by Layna Snow
Fallen into Hell
Fallen, Book 2
By: Layna Snow
Copyright
Published by Layna Snow
Copyright 2019 Layna Snow
Edited by Layna Snow
This book contains content that is not suitable for readers 17 and younger.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Violating this copyright can result in prosecution as well as a fine.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and establishments are from the author’s imagination and any resemblance to real people or places are accidental.
Other Books by Layna Snow
Fallen Series
Fallen Melody
Mythos Series
Magic Mirror
The Ball
Cursed Needle
About
She’s been to Hell and back.
Sophie Torres had a difficult life. She lost the ability to speak, her sister fell into a coma, and Sophie was shot trying to stop a kidnapping. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she has recently discovered that mythical creatures actually exist! Now she is determined to do whatever it takes to save her sister. Even if that means going to Hell.
They burn for her.
While in Hell, Sophie expects to meet all sorts of horrific creatures. What she doesn’t expect is to be seduced by two of the most attractively dangerous men she has ever met. Two Fallen Warrior Angels who tempt her to abandon her plans. Sin luxuriates in pleasure and pain, anything to feel something. Thanatos, a gigantic deadly Warrior, didn’t intend to Lust, but he Fell anyway. His moral compass demands that he continue to fulfil his Angelic duties, but the heat between the three of them won’t be denied.
Will they catch fire, or will their love go up in smoke?
Two opposites linked by a lifetime of pain. While she submits to them, she can’t forget her mission. Their bonds hold her, but her duties and growing danger threatens to pull her away.
Dedication
This is dedicated to my boyfriend. He has always supported me, taking on tasks that are new or frustrating. He lets me eat his food, and gives me his things. Most of all, he took on editing this book when the world seemed to be falling apart and everything was going wrong. He is my rock, and my partner. Most of all, he is REDICULOUS!
Table of contents
Copyright
Other Books by Layna Snow
About
Dedication
Table of contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
Epilogue
Sneak Peek of Fallen in Disguise: Fallen book 3
Glossary of Terms
About the Author
1
What was that?
The sound had come from her left, off into the vast darkness. Had it been something scurrying? Maybe it was something that had scented her. Oh gosh! Something could attack her so easily. And she wouldn’t even be able to scream. It was a terrifying thought, one that Sophie Torres had many times since she entered this dark cave.
It hadn’t been difficult to find the place that Melody mentioned had the Hellgate. She just googled Carls, Mexico and the US. Of course, there were many pages about both countries but she had finally narrowed it down to Carlsbad, New Mexico. After that, it had gotten a little harder.
Carlsbad was a huge national park that had many caves. They were beautiful, but really creepy, and they were surrounded by a desert. Sophie wasn’t used to sand and sunbaked rocks. She had been born and raised in northern Ontario, and she had grown used to the wilderness.
She never imagined that she would be scouring a cave for a way to get into Hell. Geeze, she hadn’t even known that Hell was real! But a few months ago she had been kidnapped along with Melody, who was a real life Fallen Angel!
Who would have thought that supernatural beings actually existed?
Sophie had been born with a Mexican immigrant father and a Catholic Canadian mother. She went to church, and she had heard stories from her dad’s people about Angels, but up until a few months ago, she hadn’t believed they were real!
What else was out there? Vampires, Werewolves, Bigfoot?
It was a stupid thought. Who believed in Bigfoot? But she couldn’t deny anything now. Not with all the weird things that had been happening.
And then one day, when Melody—who went by Mel—was visiting her in the hospital after almost dying, she saw the Angel’s wing scars. That proved something, right?
Besides, only an Angel would put up with both Seth and Caleb. But she had married them. Well, technically not both of them. That was illegal. But she did have a ceremony with them. Sophie went and it was beautiful. She couldn’t help but cry as she watched them pledge their love to each other.
Not only was it very sweet and touching, but Sophie couldn’t help but think about how the Angel compared to her.
Envy wasn’t usually a big part in Sophie’s life. She hardly ever let the green monster in, preferring to think about the good things in her life. But she was 24, single, scarred, mute, and…well she had to admit that she was lonely.
Most of her family lived hours away. Her older sister wanted nothing to do with her. Not to mention that her twin sister had been in a coma for the last six years.
Sophie wanted to look on the bright side. She wanted to enjoy her life, but she couldn’t help but want what Melody had.
Not necessarily two men, but one. Someone to go through everything with her.
But deep in her heart, she’d give up that dream for a chance to have her twin back.
That was the reason she was trudging through caves in the first place.
