Broken Halo: Fallen Angels Trilogy, Book One Read online

  “And you are closing your eyes to the reality of the situation. Do you know the power you give me when you bury your head in the ground? I can feel the heat of desire permeating off every luscious curve of your body. I can smell the pheromones radiating from you. You are hopelessly bewitched by me and not simply because of the provocative show the Hemingway’s put on for us.” He stepped closer until she could feel the brawny fire of his body fanning her own in the mere inches that separated them.

  She saw movement coming from behind him and knew that Jude and Hannah had risen from the bed to wash their genitals off at the washbasin before they slept. Their sweet endearments and mutual chortling were lost in the darkness that seemed to block their nude physiques from her sight until only the clothed, strong body of Nimbus remained.

  “Look at me, sweet girl.”

  Her eyes stung at the old pet name, but she couldn't look at him. He had lulled to her softly before and at other times demanded she forsake the light and join him, but he had never dared to touch her so intimately, nor conveyed such depth of emotion before.

  The long, thick finger that hooked under her chin felt like magma against her skin as he angled her chin to meet the vessel of lust and jurisdiction his eyes had become. “There was a time when you would have obeyed my command. I still outrank you, you know.”

  “In another kingdom. Your authority there means nothing to me.” When Sonya tried to pull away his grip on her chin tightened.

  “You are so beautiful, Sonya.” He coursed the fingers of his free hand through her dark tresses affectionately like she always imagined him doing, only the manifestation of the fantasy was so much richer than she ever fathomed it being, “Such a waste to let so much loveliness go unseen and untouched. Your body was made for pleasure. Your will designed to be overcome. Your spirit broken, until you willingly live and breathe to please your master.”

  His words were a dark caress of a nirvana she had never tasted. The teasing kiss of a forbidden paradise that loomed dangerously near, but tauntingly just beyond reach. One could fantasize if they dared, but did one called to be set apart endeavor to reach out for the lush promise of illicit pleasures that were sure to end in damnation?

  How could she look at someone so evil and see only good? How could she salivate for a liaison that would be cursed in heaven and could only be regarded as right by the powers of darkness? Mankind made that mistake long ago - casting a second glance at forbidden fruit. Touching, tasting and now like many of the former angels, they were fallen. She must not follow in their footsteps.

  “Just one kiss, Sonya. God isn't going to throw you out of heaven for that.” Nimbus leaned in, the hush of his spellbinding murmur sending an array of lascivious thoughts through her head.

  The humid warmth of his breath fanned her face and there was something profoundly spiritual about breathing in the very air he had held in his lungs only a second ago. If only for that brief moment, time stood still and nothing else mattered, only that their spirits were communing as one. The racy thoughts of each of them seemed to ignite mentally into one flame that brought them closer together until Sonya couldn't deny that they were of one mind.

  With his inviting, supple lips closing in slowly, she realized that she held it in her power to make them of one body as well, or to walk away. It was her decision. Before she had looked upon his provocative suggestions as impossible, but now they seemed very possible, even likely in the face of temptation. Was he getting into her head and trying to control her mind, or was she making a conscious decision to surrender to him?

  Sonya snapped herself out of the erogenous haze. His strength inhibited her gentle attempt at retreat as he held her face still and moved in again. “I will call on one of the archangels if you don't leave now.”

  He released her with a sigh of frustration. “You won't always be able to hide behind them, Sonya. Someday you and I will be on the same side.”

  The tepid air filling the void that appeared between them when he stepped away from her, felt cool and desolate. If she had been ashamed of her subtle acceptance of his designs on her before, she was utterly stunned by the sense of desertion she felt from the space he put between them. “We will never be on the same side.”

  His tone softened. “We were once.”

  Her chest felt tight and heavy in lieu of the achy spasm in her heart. The unbidden tears would not be withheld this time. “Before you betrayed me – I mean God.”

  His gorgeous eyes narrowed. “You betrayed me.”

