by J. L. Myers
Fallen Angel 5
Falling Stars
J.L. Myers
Fallen Angel Series Book 5
Contents
MORE BOOKS BY J.L. MYERS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
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About the Author
MORE BOOKS BY J.L. MYERS
THE BLOOD BOUND SERIES
(New Adult Paranormal Romance)
What Lies Inside
Made By Design
Web Of Lies
Born To Die
~
OTHER BOOKS
Nerve Damage
(A Chilling Psychological Thriller)
~
FALLEN ANGEL SERIES
Ashes of Eden
Dawn of Reckoning
Breaking Lucifer
Cold-Blooded Fate
Falling Stars
Copyright © 2019 J.L. Myers
The moral right of the author had been asserted.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved
No part of this literary work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the author J.L. Myers.
Cover art © 2019 J.L. Myers.
ISBN: 9781072417149
Visit the Website:
www.jlmyers.com
[]
Your pain is my own, it haunts my every breath.
Trapped in Hell and left to suffer, the light in you fades,
The battle—the death—of our love nears.
But we are not alone. Light and darkness lives on far away.
It vanished without a trace, lost as surely as my darkness reigns.
But it is not dead. It is not forgotten.
I will soar to Heaven for you, high above as if I am worthy.
I will fall for you too, down to the pits of Hell.
My mind will fail, my memories will wither.
But my heart will never forget
how very much I love you.
To my wonderful children…you are the loves of my life, the hope in my every breath, and the future that I could never live without. I love you more than words can ever say.
Xoxo J.L. Myers
Chapter One
Lucifer materialized with a burst of light, falling to his hands and knees in the dirt. Too quickly the warm brilliance around him subsided, sucking in on itself as if the permeating darkness had chased it away from the earth and up into the starlit sky. In the quiet aftermath, all that remained was Lucifer’s heavy breathing that delivered the smells of fire-blackened wood, ash, and new green life, while aches rode his body like a torture device. On his hands and knees, Lucifer was barely keeping himself off the ground. He was barely holding onto consciousness. Every part of him shook with violent tremors, rattling his popping muscles while jarring his bones.
But physical pain was nothing compared to the whirlwind that spun through his mind.
Gabriel had gone against him again. She’d chosen a path to save them both.
A path that, in the end, would be his ultimate condemnation.
Regret bloomed, growing insidiously since the moment Lucifer rematerialized on Earth. He had left her in Hell with the monster to rival all monsters. He had left her helpless and alone. What the hell had he been thinking? Saving her…this task…it was impossible. Lucifer had thousands of souls to hunt down and capture, and all without any clue as to how. It would take years, maybe even decades if they had scattered, and all the while Gabriel would be trapped with Cyrus, paying the price for Lucifer’s mistakes.
A life without her—an eternity—without Gabriel. It was unimaginable.
“What the hell have I done?”
Lucifer’s arm failed as his elbow buckled, bringing him down to his side with a bone-jarring crash. Hitting one of the stumps that used to span up to his magnificent black wings, daggers of pain stabbed from his shoulder and down his body. He bit his lip to hold in the screams of torment that had already been bubbling up his throat. Lucifer’s shaking hand traveled up his body, catching and clinging to the mirror pendant he wore. His one and only link to Gabriel. Lucifer had created it by shattering the stone slab that had been infused with her light when he had attacked the fanged men who had bitten and consumed her angelic blood. It was his one failsafe to know she was still alive, and his constant reminder of where he had left her and whose vile hand he had left her in.
Anger lingered in Lucifer at Gabriel’s decision and for leaving him out of the choice she had made, but he would never blame her for it. He knew as well as she did that there had been no other choice. But to know what she would suffer until he succeeded in his task to free her? God, if that wasn’t sadistic torture all on its own. First, their child had been taken from them, exploded in light too pure to survive in Hell. A Hell she was born into because of Lucifer and his selfish desires. His flesh and blood was gone, extinguished like a fire in the rain. And now Gabriel was left alone and helpless against the original monster he’d first created.
It all came back to him.
Lucifer had started this, with his actions, his greed, his petulance…and his love.
Now it was up to him to set things right. To fix his mistakes and save the one being left alive in this world that he loved more than himself.
