother to run the manor and manage all the serfs. His mother had stepped outside to throw out food for the chickens and closed the door at the same moment he ran out another door the opposite way to the river where the mill was operated by a large water wheel.
When he arrived, he realized that the miller had not gotten there yet. He could see his bag of grain sitting on top of a large stack where he couldn’t reach. After dragging a bench over to stand on, he leaned up to grasp his bag. But he lost his balance, and the huge sacks of grain fell with him. He landed underneath them, some landing square on his chest while the rest of the stack leaned across them. It was too much weight for his little body, and he could not breathe. The birds had fled the tree limb outside the window over him when they heard the impact. Naomi and I had been looking for Cyrus when we heard the little boy’s prayer. He watched the birds scatter as he prayed, and I could see them through his eyes. I went to him, shielding him into protection and slowing time for him to give his mom a chance to save him. Naomi had gone to her instantly, whispering to her heart that she needed to check on her child in the grain mill. A mom never questioned what she interpreted as instinct. She dropped her chicken feed on the ground and ran around the house and across the yard.
He was slipping too quickly. I saw his eyelids close, but his soul eyes looked up at me. For a moment, he could see me, a vibrantly glowing winged young woman with red hair and blue eyes singing a heavenly chorus to him. I held onto his life with all of my might. He watched me in wonder. “Your time is not done,” I whispered to him. Then his mother ran into the mill and grasped the edge of the bag of grain that was on his chest.
Her grip was too weak. She would drop it again if she did it this way. I quickly grasped it with her, and when she lifted, I did as well. It never occurred to her to think she shouldn’t have been able to physically do what she just did, lifting hundreds of pounds of grain with almost no effort. She was already lifting the boy into her arms and getting him to breathe again as the rest of the stack of grain sacks tumbled back to the floor beside her.
Once he was coughing and starting to cry, she hugged him against her chest and started to sob herself. I stood over them, happy to know he was saved. Sometimes in the midst of trauma, they could catch a glimpse of us. She was looking up and her face started to look confused. Her gaze was up above my face to where my wings were lifted into the air. She could see the faintest image of them over her and lifted her hand up toward me. I tucked my wings down and left the mill, joining Naomi outside to sit on a large tree branch beside their home.
Later, they had come outside so the boy could play by the little river shore.
I focused on the mom, sending the warm breeze that had flowed across us down her way, taking peace with it to surround her. She wiped tears away from her eyes and thanked her heavenly Father above.
We were beyond her sight and hearing now even as we sat so close to her. Humans could only see us if we wished to reveal ourselves to them. A guardian angel would rarely be given such an order, though.
“That one made me happy,” Naomi breathed out beside me.
“Yes, me, too.”
Naomi tugged me back into the air. “Come on, let’s find what my brother, and your beloved, is hiding from us.” She grinned.
“I am pretty sure he is having that lute made you talked about.”
“Exactly.”
We both laughed as we flew to the neighboring town where we had found out Cyrus was. The old luthier there was widely regarded as making the best lutes in the country. He had even made the lutes for the musicians of the palace. Naomi had been thrilled with the idea of having what she would call a palace lute. Cyrus had boasted that he would have it made out of the same materials that played music to the Emperor.
We masked our approach, ready to surprise him and irritate him, which he took because he knew we had great fun doing it. Silently, we searched through the house, looking at each other with confusion when we did not find anyone in there.
The only sounds were coming from the workshop behind the house. Naomi pointed without a word, and I winked at her. Flying would make it harder to hide so we crept across the grass on tiptoe. Naomi caught a glimpse of the top of Cyrus’s wings from where we had crouched under a window. We counted down our attack then sprang up into an open window together where Cyrus would be able to see us.
It was not the luthier he was with. It was the luthier’s granddaughter, and they were not working on a lute. My heart broke into a million pieces. Cyrus made eye contact with me and hesitated, but he did not stop. That look on his face as he continued to make love to that girl crushed me, and I lifted to the skies as quickly as I could.
Naomi was frozen in shock and did not see me leave. I vaulted through the air, masking myself so she would not know which direction I went as tears streamed across my face. The love I had felt for Cyrus had been without tarnish. It branded itself onto my soul as it burned with the torment of
his betrayal. The ocean spread out underneath me as I sped through the sky with no direction. My broken sobs brought me downward until I let myself crash down onto a volcanic island that no human had yet set foot upon. I grieved where I landed with no will to even brush the dirt off my wings.
