Fallen (10 page)

Before they departed from their guests, Amir hung back from the group and pulled Sarah aside. She had been mostly silent before and after the ceremony, but had been watching him intently. “You seem so different,” she said once he had pulled her aside. “You’re not the same at all.”

Amir smiled. “I know. I couldn’t be happier.”

She nodded thoughtfully, her hand stroking her chin. “I suppose that is all that’s important then.”

He reached out and embraced her, feeling as if he was saying good-bye to her forever. Perhaps he was. “Wish me well, Sarah.”

“
Many blessings on you and your new wife, Amir. She’s lovely and the two of you look so happy. I don’t suppose I’ll be seeing you again.”

“
Someday Sarah,” he said with a smile as he turned to join his new wife where she waited for him in an idling taxi. “Someday.”

Shayla pushed her damp hair away from her sweat soaked forehead and fell back against the pillows. Amir collapsed next to her, equally damp with perspiration and breathing heavily. After the wedding they had closeted themselves in their honeymoon suite where Amir had carried her straight to the bed.

Now that he had experienced desire and passion, he was like a young teenage boy. Insatiable, Shayla had called him, and insatiable he was. He now understood why the Trojans had gone to war over Helen of Troy, a woman said to be so beautiful that she launched one thousand ships. He now understood why David had killed Bathsheba’s husband after seeing her bathing on the rooftop. He now understood why a man could lose his soul over a woman’s touch.

Now that desire had been awakened in him, he couldn’t seem to put it back to sleep. He placed his head on Shayla’s shoulder and kissed her neck lightly before hugging her back against his front.

“
I’m sorry,” he said, still struggling to catch his breath. “You must be tired.”

“
Exhausted,” she said with a chuckle, “but in a good way.”

“
It’s just that I never imagined that anything could feel so right.”

She turned and glanced at him over her shoulder. “I couldn’t either.”

“
I love you,” he whispered against her ear.

“
I love you too, but you have to let me sleep now.”

Amir groaned. “Just once more,” he begged, pulling her more tightly against him. The evidence of his arousal pressed up against her back. “Last time, I promise.”

“
No Amir,” she mumbled sleepily, her eyelids already drooping. “We have the rest of our lives for more.”

Amir rested his head next to Shayla’s and contemplated that as she drifted off to sleep. They
did
have the rest of their lives for more. More of everything. More love, more moments together, more passion. More éclairs, more coffee, and more Bach. More dancing, more handholding, and more Chinese takeout menus. More of everything Amir could have ever dreamed of. When he compared forty to fifty more years full of these things to centuries of walking the earth alone, the two did not even compare.

As the sun finally set on his first day as Shayla’s husband, the sun cast its final rays through the window and Amir felt the most delicious warmth as if someone had wrapped their arms around him. The feeling was so familiar that Amir could not help but smile.

“
Thank you,” he said to the sunset as he held his bride, drifting off to join her in peaceful slumber.

Chapter 15: Return to Paradise

55 years later…

The strains of classical strings filled the room, mingling with the breeze rustling through the open windows. Amir turned his head from where he lay in bed and stared out at the rising sun. His Shayla had always loved to watch the sunrise. He missed her daily, with an ache that could never be filled. She had died the year before at the age of 82, leaving him behind sleeping peacefully in their bed. Since then, he had lived with his eldest son and his family; they hadn’t wanted him to be alone.

He supposed he was happy enough; surrounded by grandchildren and cared for by his two sons and daughter, he could never ask for more. His days were filled with joy and laughter, yet he still missed his wife. They had had a long and beautiful life together.

As he lay dozing, allowing the haunting melody of the concerto to wrap itself around him, he watched the sun rise over his window sill. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement in the shadows. A very familiar whisper and the shiver that tingled down his spine told Amir everything he needed to know. The Angel of Death had come for him.

He turned his head to where the shadowy figure stood in the corner and smiled. “It’s about time,” he said. The angel responded by nodding, but was otherwise silent. “I am ready,” Amir told him, laying back and closing his eyes. Darkness cloaked him as he lay back among the pillows, and Amir let out his final breath. The darkness lasted but a moment before a flash of light, the streaking stars of space, and then the brightest star of them all, a place Amir had once called home. As he drew near, his heart soared and he saw the face of his beloved, turned up to the sky to await his arrival. A booming yet gentle voice greeted him at the pearlescent gates, “Welcome home, my son.”

Dear Reader,

I hope that you enjoyed Fallen, the first novella in my ‘Angels Among Us’ series. Book 2, ‘Tempted’ follows the story of the messenger angel Sarah, and is due to be released in March of 2012. I am always happy to hear from and interact with my readers. Feel free to find me at any of the following places:

Website:
www.elisemarion.com

Email:
[email protected]

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/elisemarion86

Twitter: @elise_marion

Blog:
www.theromancewritersreads.blogspot.com

Happy Reading,

Elise

Don’t miss book 2 in this heavenly series,
Tempted
now available!