Another sound caught her attention, this time, a low level crackle. It kind of sounded like a fire from far away. Surely there wasn’t someone else in here! The park was closed, no one was allowed to enter.
But that didn’t mean anything.
Sophie was in there. Someone else could have broken in. She wasn’t exactly the sneakiest person in the world, so no doubt she wasn’t the only one who had ever done this. No, she wasn’t usually bad. She was the good girl, the one who followed the rules.
But now she was breaking them for her sister. She would do anything for Annabel.
Sophie stopped to listen, cocking her head this way and that, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from.
The tunnel to the left.
Not that the knowledge helped much. Now she needed to figure out if she wanted to stay away from the noise or move towards it. It could be a person who had a fire going, although where would the smoke go? It might be something else. An animal?
Of course, she was going to Hell. It could be one of the horrendous creatures that Melody had talked about.
Or, it could be the Hellgate.
Could it possibly be? She had been walking around the must
y tunnels for hours now. Stalactites—or were they stalagmites?—hung from the ceiling, making her duck or move to avoid them. They looked like giant icicles made of rock, something that both intrigued and terrified her.
What if they fell?
The ground was uneven too, which meant that Sophie spent a whole lot of time looking down and aiming her flashlight at the floor. It was either that or trip, and Sophie was clumsy as it was.
She didn’t want to fall somewhere in here, only to have her body discovered years later, decaying.
Gosh, that was a bad thought. And it made her shiver.
That could very well happen. It wasn’t like anyone knew she was here. She had even promised Mel that she would stay away from the Hellgate. But, she hadn’t exactly said anything, so she couldn’t break her word, right? Besides, this was too important. Her sister’s life was on the line.
She couldn’t just leave things to chance. And just in case that her other idea didn’t pan out, she needed a guarantee. Too bad this wasn’t one.
She was about to deal with someone who wasn’t exactly known for having a good reputation. But it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter if she died walking through these dumb tunnels. At least then she would have died trying.
I don’t want to do this. Her mind whimpered, a sound she had come to anticipate. It was a saying, a feeling that she had felt all her life. But she always had to push past her aversion to normal life. She wanted to hide, to run away. She wanted to stay home and read. It was easier that way. It was safer. But that was no way to live. Her twin used to help push her out of her comfort zone, and now she had to try on her own. But she would persist, for Annie.
Left or straight? Left consisted of a narrow opening, one that a person could barely fit through. The ceiling had come down a great deal, the walls seemed to close in. Even the floor ground was built up by rocks. It wasn’t exactly a trail. It probably wasn’t even a path that people used. It might just be a hole for animals to crawl around in. And wasn’t that a lovely thought?
The path that she was on was large, it was big enough for her to walk in, although she wasn’t that tall. She’d guess the ceiling at around six feet high, and she was only five foot six. It was narrow, but allowed her to walk forward, instead of turning to the side, as she had to do in other places. She could keep her backpack on and everything.
But who knew what was up ahead. And would the Hellgate be in some place so open, where anyone could enter?
That had been a question she asked herself as she moved through the caves. Every time there was a fork in the road, she had to make a decision.
Sophie was sure that she was lost by now. She probably should have taken a ball of string or something to leave a trail, but she worried that someone would see it. Besides, she hadn’t packed anything. She had no idea that she would be spending her night running around in a dirty cave.
Just like before, Sophie reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a penny. Heads straight, tails left.
But she hesitated. This felt like a bigger decision. She had already done this five, or six times. But this time she would be heading towards a noise, or away from it.
Everything inside her told her to run, to leave and never return. She could feel her anxiety grow, but instead of fleeing, Sophie took a deep breath and flicked the coin into the air.
Please be heads, please! She begged the universe, whoever made luck or karma. Maybe even God.
Oh gosh! Soph couldn’t even watch the coin flip through the air, couldn’t handle the anticipation. She just stared at the dark, crumbly stone wall as she heard the coin strike off something a few times before coming to rest at her feet.
And still she looked straight forward. Heads, heads, heads. She chanted, daring herself to look at that piece of metal.
Please.
Tails.
Shoot! Sophie could feel her breath rush out of her, dread quickly replacing it. She could always pretend that it didn’t happen. She could quickly pick up the coin and hurry on, instead of squeezing through that narrow opening.
But she couldn’t. She had promised herself that she would follow whatever the coin told her. If she started chickening out now, how would she manage to cope in Hell? Would she change her mind at the first Demon sighting and flee back home with her tail between her legs?
Would she let Annie down, again?
