by Marcel, Zoey
Broken Halo
Fallen Angels Trilogy, Book One
by Zoey Marcel
ISBN 13: 978-1-937831-26-4
A Pink Flamingo Ebook Publication
Copyright © 2012, All rights reserved
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Chapter One
Temptation
Regency England, 1811
Sonya stood in the tepid darkness of the warm June night watching the couple before her. They were locked in a passionate embrace with the sheets tangled around their entwined legs. Having been a guardian angel since the dawn of creation, she had watched over countless souls and seen numerous couplings, but for whatever reason, Mr. and Mrs. Hemingway's encounters always touched her.
Sonya was the guardian over Hannah Hemingway's soul and felt a special family-like bond with her. She cared for the frail, gentle woman like a sister. They might have been sisters if not for their starkly differing appearances.
Hannah was petite with golden locks and enormous blue eyes that shone with life and innocence. She was a fair-skinned beauty who looked much younger than her twenty one years.
Sonya's long, straight, raven-black hair and bronze skin gave her a darker, more exotic look than the young lady of the manor. Her eyes were the darkest shade of brown, flirting with near blackness. The women were around the same height, with Sonya being an inch taller at five feet, four inches.
Hannah was the reason Sonya spent her days and nights here. She was sworn to protect the lady until the day of her death when she would be called home.
Hannah's husband, Jude had no guardian angel as he was not a believer in the faith she held, but being married to Hannah blessed him with the assurance that he too would be watched over by Sonya...until his wife died.
She silently observed their lovemaking in a state of utter contentment. Hannah was three months pregnant and both of the expecting parents were jubilant and spoke of nothing else.
A dark presence sent a chill through Sonya and put her on guard. A demon. She turned to see the infamous incubus she knew all too well: Nimbus.
“What are you doing here?” She questioned the entity.
He flashed her a cordial smile, but by the time the gesture reached his olive-green eyes, the look betrayed the deviant nature of his thoughts. “Look at them, Sonya. Where else would I be?”
“Are there no other lovers in the world copulating tonight that you have come all this way to my precise location by sheer coincidence?”
“I have been in England for some time now.”
“Your accent would suggest as much.”
The way Nimbus took to seating himself in a chair near her was disarming. He would not touch the Hemingways with a guardian watching over them. Still, he did not fear her anymore than she feared him.
“They appear to be enjoying themselves,” he mused quietly.
She felt his eyes on her, but purity and loathing forbid her to meet his searching gaze. If the irritated, objectified way she suddenly felt beneath his probing stare told her anything, the look his eyes probably harbored at the moment was one of licentious greed.
“Do you never touch yourself while you watch them?” He prodded.
Sonya spun around to face him. “No! Why would I?”
His grin was sinful and decadent. “To sate the ache in your vagina.”
She felt the heat of the blush in her cheeks spreading through her entire body like a forest fire. “What makes you suppose I have any such ache to contend with?”
His toothy smile amply revealed his pearly whites and for a few seconds, erased the truth of the fiend he had become. In this very human looking form, he was the uncanny image of the angel he had once been - one of prominence and respect. One with whom she had enjoyed an especially close camaraderie. That was before the fall. There was a division in heaven and sides were chosen. Nimbus followed Lucifer and was cast out of heaven with many others. Sonya remained faithful, as did most of the other angels who were still in the Almighty's service.
Losing her best friend had been difficult for her to accept, especially the way he had stood at the gates of heaven before being changed and thrown down to earth, and begged her to come with him. Not a tearful, imploring sort of plea. More of an insistent, demanding urgency as though his command would will her body into submission and his desire would turn her soul to the dark side, simply because it pleased him and she could do nothing but yearn to please him. She had never seen that side to him before. Ambition, strength and courage, but not a dark, controlling conqueror. She didn't know if his breech into her psyche was a new-found power of his, or if her affection for him had blinded her enough to subject her to torn loyalties.
Watching him disappear was a startling wake-up call that she was losing him forever and this scared her to death and almost – almost tempted her to follow him out of heaven. Her body had shifted as though about to take a step, when she felt Cassiel's hand on her shoulder and whispered: “Please,” had halted her. His beseeching murmur had brought her back to reality. His interference gave her clarity of thought and saved her from making a decision she likely would have regretted for the rest of her existence.
Once the shock of the celestial mutiny wore off, Sonya became ashamed that she had allowed a friendship to become so precious to her she nearly threw away her place in heaven just to be with him. That would never do. She had other friends. What was different about Nimbus? Why was it vital he remain by her side for eternity? Why did he have to allow his greed to get the better of him? He ruined everything, but he would not ruin her. She would never idolize another being that way again.
Over the years, he came to her at random times trying to entice her to join him in the kingdom of darkness. He promised a wealth of power, pleasure and affection, but she always resisted.