In a world full of the sick and dying, the hurting and desperate, and those lost in darkness, angels dwell. Messenger angel Sarah is focused, dedicated to the cause of heaven in the war against hell. For centuries she has watched other angels succumb to temptation and break the rules governing relationships between angels and humans. Sarah has vowed to never become one of the ‘Fallen’ angels, now demons cursed to wander the depths of hell for eternity. She knows that she is stronger than the others, incapable of emotional attachment and the feelings of love and desire that can be so dangerous to her kind.
Jackson Bennett is alone in the world, and he prefers it that way. The former Army sergeant has seen more death than any human ought to experience in one lifetime. Even his dreams are haunted by the faces of those who have lost their lives because of him. He feels lost, purposeless, until an encounter with an angel reveals the secret purpose that he was made for. Born of a superior race of humans, Jackson learns of a special assignment. Should he accept, he will become an important part of world that exists between heaven, hell, and earth. After all that he has been through, Jackson doesn’t know if he’s ready to take on such a heavy responsibility; what he does know is that he could lose himself in the eyes of Sarah, the intriguing angel assigned to him. She is the only person who seems to understand the darkness and pain that have enveloped his heart; she is the only person capable of driving them away.
In a battle between love or loneliness, divinity or damnation, Sarah’s choice once seemed easy. What she finds is that the black and white lines that once defined her world are now impossibly blurred and gray. What she finds is that she may not be not quite as strong as she thought.

Enjoy this excerpt from the next chapter in the
Angels Among Us
series

Raindrops plopped onto his head and shoulders as he stepped onto the roof. Sarah stood a few feet away from him, her palms stretched out to catch the water drops. Her eyes were closed and her face was tilted back to the cloudy sky. Jackson watched, his jaw slack, as she twirled in a slow circle, extending her arms to embrace the coming storm.

His heart pounded in his chest, and his conscience nagged him for intruding on her private moment. Yet he couldn’t look away from her. She looked like the angel she truly was, bathed in moonlight, her arms and legs bare in the thin sundress she was wearing, her face tilted to the sky. His stomach clenched and his blood raced. He took a step toward her.

She opened her eyes and turned toward him slowly, lowering her arms. As she moved toward him, he felt time slowing around him, and realized he’d felt this sensation before so many times. He’d never bothered to pay attention to it, chalking it up to childish fantasy on his part, blaming it on too many slow-motion filled action movies. He would never have attributed it to the power he'd always possessed. A power he'd never known he had.

But as Sarah walked toward him through the rain, he soaked in every detail. It was as if his mind wanted to remember everything; the flow of her dress’ skirt around her knees as the breeze tugged at it and the curling sable waves made damp by the rain, every water drop that rolled down her face. Every detail stood out in sharp clarity, until nothing else existed for him.

“
I’m so sorry,” she said, breaking the silence. Her wide eyes were filled with tears that mingled with the rain running down her face.

“
No,” he interjected, reaching up to grasp her upper arms gently. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I took my fears out on you, and you didn’t deserve that. You didn’t ask for this job, and you sure as hell didn’t ask for me. I told you to run, to leave me alone, but you stayed. No one stays for me, Sarah. No one ever stays.”

“
Your father…” she trailed off lowering her eyes. “I know who he is.”

Jackson’s heart dropped into his stomach. “You do?”

She nodded. “After you left, Vivian told me all about him. He left your mother because he was charged with guarding one of the few portals between earth and hell. He knew he would be putting you and your mother in harm’s way if he stayed. Guarding portals is a dangerous job. There are Oracles, demons, and even some humans who are constantly searching for them. They would not hesitate to hurt the family or friends of a Guardian in order to get what they want.”

Jackson felt his head spinning with the sheer magnitude of what he was hearing. All this time he’d thought his father was an arrogant, heartless bastard. He’d never known anything about him beyond the day he left. While he was still hurt and angry at his father’s abandonment, he couldn’t help but feel pity for him. Much like Jackson, he’d stood on the precipice, facing a choice that could change his life forever. It had cost him his family, but contributed to a greater good beyond anything Jackson could have ever fathomed.

“
Did you know that Vivian raised me?”

She shook her head, a frown marring her forehead. “No. What happened to your mother?”

“
She ran off with some boyfriend of hers a few months after my father left. His leaving changed her, and she never had time for anything but herself after. I don’t think she knew about my father’s assignment.”

“
Jackson, I-“

“
People have been leaving me my whole life, Sarah,” he said. He wasn’t sure why he was saying these things to her. He only knew that it felt right, even good to share it with her. It was a part of him he’d never even shared with Rochelle. “I do things to chase people away.”

“
No!” she protested, stepping more fully into the circle of his arms. Her hands reached up to his face and she forced him to look down into her eyes. “No, Jackson. You didn’t chase your parents away. They made their own decisions.”

“
Rochelle,” he said with a half-hearted shrug. “I was so broken after Iraq that I chased her away too. And now I’m doing the same thing to little Jack that my father did to me.”

“
No,” she said again, shaking her head. Her wet waves clung to her face and neck. “You are not alone Jackson, and you are not broken. You have a calling now, a purpose. Accept what you’ve been offered and fulfill your destiny. You don’t have to make the same choices your parents did. You don’t have to be afraid or run or abandon the people in your life.”

“
I just don’t want-“

Her grip tightened on his face, silencing him. “You will not have to do this alone, Jackson. That’s why I’m here. I won’t leave until I’ve seen this through. I don’t care how much quicksand you think you’re standing on, I won’t abandon you.”

Silence stretched between them as he allowed her words to sink in.
I won’t abandon you.
As he looked down into eyes that were incapable of lying, he believed her. He believed it like he’d never believed anything else in his life.