by J. L. Myers
Fallen Angel
Cold-Blooded Fate
J.L. Myers
Fallen Angel Series Book 4
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
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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
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OTHER BOOKS
Nerve Damage
(A Chilling Psychological Thriller)
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FALLEN ANGEL SERIES
Ashes of Eden
Dawn of Reckoning
Breaking Lucifer
Cold-Blooded Fate
Falling Stars (May 2019)
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: 9781798153727
Visit the Website:
www.jlmyers.com
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The light of my life is fading like a dying flame.
The darkness swallows the love I can never live without,
And I am powerless to stop it.
All I have done and all I am becoming is not who I am.
Not who I want to be.
My heart and soul battle, they never stop or waiver or fail.
But this fight is beating us both, devouring our love.
Eating us alive.
Can we make it through? Can we survive?
Only God knows for sure…
Chapter One
“Get away from her!” Lucifer screamed, jumping back to escape the sweeping slice of Cyrus’s sword. Cut flesh stung as silver-black bloomed across his forearm, severing a tendon. His own sword clattered to the ground, kicked to spin out of reach as Cyrus jabbed the blue-glowing dagger at Lucifer’s chest. He missed. Barely. And Lucifer stumbled, tripping on Zachias’s severed head as he dodged around the lava pit.
Surrounded by crimson-eyed soldiers, there was nowhere for Gabriel to run to. Her wings quivered, struggling to extend to lift her off their bed. But she remained rooted to the tousled sheets, biting her lip as her face pinched and her eyes squeezed shut with a look of pure agony.
Darius weaved through the swarming soldiers, brandishing his sword in preparation to lop off her head.
“Darius, I will kill—”
A sudden flare erupted up high below the speared ceiling. Every face in the room shot up. “No!” Lucifer grated as dread turned his stomach.
But there was no stopping this.
“What is it?” Darius barked.
“Who is there?” Cyrus demanded at the same time.
Non-angelic beings could not see the unwelcomed visitor in this realm. But Lucifer and Gabriel could.
The Angel of Death hovered above them. Black tendrils lifted like silken strands from Zachias’s lifeless body up into the dank air. The strands swelled into an orb of black that formed from one of Azrael’s outstretched hands. In his other, a beacon of light flared to life. “Gabriel, I am sorry. Get out while you can.”
Arms flinging down, the dark and light released simultaneously as the Angel of Death vanished with Lucifer’s scream. The darkness struck Lucifer as Cyrus dropped his head to continue his assault—
And the light plowed into Gabriel.
Power exploded from Gabriel, ricocheting with her scream to blast out in waves that knocked every man in the room down. Lucifer was floored too, along with Cyrus, though not as severely with a pillar blocking the outward blast.
Vision dancing, Lucifer saw Cyrus’s shadow rise up over him—as the darkness inside Lucifer demanded release. He grunted, choking on the agony as he flipped onto his back. His chest heaved, threatening to rip open to deliver the dark stain of Zachias’s soul. But he couldn’t do it. There was no time. They would all be slaughtered if he didn’t take action now.
Fighting to hold the vile darkness inside, Lucifer saw Gabriel slide off the edge of their bed. Her knees buckled, and he screamed her name as the soldiers recovered to close in around her. Rolling over with gritted teeth, Lucifer stabbed his hands into the ground. He had to get to her. He had to save his love, his future, before it was too late.
Teeth grating, he roared as he shoved up to his unsteady feet—to meet the glowing blade of the dagger Cyrus plunged into his chest.
Right next to his heart.
The twisting of the blade skimmed the vital organ, bringing him back down to his knees where he stayed. He tried to conjure his fire power, desperate to protect Gabriel as Darius and the soldiers snatched to grab her batting fists. But the power refused his summons. His voice failed him too, trapping his threats in his throat, preventing him from calling his crows to their aid.
That speeding lava was back in his veins, but unlike his power, it now reminded him of when Michael had burned his wings to cinders. He was so close to the bubbling pit of lava. Would it burn him now that his power was muted? He didn’t care if it did. He would do anything if it could save her. Save them. But even as he screamed inside for his arm to reach for the pit, and for his other one to strike out and remove the blade, he could not move an inch. His body refused to respond. Paralyzed, he saw the horror through tear-filled eyes as Darius and the soldiers took hold of Gabriel.
