Heven & Hell Anthology (Heven and Hell) (18 page)

I stared so intently at those eyes (they seemed so familiar) that I didn’t notice the body they were attached to until it was right upon me.

It was the body of a beast.

The body of a hellhound.

I screamed then, and the thing growled, cutting off my sound and reaching down with its great jaws to take my torn and tattered dress in its mouth. I expected it to yank, to roughly rip the fabric away, but instead, I was gently tugged, almost as if I were being asked to move forward.

So I did.

Staying in this box wasn’t preferable, and I figured that outside I would have a greater chance to get away. It was nighttime, the only light coming from the stars overhead, but it didn’t matter. Angels had impeccable vision.

Once we were clear of the room, I saw it was really just a sturdy shack. The animal released me and sat back, staring at me as if waiting for instruction.

Tentatively, I took a step back. The beast did nothing. I took another and another until I noticed there was something incredibly soft underfoot. I looked down. Black feathers were scattered about, creating a carpet over the grass, making the night appear even darker than it really was.

These were feathers from the fallen.

I looked back at the beast, who was still watching me, and a flash of angry silver shot through his eyes.

I turned and ran. I ran so fast my feet barely touched the ground, and just as I was about to spread my wings and soar, I was grabbed from behind. I stumbled and fell. Something hard landed on top of me. All the air went out of my lungs with a great whooshing sound, and then I looked up.

Callum was the last person I expected to see.

But he was there—messy hair, scruffy face, and chipped tooth.

I gave a cry of relief and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him completely against me. He was alive! I heard him chuckle into my hair and it made me smile. It was a sound I never thought I would hear again, and I hadn’t realized just how truly depressing that had been. But my relief was short-lived and I gasped.

“We have to run!” I exclaimed, pushing against him. “There’s a beast!”

He untangled himself just a little so he could stare down at me, brushing a few strands of my hair away from my face. I smiled, pushing my cheek against his hand. “We’re safe now,” he murmured.

And then he kissed me.

The feel of his lips against mine was overwhelming. It was all-encompassing and it was everything I never knew I was missing.

Is this what it’s like to truly feel?

It was a rollercoaster of emotion, most of it awful… but then there were moments like this, moments that made an angel wonder what else she’d been missing her entire existence.

Without thinking, my wings shifted, wrapping around us both, closing us in and blocking out everything that surrounded us.

He pulled back sooner than I would’ve liked to smile down into my face. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“How did you find me?” I asked, confusion clouding my euphoric feelings.

He didn’t speak, but his eyes flashed silver.

I gasped. “No,” I denied, shaking my head.

“I can explain,” he started, and I gasped again, pounding on his shoulders for him to let me up. He moved and I stood, shock spearing through my entire body.

“What have you done?” I cried.

“I didn’t have the strength to keep them from taking you,” he said. “So I went and got the strength to get you back.”

“By becoming a beast!?” I yelled.

“By becoming something more than human, something that existed in your world.”

“In my world?” I said, horror dawning through me.

“Now nothing can keep us apart.”

I laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Hellhounds are
not
part of my world. They are
prey
for my kind.”

“Hellhound?”

“That’s what you are, is it not?”

“I was told I was a hound. There was no mention of hell.”

“You’re a fool!” I snapped. “Whoever made you into this was not someone of God; that I can assure you. What did you promise in exchange?”

“What I promised doesn’t matter,” he argued. “What matters is that you’re safe.”

“You shouldn’t have come for me. The loss of your humanity wasn’t worth this.”

He rushed toward me, grabbing my hand and shoving it against his chest. “I’m still the same man. Look at me.
Feel
me.”

Indeed, I felt the steady beating of his heart. He did look the same. He did sound the same. But deep down I knew the changes within him couldn’t be seen. They were lurking within his very soul.

“You don’t understand,” I whispered. “Hellhounds are evil. They kill. They are a creation of Lucifer himself. You have turned yourself into something that is the complete opposite of what my kind stand for.”

His heart skipped a beat.

I slid my hand out from beneath his and used it to brush away a tear trailing down my cheek.