No! She would go left, just as her penny told her to. It was too late to back out now, besides, either way could be dangerous. She didn’t know what was down here. For all she knew, there was a serial killer waiting to prey on wandering tourists. Although, that was the least of her worries. Not when compared to nightmarish beings.
Relax, Soph. Don’t go there. Even with her father’s old handgun, she didn’t feel safe. She hadn’t since she was pulled into Mel’s house by a murderous psychopath who intended to experiment on Melody.
It didn’t matter that he was dead. She knew better. She had listened while Mel talked about it all. There was someone else out there who had helped the man, someone unknown. And although all the good guys were still alive, that didn’t mean that anyone was safe.
She’d heard that while she was in the hospital there was another incident. Melody said that the Hunters took care of it, but she didn’t know what that meant.
Sophie was extra vulnerable down here, though. No good guys to rescue her.
She would have sighed if she could, but instead, she just let out a breath and picked up the traitorous piece of metal, placing it securely in her pocket. With one last look around, Soph removed her backpack, attached the flashlight to it—so that she could see what was on the other side—and pushed it through the gap in the rock, her hands burning they guided the bag into the darkness.
Burning? What the heck?
But her pack didn’t catch fire as it fell to the ground on the other side.
Something’s not right.
Of course it wasn’t! She was trying to get to Hell, she was lost and the terror and the apprehension pulsing through her veins told her to go another way, any other way! And the sound of the fire only seemed to draw closer as she sat, debating her choices. It made her want to escape it.
She didn’t see the light peeking out. Didn’t see anything but blackness on the other side. Not even a distant glow.
And it had been a long pause before the pack hit the ground. It was a long way down.
It wasn’t possible to escape now. She couldn’t reach down to get her backpack, not after it fell over to the other side. The opening in the rock wall started at knee height and stopped around her shoulder. Big enough for her to fit through.
What was waiting on the other side?
Cold shivers raced down her back. Telling her to run, to avoid the opening. But all her worldly possessions were in that pack. Not to mention food, water, and the gun!
Oh, why hadn’t she gotten a shoulder holster, or maybe a waist one? She didn’t know what would be best. She didn’t even know what kind of gun it was! She just knew that it shot the bullets that had been sitting beside it in the safe, and that it would hurt whatever got shot.
But darn! She never had to shoot anything before!
She never had to defend herself before that man tried to use her life to barter with Melody.
She was sure the pen in her pack wouldn’t protect her against Demons any better than it had protected her against that creep.
Sophie couldn’t believe that she had actually been charmed by him for a half a second before her big sister Brooke came in and overshadowed her, as always. Brooklyn was always the popular sister. Even five years older, she had gotten all the attention. Not that Soph wanted attention, but she wouldn’t have minded if the boys at school had looked at her more. Unfortunately the ones that did look at her, expected her to be just as easy as Brooke was.
Soph shook her head, bringing herself back to the present. It didn’t matter that Brooklyn was charismatic or attractive. It didn’t matter that since that d
isastrous incident Brooklyn had started to become serious and distant.
Danger did that, so did losing friends.
Sophie needed to take her head out of her butt and focus on figuring out what to do right now.
All that mattered was moving forward. She couldn’t dwell on the past. It was just an excuse not to go through the hole. She knew this, and had to ignore how tempting it was to delay further.
Get in, find someone to talk to, make my deal, then get out!
She no longer had an option. She couldn’t go back, so she dragged her feet through the opening in the wall, trying to ignore the relentless assault on her senses. However, the floor that she expected on the other side wasn’t there. She couldn’t feel the ground. Couldn’t find it with her feet.
Sophie took a deep breath and pushed her shoulders through, turning to the side to sneak past the rocks.
She could feel the jagged pieces of stone pulling at her hair, and the walls catching on her top as if trying to stop her from entering, but that was all eclipsed by the sheer pain of fire licking at her skin.
It seemed to devour her flesh, eating it hungrily and leaving only agony behind. It was like a knife slicing her skin off.
So hot that it almost felt cold.
She jerked trying desperately to pull herself out of the opening, but the rocks held her securely, no longer warning her away, but pulling her in. and she couldn’t hold onto the opening any longer for the rocks were so hot, it felt like it would melt her body in two.
Sophie knew that she couldn’t just sit here.
She had to go in.
In, where the pain had lessened some. In, where the air was stale and dark. In, where the penny had told her to go.
She was already close to passing out from the pain. What she needed was to get to her pack and find her first-aid supplies. She had to mend her wounds and move on. She didn’t know if she had enough bandages, but she had to try. She couldn’t give up now. No matter how much she wanted to.
She must have fallen two or three feet, but she still hit with a bone jarring thump.