Destine (The Watcher's Trilogy) (22 page)

“No, don’t do that
.
Don’t take it back
.
That’s not what I want
.
You don’t owe me an
apology
all I want is an explanation.
”

“An explanation
.
What do you want me to say
?
That I feel a connection to you that I’ve never felt before, that I stay awake at night worrying that I can’t pro
tect you, that the thought of l
osing you made me completely insane
.
I’ve been alive
for hundreds of years and this is the first time I’ve ever lived
.
My old life revolved around my service to God
.
I did
what I was told, I went where I was told, and I was happy with that
.
My love for Him made it all worth while, and that was all I felt, love for Him
.
Until the day He set the apocalypse in motion and then I realized I felt more
.
I loved humanity too, and it was that love for humanity that got me banished to earth
.
As an angel we’re not allowed to feel anything but devotion to God, and I broke that rule
.
My punish
ment was being cast to earth
to live as the humans I love so much, but never aging or changing and having to watch
those around me age and die
.
But
with this punishment came a gift
.
The gift
of having what all humans have, free will and emotions
.
I feel things I’ve never felt before; even the bad emotions are wonderful because I can feel them
.
And the emotions I feel around you are the strongest I’ve ever felt
…
ever.
”

He continued to stare into my eyes and I felt that he was staring into my soul
.
I had brought this conversation on
.
I decided to lay my cards
on the table, so there was no chickening out now
.
I had to follow through no matter how uncomfortable the conversation made me
.

“Gabriel,
I feel things for you as well
.
Things I’ve never felt before
, too. G
ranted I’ve only been alive for seventeen years, but still
m
y feelings for you are so strong that I believed you about Alex, about everything
.
That was no small leap of faith on my part, but
what
I really want to know is
…
” I cleared my throat and reminded myself to push through the embarrassment.
“What I really wanted to know was how could a former angel do what we did earlier
.
I
f
lust
is
a sin, isn’t it wrong?
”
I could feel my chee
ks burning with embarrassment, but there I had said it
.

Gabriel laughed, he actually laughed
.
That certainly wasn’t making my embarrassment feel any better
.
“Michelle, there is a difference between lust and love
.
What I feel for you goes far beyond lust
.
Have you ever heard of the Book of Enoch?”

I was still trying to piece the meaning of his words together
.
Had he just told me he loved me? When his topic of conversation changed so drastically I almost fell o
f
f my stool
.
“What
?
The Book of
Enoch
…
n
o, it doesn’t sound familiar
.
I assume it
is
Biblical though.
”

“The Book of Enoch wasn’t
deemed
appropriate to be included in the
Bible
by church officials
.
It is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in the Book of Enoch the story of the Watchers is described.
”
He paused
,
as if to ready himself for what he was about to tell me, and I had to admit he had caught my attention
.
I wanted to know where this was going
.
“Watchers are the angels God sent to
earth
to watch over humanity
.
The
original
guardian angels if you will
.
In the beginning man could see angels, they wer
en’t the invisible spiritual beings they are today
.
They walked among men and appeared as I appear now
.
Genesis
6:14
references
the story,
‘
When men began to multiply on
earth
and daughters were born
to them,
the sons of God saw how
beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many as they chose
.
’
”

I had to stand, I had to move;
if I continued to sit and listen to what he was saying my head was going to explode
.
I got up and began pulling coffee mugs out of the cabinet
.
I gathered two mugs and brought them back over to the counter
.
“Wait
a minute
,
you’re
telling me
that a
ngels and women use
d
to marry
?
Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?
”

Gabriel poured freshly brewed coffee into our mugs and added cream and sugar to both our cups
.
“Simply because its not a story that we’re proud off
.
Angels use
d
to have the same emotions as humanity and the same free will, but we caused t
o
o many problems with
these powers
.
God sent us to w
atch humanity, but we fell in love, we married, we had children, and we gave humanity certain gifts
.
Well
,
we t
hought they were gifts, but t
he technological advances we brought
caused problems
.
Watchers bestowed all law, written language, science, and art upon humanity
, b
ut these gifts brought conflict and war, and soon the children of the Watchers grew to become great leaders of men
.
I
t was then that it became clear
that we had interfered
too
much with humanity
.
God sent a great flood to cover the
earth
and destroy the children of the Watchers, and all angels were called back to heaven
.
We were made invisible to human eyes, and removed of our free will and emotions
.
Now we could truly serve our purpose to look over humanity as unseen guardians and watchers.
”

I fe
lt as if my head was spinning. T
he story seeme
d absurd, but no more absurd tha
n me being the key to stopping the apocalypse
.
“Did you ever have a wife?”