  “Me? I'm not the one who joined a rebellion.” The tears came faster and she cursed the dreaded sniffle that inevitably removed all doubt from his mind that she was weeping, “Why did you leave me?”

  His answer stabbed her heart. “Why didn't you come with me?”

  The pierced look in his eyes seeped into her soul. He dropped his shields and his weapons and there was no more warring between kingdoms of light and darkness. No loyal angel and vile demon. There was only a broken man and a crushed woman who had something they never fully understood until they lost it. Or perhaps the true curse was the potential that they never really lost what they shared. Its ghost lived on in memories and dreams; in hopes and fantasies.

  I almost did. Sonya didn't dare say this for fear he would use it against her.

  He stared at her long and hard for a moment as though he was waiting for her to speak those words to him, or to say anything at all. When she didn't, he left, but not before vowing: “It won't always be like this. Next time you weep it will be on my shoulder. And next time you shudder it won't be in fear. You will tremble with delight at my touches. One day you will worship me as your master and you will bow before me.”

  Her stomach turned in revulsion over his sacrilegious speech. Only the moisture gathering in her folds revealed her elation. “You speak blasphemies.”

  “I swear an oath,” his raised voice startled her, “when you give into your risqué yearnings, I will be the one to enlighten you on your descent into ecstasy. When your will bends it will be to mine, when you bear a child it will be my blood running through his veins. When you draw your final breath it will be my name on your lips.”

  Sonya was hypnotized by his words even as they disturbed her. “God would never allow it.”

  “You will allow it. Your curiosity will pave the road to your ruin. I have you, Sonya. I always did and I see now that I always will. Your downfall will be my greatest triumph.”

  His heartless taunting scourged her, while his words evoked images of a chain ensnaring her heart. He was walking away with the key and she would always be ruined because of it - damaged without him, but damned with him. “Maybe you could...”

  “Repent? Why would I do that?”

  His smirk milked a tear from her eye that almost seemed as though it endeavored to comfort her on its slow, soothing journey down her cheek. “Why not? Some of the fallen angels realized the error of their ways and pleaded forgiveness. God in his mercy made them cruxim to -”

  “Prove their repentance by slaying and feeding off of vampires,” Nimbus finished with obvious annoyance, “Yes, I know. Spare me the lengthy history lesson. Why would I want to be a half breed? Black angels are worthless to God and Satan because they have broken faith with both sides and are gods unto themselves.”

  “But at least they are contrite of heart. You pandered after evil and coveted the deity of the Almighty and you don't even feel remorseful.”

  “And neither will you when I'm through with you,” he promised her darkly, “I will change you, Sonya. No matter how long it takes to acquire you, or what I have to do to break you, I will do it.”

  Sonya quivered at this, her sudden bout of anger immobilizing the current of tears. “You will try.”

  “And I will succeed.” His salacious eyes honed in on her voluptuous chest until the nipples pebbled beneath the weight of his shameless gaze.

  She averted her eyes to fend off humiliation at being reduced to an object of lust to h
im; yet strangely, it was this same awareness that had her clitoris pulsing with need. “I don't believe you would risk damning my soul in the name of coitus.”

  “It is that precise naivety of thinking that makes you vulnerable to a truly malignant being.”

  “Regardless, you cannot expect for an angel and a demon to mate and escape the wrath of God.”

  He heaved a sigh, only to give her a smile that was pure evil. “Then I will just have to make you a demon too, won't I?”

  Her jaw dropped in horror. “Impossible.”

  “Not exactly. You are aware of the mating and claiming rituals between shape shifters, whereby they are irrevocably and unconditionally bound to one another forever, yes?” He continued when she nodded, “And you are aware that when a human is claimed by a shifter and bitten during that ritual, they eventually become whatever creature their mate is?”

  Chills of raw fear and understanding snaked up and down her spine. “But that can't be the case with demons. They have no soul and it would be wrong.”

