Fallen Embers (Fallen Guardians #9)

Chapter 27

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

Lore reappeared in the snake-infested forest in the Himalayas, anger blazing through him like a living entity in the dark hours of the morning.

The torment in Nia’s eyes, believing he didn’t care enough to choose her, to fight to be with her…that she wasn’t important enough to him to be his priority, clawed at him.

The only pain he’d ever experienced had been physical, usually from wounds. Those healed fast, but this swept through him as if every particle of him were fragmenting…

Hers was a light forbidden to him.

No more .

He wasn’t giving her up!

Lore pulled every bit of agony deep into his gut, returning to his age-old conditioning of remoteness to deal with the throne situation. A near disaster that had almost taken away the only person who mattered.

The angel had awakened, snakes crawling all over him. He twisted and snarled, trying to get them off. Pity their venom would only irritate him.

Race wasn’t around, but evidence of his handiwork remained. The male’s clothes were scorched and hung in tatters. Parts of his skin were blackened and gory. The wounds hadn’t healed. Blood dripped from several twin puncture holes on his arms and legs.

Dragonfire was usually unparalleled in its destruction. But Race had left him still breathing.

Good.

The hissing inhabitants of the place slithered over Lore’s boots. He toed them out of his way and crossed to the throne.

The male looked up, dark hair spilling over his face, hiding his features. Not that Lore cared what he looked like or who he was. “Why do I not have my powers?” he growled. “What did you do to me?”

So, he didn’t remember what happened?

“You chose to kill an innocent under my watch.”

Despite being strung up and burned, his entire body stiffened. His expression turned stone-cold. “I follow orders. Mortals are insignificant in the long term. If the seraphs deem one should be annihilated, so be it. And with good reason, too…” His eyes narrowed. “ She did something to me!”

He growled and shook a shoulder, dislodging a serpent winding itself around him. “The moment I get out of here, she will die. So will the male who spat fire at me.”

Without his powers, the angel’s emotions broke free. And he was still an asshole , as Nia would say. While the throne wouldn’t deviate from a kill order, going after a Guardian? The angel was suicidal.

Lore summoned his heavenly sword. The enormously long weapon appeared in his hand in a blinding flash, sizzling with power.

“Untie me,” the Throne snapped. “We will fight.”

“As you wish.” With a wave of his hand, Lore released him.

The male lifted his hand to summon his sword, and nothing appeared.

Lore watched him coldly. He summoned another sword and tossed it, the flying steel glinting beneath the moonlight. The male caught and flipped the huge weapon with deadly ease. He flew at Lore, blade arching.

Lore countered, the sound of clashing steel echoing in the silent forest. The force of the collision reverberated through his arm. The Throne feinted left, then whirled to the right, aiming a lethal strike at Lore’s legs.

He leaped back and thrust hard, skewering the Throne in his chest. “That’s for abducting her.” He yanked his sword free, the metal dripping with plasma. The male stumbled. “How does it feel to face someone so much stronger while you are powerless?”

With a snarl, the angel responded with a series of strikes. Lore blocked them and spun, his blade swinging in a deadly whine, slicing the Throne across the belly.

The throne staggered back a step, eyes widening in shock. Then blood gushed from his gut like a broken faucet. A guttural groan tore free.

“That’s for hitting her, and the terror and pain you put her through.”

The angel’s weapon fell, and he hunched over, trying to keep his belly closed and guts in. “Y-You would dare kill your own kind?”

“For her, I would dare anything.”

He snarled and tried to flash.

“For daring to come after a female who is mine, your life is forfeited.” Lore swung his blade and decapitated him.

The throne’s head rolled to the ground, knocking into the hissing snakes and scattering them. His knees buckled, and his body collapsed, blood spraying from his neck. A blinding white light shot up into the sky as his soul departed.

The next instant, the body and head vanished, along with the gore covering the ground, leaving only the decaying branches, moldy leaves, and hissing serpents.

Anger still rolled through him, wanting more heads for this travesty of calling a hit on an innocent. Jaw hard, Lore dismissed both swords and dematerialized to the Celestial Realm to face the Supreme Seraph.

Back in his pristine whites, Lore waited on the banks of the gently undulating Arcane River in the Celestial Realm. He hoped Chamuel would get there soon.

The soft splash of falling water enclosed him like a net, suffocating him. Clouds floated above, and radiant light streamed over everything with an endless serenity.

Under different circumstances, he would have waded into the water permeated with the essence of purity to wash away the lingering touch of other realms and absorb its divine energy. With the kind of job he had, he often did and had never questioned it.

Now he just sighed, tired of it all. Still, he had to observe his usual stoicism for a few more minutes.

He might wear a halo, but he wasn’t kind of heart. He had no heart or emotions until Nia crossed his path. And now, she possessed every inch of that organ thudding against his sternum?—

Why, why couldn’t you love me, even a little?

Her anguished cry infiltrated his mind, tearing through his shields. Lore froze, feeling as if he’d been stabbed in the heart. With a harsh inhale, he rubbed his chest. “Nia?”

Just silence and the melodious rustle of the flowing waters answered him. How had he heard her…?

The truth struck him like a blow to the gut.

Heavens! He’d bonded— soul bonded with her.

He paced the riverbank, trying to understand how. He was an angel…

Then he didn’t care about the how of it. It had happened with some of the Watchers, too.

