“So, where do you want to go?” Faith asked as we emerged into the bright light of the afternoon. She shivered a little in the foggy air, and I fought the urge to wrap my arms around her.
“I’m not sure…” I trailed off as a crazy idea entered my mind. I tried to brush it off, but it hung there stubbornly, and I sighed. “There’s a place I’d like to go to, but it would mean flying there.”
“Flying?” Her head snapped up, her green eyes locking onto mine with a slight glimmer of panic in their emerald depths. I wondered if she was afraid of heights or something.
“Yes, if you don’t want to go, that’s fine. I just thought maybe I could carry you and…”
“Carry me? Sure, why not?” Her face brightened, and she smiled at me. I blinked at the sudden change in her mood.
“Right then, well, um… if you…” I realised a little too late that this brilliant plan of mine meant I would have to carry her in my arms.
Before my failing brain could decide the best way to pick her up, she stepped forward and slid her arms around my neck. I tensed for a second, feeling her small, slight body pressed against mine. My heart pounded in my chest, and for a moment, I frantically searched for a reason to change my mind, but I couldn’t find one.
I bent down and slipped my arms underneath her, picking her up and cradling her against me. I knew she wasn’t small for a human woman of her age. She was fairly tall, and though she was curvy, a lot of it was muscle, but to me, she was as light as a feather. She snuggled closer, and my heart pounded again. I prayed to God—although it was probably a bad idea at this point—that she wouldn’t be able to sense my erratic heartbeat so close to her cheek. With a last glance around to check nobody was watching, I spread my wings and then we were in the air.
I knew it wouldn’t take long to reach our destination. Half of me was desperate to get there, wanting to end the torment of feeling her in my arms, feeling her breath brushing over the skin of my neck. The other half wanted the journey to go on forever. I never wanted to put her down or lose the feel of her against me. I wanted to hold her close for eternity. If all that was left in my future was her touch and scent, and the murmur of my name on her lips, that would be my paradise.
I noticed as we flew that she never once panicked, even when the ground fell away and we were out over the silver grey North Sea. She trusted me implicitly not to let her fall. One of her arms was wrapped around my neck, and the other hand rested against my chest.
All too soon, and not soon enough, I began the descent, landing as softly as I could on a pinnacle of rock. I lowered her gently until I felt her feet touch the ground, holding on to her until I was sure she was steady. That was what I told myself. She didn’t seem like she was in a rush to release me either. Her arm slid from my neck, and she slipped her hand around my bicep, curling her fingers around to hold onto my arm.
“Where are we?” she asked, looking around with wide eyes.
“We’re just off the coast from Bamburgh, south of the Holy Isle, Lindisfarne,” I answered. “These are called the Farne Islands. I’ve visited Lindisfarne a few times over the centuries, and I discovered this place by accident one night. I stopped here to rest, and when I woke up in the morning, well, this is what waited for me.”
She gazed around, her beautiful green eyes taking in the scenery. It was a lonely, desolate place. The rocks were grey, as was the water, which carried white foam as the waves crashed against the cliffs we stood upon. All around us, the noise was deafening as the shrieks and calls of hundreds of puffins filled the air.
“It’s incredible,” she murmured, gazing up at me. “Thank you for bringing me. I would never have known it was here.”
I smiled, my chest filling with a warmth I was starting to feel more and more when she was around. The wind whistled around us and bit through our clothes. It didn’t bother me, but Faith shivered a little, and I realised she was cold. I hadn’t thought of that, and I felt slightly guilty for not thinking to bring something to keep her warm.
“Here, sit.” I sat down on a small rocky platform raised a foot or so off the ground, and then I pulled her onto my lap. Wrapping my arms around her and drawing her close to share the warmth of my body, I gathered my wings closer, the large white feathers ruffling in the wind but protecting her from its bite. With my wings draped around us, it would be more difficult to be seen against the pale grey sky should any fishermen pass by. Not that many did. It was a protected area and one of the reasons I loved this place, remote and desolate and grey, but still beautiful. It was majestic in its own right and still teeming with life.
It had become a sanctuary for me, and I often came here when I wanted to be alone, but for some reason having Faith here was even better, and I was glad that I had shared it with her. She snuggled in, leaning her head against my chest and running her fingers along the soft, downy feathers near the top of my wings. For a while we didn’t speak. We just listened to the birds, and I recognised this was something she didn’t have in her life—a place of peace. With all the trauma of losing her mother and then discovering that she had been betrayed her entire life, not to mention the discovery that the supernatural was real and the ensuing chaos that had followed, she’d had no peace or rest. No time to process.
I didn’t want to break the silence. I knew I needed to talk to her, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment. I wanted it to last as long as it could. Eventually, it was her who spoke.
“So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Her voice was slightly shaky, almost as if she was nervous. I couldn’t think what she’d be nervous about. I brought my wings closer around her, assuming she must still be cold.
