Tempted

Tempted

By: Elise Marion

Tempted

Copyright 2012 by Elise Marion

Edited by Melissa Ringsted (There For You Book Editing)

Cover Design by Larry Stephens (Imagine Images Photograph & Graphic Design)

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any manner whatsoever. Please respect the work of this author by not copying or reproducing their work.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or people living or dead is coincidental.

The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark of products or people used in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication use of these trademarks is not associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Dedicated To:

Anyone who has ever had to deal with the aftermath of war,

Our fighting men and women both at home and overseas,

My soldier.

Chapter 1: Damnation

The rain had started out as a small sprinkling, but was now a pouring deluge. The rhythmic tapping of raindrops against the pavement and the rushing sound of water around her ears was soothing. Sarah lowered the hood of her jacket and tilted her head upward toward the gray sky. She closed her eyes and reveled in the feel of cool water droplets rolling down her face. She felt each and every one, even the one that hung on the edge of one eyelash for a few seconds before rolling down her cheek.

Sarah loved the rain. When the clouds opened up and poured water from the sky, it was as close to heaven as she could ever feel on earth. Not that she didn’t know what heaven felt like. As an angel, Sarah knew everything there was to know about the beauty and glory that was heaven. It wasn’t even so much that she missed it; as a messenger of Father, she was allowed to come and go from heaven to earth quite often, sometimes daily. It was just that she spent so much time buried in the tangled web of earthly doings that she needed a little glimpse of heaven on earth every now and then.

These people needed her, she knew. As she moved among them down the street, she felt the inner workings of every man’s heart. She felt their pain, their sorrow, their loneliness. Sarah, and others like her, was needed. Father, in his infinite wisdom, had seen fit to send her to earth along with hundreds of other angels to look after his most treasured creation: humans. Their cause was important, divine even.

It was for this reason, Sarah thought as she entered the brownstone apartment building on the corner, that she could not understand why some angels chose other paths. The laws governing angels were clear and unlikely to be misunderstood. Bending or breaking those rules could mean only one thing. It was why Sarah was in the elevator now, creeping slowly up to the fifth floor. She watched the numbers above her light up as the elevator hummed around her. The faint sensation of upward movement and the lighting of the numbers told her that she was approaching the right floor.

With a ‘ding’ the elevator doors opened and Sarah exited the slow-moving thing. She moved purposefully down the hall until she was standing outside of apartment 512. She stood staring at the chipped wooden door for several minutes. What was about to happen was unavoidable. The angel on the other side of the door had sealed his own fate. Sarah had no doubt that he knew she was coming; he probably felt her presence outside the door.

“
You are only doing your job Sarah,” she told herself as she twisted the knob slowly and opened the door.

She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the apartment. In the middle of the living room stood Nathaniel. He gestured toward the open door of the bedroom before pressing his finger to his lips. Sarah saw the sleeping form of a woman inside and nodded before pointing to the sliding doors leading to the fire escape. Sarah glanced briefly at the woman’s sleeping form, noticing smooth, light-brown skin, and masses of dark wavy hair, before following Nathaniel through the living room to the outside.

Once the glass doors were shut behind them, Sarah turned to study Nathan. In his human form he was quite handsome; dark, unblemished skin and warm brown eyes. His full mouth was turned down into a frown as he looked back at her. Sarah pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed.

“
You know why I am here,” she said.

“
I’ve been expecting you,” he said with a shrug. “I knew it was only a matter of time.”

“
Why, Nathan?” she asked.

As Nathan looked back at Sarah, an angel he had walked the earth with for centuries, he knew that she could not possibly understand. He had not understood either, how an angel could lose their soul for the supposed love of a human man or woman. But, as his eyes wandered over Sarah’s shoulder and into the apartment where Carmen lay sleeping, he now could not fathom a time when he didn’t understand. He could not even look Sarah in the eye and tell her he would change a thing, even knowing what she had come to do to him.

“
You do not understand,” he said with a smile. He knew that tears glistened in his eyes. “I do not expect you to understand love when you have never experienced it. After all, we angels are incapable of feeling emotions we have never experienced.” He swiped his hands over his eyes and continued. “I tried to fight it, I really did.”

“
Not hard enough,” Sarah said, taking a step closer to him. “You allowed your own wants and desires to come before your purpose, and for that you must suffer the consequences.”

Nathan tilted his head to the side, his honeyed eyes boring into hers. Sarah fidgeted uncomfortably under his scrutiny as she waited for him to say something. Most angels would be begging and pleading for mercy by now. Many would even curse her for what she was about to do. Nathan, however, knew that none of these things would change the outcome brought on by his own decision-making. The first time he had lost himself in Carmen’s embrace, he knew his soul was forever damned.

“
I pity you,” he said to her. “To go so long without knowing love; to go so long without feeling passion…I feel sorry for you.”

“
I do feel passion,” Sarah replied emphatically. “Passion for our purpose, and our cause. I don’t need anything outside of that.”

“
That may be true,” Nathan said. “I only hope that you never come to experience it then. If you did, nothing else would ever satisfy you. You would crave it like a parched man in the desert who has found a pool of water. You would not be able to stop yourself from falling headfirst into it.”