Even now, here he sat ogling the married lovers and Sonya as though they were puppets existing only to perform in his lascivious show. She would have none of it. It was one thing to watch the Hemingways worshiping each others' bodies and to be moved by what she saw, perhaps even more than a little curious to know what that felt like. However, it was an entirely different matter to observe the sight with an incubus, who would more than likely be able to determine whether or not she was aroused by what she saw.
His dark, throaty chuckle was oddly appealing. “My dear Sonya, do you not suppose that an incubus is capable of detecting sexual arousal? Or do you suppose it is merely that couple's congress that is feeding me tonight?”
Her gaze darted away from the lewd expression written on his ruggedly handsome face. “Perhaps you feel only the sexual energy emanating from them and mistake it for desire on my part.”
There was a pause tangible enough to sink one's teeth into.
“Is that a lie, Sonya? Angels don't practice deception. Are you coming over to the dark side?”
She squared her shoulders and turned to face her taunting foe. “Never. It was not a lie.”
“Evasion of the truth or the implication of something that one knows to be false and tries to pass off as truth is akin to lying. Why should a pure, good creature like you have anything to hide beneath a blanket of deception?” His question was one of pu
re rhetoric as he pretended to give the matter considerable thought, “The only times one lies are to protect someone from getting hurt, or to keep from being discovered and punished. Now which is the case with you, I wonder?”
She rolled her eyes, focusing on the Hemingways. Their foreplay had become intercourse as Jude hovered over his wife and entered her. Their joined gasps sent a bone-jarring level of sensational awareness through Sonya's body that was far stronger than anything any act of voyeurism had ever triggered before. She wondered if Nimbus' presence had anything to do with it, or if she was merely feeling especially inquisitive tonight.
“I don't imagine it to be your fear that you will hurt anyone by concealing your desires. After all, how could a harmless night of unbridled passion hurt?” The lengthy pause was awkward and astoundingly scintillating. “I asked you a question, Sonya,” there was more than a hint of displeasure in his tone.
Sonya sighed with exasperation. He really was proving to be quite a nuisance tonight. She turned to face him with her hands on her hips like a scolding mother. “What, Nimbus?”
His eyes narrowed. “What blatant disrespect. If you were my woman I would punish you for it.”
“If I were your woman it would be a punishment unto itself,” she jeered. Why was he smiling at this? Why did she feel naked when her silken gown effectively covered her? Why was she feeling so hot and cold when the night was mild?
“You are a little hellion, aren't you?”
“You are the hellion,” she returned.
“You never answered my question.”
“What question?”
The lovers were panting and moaning, making any chance at focusing on providing Nimbus with an answer next to impossible.
“I asked whether or not you believed your secret desires would hurt anyone.”
Sonya tried to quell the flush in her face. “What you think of as desire, I merely attribute to a harmless fascination and curiosity, nothing more, nothing less.”
The hushed timbre of his sensual voice became dreadfully serpent-like, but in a flash, it was seductive again. “Yes. No one will be hurt by your wanton thoughts, so why deny them, or try to snuff out that which you cannot fight? Clearly sparing anyone offense or injury over your thoughts isn't the issue, so that only leaves fear as the culprit for your deception.”
She faced him indignantly. “I am not afraid.”
His lips remained a straight, emotionless line across his face, but his slanted, olive-green eyes were filled with obvious glee at his discovery. “You are hesitant to admit to your lust because you fear the wrath of God.”
“I am hesitant to admit to something that does not exist,” she countered impatiently.
“Look at them, Sonya. Look very closely. See the way he kisses her with such savage hunger. Observe the way their tantalizing bodies move as one.”
The sound of a cushion elevating could be heard, indicating Nimbus was now standing. The quiet shuffling of cautious strides should have been cause for warning, but despite the insidious way he stalked toward her from behind, Sonya was unafraid. She could only smirk at the danger she considered to be entertainingly absent.
“You cannot tell me you have never wondered what it would be like to be Mrs. Hemingway...or perhaps Mr. Hemingway.”
She glared at him, but relaxed when she saw his teasing smile. “I am quite content with my identity, I can assure you.”
Hannah was whimpering. “Make me finish, darling. I need relief.”
Jude showered her face with delicate kisses and murmured sweet nothings while he rubbed the soft nub of her clitoris. “Soak me, love. I want to hear you cry my name when you finish and feel your cunnie squeeze my cock so tightly it sends me into orgasm.”
Sonya felt suddenly perverse for gawking at the pair with Nimbus standing there. Her nipples protruded through the fabric of her dress and her pussy clenched at Jude's words. She had wondered what Hannah was feeling numerous times. What it was like to feel a man's body against her bare flesh, the taste of a kiss, the powerful sensations of orgasm which stripped away all self control until only primal need and raw instinct remained.
“That should have been us,” Nimbus murmured softly.
Sonya didn't blush, but her heart rate quickened at his words, at his nearness. He stood right next to her – close enough to touch. Not that she would, or even wanted to; it was simply an observation. “You speak blasphemies.”