“My investigation,” I said, deciding to jump straight to it. “It’s brought up some things that I don’t know what to do with.”
“What do you mean, things you don’t know what to do with?” she queried, closing her eyes.
“I report to Archangel Michael. He’s the one who assigned me this mission, and it was an honour to be chosen, but the more I uncover, the more disinclined I am to bring my findings to him. That’s why I wanted to talk to you, to get your opinion on something. Please help me make the decision whether or not to tell him.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to talk to Cas? I know you two don’t get on, but he would still help you with anything you needed.”
I nodded, knowing she was right. “I know he would, and I normally would. Whatever he did in the past, I know he has his own sense of honour, and I respect him for that. The only reason I am not approaching him about this is that I feel he may be emotionally compromised in this instance.”
“Emotionally compromised?” She looked up at me and I sighed, the knowledge weighing on my heart.
“He’s too close to the situation, and I need someone more removed from it. You’ve only just joined the Concordia, and therefore you don’t have decades or centuries of loyalty to the organisation. For that reason, you’re the only person I can trust.”
She nodded. “Okay, yes, I can see your point. So what’s got the great Lord Euriel all confused?”
I ignored the jibe. “My mission, case, whatever you want to call it, involved a major power shift that occurred in this area about twenty-five years ago. We can’t narrow it down other than the northeast of England, but I did learn that around the same time, an angel came to Earth on a mission for the Concordia. The thing is, I can’t find any record of this mission either with the Concordia or the Heavenly Council, so my first question is, what was she doing on earth?”
“She?” Faith looked surprised.
“Yes, we do have female angels, you know.” I smiled at her.
“I guessed that, it’s just rather unusual for them to be sent down to Earth, isn’t it? All the ones you hear about appearing to humans are male.”
“Well, yes, I suppose. It’s a great honour to be sent down, and the females aren’t usually…” I stopped, looking down at the female human in front of me who was raising her eyebrows. I decided it was best not to finish the sentence. “Anyway, my point is that her role must have been strongly connected with the mission she was sent on, wouldn’t you agree?”
“That makes sense, I suppose.”
“But I still can’t find out what it was about. She was the Guardian of Souls. You have no idea how long I’ve been mulling it over, trying to figure out what could have been so vitally important that was linked to conception.”
“Maybe it was the second coming. That conception would be pretty important,” Faith remarked, looking up at me through lowered eyelashes.
A small stab of pride flashed through me as I realised she was being sarcastic and I had recognised it before rising to the bait. “Anyway, she never returned to Heaven, nor was she ever revealed on Earth. Since aligning myself with Cas and his team, and you of course, I now know that another angel left Heaven around the same time.”
“The one that possessed Hargreaves? Phanuel?”
“Exactly. I went to see Hargreaves’ widow. Well, technically not his widow, they dissolved their marriage twenty-five years ago.”
Faith frowned. “The same time as Phanuel came to Earth?”
I smiled, proud at how this human was keeping up. “Yes, which led me to believe that Phanuel actually possessed Hargreaves twenty-five years ago and has been living inside him ever since. The personality change caused his marriage to disintegrate, but the position he held in the Concordia meant he had free rein over the resources to try and find this other angel.”
“But why was he so determined to find her? I’m assuming he wasn’t sent here to find her, or he wouldn’t have needed to possess Hargreaves, he could have just asked for help.”
I nodded. “Precisely. He was here… illegally, as you would say on Earth. I have a theory, which I’m afraid to say Michael doesn’t share. And maybe he’s right, but… I believe Phanuel was in love with her.”
“I thought angels couldn’t love,” Faith said, and there was a strange edge to her voice.
“Angels aren’t allowed to fall in love. I never say they couldn’t.”
She said nothing.
“Michael won’t accept that either. He says there was no way Phanuel could have been in love with Lailah, and that as insane as he turned out to be, there is no evidence of him having sinned like that.”
Faith’s eyes flicked up to mine. “Her name was Lailah?”
I nodded. “She was a virtue.”
Her eyes dropped. “I remember you trying to arrest Phanuel for her murder at the cathedral, but I never caught her name.” She looked up, her eyes strangely bright. “You believe he loved her?”
“Yes. I believe he fell in love with her in Heaven. I believe she came to Earth, and when she didn’t return, he followed her because he was in love with her.”
“Then why kill her?” Faith asked. “Why would he have done that if he loved her so much?”
I took a deep breath. “Because I think Lailah fell while she was on Earth.”
Faith looked confused. “What? How can you fall on Earth? Do you mean she fell to Earth?”
I shook my head. “It’s what happened to Cassiel and the others. When an angel commits a grievous sin or crime against God, they fall. They lose their connection to their creator. I believe Layla succumbed to temptation, to the sin of lust. I believe she gave her body to somebody while on Earth, and not only that, I believe she became pregnant from this union. That’s why I believe Phanuel killed her. Not because she sinned, but because she chose somebody other than him.”
