Hope's Prelude: The Angelorum Twelve Chronicles #2.5

by L. G. O'Connor

“How do you feel?”

  “Great! So, are you going to hypnotize me?” he asked.

  Sandra suppressed a smile. “Go to my office, Cal.” His shoulders and eyelids drooped. He turned on his heel and headed toward her office.

  She returned to the lunch room, shutting the door behind her.

  “Where’s Calvin?” Tom asked, glancing over.

  “I thought it would be best if the three of us spoke alone,” she replied, taking a seat next to Isa and across from Tom. This was the first time they had been alone together as an official Trinity. Now came the hard part . . . telling him what it all meant.

  Tom furrowed his brow, and glanced at Isa. “Are we letting Isa in on the project now, too?”

  She clasped her hands tightly and shook her head. “No. It’s not about us letting Isa in. It’s about us letting you in.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, leaning back in his seat.

  Giving him a tight smile, she sighed. “I think it’s better if we show you. The genome you found? We know what it is.”

  Tom’s eyes narrowed. “But . . . how . . .”

  She rubbed Isa’s broad shoulder, and gazed into his pale blue eyes. “Ready?”

  He nodded, rose from his chair, and removed his jacket. Wearing just a black Guardian T-shirt and cargos, he stepped away from the table into the center of the kitchen.

  They exchanged another glance, and then slowly, Isa released his wings. The white feathers sprang from his shoulder blades and unfurled. With curving high ridges, they rose in all their lofty brilliance behind him until they touched the ceiling. He held them close to his sides since the room couldn’t comfortably contain his full wingspan. For added effect, Isa unleashed the glow in his eyes and a halo of light that surrounded him when he tapped into the power of his angelic side.

  He looked as if he had stepped out of a biblical drawing, just in more modern clothes.

  Tom’s chair fell backward as he scrambled out of it and pressed himself against the wall. Slack-jawed, he stood with his eyes riveted to Isa.

  She’d expected a lot of things, but not the look of horror written across his face.

  Chapter 14

  SANDRA

  “WHAT THE H-HELL ARE YOU?” Tom sputtered at Isa with a look of revulsion and wiped a hand down his face.

  Isa dipped his head as the glow disintegrated, and his wings disappeared behind him. “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said. Her heart ached for her mate. A fierce warrior, he still had a sensitive spot when it came to prejudice and rejection—something he dealt with often due to his odd coloring—especially when it came from someone he considered a friend.

  She could kick herself for her miscalculation. Maybe a conversation would’ve been more effective than throwing Tom into this situation without preamble.

  She walked over to Isa and gently clasped his arm. “He’s Nephilim, Tom. The word is Nephilim. Part man, part angel,” she said and stared up into Isa’s troubled eyes. “He’s been my mate for over three hundred years.”

  Tom slid down the wall until he was seated on the floor with bent knees. He shook his head and then dropped it into his hands. “How’s that even possible? How can this be real?” he muttered.

  “I’m sorry. This is a lot to take in,” she said.

  His head snapped up. “But you’ve . . . we’ve . . . you’re Paula’s cousin! How have you been alive for three hundred years? How’s that possible? Paula’s known you—”

  Sandra cut him off. “Paula’s known me since the day her father introduced us at her college graduation party. That was the day I took on this identity. We appeared close in age, but she had no way of knowing that my aging had slowed to a crawl when I turned twenty-one in the year of our Lord 1714. As far as she knew, we were related and Isa and I were newlyweds.”

  “You’re not my wife’s cousin?” he asked slowly, staring at her blankly. His question worried her. She tapped into their connection to determine if he was slipping into shock. He wasn’t. Good.

  Sandra shook her head. “No.”

  “Her father has known all along?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes. Paula’s family is trusted and very influential in our community.”

  There was no mistaking the mistrust in his eyes. “Why me? Why now?”

  “Come sit,” Sandra said, gesturing to the table. “I’ll explain everything.” Maybe not everything, but all the pieces he would need to know.

