Archangel of Mercy

by Christina Ashcroft

  She crossed her arms over his chest and gazed down at him.

  “Are you saying we’ve missed something? That a great civilization flourished during that time?”

  “No. Five thousand years ago humans were back to scrabbling in the dirt.” He sounded grimly satisfied by that fact. “I’m talking about the end of the last so-called Ice Age, Aurora. That was when we discovered Earth. That was the true golden age of technological advance and enlightenment.”

  For a horrible moment she thought he was mocking her. But he looked deadly serious.

  “But”—she cleared her throat, tried again—“people were hunter-gatherers then, Gabe.”

  His hand trailed from her shoulder and gently cupped her face. As if she was something fragile. Precious. This time she didn’t even bother smothering the thought. Because, no matter how improbable, deep in her heart she knew Gabe did think she was something precious.

  If she was still nothing more than a toy to him he wouldn’t be laying here, suffering her questions. He wouldn’t be trying to explain an impossible past to her. He would have dismissed her, the way he’d dismissed her concerns and opinions on the day they’d first met.

  “Yes, that’s true. For the most part.”

  His agreement threw her, and she frowned, completely confused. “The most part?”

  “Eleven thousand years ago,” he said, “there was a vast continent where the culture was rich and diverse. That’s where we made our playground. The scholars of that time were our teachers, our lovers. They taught us about the stars and the celestial cycle of the Earth.”

  Enthralled, Aurora stared into his mesmeric eyes. They were glazed, as he recalled living in that far-off time, in that fantastical land.

  “Our goddess was fine with this. At least we weren’t polluting the human gene pool with countless offspring.” This time his smile was bitter. “She’d got some serious shit from the other Alphas over her experiments. They would have ripped her apart if they’d been able to. Not only were we created from them all, but she’d given us wings. The ultimate indulgence.”

  “They were jealous?” Gods had been jealous of archangels?

  He shrugged, like it didn’t matter and he no longer cared. “They rarely interacted with us. We were content to remain on Earth. And eventually some of us discovered love.”

  “And your goddess wasn’t fine about that.” It wasn’t a question, and when he gave her a probing look she knew she was right.

  “She didn’t like it.” He paused, frowned, and for a moment she had the certainty that he wasn’t going to tell her anything more. She brushed her lips across his, a butterfly kiss, and hoped with all her heart he wouldn’t stop now. “But she tolerated it.”

  “Because as far as she was concerned,” Aurora said, the words spilling from her before she could stop herself, “the love of an archangel for their beloved was nothing compared to the eternal love you bore for her.”

  The look of shock on Gabe’s face mirrored the shock ricocheting through her chest. Where had that come from? Why was she so sure that she was right?

  “Something like that.” His voice was guarded, and it was obvious he was having trouble processing her last comment. That made two of them. “We never chose to enlighten her.”

  A chill inched along Aurora’s arms, not at what Gabe had just said. But at what he had left unsaid.

  “But souls are reborn.” Her voice was hushed as the implication thundered through her mind, illuminating dark fragments of long forgotten dreams . . . memories? “She thought the love died when your beloved died. She didn’t know you waited for them to come back to you.”

  His hand tightened around her waist and his intense gaze roved over her face, searching for something. Something elusive; something unimaginable. Her breath stalled in her throat as his eyes darkened and then he slowly blinked, and the moment shattered.

  “It never occurred to her we were capable of undying devotion for a mere human. Never crossed her mind that despite her best manipulations and sacred edict, a few precious Nephilim had been born.”

  Dread scraped a skeletal claw along her spine. She had wanted to know what had happened that had made archangels decide to never love again. But now that it seemed Gabe was willing to tell her she realized she didn’t want to know.

  Was afraid to know.

  But Gabe was looking at her, waiting for her to ask the question. He wanted her to ask . . . so that he could continue.

  Did he believe that by sharing the past with her, the magnitude of his misplaced guilt might diminish?

  She had no choice. She was being ridiculous and melodramatic because no matter how awful whatever had happened was, why would knowing it make her afraid?

  “What did she do?”

  He didn’t answer. Just continued to look at her, as if he had no idea who she was or why she was in his bed. But he didn’t release his possessive hold on her, either.

  “Why am I telling you all this?” He speared his fingers through her hair, held the back of her head. “I’ve never told anyone of my past. Why you? Why now?”

  “I don’t know.” She mirrored his actions, spearing her fingers through his hair and cradling his temple. “Why not?”

  For long moments he didn’t reply. She could feel the internal battle that raged in his mind—the desire to confide and the millennia-old conditioning that demanded eternal silence. But he hadn’t entered her mind. They weren’t sharing thoughts. And for once there was no fear hovering on the edges of her consciousness that an insidious insanity lurked.

  She just knew.

  Finally he released a heavy sigh, and she knew he’d come to a decision. One that might damn him forever.

  “She walked the Earth. To see for herself why we were so enamored. She found those willing to betray our secrets. They told her of the Nephilim, told her how those archangels who fell waited, life after mortal life, until their beloved was reborn.”