The crash had made me forget to keep myself hidden. Soon, one of the Devil’s nobles appeared before me. Devina, one of the once great angels, now fallen, knelt beside me.
“Guardian angel, what plagues you so?”
“You being here,” I choked out, wiping the tears off my face with the sleeve of my robe.
“You already judge me, daughter of Azrael?”
I sighed, sitting up and brushing the dirt and debris off of myself as I spoke. “My apologies, Devina. I’ve just suffered a heart-break, and I am not my best right now.”
“The new archangel, Cyrus?”
His name brought my grief to the surface again, and the tears started anew. My life had been saturated with the ideas that you forgave when someone wronged you. You turned the other cheek. But how could that kind of betrayal ever be forgiven? He had made me look ridiculous for putting so much faith into him and his love for me. She stepped over, smoothing my hair with her hand.
“I can help you, Alidia. Your life among the heavenly hosts will be impossible now with him still being there.”
The pain of seeing him every time we gathered seemed impossible to handle right then. My heart break would be in my face every day. But my love for my family and for Naomi was also strong. I shook my head no. “Cyrus was not all that mattered to me.”
“Dear, all that would change would be your job description. I need you as a guardian for me. Here I am, standing here and talking to and touching an angel. Azrael, Hanna, Naomi and anyone else who you loved would still be there. Then you would have your distance from Cyrus. It is something worth falling for.”
That kind of temptation was sweet. Again, she lifted her hand up to stroke my hair. I did not see her look behind me as Naomi got closer, having finally tracked me down. Devina shielded me from sensing her with her own dark aura. “I would dwell with you?”
“Yes. I strive to take the seat of the ruler in the lower realm, and I need your help to gain it. Azrael would have taught you how to be a conqueror, of that I’m sure.”
“You would take this pain Cyrus has caused away from me?”
“When you fall for me, Alidia, I will make sure you never think of him again.”
Naomi heard this and stopped where she had landed on the beach. What she would have heard next was me declining the offer, telling Devina the price was too high. But I never finished the thought, because I felt Cyrus coming. I whirled and launched into the sky to intercept him. We collided in the sky. My anger would not be contained as I shoved him downward toward the ocean. He did not fight back and allowed me to drive both of us beneath the surface. I shoved him farther down then kicked away and broke the surface again.
He floated back up a moment later, and I started yelling at him the moment our eyes met. “You ruined everything! How could you be so reckless!”
“Alidia, I’m sorry. It was foolish and meant to be one last moment of wild rebellion before I asked you to spend eternity with me.”
I sobbed, shaking my head as he tried to get closer to me. “No, no, Cyrus! That doesn’t make it any better. It makes it worse. You had decided to take me as wife, but before you did that, you needed to fornicate with another?”
“Listen when I tell you that the love I have for you is my favorite thing about my existence.”
“Stop talking. You made me look ridiculous!” I sobbed out, punching the surface of the water as I yelled.
He growled in frustration. For a moment, it did mean something to me that he was here and that he was trying to fight for us.
“Naomi,” he whispered. I turned to look, realizing that she was making a deal with Devina.
Both Cyrus and I dragged ourselves out of the water. I was lighter and smaller, so I was able to shake the water out of my wings faster, but the deal was struck just as I got to the edge of the beach where they were standing.
“Naomi, I take your pledge and grant you what you ask, that Cyrus no longer hurt another and Alidia no longer grieve him. Fall into my dominion now, Naomi.”
Fire broke out across Naomi’s wings, and she screamed in pain. I dropped to my knees as Devina’s power swept over me and left my heart numb. Cyrus was rushing up behind me, and when her power hit him, he fell out of the sky and hit the beach. I knew he was dead even from a few feet away. I screamed out, doubling over as I realized how Devina had twisted Naomi’s words. Even unable to feel grief over Cyrus’s death for myself, I grieved for my friend and how devastating this would be for her.
Naomi, now wingless and with fire ember skin, turned and saw her brother dead. She whispered, “You violated the nature of the deal.”
Devina was silent because she knew her greed had led her to make a mistake that would lead to potential trouble for her. She would never be allowed to take the Overlord Throne if she had made such a mistake with an archangel’s soul. Owning an archangel’s soul had been too much of a temptation but they must be freely given or taken in a deal with someone who the archangel has committed a sin against. She could have bargained with me for it. With Naomi, though, none of that applied. Naomi walked away from her. She landed on her knees beside his fallen form, still in shock.