  She and Isa approached the table slowly and sat down.

  Tom drew himself up along the wall onto unsteady feet, dragged a chair a healthy distance away from the table, and sat.

  Sandra took a deep cleansing breath and folded her hands on the table. “Samuel Clemens, a man I greatly respected, once said, ‘The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.’ It’s the greatest truth that I’ve ever heard spoken.”

  “Wait, I’ve heard that before . . . Wasn’t that Mark Twain?” Tom asked, giving her a wary look.

  She smiled warmly. “They are one and the same. Mark Twain was his nom de plume.”

  “You make it sound like you knew him,” he said.

  She leaned closer. “But I did know him. We were both friends of Nikola Tesla. I had the pleasure of spending many days with Samuel, his wife Olivia, and their daughter, Susy, in Paris during the winter of 1894 and the spring of 1895. I was consulting with Samuel on some health issues while they were there to experience the restorative waters of the European baths. Up until fifteen years ago, that’s where Isa and I lived, Paris. I’ve been a scientist for over two hundred years, Tom. I can spend hours regaling you with stories from my long life, but none of it matters now. What matters is what’s next for all of us. Why we’re all here . . . now.”

  Tom’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Did he know what you were?”

  She nodded. “He did. You see, he was one of our most famous Soul Seekers. His mission successfully tipped the balance toward good in his lifetime. His efforts moved us one step closer to now.”

  “So, is it true? Are you immortal?”

  The tension in the room dropped, and she expelled a small laugh. “No, only what your test showed—long-lived. Isa will have a lifespan close to five hundred years.” Her smile faltered as Isa tensed next to her. Her sacrifice had lain heavy between them for years. He would never say it, but she knew a part him had never forgiven her for giving up her longevity for this mission. “But not me. I’ll age like you now.”

  Tom frowned and cocked his head. “But I don’t understand.”

  “I had to sacrifice my wings for this mission . . . to stay hidden from the Dark Ones. Proteins produced by glands found in the Nephilim wings control some of the gene expression in the rest of the body. One of those things is senescence . . . longevity. Removing the wings from a mature Nephilim doesn’t allow the body to build alternative means to substitute for those proteins . . . yet.”

  Not wanting to get Isa’s hopes up, she hadn’t told him that in the future she might have the means to restore her longevity and live out her life by his side . . . if she survived the mission. Based on her mother’s reaction earlier, her chances were probably low. But she’d worry about that later. Right now, her needs were secondary. The needs of the First of the Holy Twelve were her primary concern.

  “Who are the Dark Ones?”

  “Fallen angels. Lucifer and his faction of the heavenly host cast from Heaven after the Great War. They’re who we stand against.”

  “Knew I should’ve paid more attention in Sunday school,” Tom mumbled. He let out a long breath and pushed back his hair with his hands. “So what is it we need to do and why?”

  “We need to save a life . . . possibly using the vaccine you’re creating for Forrester. To do that we need to genetically engineer a Nephilim from a human being.”

  He snorted. “Are you out of your mind? The field isn’t even close to being ready to replicate . . . angels. God . . . this makes no
sense.”

  He dropped his head back into his palms.

  Sandra rubbed her forehead. It would take weeks to explain everything and they didn’t have that kind of time. They had a little over a year to prepare for the day Cara would need the vaccine, but she had a strong feeling they’d get much less time than that. The circumstances around how the vaccine would save Cara? Those she didn’t know, only that without it they would lose the battle, and Lucifer and his minions would rule the world.

  “Look at me. Do you want to be part of one of the most incredible projects mankind has ever known? With access to data the likes you’ve never seen before?” she asked, appealing to the scientist inside of him.

  He lifted his head. “Let me guess. If we do this, no one will ever know, right?”

  “I’m afraid not. But you’ll know, and isn’t that what matters most?”

