by Azure Boone
"It's not a disease." Arith's pearl gaze sliced lazily to Vektor. "It's love. Eros. I understand that you aren't familiar with it but I cannot understand why you slight that which Father has chosen to house the sempiternitas power in humans. Perhaps you are jealous and wish to be the next angel in line to receive the kiss of a princess?"
The cavern suddenly reminded Dorn of that raucous place called a bar he'd entered briefly on Earth when scouting.
"Look," Kassern cut in loudly. "All joking aside, Dorn's symptoms seemed to be more severe than mine, but not as long lasting. It seems that that the effects of forming the triumvirates are as diverse as the members of the triumvirates. I'm afraid the act is turning out to be much like a fingerprint. No two alike."
"Regardless," Uriel reclined in the large onyx chair. "We will continue to monitor, record, and study. Which means from now on, you will all be required to turn in a triandría ékthesi̱ epídrasi̱."
Kassern rolled his eyes but Dorn was more than accustomed to filling out reports of all kinds. In fact, it happened to be something he was quite fond of doing. He was partial to order and everything had a scale by which to balance. Already he'd mentally formed a pleasure scale for Sally, comparing the pleasure she gave him to that he gave her. Currently, he was in serious deficit and in dire need of balancing it. He was anxious to love her in such a perfect and complete way, the way she was intended to be loved by a…man.
Dorn could hardly believe that title was now a part of his angelic identity.
"Daydreaming about your wife?" Lassin raised his hands and widened his blue sapphire eyes. "A sincere question." He didn't wait for any adverse expressions.
Sincere? Dorn decided he'd play their little game. "Yes, in fact I was. Did you know that the pleasure of the human orgasm is in fact stronger than any power that any of you possess?" Dorn wagged his finger over all of them, relishing in their skeptical slash horror stricken faces.
"It's quite true," Kassern vouched. "There's nothing in all the Seven Universes that can compare."
For the first time in a millennium, Dorn didn't want to slap the ruby angel with the broad side of his sword. Dorn realized too that his tie to Kassern was somehow as strong as his connection with Max. Wait a century, Dorn thought, looking at Kassern.
The ruby angel turned only guarded eyes to him. "What?" He sounded as if Dorn had spotted a particularly dark and large hickey.
"Nothing I was just…realizing."
"Realizing what?"
"Just that we're the first archangel human brothers."
Kassern looked fully at him and raised his brows. "Are you going to buy one of those gadgets that take still images and paste the two of us into books with lace?"
Dorn slowly grinned. "Wow. For the first time in our existence, your joke doesn't make me want to pull your head through your smart ass."
Kassern laughed before mumbling, "Karly wants to make one of those, you know."
It was Dorn's turn to laugh. "And will you?"
"Would you?"
"If it made Sally happy, yes."
Kassern gave a casual shrug and nod. "Same here."
Dorn realized it was quiet and turned to find eleven pairs of eyes staring in shocked horror at the abstract species carrying a human disease that would soon take over their bodies. It was the worst form of demotion ever, and seeing it up close in two elite warriors clearly made it a harrowing reality.
"Back to business at hand." Uriel was one shade short of sounding depressed. "What about this news of…a girl having bugs for babies and Toren's…" Uriel, flicked his eyes at the mercury angel as though uncomfortable with having to say it. "Adopted offspring becoming their mother."
Kassern and Dorn looked at Toren then Dorn suggested, "Perhaps you would ask Toren that sir. I have no knowledge of what actually took place in that respect." Dorn regarded Toren, not wanting to offer more than the angel was prepared to give.
Uriel turned to the mercury angel. "Well?"
"I reckon I'd like to be the next angel to go sir."
Uriel stared at him a moment, concern creeping into his perfect face. "I figured as much, considering you've left your adoptive offspring there. Tell me what happened."
"I got a few glimpses of things through Peggy."
Dorn still couldn't get over that name, Peggy. Another Earth name. One more link in the Archangels' chain of suspicion that at one point in time, their creatures had somehow been connected to the planet. The mystery was still being solved, but Dorn's hunch was demon trafficking, plain and simple. Some demons were notorious for stealing beings from their home worlds, moving them to another to serve as slave labor.
The creatures were stripped of their bodies, and the angels were able to house them in their own in order to rescue them from the planet Sahhker of the Third Universe before it was destroyed by the Over Lords.
“Peggy?” Uriel asked, perturbed.
Toren kept his mercury gaze locked on the onyx table, not offering more. His pet was a sensitive subject. While all their creature's spirits inherited their angels' gems' properties, allowing them to take on their choice of forms, Toren also absorbed some of his creature’s spirit due to his mercury characteristics. But the most Dorn got out of Toren concerning their beings origin was I’m not sure. I only know bad things happened. Judging by the pain Dorn could only sense buried deep in Max's spirit, the guilty needed to be brought to justice.
"Okay. Then what did you glimpse through Peggy.” Uriel’s tone turned patient, no doubt remembering Toren’s situation.
