by J. L. Myers
The prospect of life in a world Evangeline had only ever glimpsed through the garden pool terrified her. She would be without her mother or father, without even Michael to be her guide. She would be unaware of all she was and all she had done and was capable of doing. She would never know the danger she could be or the power that resided inside her. Evangeline would be unaware and alone. Exposed and yet so drastically shielded from the worlds above and below that could fall into havoc at any time. But what other option did she have? The choice was simple, new mortal life that could be taken away in an instant—or instant death.
Evangeline nodded. She didn’t want either option, she wanted to stay here where it was safe and where her mother was. But she would never want to endanger anyone. She wanted to leave, regardless of her choice, knowing Heaven was once again safe. “When I am gone, the path to Heaven and Hell will close up?”
God nodded. “But there is one other condition, should you chose life. If you ever get too close to figuring out who you are or where you came from—you will die.”
Evangeline gasped but then slowed her breaths, her heart returning to measured, steady beats. She knew what her decision was, the only one she could force herself to make. “Then I choose hope.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Michael wiped the sweat from his brow, his body aching and his legs ready to quit on him. He refused to give in and leave the renewed glow of Heaven and retreat to the cleansing pools down in the Realm of Light. Still covered in remnants of the battle, with cuts and bruises concealed by a thick dry layer of cracking blood, Michael had a job to do. A farewell to utter—if he could get his throat to stop constricting.
Glancing over his shoulder, Michael saw Remiel lining up one of the last of his dead nephilim. He too was covered in muck, his gray wings still mottled like Michael’s, but his expression determined. With a look up, Remiel sent a nod of support at Michael. “That is the last then?”
Michael looked down at the body he had dragged from the lifeless circle of nephilim. One final spot was left in the double line of dead children to fit this last body. Micah’s body. Michael gulped again, fighting to hold back his grief as his eyes burned. He had learned his lesson with Evangeline. Never get attached. But seeing this boy grow and mature with the others all while exuding an air of authority and strength had weaseled its way in. The fact that the fourteen-year-old was a younger replica of himself, with long dark hair, features that had grown more and more masculine and sharp with the years that had passed, and a loyalty that had secured his fate, made the effort futile. Michael could not deny this boy had taken a piece of his heart, a piece that would never mend—because Michael had delivered him to his death.
“Your grief is drowning, Michael.”
God’s unexpected voice punched into Michael’s mind, and Remiel stiffened too, clearly hearing the words. The spear of light that bloomed into existence had them both shielding their eyes as it settled on the soaring throne. But it could not be.
God was dead.
The glow faded suddenly, revealing the form of a boy that looked somehow older than how God had appeared before aging and vanishing in battle. Yet it was him, the same golden tones and handsome features that resembled his fallen brother, Lucifer.
“You…” Michael fell to one knee and bowed his head. He had heard God’s voice in his mind before Cyrus’s attack, but there had been no sight or sound since that shocking moment. “You are alive.”
Remiel rushed in from the edge of the line of dead nephilim, falling to his knees. His hands came together, but he did not utter a word, his eyes pleading for understanding as he looked up at their maker.
And Michael knew why.
Michael and his angel warriors had created the nephilim by breaking their angelic rules. Remiel had known of their plans all along, and he had kept secret their intended forbidden actions. Lying with human women was a sin. It was as bad as angels fornicating with one another for any other purpose than to grow their heavenly forces.
“You truly believe I did not know? Michael…” God shook his head, his milky eyes somehow surprised as he looked down at them both. “I am the maker of all. My angels, humans, Heaven, Earth, and even Hell. I know and see all…and I choose to act as I see as necessary or to wait for the future to show me the way. Your idea to bed human women was not your own. It was a whisper from my lips. A plan to set in motion a failsafe for what I knew would come. You would never kill that child you let call you Father. Even now, you love her. And that love taught you a priceless lesson. The lesson of guarding your heart and of sacrifice. There was never going to be a way to save them all.”