  A terrible certainty gripped her. If so many myths and legends had basis in truth, then so too did the stories of the great flood that had all but wiped out humankind.

  And the heavens opened and the seas rose and escape was denied to all those with tainted blood.

  It was more than a thought. It felt like ancient knowledge that she had always known but never before been able to access. Images of tsunamis, of erupting volcanoes, of devastating earthquakes saturated her mind in terrifying detail. She clutched Gabe’s hair, anchored herself in this moment. She was not recalling those events. She was only imagining how it must have been.

  “So she”—her mouth was dry, her tongue felt like it didn’t belong to her—“sent the flood to wipe out everything?”

  His hard grip on her head eased and he let out a long breath. It sounded almost like regret.

  “It’s ironic how the flood lives on in the collective consciousness.” His hand curled around the back of her neck, a potentially threatening gesture, which conversely brought her odd comfort. “Yet the reasons behind it have been lost to antiquity. No, she didn’t send the flood. No single deity sent the flood, Aurora. The geophysical upheavals of that time were simply a part of the natural cycle of the Earth’s clock.”

  She relaxed her panicked grip on his hair. That made a lot more sense to her than the vindictive actions of a spurned goddess. Or god, if it came to that.

  But Gabe loathed his goddess. And the only reason she could imagine for such hatred was because that Alpha Immortal was, in some way, responsible for the death of his beloved and daughter.

  “What did she do, Gabe?”

  “There was originally another planet in this solar system,” he said, seemingly oblivious to her question. “The ancients called it Nibiru. But it was more than a planet. It was the City of Angels where we’d been created, where our goddess occasionally resided. More important, it was immune to the natural forces that govern any normal planet.”

  They would be safe on Nibiru. Although many would perish on Earth, with the exod
us enough would survive to start again, to re-create their society, to pass on their knowledge to future generations . . .

  The thought wasn’t hers. Couldn’t be hers. Yet it was so powerful, so absolute. What was happening to her? Or was this how it had started with her mother? Not the gradual fading of her old life but the certainty that she had lived another life altogether?

  “You wanted to save the people. By taking them to your city.”

  “We couldn’t have saved them all.” It was obvious that memory razed his soul. “You have to understand something. Their civilization was ancient long before we discovered their continent. They had studied the heavens for millennia, passing on their knowledge from one generation to the next. They’d unearthed the past and with mathematical precision gained foreknowledge of the future. The apocalypse would come.”

  He said it with such finality. As if it was a foregone conclusion and nothing could prevent it.

  “But they tried to find ways to stop it?” Any advanced civilization would try to prevent the destruction of their way of life if they possibly could.

  “No. That was never their design. It was carved into their consciousness that they wouldn’t all survive. It had been an accepted facet of their future for countless generations.” He dragged in a heavy breath. “I’m not saying they were happy about it. But they channeled their energy into preserving what they could. What could be passed down through the ages to descendants far in the future.”

  But nothing had survived. No one had ever heard of this great, doomed civilization. A strange sorrow pierced her at that forlorn knowledge.

  “What happened?” she said softly, although a part of her didn’t want to know. And again the fear gripped her. A fear she didn’t quite understand but still couldn’t ignore.

  “We offered the chance of escape.” A trace of bitterness edged his voice. “For a select few thousand. But the plan leaked and it was like a dam exploded. While the people had accepted their predestined fate and the odds of perishing, they absolutely weren’t ready to accept the kind of intervention we offered. Not when we couldn’t offer it to everyone.”

  “They turned against the Nephilim,” she whispered, unsure why she was so certain of that, only knowing she was right. And that vilification of the archangels’ beloved children had survived countless ages, twisting something that was pure and beautiful into a monstrous travesty of the truth.

  “And sold us out to our goddess.” His voice was eerily calm. “We didn’t discover this until afterward. If we’d known we would never have answered her call. Never have returned to Nibiru. Never given her the chance to neutralize us while on Earth the continental plates shifted and magnetic poles reversed. While life as we had known it was all but annihilated.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  SILENCE vibrated in the air, but frantic fragments of disjointed thoughts—memories?—tumbled through her mind.

  She had always known he had not forsaken them . . . He had not willingly severed their telepathic link . . . One day she would return to him . . .

  They were crazy thoughts. A sign of desperation. Was she trying to fool herself that she, Aurora Robinson, had in a previous life been Gabe’s beloved?

  It was dreadfully seductive. How easily she could let herself believe it. But it was a fantasy. Not real. She would not allow her reality to blur.

  Tenderly, she cradled his face between her palms, their bodies meshed as if they were one. He had promised to save the ones he loved, and been unable to keep his word. This was the crux of Gabe’s guilt, and he had never been to blame. How could he have known the extent of his goddess’s wrath?

  No wonder he loathed her.

  “And when it was over”—she hesitated, wondering if she should continue to probe—“she released you?”

  “No.” His voice was devoid of emotion. “We rose up against her. Destroyed our City, annihilated the whole damn planet in our battle for freedom. But we were too late. Earth had reset her clock. And the human gene pool had been . . . cleansed.”

  “I’m so sorry.” They were trite words but not meaningless. What else could she say?