“No,” he denied, shaking his head. “I’m not evil.”

“How many did you kill tonight, Callum?” I asked, looking once more at the thousands of feathers lying around us.

“I only did that because of what they did to you,” he said, hard. “They deserved it.”

“That wasn’t for you to decide! You do not get to choose who lives and dies!”

“I do when it comes to you.”

I shook my head, unable to say another word. I did this—me and me alone. What would become of him now?

I looked back at Callum, standing there with this look on his face… this look of utter isolation… this sense of realization, as if what he’d done was just now sinking in. “Gemma…” he said, voice cracking before completely falling away.

I went to him, closed the distance between us, and took his face between my hands. “It doesn’t matter,” I said passionately. “This doesn’t have to damn you. What you did… you changed… out of love, not out of darkness. That is what will save you. That is what will save us.”

“Us?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’m going to help you. I won’t leave you like this.”

He pushed my hands away. “I don’t want you because you pity me… out of some sense of warped responsibility.”

“That isn’t what this is,” I denied.

“Then what is it?” he demanded, almost daring me to respond.

I guess this is where I made my final choice. This is where the two parts of me that were torn mended together and created the rest of my eternity.

“Love,” I whispered, clearing my throat. Then, louder, I repeated, “Love. I’m with you out of love.”

His eyes did that flashing thing again, which was actually kind of unsettling, but then he scooped me up and pressed me against him, practically squeezing all the air from my lungs. He felt the same as he always had. We were going to be okay.

Someone made a slight sound behind us and we spun, Callum stepping in front of me, blocking my body from sight. But whatever he saw must not have threatened him because while his shoulders remained tense, there was no sense of alarm anywhere about him.

“Hello, Gemma,” said a familiar voice.

I stepped around Callum to see Airis watching us. “Airis,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

But I already knew. Moments ago I’d made my choice and now it was about to become official.

“I’ve come to collect your wings.”

Shock harpooned through me. “You’re going to take my wings?” I thought they’d merely turn black, that their brilliant white would fall prey to shade.

“What? No!” Callum said, holding out his hand to keep me from going any farther.

Airis glanced at him with barely concealed dislike. “Did you think she would be allowed to keep her wings? Her status? You have damned her to the same kind of existence as those black wings you just murdered.”

He recoiled from her words, from the truth behind them.

“I don’t understand, Airis. Won’t I become a fallen?”

“Yes. You have already taken on the status of fallen.”

I glanced behind me. “But my wings are still white.”

“Instead of turning into a black wing and being banished to hell, you are being stripped of your wings, of many of your powers, and will be left to spend your eternity here on earth.”

Callum made a sound, but I didn’t look at him. This wasn’t about him. It was about me and the choices that led me here. It really was more than I thought I would get. In fact, I was confused. I’d never heard of an angel being stripped of his wings and being left on earth.

Airis continued to speak as I worked it all out in my mind. “You will no longer be allowed access to heaven, to the InBetween, or to God. You have betrayed him. You, an angel, were supposed to love him and only him, hold him in your highest esteem.” She glanced at Callum before looking back at me. “But you allowed another into your heart. Another who has made a deal with hell, a deal with darkness.”

“He did it only to save me.” I pleaded, not wanting her to think badly of Callum.

“If you had followed the commands of our Father, then he wouldn’t have done it at all.”

My shoulders slumped because she was right. Airis approached me, and Callum took a step forward, but I held up my hand. “Stay back,” I told him. “This must be done.”

I didn’t think he would listen, but he moved no farther and I turned back to Airis. She lifted her hands, creating a ball of intense, bright light in her palms and then threw it at me. It hit me in the chest. The impact swayed me on my feet and then a searing heat jolted me and I fell to my knees.

The pain was intense, unlike anything I’d ever felt before, and as I knelt on the ground, hunched in pain, my wings began to die. The soft, downy feathers began to shrivel, to curl into themselves. The luminous color faded until they were no longer white, but sickly and old. And then like a tree in late winter shedding its leaves, they began to fall. They floated toward the ground with exaggerated slowness, drawing out my pain as I watched the things I loved most about myself be taken away.