Michael’s bowed head jerked up. Although he kneeled before the most powerful being in all of the realms, ire lit in his veins.
“Michael,” Remiel warned, but his brother refused to bite his tongue.
“You led me to do as I did. You let me think I was in charge. You used me…” Michael blinked to shove the hot tears back. He glared down at Micah’s slack expression and open staring eyes. He would not show weakness after all he had learned. All he had lost. A son to be proud of. “You killed my flesh and blood.”
God’s youthful eyes shone with sadness rather than the wrath Michael expected. He shook his head, dislodging his perfectly draping golden locks so that one side loosened from behind his ear to graze the side of his face. “No, Michael. I gave you the means and the encouragement. In the end, the decision was yours. I did not influence it.”
A sudden light flared in front of the veil and beside the throne. Michael’s damning revelation that squeezed his heart like the hand of God stalled. Azrael appeared as the brilliance faded, his wings stained and his face an unreadable mask. “I came as you requested,” he said to God while keeping his eyes locked on Michael. Something burned in them, but it was impossible to tell if it was the promise of something good or bad.
Remembering the steps Azrael had assisted with to bring Gabriel back to life, Michael clung to his hope. The woman he could not deny loving had been no more than a spark. So much power and light had been needed to bring her back—and that was without God’s influence. Micah and all the nephilim were still here in body, their spirits clinging to their corpses with a faint glow that emanated from each of them.
“Can they be saved?” Michael asked. “Can you bring the nephilim back to life?”
God sighed, pinning his lips together. The shake of his head matched the determination in his glowing eyes. “No. I cannot allow nephilim to roam the earth.” His speech slowed with emphasis. “And I cannot bring these children back to the world of the living.”
“Does that mean they will be extinguished forever?” Remiel asked, surprising not only God but also Michael who had picked up on the choice of God’s words too.
“The past is yet to come, and even I cannot see all that will unravel as time goes on.” God’s answer was like a tiny ray of hope sprinkled with mounting doubt. Riddles. He nodded to Azrael. “And now, their time has come.”
With the bodies lined up close enough to be touching, Azrael kneeled before the throne and placed his hand on the forehead of a female nephilim with curly, auburn hair. The light haloing her body beamed brighter, drawing from the siblings to either side of her and them from the ones next to them and so on.
Michael came down to both knees at the head of his son, touching a gentle hand to his young face. His words were a whisper, a promise. “If there is a will, I will find the way.” The glow grew brighter, enveloping the second line of nephilim from the outside and speeding into the center where Michael kneeled. Micah was encapsulated in the glow, heat and power vibrating the air and attacking Michael’s hand on the boy’s face. He refused to let go, gritting his teeth through the pain. “Until then, may you rest in peace.”
The double line of nephilim combusted at once, obliterating in ninety-four ovals of exploding sparks that, as they slowed with their outward pressure, rained upward like falling stars in reverse. Then they were gone, th
eir bodies and the place Michael kept staring at that had a moment ago been his son’s lifeless face now empty.
A small hand dipped under Michael’s line of sight, palm up as the shorter fingers uncurled. A tiny spark lay atop his maker’s hand, and Michael’s head snapped up to stare into God’s young face.
“I cannot give you what you want, Michael. But I can keep him with you…”
God turned his hand as he reached forward, planting his palm against Michael’s dirty chest—right over his heart. The power that shot into the organ should have blasted Michael back into oblivion. But he remained in place, agony riding through his veins as he fell to his hands and choked on his screams. The pain dulled without warning, and so did the intensity of the halo that had attacked his body.
Back on his throne, God’s smile was weak. “If your wish ever comes true, you will know it. You will feel it—in your heart.”
God glowed suddenly brighter, enveloping his human form before bursting into nothingness. Azrael tipped his head, and a click of his fingers disappeared him from sight.
As Michael stood on shaky legs, a gentle hand cupped his shoulder.
Remiel smiled. “Without hope, we have nothing.”
