Warrior (Fallen)

by Kristina Douglas

  But the visions never listened. Closing my eyes only brought the pictures into clearer focus; running didn’t help. I curled in on myself and endured, as the couple moved on the bed. I could see the man’s face, angelically beautiful, devilishly wicked, as he slowly thrust into the woman beneath him. She looked up into his face, and it was my body he was pleasuring. The dream-Martha tried to move, but her hands were tied above her head with a soft, silk scarf. There was no coercion; this was play, and I watched it in fascinated horror. I wanted to say something, to stop the power of the dream, but all I could hear was a moan coming from my throat as the visions sliced through me, the pain ripping at me. Yet this time that pain was mixed with deep, forbidden pleasure.

  It vanished. One moment I was writhing in sexual ecstasy beneath the dark angel, the next I was alone in my room, huddled and shaking on the hard floor, early-morning sunlight streaking the room. The mist was gone with the vision, leaving me incomplete, my body still tingling with a shameful, absurd arousal. I had learned nothing new, nothing helpful. Only that a dark angel was coming.

  And he was coming for me.

  I pushed to my feet, using the wall to steady myself. I was shaking, my heart pounding, my head aching, but I had long since trained myself to ignore it. I straightened the dream-tossed bedding on my narrow cot before heading into the utilitarian bathroom. The hot shower helped, easing some of the tension from my muscles, beating against my oddly sensitized skin. It was as if I could still feel his touch. And my own arousal. I shook my head, wiping the moisture from the mirror, and looked at myself dispassionately.

  The bonded mates of the Fallen aged differently than they would have in the human world they’d left. I was thirty-one, and looked ten years younger. I would live to the century mark and well beyond, if the violence inherent in the lives of the Fallen didn’t kill me first. I looked normal, calm; my short curly brown hair fluffed around my narrow face, my changeable eyes a calm sea-green today. I had bitten my lip during the vision, though I couldn’t remember when, and my mouth looked bee-stung, as if I’d been thoroughly, relentlessly kissed. But if anyone looked at me they would never know I’d spent the last hour wrapped in pain. Wrapped in sex.

  Then again, no one ever looked at me too closely. In Sheol, as in the human world, widows were invisible. My dubious gifts were valued, my presence welcomed and cared for. But, in the end, I mattered to no one.

  The ominous rumble of thunder broke through my brief flash of self-pity, a welcome distraction. I shoved my fingers through my hair, then went to dress as the thunder grew louder.

  I heard the sizzle of lightning, followed by a crash that seemed to shake the earth, and an eerie blue light speared into my room. I froze, panic filling me. He was coming now, and I had to warn them.

  Not bothering with shoes, I raced along the corridor, dodging the sleepy inhabitants who’d emerged from their rooms to observe the storm. I had to get to Raziel as fast as I could, to give him a belated warning.

  I raced around a corridor, almost slamming into the Archangel Michael, but one look from his dark eyes and I slowed to a brisk walk. Panic wouldn’t help anyone.

  “Where is Raziel?” I resisted the impulse to grab his shirt and force an answer as another bolt of lightning slammed down, followed by a roar of thunder.

  “On the beach,” he said shortly. “It’s dangerous out there—if you can wait, you’d be safer. Unless . . . do you know anything about this?”

  Suspicion and annoyance were in his voice, and I couldn’t blame him. He had already been a victim of my half-assed visions, and even if it brought him Tory, he still held a grudge. “I don’t,” I said, semi-truthfully. Because I didn’t know. I could only guess.

  People were moving now, heading out onto the beach in the midst of the lightning storm, an act of utter insanity. Few things could kill fallen angels, usually only other unearthly creatures or the open flames that poisoned them. But what about the fierce power of lightning? And what would it do to the human wives who moved out into the storm?

  “It can’t wait,” I said. If it brought an end to my existence, then so be it. I pushed past him, moving through the open doors, out onto the beach, searching for Raziel’s tall form among so many.

  The moment I set foot on the beach all hell broke loose, as if the storm had released its final restraint. It crashed down with the ferocity of a caged monster who finally broke its chains. The sky turned black, roiling with angry clouds, the only light the almost constant bolts of lightning slamming into the ground, into the sea, shaking the very pillars of the earth. The roar of the wind battled with the constant, deafening thunder, and I felt the wind catch my loose clothes and plaster them against my body. I stood and watched the end of the world.