Lifting the mirror shard to his face, Lucifer steadied his breaths. The muscles along his arm popped as he forced himself to hold the pendant up to eye level. “Dear God,” the words rasped from his dry lips, his eyes tearing up at the mere glimpse through the dirtied piece of glassy stone. Gabriel remained chained, still healing with small patches of raw skin. She was as naked as the moment he’d left her, her wings bound together at an awkward angle to keep her back on either side bared. Now strung up, so only the tips of her toes grazed the rocky ground, raw lashings created a pattern of welts down her back. Silver oozed, raining blood down to the small of her back. A whip fashioned out of plaited human flesh and animal hide made up the length, falling from a butt made of petrified wood. Cyrus held his favorite weapon, his face tomato red as he screamed, “Tell me where he is!"
When Gabriel refused to reply
, he roared and flung the weapon. Lucifer’s thumb slid off the edge of the viewing stone as the end flailed out at Gabriel, and those long fingers tipped with spikes lashed out. The black metal bit into her back, dragging down one side of her spine, cutting her mottled flesh open in five new descending lines. Gabriel jolted, her knees buckling and toes losing traction.
Lucifer cringed, brushing a thumb over the glass and keeping it pressed to the edge.
God, even with her back to him, he could see the agony smeared across her face in his mind. Fresh silver torrents trailed down from the base of her back, sliding over her dirty bottom and trailing down her pale legs.
This was his fault. All of it.
If he had taken that dagger and ended Cyrus when he had the chance, none of this would be happening. But he hadn’t and now it was. There was no undoing it. There was only the hope of ending it one day soon.
The whip sailed again, and this time, with his thumb in place, Lucifer heard the crack as those spiked tips claimed her flesh. He heard the scuff of her toes losing grip again and her whimper that was so quiet it was clear she was holding back.
“Tell me how!” Cyrus stalked up to her, grabbing the base of her wings and yanking down. Gabriel cried out which only deepened the murderous glee across her captor’s face. “How in all of Hell did Lucifer escape?”
When Gabriel fell silent, Cyrus tugged her wings down harder and snarled in her ear. “Have it your way. My torture has no bounds, and we, feminine creature…” He ran a hand up her side from her hip around to her front. “Have all eternity to play.”
Lucifer dropped the pendant and it fell to his chest, hanging by the cord around his neck. He rolled to his knees again and beat the ground, roaring until his throat was bloody and raw. Lucifer could barely breathe. His chest felt like it was on the verge of collapsing. But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. He would kill that traitorous bastard, strip him of every ounce of flesh, break his bones, stuff his mouth with lava and make him swallow until it oozed out from his organs. And Lucifer would smile down at Cyrus, watching the life drain out of him like he should have done from the very beginning.
“How the hell am I going to save you? How the hell can I track down and capture thousands of evil souls before your heavenly light burns out?” Collapsing with his forehead to the dirt, Lucifer reached up, needing to see her, to know what Cyrus was doing to her now.
“Torturing yourself will only make this task harder.”
Lucifer stopped moving. He stopped breathing too. With the dagger shard still embedded in his heart after Cyrus had opened him up and shoved it in there, he had little fight in him. Coming from the top of the weapon Michael had forged from light when he sent an assassin to kill their child, its debilitating power had its hooks rooted through him. He could barely hold his body up on his knees, for God’s sake. But he was not worried about being pegged down and set upon. No, not this time. The visitor behind him was not from Hell. He was of Heaven.
The light that radiated off the male lit up the landscape, shining out across the patchy long grass and dirt and up the stalks of tall trees that surrounded them. Lucifer realized where he was. The forest-bordered place he’d reunited with Gabriel before diving down to Hell, after Darius failed to unlock Hell and threw her over the edge.
Finding his breath, Lucifer tipped sideways and landed on his backside. He peered up at Azrael, who stared down over him, his silver-blue eyes all business without any emotion as they gleamed from his olive complexion. Lucifer wondered how he’d screwed up so badly when the Angel of Death, who coveted what Lucifer had taken without permission, had gotten so damn lucky. Lucifer had ruined Heaven and Earth for the one he loved—he’d ruined the one he loved too. Yet, after Gabriel’s arrival in Hell, he’d learned the facts…the truth. The Angel of Death had been granted his heart’s desire in the name of duty. He’d bedded the raven-haired Ariel in the name of populating Heaven’s angelic army.
Wanting so badly to lurch up and get in Azrael’s face, Lucifer gritted his teeth. He didn’t even have the strength to stand on his own two feet. How the hell was he meant to retrieve Hell’s souls and free Gabriel from her endless torture? “I would not want it to be easy. Not after all I have caused. Not while knowing what she will suffer for every second I am above and she is trapped below. Her agony is my own. I only wish I could take it from her and endure it myself.”
