He was getting closer. He could feel the sword speaking to him. That he actually left it behind in his haste to flee — Lord of the Most High. A soldier abandoning his weapon? Unheard of. At least amongst the
good
soldiers anyway. He crossed over the city of Washington, D.C., barely paying heed to the damage his burst of rage had laid out. He followed the sword’s beckoning to an abandoned field and a conspicuous building that proclaimed loudly that it was a product of human government. This was the epicenter of his wrath, and it showed. The building was falling apart in the wake of what the humans would attribute to an earthquake. What had been a glass dome had exploded, allowing Jayden easy access. He quickly unfurled his wings and floated up and into the building.
He landed in a deathly quiet, wide-open room that held the Trees at its center. They grew from the dirt ground to fill the entire space. Their branches brushed against the outer walls; they sagged heavily with fruit.
They were beautiful.
Jayden realized with a start that, if he could miss anything, he would have missed these trees. They were the Most High’s first gift to man; and the first gift that man had misused — just as they did with all of the Most High’s gifts.
His eyes took in the damage to the room, and he barely stifled a wince as he saw fatalities on the floor. Fatalities that
his
anger caused. Reminders that he should be above emotion. He pushed the thought aside before it could manifest itself in more of the emotion that had visited Jayden twice already this day.
A wave of energy pulled his eyes from the trees. His sword was here. He could feel the sword responding to his arrival, waves of recognition rolling over him. He turned to his left, knowing that was where he would find it, and was pulled up short.
The sword was lying on a table, its red and black flames reflecting Jayden’s wrath, but that was not what captured his attention.
Slumped on the ground below the table amid the sparkle of shattered glass was
her
. His Temptation.
Jayden hissed in a breath and took a stumbling step back, his eyes never straying from her form. She had a mass of curly red hair that was haphazardly piled on her head, writing utensils protruding here and there. She wore a pair of glasses with thick, black frames that hid most of her face, but Jayden could still see her lush eyelashes and pert, upturned nose. Her face was gently rounded. Feminine. His eyes zeroed in on her full, parted lips before sweeping the rest of her form. She was a curvy, soft woman. Her clothes, completely lacking a shape, did nothing to hide her sweet body from his observation. The humans today would immediately dismiss her as overweight or even plain, but to Jayden she was …
perfection
.
His Temptation.
Jayden groaned and took a stumbling step forward. She
would
be what he couldn’t resist. That was the point. Since the Fall of Lucifer, every son of God knew that they would encounter a Temptation at some point in their immortal lives. Other than succumbing to Temptations, the only other way a son of God could Fall was partaking of the Tree of Eternal Life. And no angel would ever do that. Temptations were the heavenly realm’s greatest threat. They could take several forms — Lucifer’s had been power — but most often, a son of God faced his Temptation in a daughter of man. And she inevitably brought about his downfall. The daughters of man were forbidden. Every angel knew that. And yet —
Here was Jayden, standing over his lovely Temptation, aching with each breath to reach down and touch her.
He had severely underestimated the pull she would have on him. He had been right to flee when he felt her impending connection with the men who stumbled upon the Garden. He should have never come. Eventually, the Most High would have sent someone in his place to carry out his orders, but Jayden’s pride — another emotion he should have denied himself — had driven him here.
She moaned and then turned over, her eyelashes fluttering.
Jayden watched in rapt horror as her eyes opened and gazed at him in unfocused confusion. They were gray. Stormy. Breathtaking. “
No
,” he whispered fiercely as he felt something inside of him shift. He was doomed. He would
never
be able to leave her. He needed her so badly. Ached for her.
His arm stretched out from his side and toward her. He watched in disbelief as his fingers spread, yearning for the feel of her skin. Jayden never touched a human for any purpose other than death. What would it feel like to skim the pads of his fingertips down her cheek? He was suddenly breathless to know, an odd ache settling in the pit of his stomach. He bent toward her —
Those wide, unfocused gray eyes grew sharp in an instant. Confusion disappeared from their depths to be replaced with the terror Jayden had first been expecting. Seeing the terror in her eyes, however, devastated him on a scale he could not comprehend.