  The promise of absolution resonated in the hot, dark timbre of his gentle murmur. “An entity doesn't have to possess a soul in order to be bound to someone eternally and irreversibly...do they, Sonya?”

  Her eyes fell, heart sinking at the sense of loss flooding her mind in a thousand different words and memories all doomed to eternal separation because of one agonizing, fateful decision he made long ago. “I...I don't want that, Nimbus. I don't believe you would do that to me.”

  “Then you are a fool!” He hissed, “I sold my soul for power and knowledge. Do not think for a minute that I would not be willing to go to even greater lengths to obtain you.”

  Sonya shivered. The vow was equal parts flattering and sheer desecration. She watched him leave, relief warring with abandonment.

  She watched Jude and Hannah sleeping peacefully in each others' arms and for the first time since she had become Hannah's guardian, she felt a tinge of envy at what they had.

  Jude held no belief in God while Hannah was devoted to her faith. She married a nonbeliever, but she wasn't being punished for it. They respected each others' differences, but an angel and a demon would only be able to go so far before others followed and incurred judgment for their perversions.

  Still, she had seen the love of the Father and his mercies. Her loyalty was a sincere one, but so was her affection for Nimbus. She wished they weren't on opposing sides, but she had made the only wise decision to make during that rebellion. Of course, Cassiel was the one who gently held her back and opened her eyes to the folly of the rash decision she almost made that day. He saved her in a sense and she lived a glorious existence.

  On the other hand, whenever Nimbus showed up randomly in her life as he sometimes did, doubt began to sow its poisonous seeds in her. Cassiel had definitely saved her that day from a fate worse than death. Then again, she sometimes wondered if he had simply prolonged the inevitable.

  Chapter Two

  Binding Kiss

  Six months later the sky was gray and dismal as the cool rain drizzled softly over the English countryside. A certain young, English gentleman stood reticent and grief-stricken before a stone epitaph. His wordless state was as cold and silent as the grave before his saturated, crystal-blue eyes. Eyes Sonya knew all too well.

  It always choked her up when human beings lost loved ones, particularly their spouses, but scenarios such as the one Jude Hemingway had fallen prey to only days prior, ripped her heart in two. Hannah was being welcomed into heaven by the Father, saints and all the starry hosts – Sonya knew this full well and could rejoice over it. But where did that leave poor Jude? A quiet man whom Hannah had convinced to break his addiction to strong liquor, but without her light radiating in his life, what was to stop the lord of the manor from returning to his former vices in an attempt to drown out the pain of losing his wife in childbirth?

  Light footsteps behind Sonya told her someone was approaching. The subdued swishing of a long overcoat too faint to be heard by a human, told her the individual was male. A dusky English accent that reeked of virility breached the damp stillness of the morning. “I'm sorry for your loss.”

  She might have supposed the condolences to be extended to Jude, but she knew that voice a little too well for comfort. The sound of it lingered in the cool, crisp morning air and smothered her senses as possessively as the humidity in the atmosphere filled her lungs with its cool, enveloping presence. The effects of cold weather could be shaken off and the moist air simply exhaled once it had served its intended purpose in her lungs, but not so with the repercussions of hearing that unmatched voice. It got under her skin and never left. It filled her with strange, wondrous sensations that settled in places they should never touch, let alone dwell in.

  Sonya kept her back to him, still lost in her tears and unable to take her eyes off Jude. “What are you doing here, Nimbus?”

  “I have come to comfort you.”

  “I don't need your promiscuous touches to ease the pain of that man's suffering.”

  He stood to the side and slightly behind her. “I merely meant to speak comforting words to you and place my hand gently on your shoulder like this.”

  His palm felt heavy, or perhaps it was the power in such a large hand, or the hellish heat of his touch that felt like a hot iron pressing down on her shoulder. Once he knew she wasn't threatened by his touch, he lightened the overbearing pressure and the gentle rubbing there became soothing.

