Absolution At Dawn Read online

  “You will leave him be,” she demanded, but Azrael was not ready to submit to her dictate, When he looked down at Damian, standing up on the sidewalk and using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe a fresh drop of blood from the corner of his mouth, Azrael turned his attention back to the hunter.

  “NO!” Aurora screamed, diving down to the ground, reaching out for the Nephilim who stood now with a wooden stake in one hand and a silver dagger in the other, but despite the power of her wings, she could not reach Azrael before he reached Damian. “Run!” she warned the man, who took no notice and remained where he was ready to face the Angel of Death.

  Azrael lifted the man up by the collar, flying him above the nearby rooftops ignoring the onlooking tourists who had gathered. Damian swung at Azrael with all his might, fighting for his life, but the vampire toyed with his meal, releasing him in the air to toss up and catch before he fell to too far from his free fall to the ground. The clatter of the sharpened stake brought a wretched fear to her heart, but Damian did not pause and like an eagle’s prey caught in the predator’s talons he swung his legs to kick at Azrael. In one final, desperate act the man pulled one arm back, a sparkling reflection of moonlight ran along the sharpened edge of the silver blade and Aurora watched in fright as the man sealed his fate. In one quick motion, he kicked his legs back to gain momentum and flung his legs forward, wrapping them around Azrael’s waist and securing his position long enough to bring his right arm down with the dull edge of the blade secure against the back of his forearm to slice the sharp silver edge into Azrael’s shoulder.

  Smoke burst from the wound along with black, dead blood which fell down to the ground splattering onto one poor onlooker who screamed in fright. Azrael’s head reared back and he growled like a beast into the night before twisting the man’s arm around. Damian’s shoulder popped from the socket with a crippling sound and the silver blade fell to the ground, threatening the people below. Aurora turned in the air and dived down to catch the blade before it impaled the screaming hipster clutching her mocha with both hands, then looked up in time to see Damian hang limp from Azrael’s hands and the vampire’s fangs extended to their lethal length and aimed for the man’s neck.

  This would not happen, this could not happen, Aurora would bring this to an end. In a moment of fright, desperation, and madness she was set to strike a deal with death himself for the life of a friend’s son.

  “Take me instead,” she cried out, bringing Azrael’s bite to a stop. “Take me,” she offered to try and keep his interest as she slowly flew up to meet him at the same elevation, her wings pulled back like a cape blowing behind her.

  “You?” He was suspicious of what she said. “You would trade places with this half-breed?” His eyes shifted, as well as his voice, depicting a tone of jealousy that she had not expected. “What is he to you?”

  “Nothing,” she answered without hesitation.

  “And yet you would trade places with him?”

  “He is simply the son of a dear friend, and despite his birth status as a hunter, he is innocent where our fight is concerned.” The guilt that had followed her through centuries wept from her words and she saw a moment of agony and regret in his eyes, which gave her hope.

  “Very well.” He released the man to fall a safe ten feet onto a nearby roof and reached out to take Aurora by the waist and pull her close to him. “I will take you as forfeit, but it is not your blood that I hunger for.”

  “Then what? What would you crave, other than the taste of an angel’s blood?”

  “Your body.”

  It was an affirmation of lust that struck her like a bullet. Aurora nearly melted in his arms but fought to maintain her composure as he flew them up and out of sight from the onlookers who had all failed to capture the moment with their smartphones and devices, clearly an intention that he had made by commanding their will to bend to him and resist the urge. Mind control or Manus as the fallen called it could bend the will of mortals and had ensured the security and secrecy of the supernatural escaping discovery in the modern world.

  “Where do you intend to take me?” she asked, noticing how he had failed to loosen his grip on her despite her lack of struggle against him.

  “Silence,” he said through clenched teeth, his upper lips rolled back, revealing the pair of deadly fangs, but Aurora was not afraid, she knew that despite his brutality she was safe with him… or at least she hoped she was.

  They flew over the French Quarter, where college students and 30 something’s had begun to take to the streets in drunken celebration of life, freedom, sex, and sin. With a hand wrapped firmly around her waist he pulled her closer to him pressing their bodies tightly together, which left no room for escape. Aurora closed her eyes and for a brief moment the memories of heated ecstasy claimed her thoughts, memories that she had long ago abandoned, when the death of an innocent had cast her memories of Azrael into shadow.

  “I assumed that you had forgotten,” his voice invaded her thoughts and she looked up into his eyes, ignoring the starry sky behind him.

  “The desire to cast them out is sometimes forfeited by the reality that I cannot escape from my past.” She was tormented with the feelings of shame and self-loathing for how those memories could stir desire and longing in her heart.

  “And you cannot escape me now.” They slowed to a hovering still, her feet dangling in midair and her wings coiled into her back concealed from sight. He held her securely in his arms above the world and slowly they drifted down onto a rooftop sanctuary.

  “We have arrived.” He invited her, releasing his hold on her and allowing Aurora to take a few investigative steps away.