  He rolled onto his side, still holding her, so they faced each other.

  “It was my fault. We’d long ago decided to save our own—our beloveds, the Nephilim and current lovers. But I suggested we try and preserve the nucleus of the civilization as well. If I hadn’t done that then there wouldn’t have been the uprising. Our goddess wouldn’t have discovered our plan until we’d executed it.” A trace of bitterness seeped into his voice. “Until it was too fucking late for her to do anything about it.”

  The Archangel Gabriel. The Angel of Mercy. The stories had been right, after all.

  “It wasn’t your fault.” If only there was some way she could make him believe that. But after so many centuries what hope did she have of changing his conviction?

  “I’ve never forgiven humans for how they betrayed us to our goddess. For how, as the Earth shifted around them, they turned their wrath on our Nephilim and murdered them.” He offered her a mirthless smile that ate into her heart. “After the destruction of Nibiru we avoided Earth. Utilized our Alpha powers and explored the universe, which was something we’d never been inclined to do before then.”

  “But you live on Earth.” The words slipped out before she could stop them and she bit her lip. “I mean, you came back to Earth . . .” Her voice trailed into silence. Not because she didn’t know what to say, but because she was unable to say it.

  “It’s our curse.” He sounded resigned. “No matter where we travel or make our so-called permanent base, the Earth calls to some primitive core deep inside us. Whether we live here or not, few of us can stay away for more than a few decades or so. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  It wasn’t ironic. She knew why he couldn’t stay away. Mentally she steeled her nerve. “It’s because you all know, even if it’s only subconsciously, that one day your beloveds will be reborn.”

  This time the silence was so profound she thought she’d pushed him beyond his limits. She threaded her fingers through his, willed him not to turn from her or tell her it was none of her business. It didn’t matter how every word pierced her heart. All that mattered was Gabe speak of his past in the futile hope that, somehow, it would help heal his wounded soul.

  “The knowledge isn’t subconscious.” He raised their joined hands and focused on their entwined fingers. “We knew it would take millennia for the human race to recover from the brink of extinction. Knew that, eventually, the odds would once again be in our favor.” Finally he looked back up at her and the raw despair in his eyes caused her heart to compress in hopeless empathy. “But the odds have never been in our favor, Aurora, because we were never meant to exist. Humans were never supposed to fall in love with us. We watched our beloved Nephilim die, knowing our blood in their veins damned them for eternity. How could we put the ones we loved through that, life after life? How could we keep going through that, again and again?”

  Her throat ached with unshed tears for all that he’d told her. And all that he had not. And again the seductive, insidious feeling of having known Gabe in another time haunted her. She tried to suppress the thought because it wasn’t just crazy it was insensitive, but she couldn’t help it.

  He’d just told her that, in time, their loved ones would be reborn. Aside from encroaching madness how else could she explain the flashes of knowledge she’d experienced? The eerie certainty that she had once understood the language of the ancients; that she had once known the beauty and splendor of Gabe’s incomparable wings as he wrapped them around her?

  Was it possible she was the one Gabe had loved so fiercely, so long ago? He had irrevocably lost his daughter, but wouldn’t he embrace the chance of loving his child’s mother once more?

  “But what about you?” She pressed his knuckles against her breast. Against her heart. “Have you never searched for your beloved?”

  “No.” There was a chilling finality in
his tone and shivers scuttled over her exposed flesh, as if the temperature had just dropped several degrees. Why had she asked him that question? Because a terrible certainty clutched her. She didn’t want to know the answer. “Eleni—my beloved—wasn’t a full-blood human like most of the beloveds. She was part Nephilim—descended from an archangel. Our beloveds were our soul mates but because of her heritage Eleni didn’t possess a soul. If she had I would have searched for her until the end of time.”

  Pain enveloped her heart, the sensation so heavy and all-encompassing it compressed her lungs, crushed her chest. Fragile hopes and elusive dreams crumbled into dust, as if they had never existed.

  Because they never had existed outside of her frighteningly vulnerable mind.

  She had never loved Gabe in a previous life, because his beloved had been part angel. And although he couldn’t search for Eleni, he would never stop loving her until the end of time.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” He stirred restlessly, and panic clawed through her, magnifying her pain. He couldn’t know what she’d been thinking. Please let him not have guessed the stupid hopes she’d harbored. “Eleni wasn’t immortal. She would have died eventually and there would have been no hope of us ever being together again. I know that. Always knew it. But she was taken before her time.” His fingers tightened around hers, willing her to understand. But she did understand. He didn’t have to try and justify his love to her.

  She envied that love. And knowing how deeply he adored Eleni only made her, masochistically, love him all the more.

  “Nephilim, even when their blood is diluted by generations as Eleni’s was, still lived longer than pureblood humans. We could have had a thousand years or more together. Not long, not for me, but longer than we had.”

  She closed her eyes against the bleak expression that clouded his eyes, against the hollow knowledge that this was all he could ever give her, and kissed his knuckles. It wasn’t enough, but maybe it was enough to know that once he had been capable of a love she had only dreamed could exist. And maybe it was enough to know that she, too, was capable of such love.