  “There now, that wasn't so horrible, was it?” he asked mockingly.

  “What will happen to him?” She didn't expect an answer, merely spoke her thoughts aloud.

  “His future is his own to determine. You needn't concern yourself with it. I'm sure they will dispatch you with another soul to play protector over now that your charge is gone.”

  She faced him, eyes blurred by tears while her tone was spiked with anger. “Souls are not cattle to me, Nimbus. Each one is individual and special, made in the image of God, each with their quirks and interests. Hannah's departure has left a void in Jude's soul that no one can ever fill again, no matter who, or what he tries to replace her with. He will always be incomplete without her, because she left.”

  A note of understanding rang in Nimbus' tone. “Left?”

  Sonya caught herself. “Died. She died and left him.”

  “And your compassionate nature feels especially drawn to this man because you can relate to his sorrow, his unconscionable loss.” He trailed a curled finger up the nape of her neck, “You see yourself in him; thus your heart goes out to him all the more. You feel compelled to save the miserable wretch from your own tragic fate. The scenario wears a different mask, but it is the same enemy, isn't it: eternal separation from the one who means the most to you.”

  Sonya shivered as the gentle caress seemed to awaken every nerve in her neck and the poison quickly spread to the rest of her body in a ripple of tingly chills. She pulled away and faced him again. “This isn't about you and me because there is no us and never was.”

  Nimbus was careful to keep his face decidedly neutral, but his sinister aspirations were revealed in his treacherous eyes. “Do you mean to tell me you never felt anything for me? Look at me. That you still don't, even now?”

  Sonya was about to deny this when she caught the glimpse of another minion of hell from her peripheral. This one was in his demonic form. Her scalp prickled with dread when she realized what was happening. They were waiting for her – waiting for her to deny her feelings – to lie. If she sinned, she would be in danger of being cast out of the holy kingdom and turned into one of them. Her manner became haughty. “I will not tell a lie, Nimbus, nor will I answer your question.”

  The monster in the distance shrieked fiercely and fled.

  “Leave her.” Cassiel.

  Nimbus glared at the archangel before whispering into Sonya's ear. “If you ever need a favor, I am your servant. Why should there be enmity between old friends?”

  “I
said leave,” Cassiel repeated more firmly.

  Nimbus' eyes searched hers for a brief moment of near humanity before he turned and departed. Sonya watched him leave, both astonished and confused by his offer of service. He always claimed he wanted to be her master and mate, but now he was submitting himself to her whims as a servant all in the name of a friendship they lost thousands of years ago? Did he have a change of heart, or was this simply a clever trick of his? He did have a reputation for being cunning and conniving, but there was sincerity in his eyes and eyes couldn't lie like the mouth could...could they?

  “Are you all right?” Cassiel asked.

  She nodded. “It is time for me to return?”

  “Yes. Come.”

  ***

  Sonya couldn't stop thinking about Jude Hemingway. She was currently in London with a close guardian friend watching over the children in an orphanage, but sometimes at night while the other angel protected the young ones, she stole away to the manor to see how the widower was fairing. Her heart ached at how he was always either drinking brandy or opium when he wasn't lying unconscious on the floor. He was wasting his life, but he wouldn't if he had Hannah, or some form of companionship.

  On this particular night, she entered his bed chamber to find him standing on a stool with a noose around his neck. She didn't know whether she was visible to human eyes at this point or not, because in this imminent danger nothing mattered but rescuing Jude from his own folly.

  “Jude, no!” Sonya grabbed him as he deliberately stepped off the stool supporting his weight. She flew into the air, catching him in her arms and hovering mid-air with her wings. She wrapped her legs around him to hold him in place, realizing with only subtle alarm and even keener interest that the man wasn't wearing any clothes.

  “Damned brandy,” he muttered with an inebriated hiccup.

  She used her hands to undo the knot and gently fluttered over to the bed to lay him down gently. “Are you all right, sir?”