Sarah squared her shoulders and tilted her chin defiantly. “Don’t be so sure of that. Some of us are strong enough to put our mission above our baser urges.”

Nathan laughed dryly and shook his head. “There is nothing base about the way I feel for her. She has been the single brightest thing in my life in a long time. I know that I have broken the rules by lying with her and am prepared to suffer the consequences.”

“
Are you?”

Nathan nodded, gesturing for Sarah to follow him up to the roof. “Let’s get this over with,” he said as they climbed the fire escape ladder. “I’m sure you have a lot to do.”

Sarah followed him, feeling an executioner leading a man to the chopping block. When they reached the roof, Nathan removed his shirt. The rain had stopped. He crouched down and lowered his head before transforming into his angelic form.

His dark skin now glittered like gold, and his eyes glowed white. Massive wings stretched out from a muscular frame that stood ten feet tall. Sarah, who had transformed as well, stood facing him with one arm outstretched. Her glowing white eyes met his.

“
Good-bye Nathan,” she whispered before squeezing her eyes shut. A burst of white light flashed from her hand before shooting, like lightning, across the space between them. The building trembled beneath their feet as the bright light enveloped him. Sarah could only watch as Nathan fell, writhing on the rooftop in agony. She wished that she could block out his tormented cries, for she knew that they would forever haunt her dreams. As he curled into the fetal position, his body shrinking back down to normal human size, his wings burst into flames. Nathan rolled and clawed the ground, his teeth barred as he fought to control his tortured screams.

Sarah finally released the breath she’d been holding when the flames died and Nathan ceased squirming on the ground. He lay on his side with his back to her, smoke still trailing from the two charred stumps where his wings had been. The wounds, which would serve as a permanent reminder of Nathan’s fall from grace, glowed red like hot coals. Another wound, in the shape of an inverted cross, glowed on the back of his neck as well. The brand would remain also, marking him for all eternity as one of the Fallen.

Nathan’s transformation into a demon had now begun. It would begin slowly, but eventually her old friend would become unrecognizable to her. She turned away as he struggled to his feet.

“
I’m really sorry,” she whispered as she morphed back into her human form. “I wish none of this had ever happened.”

“
This is no fault of yours,” she heard him say. “I knew what was coming and I succumbed to temptation anyway. Desire and love are powerful forces; the best of us are in danger of falling to them.”

Not me
, Sarah thought as she headed toward the fire escape.
Not me.

Chapter 2: Buried in Darkness

Jackson Bennett held the bottle in his hand up to the light over his head and shook it. The meager splashing of the contents inside was disappointing. He was almost out of vodka.
Damn,
he thought as he rolled his head in the direction of his alarm clock.

Only 8:45 pm and he was already out of liquor. He’d had just enough that he knew he shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car, but not enough to put him completely out of his mind, which was what he wanted.

“
Time for a walk Mason,” he said to the massive gray dog in the corner. The bull mastiff raised his head lazily and yawned. When he heard the jingling of the leash in his master’s hand, he rose up on his long legs and met Jackson at the door.

After a few clumsy tries, Jackson had the leash attached to the dog’s collar. After riding the elevator to the first floor, the pair set off down the quiet city street. The summer night was warm and muggy, the dark night sky clear for a change.

Jackson inhaled deeply and sighed. This was the first time he had been out of the apartment all day, and it was nice to take a breath of fresh air. Jackson preferred the night; there was something about it that fit his ever-dark mood. When it was dark he could pretend that everything in his life was just the way it should be. It was almost as if his own dark past was covered by a thick blanket of blackness. It was only in the harsh light of day that he was forced to face the things he’d done.

“
Sit Mason,” he commanded as they arrived outside of the Happy Hour Liquor Store. Mason obediently sank down onto his haunches by the door. Jackson knew he could trust the dog to still be there when he came out.

The bell on the door chimed merrily as he entered the small, dimly lit store. He turned down the last aisle on the left and came to a stop halfway down, bending to retrieve two bottles from the bottom shelf. The pretty Hispanic girl on the other side of the counter smiled at him, like she always did, as she took his money and counted out his change. Her white tank top and form-fitting jeans hugged her curvaceous figure enticingly. Her red lips were turned up into a smile, and her hand lingered on his as she slid two quarters into his hand. He noticed her nail polish matched her lips, as her fingers lingered on his.

He stared back at her for a moment before turning to leave. He came to Happy Hour nearly every day, and almost every time that girl was behind the register, smiling at him in an open invitation. What did she expect him to do, he wondered as he took up Mason’s leash once more. Did she think that he would smile back at her, maybe return her bold caress with one of his own? Did she think he would strike up a conversation with her? Ask her for her phone number and then call her up for a date?

He was certainly attractive enough. The rich, golden-brown hue of his skin was complimented by smoky gray eyes inherited from his grandmother. Black, slightly waved hair was shaved close to his head. This week he was sporting a bit of scruff on his face, but after years of going clean-shaven in the military he decided he kind of liked the stubble speckling his face. His morning jogs ensured that his figured stayed lean and trim, and he had been told several times that he had a charming smile.