Then he too was gone, a click echoing off the endless expanse of light and rebounding off the veil and back at Michael. He sighed deep and long, feeling a warm spot inside his heart that had not been there before, a promise of an eternal memory that left Michael with a dead son and an unknown future of possibility.
Chapter Forty-Five
Reclined on his side, Lucifer was awestruck by the beauty that surrounded him. The rolling green hills were dotted with enormous trees that brimmed with life and green all over their trunks from fresh shoots. A sparkling waterfall tumbled over a rocky ledge, falling into a pristine pond that reflected the luminous glow from above and dusted his bronzed arms and bare legs with a fine mist. The location was like nothing he could remember ever seeing before, yet for some reason, he felt like he was…home.
The Weeping Willow Lucifer lounged under tickled his face and made his biceps twitch, reminding him of a feather-light touch that he could not quite link to a memory.
Something gentle grazed his chest then, soft and yet firmer at the same time, sliding from the thick scar down the middle of his ribs to his heart. And it was warm…
Head snapping down, Lucifer’s golden hair hung over his eyes, partially obscuring his view—of a woman. He gasped at the long plains of her milky flesh that stretched all the way down to delicate toes. Bared of cloth and leaning back into her gray wings that pressed into the tree’s trunk, her body was perfection to his hungry eyes, all soft curves and peaks that rose and fell with her heightening breaths. “I told you this was not our end.”
The woman’s long fingers swept over Lucifer’s pec, making his nipple harden and his heart beneath her touch race. He shoved the hair back from his eyes, needing to see more. Lucifer’s breath caught as he saw her face, her beautiful and ethereal face. How had he been marveling at the picturesque nature surrounding him when this beauty was right beside him? Her hair cascaded down from the crown of her head, spilling over her shoulders to reach down to the slope of her petite waist. Her nose was small, her chin pointed, her cheeks high, and her eyes—
Lucifer’s heart belted harder, walloping as if it were about to burst through his ribs to create a new wound to join the many scars that marked his flesh. He had seen those eyes before, the deep pools of silver-blue that shone with undying love, acceptance, and eternal hope. “You…”
Images assaulted Lucifer’s mind: this garden alive and thriving, this woman by his side, her hand over his heart, and then their kiss.
“G-Gabri—”
More images flooded in: the looking glass, being exposed and judged, and then her garden burning into a state of death and ruin. But it didn’t stop there. Words were spoken from his lips, hushed and desperate. She returned his love—and accepted his passion. Naked and alone, so close to joining as one, and then he was falling, wings black as sin and heart cold as ice. Pain and suffering followed, fire rose up, and then anarchy…and the violet eyes of a child that saved them all. No, not a child, his child.
Lucifer remembered it all, the good, the bad, the torture and the triumph. He remembered her. “Gabriel,” he gasped, capturing her face in his rough palm and meeting her hope-filled eyes with a look of intensity. “But I…then you.” The words wouldn’t come, his tongue becoming tied at the assaulting memories.
Sitting up to alleviate the use of the arm he leaned against, Lucifer covered Gabriel’s hand over his racing heart. “I remember, and I feel everything. How is that possible? How am I here?”
Gabriel slid her hand out from under Lucifer’s, her eyes falling as silver welled in them. A few drops fell, landing on her knees as she tucked them to one side. “A kiss goodbye, a spark of hope so you will know that no matter what I will always be watching. I will never let you go. I will always be here, waiting until we can be together again.”
“Together again?” Suddenly the sound of the gushing water was too much with the rushing of blood in Lucifer’s ears. “We are together now.”
Gabriel shook her head, the grief across her face breaking Lucifer’s heart in two. “This moment is fleeting. It…it is not real, Lucifer.”
“Like Hell.” Lucifer felt the remnants of fire burning in his rushing veins, and his hand curled around her neck and pulled her closer. He needed to prove her wrong, he needed to know that this was as real as it felt, that they were here, together, bared and side by side. That his memories of disintegrating into darkness were wrong. That some loophole had saved them both.