  Raziel loomed up out of the chaos, fury vibrating through him. “Do you know anything about this?” he demanded, somehow being heard over the noise.

  Time to face the music, I thought miserably. Raziel needed any information I had, as insubstantial as it was. “Someone’s coming.”

  The wind caught my voice and whipped it away, but he heard anyhow. “Who?” he shouted.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

  “Who?” he repeated.

  I heard the sizzle, and my ears popped, my face burnt with the sudden heat, and in the midst of the beach something burst into flames. Flames that could consume the Fallen, destroy them.

  People scattered in panic, some heading into the healing safety of the furious sea, some running toward the house. I stood transfixed, staring at the column of flame, Raziel motionless by my side, as the form of a man appeared in the midst of the blaze.

  Not a man—an angel. I could see the wings outlined against the orange-red glow, and I stifled my horrified cry. I had seen the agonizing devastation fire could wreak on the angels, even a spark, and this poor angel was consumed by it.

  I watched, unable to turn away, expecting him to disintegrate into ash. No one moved to help him, no one could. They all stared at the culmination of their worst nightmares come to fruition.

  He didn’t scream. Didn’t thrash or struggle. Instead, he stepped forward, out of the flame, and it dissolved behind him, leaving him standing there, untouched, his deep-hued wings spread out behind him as he surveyed the people around him.

  And then the angel smiled, the most devilish, charming, diabolical smile, as he snapped his fingers. The fire vanished. The sky cleared instantly, the wind dropped, the thunder and lightning gone as if it had never consumed their universe. He looked around him at the shocked faces, almost benevolently.

  “I always did know how to make an entrance,” he said.

  I could feel the fury vibrating through Raziel, so fierce and powerful it reached into me as well. “Cain,” he said in tones of utter loathing. “I should have known.”

  See where it all began in . . .

  THE FALLEN: RAZIEL

  The first book in Kristina Douglas’s sexy, exciting fallen angel series

  I WAS RUNNING LATE, WHICH was no surprise. I always seemed to be in a rush—there was a meeting with my editors halfway across Manhattan, I had a deposit to make before the end of the business day, my shoes were killing me, and I was so hungry I could have eaten the glass and metal desk I’d been allotted at my temp job at the Pitt Foundation.

  “Shouldn’t you be heading out, Allie?” Elena, my overworked supervisor, glanced over at me. “You won’t have time to get to the bank if you don’t leave now.”

  Crap. Two months and already Elena had pegged me as someone chronically late. “I won’t be back,” I called out as I hobbled toward the elevator. Elena waved absently good-bye, and moments later I was alone in the elevator, starting the sixty-three-floor descent.

  It was a cool October afternoon, with Halloween only a few days off. The sidewalks were busy as usual, and the bank was across the street. I could always walk and eat a hot dog at the same time, I thought, heading over to the luncheon cart. I’d done it often e
nough.

  With my luck there had to be a line. I bounced nervously, shifting my weight, and the man in front of me turned around.

  I’d lived in New York long enough to make it a habit not to look at people on the street. Here in midtown, most of the women were taller, thinner, and better dressed than I was, and I didn’t like feeling inadequate. I never made eye contact with anyone, not even with Harvey the hot-dog man, who’d served me daily for the last two months.

  So why was I looking up, way up, into a pair of eyes that were . . . God, what color were they? A strange shade between black and gray, shot with striations of light so that they almost looked silver. I was probably making a fool of myself, but I couldn’t help it. Never in my life had I seen eyes that color, though that shouldn’t surprise me since I avoided looking in the first place.

  But even more astonishing, those eyes were watching me thoughtfully. Beautiful eyes in a beautiful face, I realized belatedly. I didn’t like men who were too attractive, and that term was mild when it came to the man looking down at me, despite my four-inch heels.

  He was almost angelically handsome, with his high cheekbones, his aquiline nose, his streaked brown and golden hair. It was precisely the tawny shade I’d tried to get my colorist to replicate, and she’d always fallen woefully short.

  “Who does your hair?” I blurted out, trying to startle him out of his abstraction.

  “I am as God made me,” he said, and his voice was as beautiful as his face. Low-pitched and musical, the kind of voice to seduce a saint. “With a few modifications,” he added, with a twist of dark humor I couldn’t understand.

  His gorgeous hair was too long—I hated long hair on men. On him it looked perfect, as did the dark leather jacket, the black jeans, the dark shirt.