Now he understood why that light he always felt and thought of as Nia was really her being a part of him. The silver glow in her pretty amber eyes, when they’d first made love, wasn’t about his powers but a sign their souls had joined.

He shut his eyes, reveling in happiness. But all too soon, reality stole his joy. While he didn’t know much about this kind of bonding, he couldn’t stay mated to her. Not only would the seraphs pick up on it the moment he crossed their paths, which was dangerous in itself, but he still had to fall from grace.

He couldn’t take her with him through a journey he alone must endure.

She’d suffered enough.

With intense regret and a torment that strangled him like a noose, Lore forced himself to reach for the part of him where her light remained, a little dull with the way they’d parted.

“I will make it up to you, habibti , I swear.” He pressed his burning eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “If I don’t survive this, be happy.”

If he did die, so would she. That much he knew about soul joining.

With his mind, he snapped the bond?—

A gut-wrenching groan tore from his throat, and he stumbled back, his knees buckling beneath him. Only centuries of iron control kept him from collapsing completely. Anguish tore through him, the chasm within deepening, widening, leaving him utterly bereft and empty. His sight blurred.

It took a moment, several maybe, before he could move, could function again.

If Chamuel saw him now?—

Jaw clenched, he shoved every atom of emotion deep within him and bolted it down.

A shift in the air dragged his attention from the river.

Lore glanced back as Chamuel approached, the soft breeze fluttering his long white robe. As usual, his silvery-white wings swept the grass, the angelic glow in full force.

These seraphs would never tone down their brightness, not when they were of the highest ranking.

“Loráed, you requested a meeting?”

With his demeanor back to normal, he faced the Supreme Seraph. “Chamuel,” he greeted with a half bow. “I did.”

The irony didn’t escape him to be on the other side of these interrogations that Chamuel had entrusted him with, speaking and counseling angels who would fall. Now, he just wanted it over.

“Is the job completed then?”

Lore clasped his hands loosely at his back and didn’t respond. If he did, he just might lose his tightly held calm. The woman who was his other half, his very heartbeat, was far more than a “ job .”

He got straight to the point. “I have given this matter a great deal of thought.” Maybe it was his tone or words, but Chamuel shifted his attention away from the rippling waters to focus on Lore, probably sensing the calamitous change about to occur.

“It’s fine if you choose not to go through with this task, Loráed. There are others?—”

“No one touches her.” His tone morphed to icy, and he tensed, ready to kill. “I mean it, Chamuel. What you decreed goes against everything we, as angels, should be known for. Justice. Mercy. To kill an innocent due to a happenstance of birth, or that she may have the powers of the Watchers, is wrong.”

“You have never opposed any previous task of this kind, Loráed,” Chamuel said, his voice smooth with infinite patience, compelling.

With his entire being a desolate hollow at breaking his mate bond, Lore managed to easily shut out the hypnotic tone. “Indeed. Most deserved the punishment dealt to them. And I usually have all the facts first, as I made sure to do for this job, too.”

“Loráed.” His many wings fluttered, a display of power that would have once commanded Lore’s immediate deference. “You are being swayed by the fragility of humanity. Perhaps some time away from Michael would ground you, remind you of what we truly are, of all we must do to keep our Father’s realm safe and pure?”

“I am eons old, Chamuel.” Lore’s voice remained level, though every word felt like a blade against his throat. “There is no need to reiterate what it is we do. I have decided to leave the divine order and fall from grace, effective as of now. That leeway has always been open to us, has it not?”

For the first time in eons, a flash of alarm crossed Chamuel’s usually stoic features. “No, no, no, Loráed, you cannot succumb to a mortal failing. It is a known fact humans can tempt angels, especially those of the lower order. You are far superior to them. You always have been.”

Lore folded his arms over his chest, his gaze on the several falls some distance away, the cascading waters creating multiple rainbows across the glimmering surface.

Indeed. He might have been guilty of behaving as such once. “Regardless?—”

“No, Loráed, you do not comprehend. You are one of our most accomplished and formidable Powers. You will give up all you’ve achieved—your life here, your halo, your wings, even your divine powers—for some mortal who will be gone in a heartbeat. If you do this, you will remain forever immortal and powerless. Bathe in the lake, be free of this mishap.”

Lore dragged in a deep breath, trying to still the ache in his chest at the lack of her warmth. For her, he’d lay down his life. “She is not a mishap. I have considered this decision thoroughly. I need her.”

“Loráed, it has been mere hours since you left for this job. You do not know what you say.”

Indeed, but he’d lived an entire life on Earth in those hours.

“Have you forgotten…” Chamuel’s tone dropped a notch to cooler, “carnal needs are forbidden to us?”

And there it was. The threat.

Indeed. He had committed an atrocious offense while still divine by sleeping with Nia, and Chamuel knew.

So be it.

Casting Chamuel an emotionless stare that belied the storm within him, he said, “I have decided.”

His words rang with finality, a death knell to his celestial existence.

Chamuel remained silent for several minutes. “As you desire then. I will oversee your fall.”

That’s it?

While Chamuel clearly disapproved, he conceded far too easily. There would be a reckoning. With the seraphs, there always was.

Lore didn’t care.

He would fall, no question.

But would he survive?