I rushed to Devina, my heart shattered all over again. “We have to fix this.”
She examined my face gravely. “You know it will require your sacrifice.” I did know. Lucifer would never let her pull Cyrus’s soul back into his body unless she replaced it with another. It wasn’t possible to take back Naomi’s fall from grace, but Devina could give her another chance. “I’ll be the daughter of Azrael you wanted. I will lead the battle against the one you wish to defeat for you to be the High Demoness of the human realm. Restore Cyrus and give Naomi the chance at a mortal life to redeem herself. It is the only way she could once again be among the heavenly hosts.”
Her dark eyes shone with anticipation since this solved the problem for the mistake she had made in ending Cyrus’s life. “Naomi’s soul will be in stasis until I’ve gained the throne I seek.”
“Then she will be mortal?”
“Yes. I will make her mortal one day in the future when my position is secure.”
“I swear to the deal.”
Devina held out her hand to me. I turned to look at Naomi one more time. It wasn’t the Naomi I had grown up with as a sister. Her blonde hair was singed, her glorious wings were gone and her skin glowed like it was molten.
“Change her before I agree. Show me what she will be as a mortal. I want to see her whole.”
Devina looked to Naomi. Power flexed out across the beach once more, and Naomi went limp. The broken and charred figure morphed into a tall and slender redhead with a delicate and lovely face. Darby.
I looked back at Devina, who stretched her hand toward me again. I took it.
My fire baptism started immediately. It sprang up from the ground and raced up my body. I screamed in pain, holding onto the image of the mortal Naomi in my mind, knowing that I would fall from grace a dozen times to save her. The unholy fire took my wings and most of my hair. When it was finished, I sank to the ground, looking at the glow of my demon skin.
Cyrus breathed back to life as Naomi’s body faded. A glowing white cloud was left behind after her body was gone. Devina pulled the cloud toward her. It swept across the beach and seeped into her skin to rest in stasis until Devina would release her as a mortal once more.
Despite knowing all that I had lost, I felt peace, knowing that one day Naomi would walk this earth and not be damned to an eternity in the lower realms in agony over the loss of me and of Cyrus. But Cyrus marched across the beach toward us now, and he would live with the loss of his sister and my fall forever.
As soon as he stood beside me, he cast an enchantment to f
reeze me in place. It wouldn’t last long, but he only wanted a moment.
“Take me instead. I am a better warrior. I will be an archdemon and more powerful than Alidia. Hold her soul with Naomi’s and let them be mortal together again with no memory of me and what I did to them.”
I fought to break free of his enchantment, but he was the child of two archangels, and I could not overpower him. He pointed this out with a nod of his head. “Even now, you know how hard she tries to release herself to argue and she cannot stand against me.”
“Why did you betray her when you loved her this much, Cyrus?”
His face grew cold and distant, then he looked at me as he answered. “Arrogance. This has been my downfall. I’ll spend eternity knowing that I never earned your love back, but this was my fault, not yours. I want you to find happiness again.”
He turned back to Devina. “Is it a deal?”
“Only if you agree that you won’t remember, either. I want your loyalty and for you not to look for them.”
He held out his hand, turning to look at my face. “Agreed.” His eyes never left my face as she grasped his hand and the fire spread up his body. I still couldn’t move. All I could do was watch his fall as he refused to look at anything else but me. He never showed his pain as I felt myself start to fade. I was the last thing the eyes of Cyrus saw before he went to Hell, and the last thing I saw through Alidia’s eyes was Cyrus, turning into Felix, and whispering that he loved me.
I woke up again as Roz. I was still trapped in the sphere that Monroe’s witch had constructed for me. Was it over? I turned my face slightly, not getting up from where I had fallen on the floor of the cage, and peered down through one of the holes beneath me. Diana had fallen away in a faint, and Monroe was speaking to Tate and Daniel.
“Search again! I felt someone step across the wards!”
Then I felt it. For a heartbeat, Felix was there. I covered my mouth and my nose with my hand because I couldn’t quite control my breathing. No one noticed since they had all felt it, too, and they rushed out of the room. Gloria, tending to the unconscious Diana, was the only person left.