  “Can’t you do this without me?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “That’s not how this works. Your destiny is the link to the future, not mine.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Given the convoluted nature of their Trinity, Sandra let out a sigh and decided to stick with the basics. “Isa and I are part of a team assigned to help you fulfill your role . . . which is saving the life of someone very important to the Angelorum.”

  Tom swiped a hand over his face. “And who’s the Angelorum?”

  “The three hundred angel Watchers living in human form who were sent to keep the balance between good and evil; the ones who protect mankind from Lucifer and his minions. Isa and his kind, the Nephilim, are their Guardians . . . and ours.”

  Her words hung in the air as Tom stared at the table. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked between her and Isa, and then nodded. “Okay. I’m in. What’s next?”

  “We keep the Forrester project going but feed it fabricated data while we work on the real vaccine here.”

  “I can do that.”

  Isa leaned in and finally spoke. Looming over the table, he glared at Tom. “One more thing. My contacts called me on the way home. They came up empty on the lab you gave Sandra, but they traced The Foundation’s funding to an offshore account of a known enemy. If these people even suspect you’re onto them, they’ll kill you . . . and your family. So don’t screw up.”

  “And if he gets you killed, I’ll kill him myself,” Isa added, his words resonating telepathically in her head.

  Chapter 15

  SANDRA

  Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco.

  THE BLONDE-HAIRED CHILD stood between her parents in the observation area at the Giant Panda exhibit. She turned to see Sandra watching in her disembodied state. The child’s eyes locked on hers. Blue and saucer-like, they held a sharp intelligence. Hope recognized the old soul staring back at her, and her heart skipped a beat.

  Sara Solomon put her finger to her lips. “Shh.” When she took it away the indentation over her top lip was gone. “Don’t tell.” She smiled, and then turned back to look at the Pandas.

  Before Sandra could react, the scene shifted, releasing her grip on the child and infusing her body with relaxation to reflect her new surroundings.

  Sandra dug her toes into the sand and leaned farther back in her beach chair, while enjoying the sea breeze off the lapping waves. Adjusting her sunglasses, she removed a book from her bag, The Genetic Codex of Modern Mammals, and frowned. Not exactly the light reading she’d hoped for. She dug back into her bag, looking for the romance novel she was sure she’d packed.

  The sun warmed the top of her head as she poked around, not finding the book, all the while cursing herself for not wearing her new straw hat. Her forgetfulness astounded her. And where was Isa? She suddenly noticed there wasn’t a second beach chair. Why was she here alone?

  She couldn’t remember. The seagulls cried overhead, diving down either for fish or food left unattended on picnic blankets. What day was it, anyway?

  That’s right. The vaccine. They’d cracked the code. It was ready for Cara. But who had they tested it on? How did they know?

  Her. They’d tested it on her. But how was that valid? She already had Nephilim DNA in her body. The sun beat down on her, growing hotter and more uncomfortable.

  An uneasy feeling crept over her. Where was Isa?

  She searched her bag for her phone. Sifting through all the scattered change, she came up empty. When she looked closer, it wasn’t coins but shells at the bottom of her bag. Small dime- and quarter-sized seashells that sparkled in a rainbow of colors. She picked one up and caught her breath. They had the three runic markings of the Trinity Stones. Why was she holding these pieces of destiny in her beach bag?

  “Dr. Sandra Wilson?” A male voice whispered next to her ear. She gasped and jumped in her seat, her head jerking around. She stared past the barrel of a gun into the sneering face of a man covered in tattoos. “Guess you aren’t such a great Oracle after all,” he said, and pulled the trigger. Agony ripped through her exploding skull a second before she sank into oblivion.

  A scream ripped from Sandra’s lungs as she sprang upright in bed. Her heart hammered as she struggled for air, trying to break free of the dream. Isa pulled her close. She collapsed, shivering next to his naked warmth.

  The vision had the confusion of a dream but the message was clear: death would be coming to claim her.

  “Tell me what you saw,” Isa whispered, his breath heating her hair.

