by J. L. Myers
“Michael,” Gabriel gasped out his name. “What did you do?”
Michael’s glance at the flashing sky and then down at her was full of pity. He shook his head. “A test. One I never expected you to fall for so easily when he came to you, but one I knew Lucifer would fail the moment he saw his opportunity to escape.”
A test he had executed without God’s permission.
Lucifer shoved Michael in the chest, breaking the contact from the angel sword. Fresh silver trailed down his neck, causing a path down over his collarbone. “You deceived me?”
Michael returned the length of silver to the sheath tied around his waist. He stepped closer to breathe down Lucifer’s neck. “I gave you the ability to do what you would have done when given the first opportunity. I let you show your true colors. Your true motives. And your lack of regard for your position and our God. I need not end you, Lucifer. Not with what the punishment will be this time.” He peered up to the bright glow of the sky, seeing as clearly as Gabriel could the almost constant flashes that pulsed above. Souls were constantly passing with the flood. He returned a snarl to Lucifer. “God may be unaware of your latest degrading act, but he is ready to intervene. I heard it with my own ears. And you will live the rest of eternity knowing that you will never get to touch Gabriel again. Your eternal banishment is only a matter of reporting now, a report I will gladly deliver.”
Michael turned and Gabriel finally broke free, lunging out from behind the security of Lucifer’s back. Catching hold of his arm, she spun him back around. Falling down, the dead foliage scraped through her robe, cutting into her knees. Her hands came together, pleading. “Michael, please. Do not do this. It will never happen again. I vow it in His name. I should never have given in. It was wrong—”
“You cannot mean that.”
Lucifer’s voice was so sharp it stabbed through her with each syllable. She wanted to turn to him on her knees and beg his understanding. Though she knew it would do no good. She could not refute what she had declared. What they had done was wrong. It was forbidden. It was a mortal act, not meant for one of God’s pure angels. Despite her feelings and how right every moment had felt, they existed by the rules of God. Rules she had broken—with every blush of her cheeks, every lingering touch, every stolen kiss, and with every thought of a life less divine but rich with searing emotion that jacked her heart rate and warmed her from the inside out.
Not moving to face him, Gabriel hung her head in defeat and utter sadness. “Lucifer, forgive me…”
“You set me up.” Lucifer moved. The sound of his feet crunched over charred debris as he neared Gabriel and Michael. “You threaten me. And now you turn her against me. You, Michael, are the one who is the sinner. You wear your honor like a badge, but I see you, dear brother. Your jealousy is immeasurable.”
Michael growled, baring his teeth at Lucifer. “Your delusions are not my concern. Goodbye for the last time, dear brother.” He spun with a devilish smile, striding straight for the scorched tree.
“Michael, no!” Gabriel cried, but it wasn’t him she needed to stop.
Lucifer launched with a flap of his wings, shooting across the blackened landscape in a flash. Spinning Michael around, he clutched his shoulders and threw him with a roar. Caught by surprise, Michael flung through the air, landing with a splash in the murky water. He climbed out fast to the pond’s edge. But Lucifer was already there and swung a closed fist into the angel’s eye. Head snapping up, Michael flipped backward, water spraying up as his back hit and he submerged.
“Lucifer, stop this!” On her feet now, Gabriel’s wet cheeks dried with the shock of Lucifer’s attack. She stared wide-eyed as he stood by the water’s edge, his entire body shaking with the evident need to continue the onslaught. He hadn’t even flinched at her words.
“You should have let us be, Michael. You should have minded your own business.”
“Lucifer, please. This will only make everything worse.”
Still, he didn’t respond to her. Instead, with each passing second as bubbles floated up and popped on the surface, Lucifer’s entire body tensed harder. “Now surface you cowar—!”
Michael rocketed from the water. His wings flung out as he broke the surface, driving him with force into Lucifer. Knocking his feet out from under him, Michael slammed Lucifer back through the air. Ash and grit kicked up as he flew backward—until he collided with a huge tree. The skeletal limbs shook on impact. Lucifer’s face scrunched as the sound of bones breaking filled the quiet garden.
