by C. R. Jane
“No. You would still have your angelic blood,” he says slowly. “But you would never be welcome here. You would walk the Earth for the rest of time.”
“Would I walk the Earth with them?” I press, sensing by his reluctance to answer my questions that I may be on to something.
“Adeline, you may in your young heart believe that you have found love. But I promise you, they are not worth giving up an eternity away from your God. In a few years, they will be nothing but memories of a foolish mistake made in your youth. They will be nothing to you,” he says fervently, gripping my arms as he stares down at me.
“You don’t know my heart,” I answer fiercely. “‘Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same… If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger,’” I quote to him.
“Wuthering Heights,” he says softly. “I always thought that was one of the more clever works by humans.”
“That’s how I feel about them. I cannot survive if they do not always exist. I will always love them. It will never go away.”
“Adeline, you do not understand what you are asking,” he says again, sorrow written across his face. “They will be whole, but you will always feel empty. And none of you will even remember the sacrifice you have made for them.”
“If you love me at all, you will do this for me,” I beg. “I will be miserable for the rest of forever without them, until it was better that I had never existed at all than to continue on.”
Uriel closes his eyes in pain, but when he finally opens them, I know that I’ve gotten what I want.
“So be it,” he says softly. “We will give them pieces of your soul, and they will be spared when we come for the demons. Even the half demon, half human will be spared for you. There are consequences to every action, however they will no longer be the same. Although they will no longer feed and they will be spared...they will also have no memory of you or the life that they’ve lived with you.”
“No memory at all?” I whisper, thinking of everything we’ve gone through together, the bond that we’ve built. Without those experiences, will they still love me?
“Will I live with these memories while they have no clue who I am?”
He shakes his head and my heart sinks. It’s like I can feel my soul crying. Tears stream down my face.
“Don’t cry, little one. I promise you that you will not feel agony. You won’t even know what you’ve lost. I will take all that away. You have suffered enough.”
“Suffered. I am suffering with what you’re saying right now.”
He reaches over and wipes my tears while looking down at me with a sad smile. “I’ve lived so long without you by my side. I’ve missed you every second, but I was always there. And I always will be.”
Another tear falls down my face as I take a deep breath and prepare myself for what’s to come. I would do anything to save them. Even this.
My mother appears just then, and she doesn’t understand right now. The pain of my choice is threaded throughout her features. But I think with time, she will understand. She knows what true love is.
“I love you, my daughter,” she says softly. “I will always love you and always miss you.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her as I think about how unfair existence is, even for angels.
She gives me a long hug, and I try to memorize the feeling of it. Something tells me that even if I’m forced to forget her, I won’t forget this feeling of love.
I finally step away from her embrace, wiping a tear off my cheek as I go to stand in front of Uriel.
“Are you sure about this, my child? You will be damned for eternity, never to walk in Paradise again,” he warns me again solemnly. “Never to be with your mother and I.”
“I will feel damned if I stay here,” I respond, and there are gasps all around me from invisible angels. There is no such thing as privacy in Heaven. And I’m sure it’s not often that someone, an angel no less, marches into Paradise and tells the powers that be that this place is actually Hell.
I can see a small gleam in the Uriel’s eye, and I get the feeling that he’s proud of me for my decision. He nods.
“You remind me so much of your mother.” He studies me, the corners of his eyes pinching.
“You couldn’t live without Mother either. That’s how I feel.”
He reaches his index finger towards my forehead. The last thing I see is a brilliant white light emanating from his hand…
And then everything fades away.
Epilogue
My dad hums as he drives, the familiar sound bringing a smile to my face, even as butterflies dance in my stomach at the prospect of going to a new school.
Ever since we received the letter letting us know that I had been given a scholarship to Raven Academy, I'd been in a hurry to get here. It didn't matter that I was leaving everything familiar behind, something had told me from the moment I heard of the school that it was where I needed to be. Where I belonged.
My dad peers over the dashboard of our beat-up sedan, looking for the road that will take us to the school. The forest is so thick that you can’t see past the first line of trees. I'm looking just as closely, not wanting to miss the entrance.
The side road appears suddenly, and Dad misses the turn. We screech to a halt, and I fly forward in my seat, the seatbelt locking up from the force.
“Oops. Almost missed it,” he says, as if he hadn’t almost thrown us both through the window.
We back up slowly and start to drive down the long narrow side road. I want to tell him to hurry. It feels like we're barely moving. This urgency inside of me is building, until I feel like I'm almost suffocating.
After a twenty-minute drive, most of which I debate if getting out of the car and walking might have been faster, we reach an imposing set of gates. They may be tall and menacing to most, I'm sure, and they've seen better days based on the amount of rust all over them…but they feel familiar to me…comforting to me.