She gasped and lurched to a seated position, immediately scrambling back, not heeding the damage she was doing to her palms as they pounded through broken glass. Her back hit the desk, and she had nowhere else to go. She was taking her air in big, echoing gulps, and Jayden worried that she would lose consciousness again or harm herself further in her attempts to escape him.
“Calm, human,” he commanded in a low voice made harsher than he intended by the thought of her leaving him.
“Go away,” she ordered softly, yet fiercely.
Jayden frowned.
“Go away
now
!” Her voice was rising in panic. He could sense her heart rate speeding with fear. Her beautiful eyes were rolling around without finding purchase. Her shoulders slackened, her eyes grew dazed once more, and Jayden knew she was seconds from fainting.
He crouched down in front of her, reaching for her again to do — he knew not what. He only knew he felt this uncontrollable urge to calm her. To help her.
But at the sight of his hand reaching toward her, she whimpered and cowered even more. “No,” she moaned. “Please … not … again.” A small sob escaped her lips, and she clamped them shut, all color draining from her face.
Again?
His Temptation made no sense.
“Grace?”
Jayden’s hand had been stretching toward her, but at the sound of a man’s voice behind him, his hand immediately reached over his Temptation’s head and wrapped around the hilt of his sword. In less than a second, he whirled around, his back to his Temptation, sword at the ready, his body in a battle stance, coiled to attack. He would kill any threat to her.
Standing at the entrance to the room were two humans, a man and a woman. The man was very tall for a human. He had blond hair and light blue eyes that were focused on them with concern. At his side was a petite, dark-skinned woman with long black hair.
“Oh, thank God,” he heard his Temptation whisper at the very moment he realized he was looking at two immortals, two defilers of the Trees. And then the fact that his Temptation’s voice dripped with relief washed over him. She was
relieved
that these two abominations had come. Had stopped him from touching her.
A growl erupted from his chest, and he launched to a full upright position. He had orders to carry out. No humans were to touch the Tree of Eternal Life. These two had. It was his job to kill them and restore balance. He would finally fulfill his purpose. Finally fight.
He began to walk toward them slowly, sending out mental sensors toward the two defilers. He probed their minds easily. In an instant, he knew that the man had not partaken of the fruit willingly. Images of human testing and gut-wrenching sorrow flitted through Jayden’s mind as his target’s past became known to him. But the woman — Jayden’s eyes landed on her, and he tilted his head to the side as he approached.
She
had willingly eaten the fruit. Had taken it with selfish motives — as part of a scheme of hers. Of the two of them, she was the more abhorrent.
She would die first.
The man must have seen some change in Jayden’s eyes because he pushed the woman to her knees and stepped in front of her. Jayden didn’t slow his approach. He reached them and with a swift palm to the chest, sent the man flying across the room. Jayden heard him hit the wall with a crack of bone and paid no further attention to him. It would take a few minutes for him to heal, giving Jayden more than enough time to dispatch the woman and make his way over to where the other defiler was.
The small, dark-skinned woman looked up at him, her eyes narrowing with a rage that matched Jayden’s own. He was momentarily surprised — he expected fear — but lifted his sword all the same.
He heard a rush of fabric off to his left, but his sword was already moving.
“No!” his Temptation shouted as she stepped between his sword and the kneeling woman. “She’s preg — ”
It happened too quickly for Jayden to stop. He had been aiming low and for the crouched defiler’s neck — a quick death, far more merciful than she deserved — but where her neck had been, his Temptation now was.
As his sword slid into her belly, her words cut off with a gurgle. Her eyes widened with disbelief and then narrowed as the pain of her wound hit her.
It was a mortal wound. Just as he had intended.
Jayden gaped as his Temptation tried to speak. A burble of blood ran over her bottom lip, and her legs failed her. The defiler behind her caught her as she sank to the ground.
“Grace!” The man he sent flying across the room now sprinted toward them. Jayden stumbled back as he watched them try to stem the flow of blood, his Temptation’s life force spilling over their hands.