There was no resistance as Lucifer crushed his lips over Gabriel’s, her mouth parting on a moan and inviting him inside. Her taste was real, exactly as he remembered, and her hands as they went from needling his pec to sliding around his back to pull him closer felt like déjà vu. Lucifer swept his tongue over Gabriel’s, and his free hand cupped her jaw, feeling the tears that dampened her warm face. She was real, this was real, the physical act and the emotion. It had to be.
Lucifer pulled away with the most amount of restraint he had ever had to command. Grazing his nose back and forth over Gabriel’s before stealing a light kiss, he retracted only enough to look into her wet eyes. Her tears told him the truth, her sorrow and happiness all wrapped up in one. He didn’t want to believe it, but he was not going to let their reality ruin this moment they now shared. “I love you, heart and soul. Here or not, those parts of me could never forget. And we are here now, together. Alone. Be mine, make me the happiest angel alive. Stay with me…”
Gabriel swallowed, and her telling tears dried up with a sniffle. A tiny smile curved her mouth, chasing away the sadness of loss before it turned into temptation as she bit her bottom lip. “So long as you stay here with me, I am yours. Forever.”
Control lost, Lucifer reclaimed Gabriel’s mouth, his lips firm yet soft against her plump and inviting ones. Their tongues met with quickening breaths, tangling and untangling in a never-ending dance. Hands on his rough face, Gabriel rose up on her knees, her wings draping out behind her. Lucifer shifted too, grabbing hold of her waist to pull her to him. Her legs parted as they met the hard ripples of his abdomen, spreading wide to straddle his folded legs. Gabriel gasped as her bared core felt the throbbing hardness that poked up between them. Lucifer’s body was ready, his golden skin perspiring as her porcelain curves grew damp with a thin sheen. But he was not going to rush this, whatever it was.
Slowing down the strokes of his tongue in her mouth, Lucifer ran his thick fingers softly over her thighs. Gabriel’s breaths got louder, her moans more persistent. Her breasts pressed into his hard pecs with the heaving of her chest. “I need you, Lucifer. I have always needed you.”
Lucifer grazed the backs of his hands slowly up over her hips and then stomach, moving with such precise speed it had his own breaths matching her rushed ones. Finally meeting the curve of t
he underside of her breasts, Gabriel moaned as he twisted his hands to cup their weight. His kisses trailed from her mouth along her jaw, remaining feather-light as he dipped to the slope of her neck. “You have me, always.”
Lucifer pinched her nipples between his thumb and finger, and Gabriel cried out in ecstasy. The feeling of her hips undulating against him was almost too much to restrain from. She was ready for him, desperate, wet with need.
Holding the back of Lucifer’s neck and urging him lower, Gabriel’s other hand dipped between their bodies, sliding down to curl around his hard shaft. Her grip tightened and Lucifer hissed, his head dropping to take her left nipple into his mouth. Gabriel cried out, her hand working him between their sweating bodies. And Lucifer came undone.
He wanted to draw this out.
He wanted to savor every single moment, every touch, ever taste.
Gabriel rising up on Lucifer’s lap killed all of his control, and as she lined him up with her below the waist, there was no stopping the culmination of love that blazed from her eyes down at him and reflected from his up into hers. Gabriel slid down slowly, agonizingly, her eyes never leaving his as they became one. Lucifer’s neck arched up as he finally came home, his mouth taking her bottom lip between his own. “I love you, Gabriel, for believing in me, protecting me, standing by me, and for teaching me how to be the man you always knew I would become. You saved me, and you will always own part of my heart. Remember me like this?”
Gabriel smiled down at Lucifer, that traitorous silver pooling in her eyes. “I will never forget.” And then she moved against him…
Undulating against him, their quick breaths filled the perfect garden with sounds of passion and a love that not Heaven, Hell, or even God could destroy. Gabriel was the light and Lucifer was her Morningstar, a soul that would always burn brighter in her presence, a soul that would survive and one day heal with her hope for him alive and eternal.