  The fragrant scent of night-blooming jasmine and magnolia filled the air with an intoxicating sweetness. Aurora was stunned, bewildered by the elegant rooftop garden around her, potted plants and trees grew with a green brilliance and were arranged to create a path to an iron bistro table and chair set. At the center stood a painted, white iron gazebo with a hothouse standing behind it. Green-tinted glass windows were fogged with perspiration from a tropical humidity helping to give life to an exotic collection of plants and flowers.

  “Are you pleased?” he asked with his eyes focused on her every movement.

  “It is lovely, I could not imagine anyone thinking otherwise, but what is the purpose, you won me in forfeit, a gamble with the life of a friend’s son.” She turned back to face him, her white coat wrapping around her legs from the motion and then falling loose again at her side. The tabletop felt cold under her hand as she leaned slightly on it and drummed her nails over the vine and floral pattern. “Uriel once looked upon you as a friend, or do you not remember?”

  “I remember the hypocrisy and how those I had once thought to be my friends turned their backs on me and their other friends. There were seven of them, always the sacred seven, but the Archangels are more than a mythical catalog of names, they are a brotherhood, protected by the same sins that were shared among other angels… or do you not recall?” He approached her but stopped short of four feet keeping a chair standing between them.

  “There is more to the story, and you know that.”

  “Yes! Banishment!” The word dripped from his lips like acid, “Banishment and damnation all for the chance to lie with a woman. But not them, not the precious archangels, not only were they protected, but their half-breed offspring were born to hunt us.”

  “You were never one of them,” she corrected, watching the tension build in his body and fearful of the danger of angering him through such painful memories.

  “No,” he snapped, “I was separated from everyone. I was already death. My existence was a curse before you crossed my path, plagued to dirty my hands with a burden that no one else could stomach.” The hard, angry lines in his face curved and dipped with sorrow. “You were the light in an existence that had become a prison of death.” The chair that stood between them served as a barrier, his hand rested on the back of the chair, but as the meaning
of his words ran deeper his grip tightened until the iron backing of the chair bent under the strain of his grip.

  “Time has distorted your memories,” she defended herself fearful of the feelings that were beginning to stir, feelings that she had long ago turned her back on and, even now, was not prepared to face… if ever.

  “Fears and passion may be explained away or hidden with the excuse of the passing of time, but you punish us both when you turn your back on the truth.”

  She watched the back of the chair begin to crumble under the crushing grip of his hand and knew how easily he could have done the same with Damian, as with so many other mortals. Centuries had passed since the last time she stood between him and the life of another, but something was different, the connection between them had changed, he had changed. Aurora acted against her instinct, turning away from the natural warnings of survival to press her case with the Angel of Death.

  “This is not worthy of you. You were good once.”

  “And then you betrayed me, and I was condemned.” The hate in his voice was not something that she had been prepared for.

  “You betrayed us all when you took an innocent life!” She fought back despite the risk of angering him. “In truth it was you who turned your back on me, long before that man crossed my path.”

  It was an accusation that she could not hide from and before she could speak he lifted up what remained of the chair and tore its frame between both hands with cast iron leaves falling to the ground in debris. Red glowed out from his pupils, filling the whites of his eyes, and a fury that ignited his hunger was threatening to be unleashed. The topic of their past had brought to life his anger and feelings that were safer to be forgotten, but she had now, unknowingly, crossed that bridge and was looking into the mouth of a demon. She turned to flee, but once her feet lifted only a couple of inches, she was pulled, spun about in the air, lost in the hold that he had on her until she landed hard, with her back against the glass panels of the greenhouse. Glass cracked under the impact of her shoulders and one pane shattered, showering its glass over the plants inside.

  “You were once the well from which my goodness sprang, but then I learned the truth of you.” Pained laced his voice.

  “What! What truth did you learn?” she challenged him knowing that she was far from innocent. “That I am a woman, that despite being an angel I am still a being who needs to feel love? If you have brought me here to take my body in order to settle an ancient score, then get on with it, but if you intend to punish me with this narration of your delicate heart, then leave me be, because I have had my centuries of regret until I realized whatever evils you have committed since then are on your own head. It was your actions that condemned you to be a monster.”

  It was the statement that had hung over them both like a rock, threatening to crush them from the validity of both their actions centuries ago. So much had resulted in her encounter with the fisherman, but it was still a debate over who was to blame. Azrael studied her face, searching out the answers he needed, but a torrent of emotions left him crippled to his resolve.

  “For the last four centuries I have pictured what it would be like to hold you again, to feel your skin under my fingers, but never certain if I would welcome a gentle touch, with soothing interaction or…” one hand moved up her arm, the fine fabric of her flowing robe crinkled under his touch, sliding over her skin it was easily manipulative, as he pulled the neckline over her shoulder exposing her long neck. He itched to touch more, his eyes focused with a furious intensity on her neck and the throbbing veins beneath her skin.

  Unlike his victims for the last four hundred years, he didn’t hunger for her blood, though Azrael knew that a throne angel, as she was, would taste the sweetest, but he lusted for something far more intimate than a meal. One finger at a time wrapping his hand around her neck, first gently, barely touching her, but then he could feel the rhythmic pace of her blood pumping beneath his thumb and when it began to speed up his grip tightened realizing that she was frightened of him. Fear was an emotion born from a form of passion, but it would not be what he wanted from her at the moment and Azrael felt robbed of his victory, knowing that her submission was from something other than desire.

