Cado (13 page)

Thunder boomed and lightening streaked across the sky. Lucian stood with his legs spread wide, head thrown back, and black wings unfurled, reaching out above him. His voice was lost in the tumultuous night, and yet I still somehow knew what he was saying. “Nyssa! Nyssa! You cannot hide from me forever! I will find you and you will join me! You will not deny what we are to each—”

I stepped up behind him, reaching for his shoulder. My hand trembled as it slid over his hot flesh. “Lucian,” I whispered.

He whirled around, his eyes flashing with anger and hurt. “I love you,” he spat. “I won’t let you—”

“You tricked me. You hid from me what and who you really are. I do not love you. I cannot. I was born to hate you.”

He roughly pulled me into his embrace, slanting his lips over mine. His tongue ravaged my mouth trying to lay claim to something that could never be his. I hit at his chest and wretched away from him, falling to my knees. I stared up into his blazing eyes, knowing that he was right. He would never let me go, and I did love him, no matter how much I protested. As an angel, my love would never fade…never.

“You are fallen, I am not. You let me believe you to be just a man. Even then our relationship was taboo, but—”

“I am just a man.” Lucian’s voice turned pleading as he dropped down on the ground so he was level with me. “I only tricked you because I knew you’d never give me a chance otherwise. I’ve always loved you. I knew—”

“Of course I would not have! I struggled with the thought of loving anyone in that way.” I pulled myself to my feet. “I will not fall from Heaven for you.”

Lucian’s face hardened, his eyes darkening. “You belong to me.”

“I belong to Him. Not you.”

“He will not forgive your indiscretion. You will fall whether you want to or not. Then—”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Lucian. He knows and he’s offered me another way. A way in which I will be free from you and still be able to do his work.”

Panic swept across Lucian’s features. “What have you done? Nyssa—we can be together. All you have to do is—”

“I will not fall for you.”

I cried out, squeezing my head. It was as if my brain matter had changed to bubbling hot lava. “No! Stop! Please stop!”

“I need for you to remember, my Karma. I need for you to look at me and know who I am.”

And I did. He forced each tiny detail into my skull, filling me up with the tragedies of our long shared past. It was too much for me to handle. I struggled to move, to crawl on my hands and knees if I had to, just to escape him, to get away from what he was showing me.

Strong arms banded around me and lifted. Through slitted eyes I met Lucian’s dark gaze, which was the last thing I saw before I was swept away into unconsciousness.

I peeled my eyes open slowly, even the dim lighting in the room was almost too much for my throbbing head. I pulled myself up into a sitting position, scanning my surroundings. I was in back in the small room that was dominated by the huge bed I was in the middle of. But there was something new. The walls were covered in mirrors. As if mesmerized I stumbled across the room to get closer.

I stood facing one of the mirrors, tracing my reflection in the glass. My features were different and yet the same in some way. I remembered all the faces I’d worn since I’d essentially gone on the run from Lucian. I’d given up my wings, not to become fallen like him, but to become an Earth bound angel of sorts. My heavenly soul was born into a human body, life after life-time. Only a made angel, an angel who had once been human, could be one such as me. Although I still had no recollection of my original human life. Nor was I supposed to know any of the rest. But Lucian always forced me to recall each of the tragic endings of my human reincarnations since leaving my wings behind. He wouldn’t let me go, just like he’d promised.

Lucian appeared behind me, his bare chest glistening as if dusted in gold. He looked different to me now. He was no longer the strange and yet compelling man who I’d just met. He was one of the fallen—the first fallen—and the soul who had stolen my heart centuries ago. Even when I didn’t know him, I was drawn to him. I’d tried so many times before to forget him, even replace him, but my soul craved only him. It’s why he’d been jealous of Moretti but not crazed. I’d been with other men before to try to escape Lucian. He knew it meant nothing. He knew I could only love him.

My eyes slid shut as Lucian pressed up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. His lips moved hungrily over my neck, his hands exploring my flesh. “You know this time will be no different than the others,” I rasped even as I arched into him, yearning for what he was so blatantly offering.

I shook my head ever so slightly, raising my hand to thread into his hair. I opened my eyes to meet his gaze in the mirror. He tipped his head forward and smiled against my skin. “That’s where you’re wrong. Everything about this life is different.”

“No. Nothing’s changed.”

He threw his head back and laughed, spinning me in his arms so I ended up with my back pressed against the cool glass. He caged me in with his large frame, his black wings wrapping around us. “With each life you become more and more human—more corrupted. I’ve been patient—so fucking patient. This will be the life that I finally make you mine…forever.”

“No—”

“You kill for what you think is justice. You’ve become judge and jury.” His lips tipped up into an all too familiar smirk. “Just. Like. Me.”

I gasped, shrinking away from him as much as I could. He was right. This life was the first I’d ever taken it upon myself to be judge and jury—a murderer. In past lives I would help the police, turn people over to be dealt with by the law. Something had changed—I’d changed. Bile rose up into my throat, burning.