Fear. The emotion returned to him, and it was so severe it stole his breath. He felt a tremor begin in his legs and spread to his hands. He was
losing
her — just as he met her. He heard a moan of abject pain and realized it came from him. “No … ”
The woman he intended to kill turned accusing eyes on him. “What the
fuck
are you?”
He did not answer. He only watched as the blood flow from the wound
he
had caused began to slow. His Temptation’s eyes started to glaze.
“No!” he said again, scanning the room. His gaze landed on the Tree of Eternal Life. His wings sprang from his back, and he was flying toward it without another thought.
It hurt.
God
, it hurt so bad.
And why were they pushing on it so hard? Touching her. Jericho and Dahlia’s hands were weapons themselves, adding to her agony as they applied pressure to the gaping wound marring Grace’s gut.
She tried to tell them to stop, was sure that she had, but she only tasted blood on her tongue.
That
thing
— the most beautiful, terrifying being she had ever seen — had … killed her. She was dying.
And maybe that was okay. She was so tired of being afraid. Of looking for someone to hurt her around every corner. She wasn’t afraid right now, and it was the first time that’d happened in years. It almost made the pain worth it.
Almost.
Cold. Her teeth started to chatter. With a rush of relief she realized she could no longer feel their hands upon her. Her body was going blessedly numb.
But it was so cold.
Dahlia scooped her up into her arms and cradled her against her chest, rubbing her hands up and down Grace’s arms. “Shh,” she said. “It’ll be over soon, Red. Shh … .” Grace was still conscious enough to struggle, but when her efforts were unsuccessful, she realized her numb body did not react to Dahlia’s touch as it always reacted to human contact. Without the ability to feel the pain of Dahlia’s touch, Grace was shocked to discover that the other woman’s embrace was … pleasant. It was the first time someone had put their arms around her in — she couldn’t remember. A sudden, intense desire to live roared through her, and Grace tried to fight, to say something. But instead of a sound, her efforts brought another rush of blood.
The strength left her limbs, and she sagged into Dahlia’s lap. Black began to edge in on her vision, so Grace closed her eyes to prevent watching it.
Dahlia tucked Grace’s head into the curve of her neck and began to hum something soft and sweet. Grace smelled cinnamon. She relaxed. If she had to go —
As her senses dimmed, she heard a scuffle.
“Get
away
from her!” Jericho yelled. “Let her go in peace, for God’s sake.”
“She needs this,” said a voice Grace had only heard twice but immediately recognized as
his
. “Now!
Right
now — ”
A heavy silence met his insistence, and Grace wondered for a second if she had slipped away into death, but then she felt slices of renewed pain that must mean Dahlia was laying her down again.
The fear that had abandoned her for a few blessed moments rushed back in. What were they doing? She had no way of knowing.
“
Quickly
,” she heard him say again, desperation dripping from his voice in a near moan.
Another rustle, and then the sweetest scent she’d ever encountered. A mix of peach and sun-warmed earth and sky. She tried to hum in approval, but cut off when she felt a curious sensation where the sword had sliced through her. It started off as a trickling tickle, but soon grew uncomfortably warm. It launched throughout her entire body, causing her back to bow.
She opened her mouth, and her scream rent the air. No flow of blood accompanied it this time, she realized dimly, as her limbs flinched and jerked on their own.
All pain disappeared and in its place was
ecstasy
. Pleasure like nothing she had ever felt warmed her to the tips of her fingers and toes. She moaned loudly as she turned to her side and curled in on herself. Her hands encountered the torn fabric of her blouse and jacket, but then felt smooth skin where moments ago had been carnage. The pleasure faded, and her fingers tentatively explored her abdomen.
The wound was …
gone
.
She opened her eyes to a world that was a blur. Colors blended with colors, shapes with shapes. Her fingers rose trembling to her eyes and bumped against her glasses. On instinct she whipped them away, and the world fell into immediate focus. She saw her surroundings with a clarity she had never known before; a clarity she instinctually knew was greater than human capability.