Michael was there in an instant, forearm pinning Lucifer’s neck to the tree. Water dripped from his body that shook with barely contained rage. “Force my hand, Lucifer, and I will not be reprimanded for my actions.” Michael’s face was so close to Lucifer’s, his eyes daring the archangel to do exactly that.
Lucifer gasped air, his face red as he struggled to breathe. Silver stained the side of his uncovered chest, revealing from the direction Gabriel stood at a rib that had punched right out through the side of him. His eyes promised violent retaliation, visible above the seclusion of Michael’s barricading wings. Yet he remained still and silent but for the straining muscles along his neck and his ragged breath.
Michael shoved at Lucifer’s chest as he pushed away from him. “Wise choice.”
As Michael turned away, he didn’t see what Gabriel saw. No longer pinned to the tree, Lucifer advanced on Michael at a stealthy rate. The malice in his eyes was horrible. What he held in his clenched fist—the one that had been out of sight a moment ago—made Gabriel’s heart stop.
The angel sword.
The silver length blazed with blue intensity, coming to life in preparation to kill.
Closer to Gabriel now, Michael saw the alarm on her face. Saw the way her lips parted as she choked on words to warn him. His mouth opened to question her while he half turned his head toward his shoulder—as Lucifer launched.
Gabriel reacted the only way she could, racing toward Michael. As if in slow motion, she saw it all. Michael uttering “Gabriel?” while Lucifer propelled through the infinite light, angel sword poised to plunge straight through Michael’s back—to still his heart forever. “Lucifer, no!” She caught Michael by the arms and wrenched him forward, spinning him around, blocking Lucifer’s kill shot. The burn of hot metal plunged into Gabriel’s back, igniting her insides as if she were on fire again like that day on Earth. Except this time, she was burning from the inside out.
The frozen waterfall plunged back to life.
“Gabriel…Gabriel no,” Lucifer choked out.
Following Michael’s wide stare down, she saw the silver tip protruding from high up on her chest right before it was tugged free. The sword fell by her feet, the blue intensity receding with a bounce as Lucifer stumbled back. The gaping slice that remained leaked silver in repetitive pulses that were in time with her racing pulse. But she didn’t burst into a pillar of exploding white light. “What is happening?”
Swaying on her feet, Michael looped a strong arm around her. Some of the terror eased from his face as he took a ragged breath. “You almost killed her,” he spat over her shoulder at Lucifer, looking like the duty of supporting her weight was the only thing keeping him from breaking Lucifer with his bare hands. “This being that you profess to love in the purest way was almost dust at your hands. You are dangerous, Lucifer. You and your desires.” Still holding her, he swooped the angel sword up and smeared Gabriel’s blood across the back of his robe before re-sheathing the weapon. “You must be stopped.”
Gabriel met Michael’s eyes that softened as he looked at her. She knew what needed to be done as her blood continued to fall, staining all the way down from one collarbone to patter from the hem of her robe to her feet. Oh, God. How could she do it? How could she live with herself? Her sluggish heart raced along with her thoughts, but this time, her heart lost the battle. This had to stop. She nodded, and the movement—her decision—wounded her infinitely more than Lucifer’s stabbing had. �
�Go.”
Michael nodded once in return. With a warning look back a Lucifer, he released his supporting hold on Gabriel and sped from the garden, gaining air as his wings beat to drive him skyward until the light above swallowed him from sight.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Gabriel’s knees buckled without Michael to hold her up, and she crumbled. Finally breaking out of the shock that had frozen him solid, Lucifer moved for the first time since stabbing her. Catching her in his strong arms, he dropped to the prickly ground. Too many emotions warred inside of him. The water plunging down wasn’t loud enough to override the thumping of his heart. And the view of all her ruined land with its expansive black plains, rolling mottled hills, and soaring dirty waterfall was nothing compared to the injury he had inflicted upon her. He had intended to stop Michael. To keep him from tearing them apart in the only way he could. He hadn’t cared that what he had been determined to do was wrong. The notion of killing his heavenly brother had come naturally. Easily.