His tone became firm, authoritative – as it had been the day he was cast out. “I speak the truth and you know it. We could have been together, Sonya. We should have been. If only you had joined me.”
“And lost my place in heaven? I think not. My existence is a noble one. Yours on the other hand is damned.”
He bent down and whispered into her ear: “Your existence may be a noble one, but it has damned you to an everlasting curiosity that will never be satisfied. Deep down you will always wonder what it feels like to know a man sexually – to know love and by your own design you will never know either.”
Her chest tightened. Damn the ache. That hurt coming from him. “And you will never know peace, or the meaning of true love.”
He stared down at her until the power in his gaze willed her to lift her eyes to his. “There are many different forms of love, Sonya. Some innocent and platonic, others erotic and decadent. Some pure and self-sacrificing, others dark and possessive. You consider sacrifice and faithful service to the one who made you to be the definition of the word; whereas my interpretation would be to seek that which you desire most and to damn the consequences of pursuing it.”
“That is precisely why you are a fallen angel now without hope.”
“Perhaps, but I hold the answers to your forbidden questions. Ask me, Sonya. Ask me what it feels like to have sex.”
Her hands were shaking and her face burned with heat. “I can see plainly what it entails.”
“The mechanics do not take a genius to comprehend. You know how it is done, but you have no idea how good it feels. I could describe the wet, seductive heat of a kiss and the all-consuming fire of touch. The possession of physical union when there is a bond between the partners in question. The insurmountable rush of climax and the feeling of rebirth one experiences in the aftermath, but words will never accurately describe the most incredible feeling one can ever possibly experience.”
Sonya shivered when he brushed a strand of hair back from her face. The gesture was invasive and tender, evoking feelings of defilement as equally as it resurrected closeness long buried in the past and bitterness over chronic separation.
“Let me show you, little flower,” he whispered into her ear.
She smothered a gasp over the wicked fire that blazed in her canal. “You should go.”
“Immorality would be wrong, but you yourself claimed thoughts were harmless.”
“That is not what I -”
“Watch them, Sonya. Pretend if only for a moment that it is not Mr. and Mrs. Hemingway in that bed. It is you and me. Entertain that thought while they climax. That harmless thought that no one will be affected, nor injured by.”
She fought to banish the tempting thoughts from entering, but the sight and sounds of Jude and Hannah climaxing had her distracted long enough for Nimbus to inject a carnal thought into her head. An image of their naked bodies converging into one beneath the sheets was very clear, like a foreboding vision, or an alternate reality that existed inside the incubus' mind. She had no wings in his fantasy and he was not in his demonic form. Both appeared as human beings, naked and aroused. They looked possessed – utterly lost to abandon and given over to an unthinkable lust that promised a wealth of pleasure, but at what cost?
“The fantasy is so vivid, isn't it? So crisp and clear as though it were a foreshadowing and not merely a thought,” Nimbus murmured into her ear.
The scorching heat of his firm, sensuous lips pressing against her neck in an intimate kiss, sent a trove of sensation through her body. The moisture lin
gered after his lips retreated. When she didn't flinch at the bold contact, his mouth returned to her neck planting a series of kisses along the surface of her skin there.
“Can you see it, Sonya? There is no harm in pretending is there? No one to sustain any pain or suffering from an empty fantasy that will come to nothing?” His breathtaking whispers were hot and moist where they feathered her skin as he uttered those words.
For a moment she dared to imagine the physical manifestation of his enticing speech. The wicked thought was hurled into oblivion when the searing heat of his mouth enveloped the sensitive flesh of her neck in an aggressive suction that left her in a surreal state of near insanity. This was wrong, yet quite enjoyable. It was too much, yet somehow not enough. His palms running slowly up and down her bare arms were soothing and exhilarating all at once.
The cold, jarring slap of reality hit her and she became shocked that a demon's mouth was sucking her neck like they were passionate lovers. Then the thought occurred to her that he could leave a mark on her neck that would give away her brazen conduct. A stab of guilt plagued her conscience when she remembered that God was omnipotent and omnipresent; therefore already fully aware of her disloyal actions.
Sonya shoved Nimbus away in disgust and smacked his face hard. “How dare you!”
He dared to flash her an oh so charming grin that made her confounded heart flutter like a butterfly foolishly flying into a trap. “I'm glad to see you have finally warmed up to me again after thousands of years.”
“Is there a shortage of human beings and succubi that compels you to seduce angels now?” She quipped, trying to still the tremors overwhelming her heated body.
“There are plenty, of course, but you were always my favorite woman.”
“We were never more than friends, nor were we ever intimate.”
“In my head we have been countless times. Your lips claim platonic friendship, but your body tells me something entirely different.”
She squeezed her thighs together beneath her dress, trying to prevent the flush of shame over the trickle of wanton need rolling slowly down her inner thigh. “You are merely seeing what you wish to see.”