Faith took a deep breath. “Well, that’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. Especially if that union resulted in a child.”
She stared at me. “What makes you think she had a child? I thought angels couldn’t have children. Aren’t you guys sterile or something?”
I sighed. “They can’t. At least, that’s how it’s been for thousands of years. I told you I went to see Hargreaves’ widow. She saw the file for the case he was working on at the time of Phanuel’s arrival on Earth and the photographs he had taken of two women, the younger one blonde, in her early twenties by appearance, and pregnant.”
Faith licked her lips and gazed out across the unsettled sea, the wind whipping crimson tresses into her face. “Did you ever meet Lailah… before?”
“Briefly, a few centuries before she was assigned her role. But I didn’t know her well enough to talk to. We were in very different divisions.”
“So you don’t know what she looked like when she came to Earth much later on. How do you know the woman in the photograph was her?” She turned to look at me, her expression impassive.
I hesitated, biting my lip. “Because the second woman was Deliah Trowbridge.”
Faith stared at me, her lips parting in surprise, and I sighed.
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you. You’re impartial, you haven’t known Deliah for years like the others have.” I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, taking a breath. When I opened my eyes again, Faith was staring out across the sea. Her body was tense, and I could feel her trembling. Guilt washed over me again, and I pulled her closer. “I’m so sorry, this was a stupid idea. You’re clearly freezing. I should have thought to bring a blanket or something, or chosen somewhere else.”
Her green eyes swung back to me, and she smiled. “No, it’s lovely here. So peaceful and calming. And I appreciate that you trusted me enough to bring me somewhere that meant something to you.”
A shadow seemed to pass across her eyes, and for a moment, she looked sad. I reached out and touched her face gently. “I do trust you, Faith. Completely. If I ever seem like I don’t or… There’s something about you that makes me question things I thought were set in stone.” I closed my eyes. “I just feel so torn. I know Deliah is a good person. I’ve watched her through the years, and she is a good leader, trustworthy, an exemplary agent for the Concordia, and now I find that she probably had something to do with this. I should report her to the Heavenly Council, and yet…”
“And yet, you don’t know the whole story.”
I looked at her. “No, but…”
“But nothing. You are so black and white up there. People do things for reasons. They all have different motivations and drives, and you have no idea what Deliah’s involvement was or why she was involved.”
“Faith, just her involvement is enough to punish her.”
Faith shook her head. “I’ll bet. Very into punishment, you lot. But that’s what’s getting to you. You know what I’m saying is right. You know the kind of person Deliah is, so you know she has a damn good reason for doing whatever she does.”
“Normally I would agree, but Faith, the birth of a nephilim on Earth? There is nothing that could mitigate a person’s involvement with that,” I argued.
“What if it wasn’t a nephilim?” she countered.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Just because Lailah showed up pregnant on Earth doesn’t mean this is where she got pregnant. Maybe the father was a demon, not a human. Maybe she became pregnant in Heaven and it’s a baby angel.”
I stared at her, trying to wrap my head around the concept. “You think she might have fallen while in Heaven?”
“Stop saying that!” She struggled out of my arms, pushed my wings out of the way, and stood. “Stop saying fallen. You don’t know anything about her, you said it yourself, you only met her once. What if she fell in love? Pure, true love, and she just wanted to be with him?”
I stood up too, facing her and pulling my wings in tightly so they didn’t catch the growing wind. I was confused by her reaction. This wasn’t going like I’d thought it would. “True love or not, she still fell. She still sinned.”
“Stop it!” she yelled. “Stop it now! No more, Euriel.” She took a breath, her eyes hard as they remained fixed on mine. “You know, if you were human, therapists would take one session with you to determine that you probably grew up without love and nurturing, without someone to take care of you. They’d say you probably had a neglectful mother and an absent father, someone whose expectations you could never live up to. They would say you had real issues with connection and forming emotional bonds with someone because you have lived for so long without love, you don’t know how to feel it anymore! Oh wait, I guess that is you, isn’t it? Always trying to live up to Daddy’s expectations, when he’ll never give a shit about your happiness as long as he gets his scraping, cowering servants!” She turned and took a couple of steps away.
I reached forward and grabbed her arm, dragging her back around to face me. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that! How dare you? I am an angel of high rank in Heaven, I am a lord to your kind, and you dare speak to me like this?”
She struggled, trying to pull away, but I gripped her tighter, my fingers digging into her skin. Rage flowed through me, and I burned with it. She stopped fighting and stared up at me, fire flashing in her eyes. “I’ll speak to you any damn way I want to. You think you’re so high and mighty, well guess what, Euriel? You aren’t any better than the rest of us. In fact, you’re worse. You think I haven’t seen the way you look at me? Felt the way you kiss me? You condemn those who fall in love for the sole reason that you are fucking jealous, because you haven’t got the balls to take the risk yourself.”