Lucian stroked his knuckles from my temple down along my jaw. “Ah, my darling little Karma, I can see by your reaction that you know what I’m saying is true. You’ve let yourself be corrupted. You may have been given another chance, one that you gave your wings up for, but in the end—” He dipped his head to whisper in my ear. “—in the end, you will be mine after all, no matter what you do now. Your soul will go to Hell—where I will claim it and you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, balling my fists. “I’ll throw myself on his mercy again. I’ll beg. I’ll—”

“Be caste down like so many before you. You were given your chance, and you blew it, my love.” He chuckled. “It took you longer to get there, but you’ve finally come to see the things that I did eons ago. Humans need to be punished. There’s no other way.”

“It’s not our place to serve as judge and jury. It’s His job. I—”

“Fucked up. There’s no going back now.”

“No. No, I’ll find a way.”

Lucian stepped away from me, the lack of his body heat leaving me bereft. I opened my eyes once again to see him standing before me with a small blade in his palm. I immediately recognized it as the one I’d used to slit my wrists in my last lifetime. I’d taken my own life, time after time to escape so I could be reborn again. It’d always been my only way out. But now—now if I took my own life I wasn’t so sure if he was right or not. My soul, now that it was tainted with murder, might go directly to Hell. Killing myself in all the other lives wasn’t the same as when a true human did it, which is why I’d never been punished. It was as if I had been hitting the emergency eject button on my current body. Everything was different now. Lucian was right. I’d fucked up. I turned away, pressing my cheek against the glass.

“What? Don’t you want this? Isn’t it what you usually do once I make you remember?” Lucian was mocking me. He knew he had the upper hand for the first time. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and refused to respond. I had to think. There had to be a way out of the mess I’d created for myself.

“There’s only one way for this to end, my Karma. One way.”

So many lives, too many years, and I was back at the beginning, back to exactly where I’d been when I’d first fallen in love with Lucian, when I’d thought him to be just a man. How could I have been so blind? “Why Lucian? Why did you want me to begin with? Why do you still?” I’d asked that question every life and he’d never answered.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

“No.”

“You will.”

I awoke alone in the small room with the gigantic bed. I had no recollection of falling asleep or how I’d come to be there on the bed. The last thing I remembered was leaning against the mirrors with Lucian looming over me. Had I fainted? Or had he done something…again? Not that it mattered. I was at least to receive some kind of reprieve from his torment, being that he’d left me alone.
Alone.
Wasn’t I always alone though? My existence was isolating. It wasn’t just my current life where I’d built walls to protect my identity as a vigilante. Ever since I’d given up my wings, I’d been…separate. I was no longer an angel, but I wasn’t quite human either. I was an anomaly, at least as far as I was aware.

I thought about praying, but then the shame of what I’d become prevented me. Lucian was right. I’d allowed myself to become tainted, just like him. Had it been inevitable from the beginning? Had I been destined to end up here since the first moment my lips touched his? I had no one to blame but myself. I’d lost something along the way, over the many lifetimes I’d been reborn. Was it my faith? Or was I just tired of running? I couldn’t really say. Lucian was always there. He always found me. A part of me, the part that had become a little too human, thrilled at his devotion, no matter how twisted it had become. Did Lucian actually love me or was I merely an obsession? Of course, all love has traces of obsession interweaved in it. Would Lucian still want me if he could actually have me?

I pressed my fingers into my temples and groaned. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t let myself wonder such things. But where was Lucian now? His scent lingered on the navy silk sheets that I felt like I was swimming in. I tried not to push my face into the soft fabric to get more of it, but I was unable to resist. Even when he’d tricked me into believing himself to be just a mortal man, he’d always had the same scent. It was spicy, intoxicating…pure sex…at least to me.

I thought back to when I’d first encountered him, the man who was to be my downfall. If only I’d been able to resist him then.

I stared up at the beautiful stained glass window in the church. Sun streamed through it causing a kaleidoscope of colors to dance across the wooden pews. I was an angel, I’d seen Heaven itself, but sometimes it was the small things man created that truly awed me. They had no special powers, no divine gifts, they merely innovated and imagined ways to make things better, more beautiful. My father may have made us the superior race, but humans were truly a marvel. They intrigued me. Sometimes I just liked to study them. Not all of them were good, and sometimes I wondered what father’s plan was, but it wasn’t my place to ask such questions.

“Are you an angel?”

I jumped, not expecting anyone to address me, for I thought myself to be invisible to humans. I turned slowly around. In front of me stood a tall muscular man with golden hair. His gaze swept over me from head to toe. “You can see me?” I asked.

His lips curled up. “Yes, of course.”

I tilted my head, curious. “Who are you?”

Perfect white teeth flashed at me. “I am Lucian. Have you come to answer my prayers?”

“You’ve been praying?” I stepped closer to him. “For what?”

“For answers.”

“To what?”

“Will you talk with me?”

I nodded. Maybe I’d been drawn to this church for a reason. Maybe Lucian’s prayers had indeed been answered. “I will.”

It had been such a simple request, the desire for conversation. How could I have known that Lucian had already begun his seduction? First he would have my mind, then my heart, and finally my body would follow. At the time I didn’t know how he’d managed to hide his true form from me.
Now I know the truth of how extensive his powers are.