Cyrus sneered down at him, glee flashing in his red eyes. “Now you will watch her die, powerless to stop it.”
Chapter Two
All around the grand throne room, eager eyes watched Lucifer with a mixture of respect, awe, fear, and even jealousy. With the town’s people gathered and more spilling out through the sky-high double doors and his soldiers clogging up the gallery that surrounded the circular room, there was no shortage of onlookers. Each day this was a regular occurrence. The crowd. The spectacle. Those varying looks that encouraged and sickened him at the same time. Lucifer understood the fear and respect. Those were the expressions he expected. Bu
t awe and jealousy?
The thought that hellions and even a number of his soldiers wished they were in his position was a thing of mystery and shock.
If Lucifer had the choice, he would never pick this role. He would never choose to be the Dark Prince of Hell.
At least…that is what he told himself.
Strangled cries peeled from the throats of the three new hellions kneeling on the black and gray mosaic floor. Smells of burned flesh and leaking blood that surrounded and covered them permeated the hot air. Lucifer fought back the need to cringe. At the same time his blood rushed, his adrenaline firing like the flames that licked at his skin and hummed over his entire body. He did not enjoy seeing those men writhing as fire melted back patches of skin. He did not delight in the view of them floundering with their eyes already poked out and hanging from their eye sockets. And he did not appreciate how they crumbled with bones that had been broken or crushed.
He did not enjoy it. He could not.
But he did.
Deep down inside of himself, he knew the vile truth.
Part of him, maybe the most substantial part of him—relished these acts of torture.
Lucifer went still as the screaming pitched so high the shrill penetrated his ears like spikes stabbing through his eardrums. His fire dulled, as did the flames that had turned those three new hellions into flailing human-shaped lanterns.
Gabriel was here.
Sensing her among the crowd that begged for more carnage—how could they want more when those three men were red raw and charred black, lying in puddles of heat-thickened blood?—Lucifer’s eyes darted. She was not among the hellions. She had never entered the arena like space, one; because she knew better, and two; because he had never let her. It was not safe. Following the internal pull that made his blood rush faster for an entirely different reason, Lucifer tuned his ears. The patter of smaller, faster feet, it was…there. The surrounding soldiers that gathered behind the gallery railing shifted to his left, shuffling hastily forward, backward, or to the side to make room for two of his snapping hellhounds. Through the gallery’s carved stone banister he saw the enormous black beasts, Zallina and Zax, weaving through the soldiers’ legs, their backs so tall they reached well above the men’s waists. With one leading the way and another trailing with hackles raised in fierce protection, there she was.
Gabriel.
She stalled as if hearing her name that had not been more than a desperate thought in his head. A concealing black cloak draped from her shoulders down to her toes, and her pale face remained stoic and controlled. She hardly ever ventured down when he was working. Lucifer had begged her not to, yet he had not forbidden it. He refused to treat her like one of his minions or slaves. She had already lost too much—because of him.
The crowding soldiers towered over her, but she was unmissable. Her silver-blue eyes set on his through the veil of her long silvery hair. Her lips pressed together. Her hands clenched tight where they hung stiff against her billowing black cloak. They both knew why he had to do what he did, but for her to witness it…
A thumping started up in Lucifer’s ears, drowning out the calls for the public demonstration to continue. Forgetting the need to remain strong and aggressive, Lucifer’s face softened, that hard edge and the grim promise of pain fleeting as his eyes begged her not to look. Not to see what he had done.
Gabriel’s gaze fell to the circular center of the room to the three broken and bloody men that wept desperate sobs for leniency. Her eyes turned glassy, filling with unshed tears that made her silvery irises look like an eclipsed moon falling into a glittery ocean.
Lucifer may not be able to deny the sensations that stirred in him, that urged him on when he exacted the torture he needed to keep control over all the horrible souls that resided in Hell. But he knew one thing for certain. If he had the choice, he would not pick this for himself. Definitely not for her. To know that she was free to see this side of him, to witness what he did, too see that on an undeniable level that he enjoyed it…it was torture. Soul-crushing torture. He would give anything to be someone else, to be anywhere else. All he had ever wanted was her. He had never wanted to rule or cause pain. At least, not really. All the actions that had led him here had been in anger and retaliation, in the hope that something might change and give him the chance to have the only thing he had ever coveted.