I lost control as her words sent me over the edge, and I plunged into that burning pit of wrath in my chest. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard. “Shut up! Just stop!”
She placed her hands on my chest, bracing herself against me. “Truth hurts, doesn’t it? You’re a fucking coward, Lord Euriel. You’re pathetic.”
Fury blazed through me, and suddenly, my hands were tangled in her windswept hair, pulling her savagely against me, as my mouth took hers. I wasn’t gentle. I couldn’t be. I kissed her hard, passionately, pouring all of myself into it as a dam burst within my soul. Her taste, her scent overwhelmed my senses, and I needed more. Not caring about the wind, I shoved her jacket down her arms and let it drop to the ground. Dragging her top up, I wrapped my hands around the smooth skin of her waist and pulled her against me. The feel of her skin, so soft and silky and warm, thrilled me so completely. She was kissing me back just as hard, one hand on the nape of my neck, pulling me in, and the other fumbling with my belt. I knew I should stop her, but I couldn’t. I felt utterly powerless, and at the same time, powerful beyond measure.
My hand slid upwards, cupping the smooth skin of her breast, my memory darting back to that time in the hotel room when I had kissed her as Alex pleasured her. I’d watched, unable to drag my eyes away, hating him with every fibre of my being as his mouth moved over her body. My rage flared in me again, and I stepped back, breaking the kiss as I looked down to where my hands gripped the top of her trousers. With one jerk, I ripped them open, the buttons flying off. Faith gasped, and then my hand was sliding between her legs. I wasn’t there to be gentle or to pleasure her. I just wanted to feel her, every single inch of her, to know what I had been missing. I sank my fingers into her, and she cried out my name. My belt finally came loose, and her hand closed around the shaft of my cock.
I nearly exploded from her touch. I groaned as she began to move, stroking me, her thumb rubbing across the tip, and I took her mouth again. As her tongue curled around mine, I pulled my hand away and broke the kiss to slide my fingers into my mouth, finally getting a taste of what I had seen Alex take. My eyes fixed on hers, which were wide and green, her pupils dilated. Her lips were parted and swollen, and she was breathing hard. As I watched, her tongue swept across her bottom lip. I reached up and gripped her hair, forcing her down on her knees in front of me. Grabbing my cock, I pushed it into that sinful mouth, watching as her lips slid over my shaft.
I bit my lip, trying neither to curse or to blaspheme, but I was starting to understand why people did. Holding her hair tightly, I began to slide my cock in and out of her mouth, barely giving her time to breathe. I wanted to take her completely, I wanted her to be mine. I wanted her to know I was no coward, that I was as strong as any other she took into her body. She gagged as I forced myself down her throat, and I pulled back, only to slam in again and again.
I was an angel lord, I told myself. I was more than she, a mere human with some pitiful magical abilities, and she would know her place. Her hands gripped my thighs, and I could feel her trying to push away. For a second, guilt surged through me, and I froze then began to pull away. Her hands slipped around to my ass, holding me in place as she shifted her position, angling her head and sliding forward. I groaned as she took me even deeper, and my hands twisted in her hair, holding her in place as I took my pleasure from those lips that had cursed and tormented me for so long. Harder and faster, I slipped into her mouth, the heat and wetness surrounding me. As I watched her lips moving over me, she shifted again, looking straight up into my eyes with those emerald orbs of hers. For a moment, I wanted to look away, but the sight of her on her knees in front of me, serving me, worshipping me with her body only made me harder, and the rage and fire and damnation that burned deep inside rose up to consume me. I felt my release approaching, and the thought shocked me back to reality. I was a lord of angels, and she wasn’t going to make me fall.
Sliding out, I wrapped my hand around her throat and dragged her to her feet. The thought of holding her wild spirit helpless in my hands made my cock ache with need, but I ignored it. I stared hard into her eyes, but the damn woman still met my gaze head-on, even as she choked for air.
“Pathetic, am I? Remember this the next time you try to judge a lord. No matter how hard you fought, you still ended up on your knees in submission.” I released my grip, turning to push my rock-hard cock back into my trousers. When I was presentable once more, I turned back around to find she had done the same. She didn’t speak, and this time, she didn’t try to meet my eyes. I moved forward and picked her up once again. Despite the desire burning through me, and the temptation to commit the darkest of sins with this wanton succubus, I stepped off the edge of the cliff, spreading my wings to catch the air currents. The sweltering rage began to dampen within me, but my emotions churned in my heart, and for a moment, I considered dropping us to dash upon the rocks and end the pain and torment that haunted me. Instead, I fixed my eyes on the darkening sky and soared higher, away from the crashing waves below.