  To hell with the hot dog—my best bet was to get away from this too-attractive stranger, drop off the deposit, and hope to God I could find a taxi to get me across town to my meeting. I was already ten minutes late. I stepped out into the street, which was momentarily free of traffic.

  It happened in slow motion, it happened in the blink of an eye. One of my high heels snapped, my ankle twisted, and the sudden rain was turning the garbage on the street into a river of filth. I slipped, going down on one knee, and I could feel my stockings shred, my skirt rip, my carefully arranged hair plastered limp and wet around my ears.

  I looked up, and there it was, a crosstown bus ready to smack into me. Another crack of thunder, the bright white sizzle of lightning, and everything went calm and still. Just for a moment.

  And then it was a blur of noise and action. I could hear people screaming, and to my astonishment money was floating through the air like autumn leaves, swirling downward in the heavy rain. The bus had come to a stop, slanted across the street, and horns were honking, people were cursing, and in the distance I could hear the scream of sirens. Pretty damned fast response for New York, I thought absently.

  The man was standing beside me, the beautiful one from the hot-dog stand. He was just finishing a chili dog, entirely at ease, and I remembered I was famished. If I was going to get held up by a bus accident, I might as well get a chili dog. But for some reason, I didn’t want to turn around.

  “What happened?” I asked him. He was tall enough to see over the crowds of people clustered around the front of the bus. “Did someone get hurt?”

  “Yes,” he said in that rich, luscious voice. “Someone was killed.”

  I started toward the crowd, curious, but he caught my arm. “You don’t want to go there,” he said. “There’s no need to go through that.”

  I glanced back up at the rain-drenched accident scene in front of me, and I thought I caught a glimpse of the victim—just the brief sight of my leg, wearing my shoe, the heel broken off.

  “No,” said the man beside me, and he put a hand on my arm before I could move away.

  The bright light was blinding, dazzling, and I was in a tunnel, light whizzing past me, the only sound the whoosh of space moving at a dizzying speed. Space Mountain, I thought, but this was no Disney ride.

  It stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and I felt sick. I was disoriented and out of breath; I looked around me, trying to get my bearings.

  The man still held my arm loosely, and I yanked it free, stumbling away from him. We were in the woods, in some sort of clearing at the base of a cliff, and it was already growing dark. The sick feeling in my stomach began to spread to the rest of my body.

  I fought my way through the mists of confusion—my mind felt as if it were filled with cotton candy. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

  “Don’t struggle,” the man beside me said in a remote voice. “It only makes it worse. If you’ve lived a good life, you have nothing to be afraid of.”

  I looked at him in horror. Lightning split open the sky, followed by thunder that shook the earth. The solid rock face in front of us began to groan, a deep, rending sound that echoed to the heavens. It started to crack apart, and I remembered something from Christian theology about stones moving and Christ rising from the dead.

  “The bus,” I said flatly. “I got hit by the bus. I’m dead, aren’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  I sure as hell wasn’t going quietly. “Are you an angel?” I demanded. He didn’t feel like one. He felt like a man, a distinctly real man, and why the hell was I suddenly feeling alert, alive, aroused, when according to him I was dead?

  His eyes were oblique, half-closed. “Among other things.”

  Kicking him in the shin and running like hell seemed an excellent plan, but I was barefoot and my body wasn’t feeling cooperative. As angry and desperate as I was, I still seemed to want him to touch me, even when I knew he had nothing good in mind. Angels didn’t have sex, did they? They didn’t even have sexual organs, according to the movie Dogma. I found myself glancing at his crotch, then quickly pulled my gaze away. What the hell was I doing checking out an angel’s package when I was about to die?

  Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten—I was already dead. And all my will seemed to have vanished. He drew me toward the crack in the wall, and I knew with sudden clarity it would close behind me like something out of a cheesy movie, leaving no trace that I’d ever lived. Once I went through, it would all be over.

  “This is as far as I go,” he said, his rich, warm voice like music. And with a gentle tug on my arm, he propelled me forward, pushing me into the chasm.

  KRISTINA DOUGLAS

  lives with her husband in the dark woods of northern Vermont. She is also the author of Raziel and Demon, the first two novels in her electrifying series, The Fallen. As prolific author Anne Stuart, she has written nearly one hundred novels, including her New York Times bestselling Ice series.

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