"Seems as though the critters Peggy has adopted hold little tid-bits of information within their DNA that she picks up on. I reckon that's how I see things."
"And…what do you see." Uriel stated more than asked.
"The new pope is what I seen. 'Fraid somethin' ain't too right with him." Toren sucked his perfect teeth before drawling, "Reckon he's gonna play a role in the upcomin' shenanigans."
"Oh for Heaven's sake." Zool looked at Uriel, disgust twisting his perfect mouth. "Can you please tell him to stop speaking like a zoo keeper, at least for this meeting? I left my universal jargon translator back at the barnyard."
"What is wrong with the pope?" Uriel ignored Zool, deepening the onyx angel's disgust.
"My guess? Special breed of reanimation."
Salem stopped the droning rhythm he’d been tapping on the table with his green hiddenite nails. "This is not good."
"Pilfering dirty bastards." Azen didn't hide his disgust.
Uriel sighed, and pressed his thumb and middle finger to his eyeballs. "I suppose it's good you go then." He looked at each angel. "I want you to all step up your studies. I sense that our time restraints may become a little more stringent. I want you all prepared ahead, with your couples chosen and your wives selected. That means all of you need to know how to be the best human if you're going to convince a woman to marry you in less time." He looked at Dorn. "How did that go for you, by the way? Did your human accept you eagerly?"
Dorn recalled their dialogue before and after he'd come into his humanity and couldn't stop his grin. "I think she took it well considering. My biggest advantage with her I think was…how desperate for love she was."
"Ah yes." Uriel glanced at the mercury angel. "Toren, make a note of that. Find a desperate female human."
"I already have," he said.
"You have?"
The entire congregation turned to stare into the brooding eyes of the mercury angel. "The woman who delivered Soceris' offspring."
The sounds of disgust were poorly stifled and Toren's hard gaze lowered.
"But Brother, surely…"
"She kissed me." Toren cut off Lassin's gentle call for reason and eyed all of them boldly. "I'm hers," he said, quietly.
A few moments of quiet passed before Meron bravely but carefully said, "Such a thing does not—"
"It does and it has." Toren's quipped interruption followed with
a slight shrug of his massive shoulders. "I'm hers." That fact reflected clearly in his mirror bright gaze. "And she is mine."
Dorn exchanged glances with Kassern and sighed inwardly at seeing it in his ruby gaze. Toren had wiped her mind of the entire demonic nightmare she’d endured. If the girl remembered him it would be a miracle.
~~ THE END ~~
Archangels Creed 3:
Summon Toren
© 2013 by Azure Boone & Kenra Daniels, LLC.
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Author's Notes:
This book contains explicit scenes of sexual activity between different couples, committed to exclusive, monogamous relationships.
There are scenes of graphic violence, some directed toward women.
Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, by any of the characters within is entirely accidental.
We have taken extensive liberties with certain religious dogma and traditions – no offense intended – to fit the plot of our story.
Some readers had an issue with the Archangel Kassern encouraging premarital sex in the first Archangels Creed book. We've addressed that concept in "Summon Dorn" and developed it further in "Summon Toren". Future books in the series will have more elaboration on this and other controversial themes.
Finally, we genuinely hope you enjoy reading "Summon Toren" as much as we enjoyed writing it. At the end of the book, we've included information on our other books and how readers can contact us. We love hearing from readers, so drop us a line!
Thank you for purchasing "Summon Toren"! Enjoy!
Archangels Creed 3: Summon Toren
The Mercury Warrior
Toren scowled and forced himself to sit still and ignore the other Archangels. Being required to pull a Superman phone booth style disappearing act only five miles from Samantha did not make him a happy camper. Samantha, or Sam, as she thought she preferred to be called, consumed his every thought since the day he looked into her soul. His entire being focused on preparing for her.
Sitting in statue form and waiting for Uriel to arrive in the War Chamber, Toren revisited the age old concept of patience. How odd. The feeling circulating his mercury mindset could only be identified as anxiety, a sensation utterly unfamiliar to him. And it had little to do with whatever news he would hear in hopefully the next sixty seconds, but everything to do with that human woman.
From the moment she gave him that soft as silk kiss, something happened and he needed to see her and explore the extent of this paradoxical dent she put in his mercurial nature. He found himself wondering over the oddest things. How would she receive him? When should he tell her he was an angel? How would she take that? What was she like when she wasn’t in the middle of dying?
Would she remember him?
He’d never been torn or worried in his existence. But he found himself wanting her to remember, and yet praying she didn't. How could he hope she might remember even a shred of such a horrible experience? Just so she could remember a fragment of something he thought was special hopefully making it easier to win her?
But then he realized. He really didn't want her to have remembered a single bit of that horror. There was really only one thing he wanted her to recall.
The kiss.
Toren thought about all the information he’d gotten from Samantha's Guardian. He’d listened intently to every detail. Anything could prove useful to the mission. She was the only child of a father who wanted a son but got a daughter. A spitting image of him, according to her guardian. Samantha was what humans called a tomboy—a young female displaying mostly masculine characteristics—but when she was fourteen, her father insisted she dress and behave like a girl. A hired hand she'd had a crush on broke her heart by rejecting her budding femininity. She decided being a woman wasn’t in her genes and eventually joined the convent to avoid an arranged marriage her father cooked up like vittles on a Monday night campfire.