And then he’d stabbed her.
Lucifer gagged as bile spiked up the back of his throat. His actions sickened him. They proved Michael’s worry and taunts right. He was dangerous. And if the glimpses that had been forced on him so long ago were accurate…his love for Gabriel could ruin more than this once perfect garden.
He was a monster.
An abomination.
A gentle touch tore Lucifer out of his head, forcing him to glance down. With her arm extended up, Gabriel’s pale hand laid against his cheek, thumb toying with the stubble there. Her eyes as they looked at him did not propel anger or hatred like Michael’s had. Instead, all he saw was sadness and a faint hint of…acceptance? “You react so explosively. So unexpectedly.” Lucifer tried to look away, but her gentle touch turned firm, keeping him from doing so. “I know you never meant to harm me. I know this in my heart.”
Lucifer could not keep his eyes from traveling to the gaping hole in her chest. It was so close to her heart, being right above the organ, the glimpse inside showing the white of ribs and the erratic flutter of the organ that was still exposed but otherwise intact. But her ultimate end had come so devastatingly close. He gritted his teeth to keep from roaring in torment. The blood loss was lessening ever so slowly.
“Lucifer, my Morningstar…look at me.”
He could not deny her and let his gaze glide up from the wet, silvery mess to her face. Staring at her, he saw in his mind how they had been before Michael’s interruption: together, naked, ready to become one without any separation. Those feelings of love were still as strong as ever, though now they danced alongside his regret at what he had almost done. If she had died…
“I still believe in you. I always will, no matter what happens. No matter what you do.”
In his mind, Lucifer replayed the moment Gabriel had been on her knees before Michael, pleading for him not to return to God with his knowledge. But that was not all she had said. It will never happen again. I vow it in His name. I should never have given in. It was wrong—
Lucifer clenched his jaw. Underlying all of his regret, a feeling he had held back rose to the surface. Betrayal. She had vowed never to be with Lucifer again. She had said their love was wrong. Wrong. She agreed with God’s stringent and restricting laws. She had sided with Michael. And then she had let the angel leave alive to set in stone Lucifer’s soon-to-be fate.
“No. You do not.” Lucifer lifted her in his arms, walking without really seeing back to the pond. “You think the way we feel for each other is wrong. That it must be stopped.” Though he had thought the same himself in that fleeting moment, he now saw reality in a different light. Without God’s unreasonable rules demanding Lucifer contain the emotions he had no control over, he would never have done the many things that had made him an outcast. He would never have inadvertently or even directly endangered the love he could not survive without.
“Lucifer, by our rules it is wrong. We both know that.” As Gabriel was placed down by the water’s edge, the glowing chain she had once been restrained with jangled as he swept it aside. She tensed at the pain of her slowly healing wound while trying to keep her hand against his jaw. She would survive, of that he was sure. “Will you please look at me?”
Lucifer remained close, kneeling at her side, relishing the feel of her palm on his face. He had almost ended her because of their rules, the one being in this world that he’d claimed he could not live without. Now Michael was on his way to inform God. Maybe he was already there, spilling his venomous words at the now. Their time, as always, was short. It was ending. He knew he would be painted the villain, that Michael would spin the story to blacken Lucifer’s name further. He also knew Gabriel would be mentioned, that God would learn of her reciprocation to his advances. She had sinned too. She had broken their laws of purity and subservience. He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing what he had to do, knowing that he could not live with himself if she were to be punished too. Her love, her hope, her acceptance, it was not something that should be locked away or hidden from any realm. He refused to see her caged or cast out.
Gabriel’s hand fell away. “Lucifer?”
Opening his eyes, Lucifer sighed. A small smile pulled at one side of his lips. “My Gabriel.” He leaned forward, cupping her face as he pressed his lips to her forehead. “For always…”
A loud clank sounded and Gabriel gasped, rearing back and propping her knees with a clatter. Around her ankle was the manacle connected to the restricting chain, locked and unmovable as it disappeared beneath the charred ground. “What are you doing?” Panic now had a hold of her beautiful face as she rose to her knees. “Lucifer, what is this?”