To have her.
Now he had her—and it was all wrong.
But Lucifer could never give up his title or what that title entailed, at least not anymore. It was not only his life that would be affected if he did. With Gabriel here, he was the one being who could protect her, who would protect her. His soldiers’ many hybrid offspring had already tried to take her from him, to use her against him, and he would never ever let them get to her again. He would keep her safe—at least in body. But in soul?
Lucifer looked away as Gabriel’s eyes fluttered back up to his, her lids blinking rapidly as if trying to hold back tears. The vocal demands for more pain and torture broke through the thumping in his ears. Willing the heat in him to rise, fresh waves of fire trailed from his heart and out, climbing across his shoulders and down his tense arms to his hands. He breathed in deeply, and with his exhale, he flicked his wrists, sending twin balls of fire onto the first two men. The hiking of his chin had Belial’s wings unfurling as he lifted off Lucifer’s shoulder and dove for the third man. Cheers bounced off the walls instantly, marrying with the renewed cries of torturous pain as his victims writhed.
With everyone occupied by the horrific display as the smell of burning flesh poisoned the air once more, Lucifer’s head snapped sideways. But Gabriel was gone from the crowding soldiers, her cloak swaying as she ran up the arching stairs with a guarding hellhound at her heels. As the sensation of her presence died, the heinous part of him grew stronger.
Staring out through the crowded doorway at the town below that had grown in size and depravity, self-pity made Lucifer feel like he was drowning. A war raged inside of him, one of darkness and light, of pure intentions and dark delight. Gabriel was the only light in this desolate land of black mountains and even blacker souls. Was her light strong enough to lift his own stained soul out of perpetual Hell?
Or would letting Gabriel try to save him only destroy her too?
Chapter Three
The slightest movement next to Lucifer on his great, round bed had his eyelids fluttering. Between the breaks of darkness, he felt a gentle tickling brush as Gabriel withdraw from his cocooning arms. Watching as she sat on the bed’s edge, her pale hair and milky white bare skin took on the glowing warmth from the fire surrounding his chamber that shot up in hissing spears from the ground to the speared ceiling like prison bars. As a rule, he no longer kept the fires burning when he was out, allowing her to come and go with her canine guards. Though he could not help wondering if after the past three months, even without the imprisoning fire, if she still felt trapped.
Remaining quiet as she drew the satin sheet around her waist, lifting it up to clasp the ends together at her chest, he smiled despite himself.
Hell was Hell, and who he was had not improved.
But Gabriel had.
Now healed almost entirely from her fall from Earth and the deforming torture that had grounded her, what draped down from her back was nothing less than a miracle. Magnificent downy wings sprouted from her back and draped down around her arms, curving around her shoulders to make sitting comfortable while waterfalling over the bed’s edge and down to the glittering ground.
Gabriel’s wings had grown back.
This along with the light that haloed her entire body proved she had not been shunned from Above. God still saw her as one of His children, His pure creations. Unlike Lucifer, Gabriel was not fallen.
But she was not unchanged.
Cawing and distant cries disturbed the constant humming of the surrounding flames.
Watching in silence as she slipped from the bed they had laid together as
man and woman in so many times now, her sigh was quiet yet unmissable. The rise and fall of her wings as she padded to the first speared window opening had Lucifer’s heart bottoming out his stomach.
Her wings, once gloriously white, were now gray with an overtone of shimmering silver.
Before he could ponder again what the change meant, Gabriel’s hand went to her neck, fingers tense as she gripped her throat. Her other hand clung tighter to the bunched satin sheet, pressing down against her chest right over her heart. Her lips parted, teeth clenching as her lower lip trembled. Her throat jogged beneath her clutching fingers, fighting to let her swallow as her eyes strained with pools of growing silver. So much had changed, between them, and for her. There was a look on her face, a shift, one that he was determined to decipher.
A blood-curdling scream had her eyelids snapping shut and tears spilling down her rosy cheeks.