  She clamped her mouth shut to keep her teeth from chattering. If she told him, he’d only worry. She’d spare him that, letting him believe later that Death had arrived unannounced. Isa’s absence from her dream meant he wouldn’t be there to save her. Another burden he didn’t need to carry.

  Think. She needed to think. If Death was truly on its way, she and Tom would need to tighten things up and accelerate their work. They had made excellent progress over the last month thanks to the equipment she had managed to procure. But additional contingencies were in order. Once the last piece of the equipment arrived, they would abandon the university entirely and shift their remaining work to the hidden location.

  “Hope?”

  She closed her eyes and abandoned all further thought.

  * * *

  ISA

  “ISA,” she whispered into his shoulder, shuddering against him, “make love to me.”

  His heart pounded as he flexed his arms tightly around her, his head resting against the soft, thick hair on her crown. The sweet, familiar scent of her filled his senses. He knew every curve and crevice of her body. He’d spent his life exploring and memorizing every millimeter of it. She was as much a part of him as she was of herself, an extension of his soul.

  Her fear crept under his skin, but rather than letting it hamper his desire, he used it to fuel his passion. Helplessness plagued him on many levels . . . except for this one. He lived to please her.

  “With pleasure, my beauty,” he whispered, and tucked her underneath him.

  Her warm brown eyes connected with his as he pressed her close. His lips found hers. Soft, pliant, familiar. His body reacted to her call. He sought entrance to his version of Heaven, and with a single thrust he found his way home.

  Her shivering melted into soft, pleasure-filled moans as she whispered his name with both reverence and passion. Hands glided over the flesh of his back, sending a tingle of sensuous delight along his spine. Even after three hundred years, he never grew tired of making love to Hope. He loved feeling the press of her warm, rounded curves against him whether in urgent need or unhurried desire. Tonight, he wanted to make it last. To savor every touch and sensation until she begged him to stop.

  But he couldn’t get close enough with the dark specter of dread wedged between them. Still, he tried harder, taking her to the edge of release, and then pushing her over, again and again, until they both surrendered to satisfaction and exhaustion.

  Too worried to sleep, Isa lay silent and spent, cradling Hope in his arms.

  “Remember the day we
met? At the ceremony?” she asked softly in the darkness, twisting her finger in a lock of his hair.

  “Yes . . .” He’d never forget. They’d met on Graduation Day for his Guardianship class during his twenty-first year. The day they’d received their red Guardianship Mark before reporting to their assigned station. The Nephil females of the younger class had been given a box seat to witness the twenty or so males who made up the current class. Given the scarcity of females, it was only right to introduce available males to any potential mates—especially females in secular roles outside of the Guardianship. Hope had chosen to study science and nature.

  The year Isa graduated there had been only two females offered. She had been one.

  When he saw her, he could barely catch his breath. Looking upon her rosy cheeks, his face had heated with a fiery blush. His coloring had drawn more than a few curious stares during his lifetime, and not necessarily in a flattering way. Rather than preening like the rest of the males, he hung back with a rigid spine and the stance of a warrior.

  A smile touched his lips as he remembered. “Your lady servant came to me during the after-ceremony and expressed your wishes that I call upon you in the Meeting of the Maids.”

  Her fingertips gently grazed his cheek. “You were by far the most alluring male in the room.”

  His heart swelled, for he had believed himself unattractive as a young man with his near colorless features. Her love had sustained his life’s blood all of these years. She was as essential to him as oxygen.

  He captured her hand and pressed his lips to the back of it. “I was both shocked and intrigued by your request. Never had I thought I’d be chosen over the others.”

  “You were always so modest,” she whispered in a teasing tone as she passed her fingertip over his bottom lip. “Always underestimating your appeal.”

  He stroked her hair. “Perhaps it is you, my beauty, who overestimates it. Be that the case, I gladly accept your esteem.”

  “Were you disappointed?” she whispered.

  He frowned and gazed into her upturned eyes. “Disappointed how?” The day she chose him was the best day of his life, followed next by their mating ceremony.