More blood squeezed out at her frantic movements, her heart fluttering faster beneath the shrinking gash.
“A parting gift.” Lucifer rolled up from his kneeling position at her side, cringing at the sight of her wound. Her heart raced wildly beneath her exposed rib, but the gash was smaller, shrinking with each of her quick breaths. “I will not let you take the blame. This was my doing, now and from the very start. The punishment should be solely mine.”
“That is not true.” Tears filled her eyes and her hands came together, pleading. Begging. “Lucifer, you know it is not.”
“It does not matter.” Lucifer’s smile didn’t falter, nor did his conviction. His wings unfurled, casting a shadow over Gabriel and the pond, and then he beat them to lift up. Taking in the view of her below him, he committed her every detail to his memory: her long flowing silver-flaxen hair, her body that had warmed and invited at his touch, her full rosy lips that had spoken returned feelings of love. And her eyes, the most silver-blue and round eyes that still shone with the acceptance of everything Lucifer had once been and of who he was becoming. “I love you, Gabriel. I will never stop.”
“Lucifer!” Gabriel’s cry cut off as Lucifer beat his mighty wings, sending him up through the light above to deliver him straight to Heaven.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lucifer broke up through the thick layer of light like he was diving up through air that was as tangible as water. The warmer atmosphere that would normally have comforted him as he discontinued his upward drive, now felt like a blanket that clung to his perspiring skin and traveled into his mouth and down to his lungs like a thickening force to suffocate him. Wings fanning out to slow his plunging descent, Lucifer landed, one foot and one bent knee absorbing the film of light that was as hard as stone.
Head bent and eyes down, Lucifer did not need to glance up to know who awaited him. God’s almighty power radiated through every particle around him, adding to the suffocation that made his head swim and his insides clench. The glow that filled God’s throne was close to blinding, and its growing heat warned that his maker was already aware of Lucifer’s wrongdoings. But how much had been revealed?
As formidable as God’s presence was, another’s made his skin tighten and tempted him to ball his hands into fists.
Michael was here.
His self-righteous power stained the purity of all that existed in the perfect realm of Heaven as he stood tall beside their maker on his soaring, pearly throne. The smug look on the angel warrior’s face, Lucifer beheld as he lifted his bowed head, was like a dare to step out of place. “So you have come to confess your sins, Lucifer.”
Not a question, but a presumption from the holier-than-thou angel.
Lucifer tore his narrowed eyes away from his brother as the glowing orb that commanded the throne pulsed once with blinding severity. “Morningstar,” God’s commanding voice boomed with shattering power that, instead of being vocalized, was delivered telepathically with a shock of power that felt like being struck by lightning. Shielding his face from the intensifying light, Lucifer fought back the tears that stung his eyes as his head pulsed, slowly making out the shimmering fog that acted as a veil to conceal all of Heaven that awaited beyond their maker. “You have forsaken me and all that you are.”
Each syllable felt like a tiny implosion inside Lucifer, threatening to turn his insides to liquid. And then the light flared once more before it blinked out. Shocked at the reprieve, Lucifer’s head snapped up and he gasped. No longer was the brilliant orb of light taking up the huge shiny throne with its smooth iridescent curves that made up the towering back or the thick curls of pearl that made up the arms. What now occupied the throne was smaller than the light had been, though still a towering figure compared to him and even Michael—who for once looked as startled as Lucifer.
Now upon the throne was the true form of their God. A manlike being that was not a man at all. With long golden hair akin to Lucifer’s and bronzed skin, the face looking back at him was innocent, a boy of maybe thirteen that was draped in the most vibrant of blues, greens, and golds.
Lucifer dropped his head at once, bowing at the privilege of being shown God’s true form, forgetting momentarily why he was kneeling before his God in the first place.