  “You lie to yourself as easily as you lie to me,” he challenged her, but Aurora looked up into his eyes with bewilderment. “I can hear your heart beating faster and faster and yet your expression is calm, collected. Is your blood drumming out a call to flee in fear or have I aroused something in you…” he leaned down and kissed the junction of her neck and jawline then whispered in her ear, “… Something that has lingered with you for the last four hundred years?”

  Aurora closed her eyes, fighting off what would be a damning response.

  “I am here to save the innocent life of Damian, son of Uriel and that is all.”

  He slowly sniffed her neck, nuzzling his nose into it, then up into her flowing hair. Aurora bit back a moan that nearly escaped her lips and fisted her hand, digging the nails into her palms to fight back the urge to hold him close to her. Physical pain was something not familiar to her, but desire and passion had been a driving force in her long existence. When his tongue rounded the bottom lobe of her ear he whispered to her.

  “Your body confesses the lies that your tongue continues to spew. You cannot lie to me, I can taste the deceit in your perspiration.

  “Angel’s do not perspire,” she corrected him, but he dragged his tongue over her throbbing neck and the contrasting cold touch against her hot skin sent shivers through her body.

  “And your shit doesn’t stink either?” he asked, refusing to let go of the banter between them. Broken and betrayed centuries ago left him with no wish to show her comfort or understanding, she was not worthy of such treatment in his eyes and he refused to open himself up to her again only to be savagely ripped apart. This was not a lover’s tryst, this was his chance to once and for all be rid of her, cleanse his body and mind of this centuries old obsession.

  “Azrael,” his name floated on a quivering breath that struck him deep. He had not expected to be wounded by the sound of her voice speaking his name, but there was much he had not expected that night.

  Anger and resentment, born from her rejection, coiled in his stomach and his dead heart froze over with a loathing for what he most wanted in the world. She had betrayed him, cursed him to this existence and yet he still desired her, still longed to be loved by her, but she was incapable of love, incapable of the fidelity that he had once believed her to live by. Azrael tightened his grip on her neck and straightened his arm pushing her into the already broken glass, crushing the remnant into a glittery dust that sprinkled her fiery hair, only adding to her beauty.

  “You will free me from this,” he demanded, “I am not a slave to your will and no longer will you hold me prisoner.” He leaned in closer studying her eyes up close, their lashes brushing tip to tip and then he paused, His eyes fell to her round, full lips and he was lost.

  Crushing his lips against hers, Azrael kissed her with a desperation that dominated him, consuming her heat with the arctic blast of his cold body. Despite her angelic appearance, Aurora was not a weak damsel, nor was she innocent to the erotic feelings that Azrael sparked inside her. Throwing caution to the wind she reached out wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling herself closer to him, with his hand still holding tightly to her neck as a constant barrier between them. In an aggressive move, she lifted her feet up, letting his body hold her in place while she wrapped her legs around his hips, he moved his hand behind her, pressing against the center of her back and pulling her even closer to him. They couldn’t think, or reason what was happening, instinct had taken over and they were both left to the mercy of their carnal desires.

  Lifting off the ground Azrael released his hold on her neck and used his hand to help support her while they flew across the atrium, Aurora’s mouth moved over his and bit into his lower lip. Caught off guard by her aggressive move, Azrael propell
ed them into a white arbor laden with soft white and sterling roses. The thorns were incapable of puncturing their skin, but the blossoms broke under the impact, releasing a lustrous fragrance that made them dizzy. Azrael pressed his hips against her, letting the hard length of his erection feel the warmth of her body, even through the confines of their clothes. Reaching behind him, he pulled her hands away from his neck and stretched her arms over her head, securing both of her slim wrists in one of his hands while the other drew a long, slow line down the inside of her arm and over the outside of her breast. The fabric from the robe was light and soft, flowing over her skin with a grace that revealed her nudity beneath it. Angels were not condemned to live with the confinement of mortal woman, lingerie served no practical purpose for an immortal and it suited her, Aurora was too majestic and beautiful to be covered in lace and frills, she didn’t need it and such trappings would only taint her beauty.

  Azrael broke the seal of their lips, pulling away from her to look down at the flowing white robe draped over the rise of her breasts. Aurora whimpered with a protest, but then he used his free hand to move over her body, running down her side from her shoulder to her hip where her legs were still raised up to wrap around him. His hand was light over the creases and folds of the fabric and when he whispered the word “Galah” the fabric fell away from her, morphing over her limbs to fall as one piece in a pile at her feet. Naked in his arms, he looked over her body, from the soft shape of her stomach to the lustrous rise of her breasts, up the sleek column of her neck, she was glorious and looked into his eye with no shame for her nakedness, just as she had hundreds of years ago.

  “Never was there a more beautiful creature,” he whispered leaning in slowly to kiss her tenderly on the lips. Passion still burned in his touch, but there was restraint in his kiss now, desperation had been replaced with desire.