Scars and Songs

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design by
okaycreations.net

Editor extraordinaire: Frankie Sutton
http://frankiesfreelanceediting.blogspot.com
/

This book is dedicated to all of you that asked to hear Shane’s side of the story.

To my
lovely Porn Fairy Crystal Faulkner

To the BEST BOOK CLUB EVER…The Triple M Bookclub - for all your support and just for being as obsessed with reading as I am.

To Tracy Thurlow Lebo for the title – it was all her idea!

To my mom – I could not have done this without you.

And to Dan (my rock star)
and my little monsters – Hailey and Emmy.

And to Hurricane Sandy who des
troyed Shane on October 29, 2012 – Eff you!

To all the effing amazing readers
and authors that came out and helped me raise money to rebuild especially Rebekah Gardiner Covay – I seriously love you.

Table of Contents

Prologue             

Chapter 1
             

Chapter 2
             

Chapter 3
             

Chapter 4
             

Chapter 5
             

Chapter 6
             

Chapter 7
             

Chapter 8
             

Chapter 9
             

Chapter 10
             

Chapter 11
             

Chapter 12
             

Chapter 13
             

Chapter 14
             

Chapter 15
             

Chapter 16
             

Chapter 17
             

Chapter 18
             

Chapter 19
             

Chapter 20
             

Chapter 21
             

Chapter 22
             

Chapter 23
             

Chapter 24
             

Chapter 25
             

Chapter 26
             

Chapter 27
             

Chapter 28
             

Chapter 29
             

Chapter 30
             

Chapter 31
             

Chapter 32
             

Chapter 33
             

Chapter 34
             

Chapter 35
             

Chapter 36
             

Chapter 37
             

Chapter 38
             

Chapter 39
             

Epilogue
             

A warm breeze fell on my skin and I could smell the lush fragrance of the wildflowers that she always twisted into her dark midnight hair.  Anticipation of seeing her for the
very last
time pulled and gnarled at my insides.  Gabriel and I would walk the pathway to the human’s home every evening. I could not help myself; her soul
intoxicated
and called out to me in low whispers.  As we arrived, a low roll of deep thunder resonated through the thick glades and lush forests that surrounded us. 
Was that my only ominous symbol of what was to come?

In a time when we didn't yet know what love
truly meant
, a day when her fingers traced my lips…how had she captured my immortal heart
so completely
?

The truth was that I had not been touched by the gentleness of human hands and my heart ached at the thought of my loneliness and want for it; for
her
.  Only her.  My thoughts were consumed by
only her
. 

I knew what my brothers and I, the Grigori, the Angelic Watchers were brought into this world for; to guard over the humans.  Simple.  Yet, I could not stop myself from thinking of the utter pain of
not knowing her
.  I could not just watch over and protect her without
loving
her.  I needed to
know her
, to be
near her
…And I was.  For years, she and I had a special friendship, a tight bond that coiled deep around my heart.  The archangels said this would be the last day we were on Earth, the last that I would
ever
see of her because of what the
others had done
.  The
other
Grigori, in all their lust and glory, took the human women for themselves and created chaos.  Now the world needed to be purged and cleansed of their crimes. 
The floods were coming
.

For so long, Selah and I sought out each other’s companionship, each other’s
innocence, while the world churned in its maelstrom of evil
.  Sitting with our toes dipping into the river…composing music together…my heart was captured one piece at a time with each day she let me hold her hand…until that last night when her beauty in the moonlight overwhelmed me.  She was the only
good
and
pure
thing left in the world. 
Untouched
.

How do you say goodbye to
your heart
?  Your
soul
?  The one thing that you
loved more than yourself
.  I could still feel her arms slide around me as we gathered each other closely, her face nestling into the crook of my neck; fitting into me
perfectly
.  She felt
made for me
, as if I was standing there for the first time, a
whole being
. 
How could this be wrong?

Am I supposed to forget
this
?  Forget
her
?  Just turn a blind eye to the mountains of emotions and pretend I never lived
this
?  This is where the great love story of my existence
ends
?  At its
beginning
?

