Chapter One
Her small hand touches my shoulder and her voice speaks softly to me. "How do you feel?" It was the same question she asked for the first time years ago when I stood on the very same spot, bloodied, broken, and ready to take my own life.
Seven Years Ago
Lucinda was gone. It had been three days since she was killed in a bank robbery when she was waiting in line to withdrawal money for the down payment on our first home. Rage consumed me and with nothing to lose and only vengeance left in my soul, I brutally murdered each person who had played a part in her untimely death. Bathed in their blood, I flew to the edge of a cliff that overlooked the scene and held a starshot at my heart. As I took in a deep breath, a tiny hand touched my shoulder.
"How do you feel?" she whispered in my ear.
Her quiet voice rang through the anguish flowing through me and caused me to hesitate. "Empty. Lost. Destroyed," I replied without looking at the face of my questioner. In my devastation, I imaged it was Luce asking me that question. But she was gone and there was no way I would ever find her soul again. She was forever in limbo and no matter what I did, I could never join her there. Ending my existence seemed to be my only option.
"I can work with that," she said and walked in front of me, gripping the deadly arrow and tugging it away from my flesh. "I'm Veleda," she announced politely like we were meeting at a party, holding out her free hand for me to shake.
I stared past her to the smoke rising from the house, the fire trucks approaching from a few streets over.
"And you're Daniel Grigori, the infamously defiant angel. Good to know that some legends hold up to their image."
Her words mocked me, but it affected me little. "Now that you've proven a point to yourself, please release my weapon and be on your way, unless you're here to finish the job for me?" I took a moment to stare into her piercing emerald eyes, challenging her to thrust the poisoned edge through my flesh.
"On the contrary, Daniel. I'm here to save you from yourself." Veleda pried the arrow from my grasp and tucked it into her large purse.
"I don't want to be saved," I snapped. "If you really wanted to save me, you would've been here days ago and saved her." Silent tears crested in my weary eyes and I forced myself to turn my back to her and the burning structure below.
Veleda laughed and walked around to face me. She touched my fallen face with her feather-soft touch, forcing my eyes to look at hers. "Your purpose here isn't done. You will grieve, as you have always done, but in time, you will accept her fate and be ready to fulfill another of your destinies."
"I am nothing without her," I said, unwilling to believe there was anything left for me on any plane of existence.
"You are everything without her. I will show you." She took my hand and led me away from the scene of my would-be end.
Present Day
"Daniel?" she asked, her lips still near enough to my ear that I could taste her breath.
"I feel at peace," I admitted after I'd taken time to replay the scene from seven years prior. I turned to face Veleda and tilted my head as I grinned and gazed into her patient green orbs.
Every year for seven years, she'd brought me back to this spot on this day and asked me the same question: how did I feel. Every year, it'd always been the same response: empty and lost. Seven years of mourning for Lucinda and I now was finally ready to move on.
Her warm smile was immediate as she reached up to stroke my cheek. "You are finally free. I've waited so long for this day." Rising up on her toes, she brought her lips to mine, kissing me with a passion that had been building inside of both of us for years.
Our relationship became physical within a couple of months of meeting. It wasn't love, but she filled a void that Lucinda's death had created in me. Sex with Veleda was raw and exciting, but when it was over, we were just friends, or at least that's what we eventually evolved into. And we never kissed… until now.
Veleda was barely eighteen when she forced our meeting and had just recently graduated from Shoreline Academy; she was a Nephilim, a descendent of a demon named Nergal, commander of the secret police of hell. For seven years, we lived together, well we shared a bed when our schedules allowed. She attended the university while I spent my time devoted to my watcher duties. It was a strange relationship, but it worked.
The desire was too strong and we began ripping each other's clothes off as our lips struggled to remain in contact. When enough of our bodies were exposed, I pushed her against the stone wall and connected with her familiar warmth in an unfamiliar way. I allowed her moans to fill me, driving my passion to levels we'd never explored together. It didn't seem possible that either of us could get enough of the other and finally we climaxed together, our ecstasy echoing out through the valley below.
The world seemed quiet as we came down together, our hearts and breaths the only discernable sounds as we searched each other's eyes for answers to the unspoken question: what now?