It was Gabriel’s turn to look shocked
.
His head snapped up from his coffee mug as he stared into my eyes
.
“Michelle, you are full of
surprises
.
You never do or say what I expect you to say
.
I tell you a story that is all but lost to humanity, and you don’t question the story
…
you question my role in the story.
”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I reminded him
,
slightly annoyed
.

He continued to look into my eyes and he became very serious
.
“No.
Michelle
,
I was never a Watcher
.
I have always been the Archangel Gabriel
,
the voice of God on
earth
.
That is until I wa
s ca
st from heaven.
”

It was my turn to be serious
.
“I’m sorry Gabriel,
I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings
.
I just couldn’t bear the thought of you with someone else
.
I know I’m just some small town girl, nothing special, but when I’m with you I feel complete.”

Gabriel came around the kitchen island and spun me around on my stool
.
He leaned forward with an arm on eithe
r side of me, pinning me with my
back to the counter
.
“You listen to me
, Michelle. Y
ou are not just some girl, you are special
; y
ou
’
r
e
abo
ut as special as people get. Y
ou’ve b
een chosen to save humanity, but more importantly you
’
r
e
special because I love you and in the hundreds of years I been alive I’ve never felt this way before.
”

Suddenly
,
his lips were on mine
.
One minute I can’t believe what he’s saying, he loves me, and the next second I can feel that safe
,
familiar buzz that runs between us warming my lips
.
My
body automatically arch
ed
towards him
in a desperate attempt for as much of me t
o be in contact with
him
.
When I felt the warm buzz erupt across the front of me, I knew my attempt had succeeded. As the buzzing continued to warm
me,
something between a sigh and a moan escaped my lips
.
Gabriel’s kiss intensified and I felt his hands move from either side of me on the counter to one on each of my thighs. With his hands came the same electric
current and then all at once he lifted me off the stool and onto the counter behind me
.
He set me down on the counter with one of my legs on either side of his waist
.

Now that we were at the same level he no longer had to bend down to kiss me, and molded his body to mine
.
One o
f his hands slid up the back of
my neck and tangled in my hair, and the other found the skin exposed on my lower back where my shirt had ridden up away from my jeans
.
The buzzing had intensified into what felt like a vibrating pulse running between us
.
My hands had a mind of their own
; they
started in his hair, caressing the surprisingly soft mop
of tangled black curls that fell
across his forehead
.
Then slowly they slid
down to his
biceps
where I could feel the strain of tension
in the
muscles underneath
. M
y breath caught in my throat and I squirmed automatically against him
.
It was his turn for a moan to escape his lips, and in on
e
fluid motion he was no longer standing in front of me, but rather over me
.

He had swung his body up on
to the island
,
and before I
realized
what was happening I was
lying
on the counter with Gabriel staring down into my eyes
,
as coffee cups crashed to the floor
.
His eyes had darkened to an almost unrecognizable
gray;
they looked as if smoke was rolling across his irises
.
I wasn’t thinking, I was only feeling and his breaking of the kiss had ended the electrical buzz between us
.
I didn’t care about anything else but him kissing me agai
n and reigniting the connection;
I wanted to feel that warm electricity spread across my body again
.
I arched my body up and pulled his face towards me while
my hands tangled into the back of his hair
.
He bent down and with his arms supporting his weight above me he kissed me again
.
He kissed me as if I was the very air he needed to breath
e
, the very gravity that held him to the ground, and the very reason for life itself
.
I kissed him back with just as much intensity
.