Azrael’s face revealed no emotion as he kneeled beside Lucifer, though a hint of something shone in his eyes. Gratitude? Because he could easily have been in Lucifer’s shoes? “I have come to help, brother.”
“I do not need your damned—”
Azrael’s hand struck out, but his palm as it connected with Lucifer’s chest was gentle. Still, the Dark Prince of Hell ratcheted backward at the sudden burst of light. Air belted from his lungs as he hit the ground and his wing stumps stabbed him with pain. But that pain was nothing, he realized, as Azrael’s fingers needled into his chest, burrowing deeper, prodding and twisting, tearing off his pec as if it were a measly piece of clothing. Silver-black blood poured free, streaming out across Lucifer’s chest and down his sides as those fingers retreated and returned in the form of a punishing fist. Lucifer’s scream died on a choking gasp as a hole was smashed cleanly through his ribs. And then the archangel was picking away, pulling the shattered pieces of bone out of Lucifer’s chest.
“What—“ Lucifer choked, unable to get enough air. Was his lung punctured? “—are you—do-ing?”
Lucifer had a task. He had to collect the escaped souls from Hell and return them to where they belonged. With the way Lucifer was transported from Hell and with the details of the deal Gabriel had struck, he did not doubt for a second that the proposal had come straight from God. So why send his brother to end him now? Unless…God never intended for either of them to live through this. He’d abandoned Gabriel before. He’d sat back, refusing to act when her life was on the line. Was God finally cleaning up a mess he wished he’d extinguished from the very start?
“Az…” Lucifer could not even speak his brother’s name. “D-don’t.”
“That was always your problem, Lucifer.” Azrael punched back into his chest, killing any further words from Lucifer’s mouth. “You have little faith.”
Azrael’s other hand joined the show, driving into Lucifer’s slick chest cavity as heat spread over him like a hot burning wave. His body shook with tremors as his heart was caught in one hand while Azrael’s other dug into the beating muscle. The pain made Lucifer’s eyes spread too wide, and his mouth gaped as the organ belted slowly, laboriously, while silver-black blood spurted up and splashed Azrael’s determined face.
“Almost there, brother.”
Almost dead.
Lucifer was sure of it now. The agony was fleeting, his mind was failing. Images whizzed behind his eyes as his lids slowly slid shut: the Realm of Light, Gabriel in his arms, black wings that burned to ashes, the fiery pits of Hell, and Gabriel again, their daughter vanishing from her protective arms, and then Gabriel’s yelps as Cyrus tortured her. The past came on like an erratic flood, each memory washing away as if by a receding tide. Lucifer tried to hold onto the memories. He tried to keep that moment of Gabriel safe in his arms and then of her holding their flesh and blood. His heart belted once, then again long seconds later. Those images fell away with the time, stricken from Lucifer’s mind as he gasped shortening, sharp breaths. He could no longer remember where he was or why. A final flash of a woman’s face assaulted him, her hair long and silver, her lips blushed and full, her silver-blue eyes…full of love. Who was she?
Lucifer’s heart spasmed.
Azrael’s hands yanked free of Lucifer’s chest, and he planted one bloody palm over the gory hole. White brilliance jolted into Lucifer like he’d been struck by lightning.
The burning pain came back first, breaking Lucifer apart and then putting him back together piece by piece. His heart lay dormant, but his ribs grew like a thicket of thorns, reforming, cu
rving, and connecting. His flesh was next as strips shot out from the severed edges across his chest. Each one clung to the other side of the gaping hole until his insides were covered. Muscle returned from below the new skin, beefing up his pec to its former muscle mass. And then his quiet heart gave a punch, freezing momentarily as the holes closed up to keep the blood chambered inside, before beating to full renewed speed.
Lucifer’s eyes snapped open with a gasp. He gripped the hand Azrael held out to him, feeling the tingling sensation of his torture in Hell curing itself in seconds. Now standing, he stared at the other angel, awed and yet suspicious of all he’d done. Was this part of God’s plan? “What do you want from me?”
Azrael smiled, finally showing a genuine expression of happiness as he held up his other hand. Coated in Lucifer’s blood, his fist was raised, clenched fingers and inner forearm pointed upward. He uncurled his digits, revealing a small item that sat in the center of his bloody palm. The shard that had been embedded in Lucifer’s chest. The shard that had weakened him and kept him from healing to his full potential. “I do not want anything from you, brother. But God does. As always, he wants you to succeed.”