I lean forward in my seat. There’s a raven in the middle of the gate that I recognize as being part of the Raven Academy crest.
"Dad, are you sure we've never been here before?" I murmur as I examine the gates closer. There's a scarf in my suitcase with that exact crest on it, a parting gift from my mother.
"Nope. We've never been to this neck of the woods," he says as he examines the gates as well.
We wait for them to open, but they don’t move. Dad rolls down his window to see if there’s some kind of intercom we are supposed to speak through.
"Look over there," I tell him, gesturing to what looks like a guardhouse just off the road. A young man steps out of it just then, dressed in a khaki uniform. He's carrying a clipboard, and he has a welcoming smile on his face.
“Welcome to Raven Academy. How can I help you?” he asks as he peers into our vehicle.
“I’m just dropping my daughter off,” my dad says in a congenial tone.
“Are you Adeline Jones?” the guard says, looking at his clipboard.
"That's me," I say quietly, wishing this process would go faster so I could get to the school.
“Ms. Jones, we’ve been expecting you,” he says.
He pulls out a walkie talkie. "There's a new student here ready to be taken up," he says into it, before clipping it back on his belt. "Are your bags in the trunk?” he asks.
My dad nods and pops the trunk before opening his door to help get the bags out. The pamphlet had talked about how parents dropped off students at the gate where a school car would then take them up to the school. There was supposed to be something symbolic about the students making the journey to the school by themselves, something about them starting their new lives.
A new life. It does feel like that.
I see a black car coming from presumably the direction of the school. The gate creaks open as it nears, and the car executes a four-poin
t turn to face back towards the school before stopping.
The guard grabs my bags and gives us a second to say goodbye.
“I love you, Adeline. And I’m so proud of you,” Dad says to me in a choked voice as he pulls me in for a hug. "You can come home anytime, you know."
"Something tells me I'm right where I'm supposed to be," I tell him, squeezing him tightly. We hug for a long moment before I pull away. Dad brushes a kiss across my cheek, and then I walk towards the black town car.
I give him a wave as I get in, and I watch as he gets in his car and drives away.
The scent of freshly polished leather assaults my nostrils as I slide in. I feel like I’ve been transported to a new world. One where I’m rich, all of a sudden. It’s the nicest vehicle I’ve ever been in for sure.
"You're going to love it here," the guard says as he closes my door, and I smile and give him a wave through the window.
"Welcome to Raven Academy," the balding middle-aged driver says to me with a smile in the rearview mirror as we begin to drive. He has dimples, and I can't help but return his smile.
The nerves in my stomach are at an all-time high, and I take a deep breath to try and calm myself down and stare out the window as we drive. It’s another fifteen minutes before the school comes into view. And when it does…
It’s like something out of a movie.
I feel kind of like I’ve been transported to Europe and I’m about to tour one of those ancient castles in Scotland or Germany. The building is as large as a castle, so big that I can’t see where it ends. The school is made up of a grey stone that is flecked with black and silver. There are actual towers and turrets all over it. A moat filled with alligators would not look out of place here.
It's beautiful.
I’m distracted when the giant wooden double doors open up to the building. I’m expecting someone to come out, but definitely not the someone that I see.
He’s the most gorgeous man that I’ve ever seen…and that’s really understating it. He’s the most gorgeous man anyone could ever see.
The man has deep-set, emerald-colored eyes, and wavy dark, chestnut brown hair. He’s wearing a perfectly fitted suit, but that can’t hide the fact that he’s got a body underneath it that probably puts a photoshopped model in a magazine to shame.
I know for a fact that I've never seen him before, but I can't help but feel like I've been waiting to meet him my whole life.
I get out of the car, and we just stare at each other. I'm faintly aware of the driver getting out to get my bags, but I can't take my eyes away from the man in front of me.
“Ms. Jones?” he asks, somewhat breathlessly. I can feel a deep flush spreading across my face and chest as I try to remember how to speak English.
"Adeline," I answer, sounding just as out of breath.
He grins at me, his eyes flicking over my features as if he's memorizing them.
He walks towards me, stopping right in front of me, a little close for social norms honestly.
But I don't mind.
“Braxton London,” he says. “I’ve been sent to be your welcome guide for the day.”
"Lucky me," I murmur, obviously having lost my head. We continue to stare at each other.
He finally shakes his head and takes a step back, as if he's snapping himself out of a trance.
“Ready for your tour?” he asks, holding out his arm for me to take. The second I touch him, I'm met with an overwhelming feeling of familiarity, of comfort…of desire.
I'm pretty sure this whole experience is what love at first sight is like.
But that's just crazy…right?