The most bitterness of sorrows is made out of the hardest goodbyes.  I held her until her tremors stilled and her tears slowed, and there seemed no more left in her to cry.  I held her until her cheek pressed against mine, and her heather colored eyes looked up into my soul.  I held her until a slow heat began to build between us.  Until a pure innocent moment of madness overwhelmed us; where our bodies overruled our minds, and that rising heat between us turned to fire that roared over our reason and senses.

My hands glided over her back slowly, and barely touching, with the heaviness of feathers, they slid into the silky cool waves of her raven hair.  Trembling, I lightly brushed my lips over her cheek, breathing her in.  A gentle graze of the lips like a soft caress from a butterfly’s wings; a shy hesitation as they touched, as if we both were taking the time to memorize the feeling before our lips met for the first time. Hovering in that moment, just before our lips touched, we whispered words that bound us forever. 
Love
.

Softly, tentatively, with our lips barely touching, as if we were lovers looking for each other in the dark.
  Her lips as soft as rose petals drew me in, and I kissed them slowly and sensually. My desire; my love.  It completely stole my breath away. 
How could this be wrong?
  Our lips moved together, opening to each other, melting into each other.  Heart.  Soul.  Body.  Mind. Twisting like a musical symphony pulsing through the night.  Clinging to each other in our beginning and our ending.  Her lips were aching with sweetness, the pure black silken cascade of her hair gliding across my skin.  Twisting and grasping it in my fingers, I pulled her in deeper.  I kissed her slowly, reverently, and I knew without any loss in faith that nothing would ever compare to that single moment when I first kissed my Selah, and knew that my love for her would last beyond
what forever was
.  My lips smiled against hers, and when I pulled away from her lips, I gazed into her beautiful silvery gray eyes. I whispered my last words to her, “You have my heart,
forever
.”

Beneath my hands, her lush body, just barely brushing against my chest, hummed with her wildly beating heart.  The last sound I would ever feel or hear
from her. 

I hadn’t counted on Gabriel bearing witness to my transgression. 
Gabriel
, my Grigori brother, my best friend, and
my betrayer
.

Therefore, for just a few moments, we believed the illusion of belonging to our own precious world; our own paradise. As I locked my eyes with Gabriel, who was watching us, hidden, I knew that there was no such thing as
us
. Love had smiled on us for the briefest of time, but it did not welcome us; its brilliant face had turned away from us, leaving us to say our goodbyes.

In the place where Gabriel hid, tears rimming his eyes red,
the forests and green slopes turned black.  The sweet orchards and splashing waterfalls rotted and ran dry.  As Gabriel stood over me, watching, the stars began to rain down from the sky, as great tears do when paradise is lost.  His expression changed frighteningly fast—it was anger and hatred, greed and jealously, envy and despair.   My personal apocalypse felt to me, both one of the most beautiful and most heartbreaking events of my existence.  It’s where my beloved was torn from my arms, and Gabriel, my brother, dragged me to hell; all for the innocence of one
kiss
.

This is where I thought my story ended, but it was truly only the beginning.
 

Then the darkness came.

When I opened my eyes, I felt for the very first time in my existence, what it truly was to experience fear. I knew exactly where I stood from the smell of utter despair rising from the cold stones of my cell, and the complete lack of light. I knew that standing there, not in my human form, but in my angel form, that my wings were
gone
.

I once heard Michael and Gabriel call that type of prison a Renounce or Tergiverse. The only cell in Hell that can break an angel from their faith, from their soul, from anything that meant anything to them,
if they didnʼt fight hard enough
. It strips you of your being and breaks your spirit; a human would be brought to dust.

It was so narrow that my back and shoulders touched the icy cold stones of the two
walls on the side of me and the one my back leaned against. I only had room to lift my fingers to brush them against the smooth metal of the prison door that stood in front of me. If I could, I would have fallen to my knees.  I remained there days, months, years, decades.  Time was no longer
there
.