Out of all the understandable issues Samantha struggled with, considering herself masculine puzzled Toren the most. Perhaps something about her body gave that impression? It surely was nowhere in that delicate spirit he’d touched through those crystal pure eyes.
The mercury in his body raced as he relived the vivid memory of her soft lips on his. Followed by the one question his shield sought to answer in order to bridge the gap responsible for the enigmatic angst plaguing him. What, exactly, would it all feel like in human form? His lips pressed against hers?
Judging by his mercury’s reaction to the foreign concepts, he guessed the experience would be pure, unadulterated power. His shield, at its unalloyed core, craved whatever she would give. And Toren couldn’t seem to cooperate with the irresistible instinct fast enough.
The air in the War Chamber stirred with energy and Toren’s mind snapped to full attention. Finally. Uriel, commander of the Brotherhood of War Archangels, materialized in the act of striding across the room, decked in his emerald battle gear.
The muted clank of full armor reminded Toren that the enemy actively worked to bring about the downfall of goodness. “An update.” Uriel folded emerald wings as he sat, eyes sparkling with crisp determination. The massive archangel had no need to wait and ensure the complete attention of his subordinates. “The genetic abominations Socerith has created, those Kharef propagated on his human captives, are a botched prototype. Useful, but not fully functional. What he’s aiming for is a creature that can be used as a world-wide riot accelerator. He needs something able to morph on command between the forms of its genetic contributors, rather than being jammed in a conglomeration of them like Kharef's progeny."
"You mean the monkey men?" Zool’s tone ground with his thirst to bring down the adversary. Perhaps he would be the one to find the key to defeating them.
Uriel nodded. "Yes. And interestingly, those created most recently seem different from those Kassern's triumvirate encountered. A little more advanced. Refined." He paused to let that sink in. "Some of you have encountered beings in the field that transmuted according to emotions, like fear, anger, hunger or pain, making them predictably unpredictable. We aren't sure yet exactly what they are, but they're not feasible for riot accelerators either.”
“Accelerators,” Lassin said. "You used that term twice."
“Yes. Beings designed specifically to exploit human emotions on every level.” Uriel regarded the sapphire giant. “Feel-good vessels programmed to bring humanity whatever…floats their boat. Unfortunately Socerith is technically adhering to the rules. No doubt for the sheer purpose of tying our hands.”
“He’ll get sloppy,” Lyght assured.
“Oh of that I have no doubt,” Uriel said. “But until he throws the stipulations to the wind, we can’t storm the compounds we’ve found scattered over the entire earth.” The Commander's scowl deepened while his lip curled a little in disgust.
“Entire?”
Uriel nailed Zool with his gaze. “His hiding gained him a head start on our retaliation. And he's succeeding in a big way.” His fist banged the onyx table
. "Later we will discuss how our spies managed to miss so much activity. I suspect one or more may have been compromised."
“Entire?” Grythe echoed Zool’s astonishment as if Uriel hadn't spoken. That the situation had gotten to that point before being noticed was a difficult concept to swallow.
“Head start, you say.” Azen’s amethyst eyes swept right. “Seems we’re eating his dust he’s so far ahead. Any idea what his end game is yet?”
Uriel shook his head. "So far the general objective is to turn mankind upon itself to maximize the corruption of innocence and increase the harvest of souls. The same as it's been through all the Ages, only much faster. Too fast."
“Well this is all unfortunate news,” Lyght sighed. “It figures we can’t count on the bitch to act corruptly when we need him to.”
“Bitch?” Meron’s brows narrowed like somebody changed the language channel on him. "I thought that term referred to females.” He dug through an inner pocket of his dark yellow topaz jacket. “I will never figure out this accursed language." Exasperated scribbling ensued in a dog-eared leather bound journal. The human kind. The constant requirement on every hand to do all things by human standards was oxymoronic of epic proportion.
“This is not a vocabulary session,” Uriel’s green eyes flashed his annoyance. “Socerith is building an army of undetectable influence, evil that can work and perpetrate wickedness practically in the open. While he’s doing that, he’s also seeking out eligible humans for reanimation. Which brings me to the crux of this meeting.”
Uriel paused to be sure he had their undivided attention before locking his gaze on Toren. “He’s in the process of persuading the Pope to join his cause.”
The shocked silence sat heavy on the group until Vektor dropped one hand flat to the onyx with a thunderclap that matched the fury sparkling in his green beryl irises. "Bloody hell. Just tell us what to do."
Uriel aimed his gaze at all of them individually. “What we always do. We work faster and harder and turn his tactics in our favor. The only thing new about his plan is the effort to make things happen quicker. Mankind’s soul remains his prime target. His strategy remains the same. Self-destruction through the exploitation of their biological instincts. We must remind mankind that instinct without morality turns humans into beasts.”