We walk through the doors, and Braxton starts to ask me a million questions. I find out he's an aide this year. He technically graduated last year, but he's helping teach and taking some college classes before officially starting college next year. A sort of gap year of sorts.
"Why did you do something like that?" I ask. "Aren't most people desperate to leave high school?" I ask with a laugh.
There's a pause, and I'm afraid that I've offended him, but then he smiles. "I'd felt the overwhelming desire to tutor further under some of the professors here. And I think now I know why," he says as he stares at me.
And I hear the words he doesn't say. Because I was waiting for you.
We continue the tour as he points out secret passageways, staircases that will get you to class on time every time, and where one of the cafeterias is. The campus is enormous, but I barely notice it, I'm so wrapped up in talking to Braxton.
We continue walking for what seems like a mile, until he finally opens another set of enormous doors. I’m thinking that I’m going to get my exercise here if everything is as far away as it seems.
I’m shocked when the doors lead out to a large green yard that has paths carved into it so that people can walk across it without walking on the grass. Students are walking all around, chattering with each other as they carry their books. I assume that most of them are finishing up classes for the day, since it’s late afternoon.
A group of guys catches my eye off to the left of us. They're all dressed in the school's all-black uniform, and despite the eye-candy on my arm, I can't help but notice how desperately attractive they all are.
And familiar.
That feeling continues to be overwhelming. It's like déjà vu a million times over.
"Ah, my buddies are over there," says Braxton, pointing over to the group of guys I'd just been admiring. "They were another reason for this sort of gap year I've found myself in."
I laugh, but I don't take my eyes off the guys we're approaching.
And they don't take their eyes off of me.
"I've just been showing Adeline around. She arrived today," he tells them.
I shiver hotly under the force of all six of their gazes. I have the urge to hug them all.
Hug them…and maybe more.
"This asshole right here is Alexander," says Braxton, pointing to the first boy to the left of me. Alexander has raven-colored hair and sapphire colored eyes. He takes my free hand and brushes a kiss across it, taking a long second to release it as he stares intently at me.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, angel face," he says. I roll my eyes at the endearment, but shots of pleasure are cascading across my skin where he just touched me.
"Next up is Dante. He and Alexander are brothers," Braxton explains, gesturing to a golden-haired boy with a pair of hazel eyes that almost look golden as well.
"Hi," he says with a cheeky wink, holding out a hand for me to shake. I smile and nod at him as I shake his hand, the same sparks from his touch soaring across my skin.
"Finn and Nyx," Braxton says next, and my gaze darts from a boy that could be a model with his blonde, almost white hair and sparkling green eyes, to a gorgeous all American boy with dark brown hair and light blue eyes. They shake my hands as well with hot expressions in both of their eyes that promise they want more from me, and I'm beginning to tremble at this point.
What do they feed the guys here? I'm going to melt from all the hotness that is surrounding me.
"Last but not least, this is Connor," Braxton finally says, introducing me to the boy standing closest to me on my right with dark hair, tan skin, and a fiery gaze.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," he says touching my shoulder gently as he stares intently at my face.
There's silence as we all just kind of stare at each other.
But it's oddly not awkward at all.
"I guess we should continue our tour," I finally say, breaking the spell we've all been under.
"I can join you," says Alexander.
"Me too," pipes in Dante.
They all chime in until I find myself with six tour guides now.
As we walk, I notice that they all find reasons to touch me or get my attention, and I soak it all up.
All my life, I've felt like I was missing some part of me. It made no sense really. I'd grown up with loving parents, good friend
s, and a stable and loving home.
But this is the first time that I've ever felt complete in my entire life.
The rest of the tour is the most fun that I think I've ever had, and we've already made plans for dinner when we finally make it to my dorm room.
Braxton looks at the paper in his hand. "Looks like you'll be rooming with Mercy Richards," he says, and some of the guys snicker. Braxton laughs with them, and I savor the sound. "She's a little nutty, but a really good girl," he says.
A voice calls out from behind the door. "I heard that, you assholes." The voice sounds more amused than mad, and I somehow immediately know that I'm going to love my new roommate.
Before I go in, I stare once more at the six faces all looking back at me intently. "I'm so glad to have met you all," I tell them, emotion leaking into my voice because I can't hide just how glad I really am.
They all smile back at me, smiles so stunning that it sends my heart racing at the sight.
"Welcome to Raven Academy, Adeline," responds Braxton.
And all I can think is how good it is to be home…
THE END
Sneak Peek
Keep reading for a sneak peek at Book 1 our newest series…
Siren Condemned
Copyright
Siren Condemned by C. R. Jane and Mila Young
Copyright © 2020 by C. R. Jane and Mila Young
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.