Bound to the Fallen (Prophecy #2) Read online

  Bound to the Fallen

  Stevie J. Cole

  Copyright © 2013 by Stevie J. Cole

  All rights reserved

  This book is an original work of fiction. All of the names, characters, sponsors, and events are the product of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual events, incidences, persons, deceased or living, is strictly coincidental.

  Any opinions expressed in this book or solely those of the authors.

  Bound to the Fallen

  Copyright ©2013 by Stevie J. Cole

  Published in the United States of America

  Ebooks are non-transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement including infringement without monetary gain is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of Stevie J. Cole.

  Editing: A.M.S

  Cover photos: Shutterstock

  www.shutterstock.com

  Cover design: Stevie J. Cole

  Contents

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter-Fifty four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Excerpt from Bound by Prophecy

  About the Author:

  Acknowledgements

  Much gratitude to A.M.S. for all of her hard work editing Bound to the Fallen. Thanks to you I sound like I halfway know what I’m talking about and have a basic grasp on grammar (I love me some commas). I hope the nightmares subside and that you will one day look at me without thinking about grammatically correcting words referring to genitalia. You’re amazing, which means you’re stuck with me…sorry!

  Love to my beautiful sister, Eva James. You have been an inspiration. Thank you for always listening to me and entertaining my obsessions. You, my darling, are my heart and best friend.

  Simone King, my kindred spirit! We truly are the odd couple. Without you as my creative team who knows where Gavin would have ended up. I cannot explain how much you mean to me. You have given me the motivation to do this. My fortune cookie was so true, “A chance meeting with a stranger will soon change your life.” We are doing the road show – I will not take no for an answer. I’ll wear my Mary Kay and have some wine with you soon!

  Abby Porter Cook, thank you for all your help! You are amazing, wonderful and my number one! I had no idea what I was doing – and then there was you! The apron strings will never be cut, sorry! Much love to you boo! I look forward to the mischief we will cause. Bwahahahaha…

  Thank you to all my loves who have sat back and listened to me ramble on and on about this book. I appreciate your patience and love throughout this all. Thank you for inspiring me to write, for being the muse that granted me a passion and for being there over the many years encouraging me.

  Connie, thanks for just being you. I love you!

  Lastly – To Caleb, my Jay, my love, my best friend and my life, when all else fails I know I have you. Thank you for breathing life into me. You are the reason I dream, I love and the reason I am who I am.

  “All the myths, all the legends — they all have a glimmer of truth to them.”

  ~ Gavin Hunter

  Preface

  Gavin

  October 4, 2014

  Darkness. Complete darkness. A darkness like I’d never experienced, the kind that completely consumes you. I frantically reached out, feeling for some part of her, for warmth underneath my palms – but I found nothing.

  My vision focused and I could faintly make out the desolate landscape that surrounded me. The horizon was bleak and the thick ash falling from the sky made it impossible to see more than a foot in front of me. The light gray substance covered my skin, a blizzard of impure snow reminding me that this world would no longer be what I had grown to know it as. The ringing in my ears dulled, allowing me to recognize the sound of waves crashing against the shore. My stomach was pressed down into the gritty texture of sand and I felt a cold wetness seep underneath my body. Pulling my knees beneath me, I attempted to stand and stumbled. My legs were weak and threatened to buckle.

  “Brooke!” My voice strained as I called out for her. The echo of my cry was the only sound aside from the soft rumble of the tides rushing up on shore.

  My feet steadied beneath me, and the sand bled between my toes as my weight transferred completely to my legs. I took no more than three steps and I felt hair beneath my feet. Falling to my knees, I desperately reached out and felt her cool skin beneath my fingertips. The feeling sent a shock throughout my body. I reached underneath her back and pulled her cold, limp body into my lap. The past few weeks had changed the course of the world. My desire for her, my love for her, my inability to deny myself from her — I needed her. For all I knew she was the only thing left in this world. My weakness may have very well been the catalyst for the war that ended mankind, the world of the living. And all because I’d been too selfish to let her go.

  Collapsing back into the beach, I cradled the head of the one thing in existence that completed me, not certain if I would be forced to spend eternity entirely alone. I knew nothing except that if her eyes had been shut forever I would, for the first time, long for death.

  Had I known that my fall from grace all those years
ago would lead to this moment — had I known that my selfish desires would bind Brooke to her grave — I would have changed it all. I would have turned and walked away that day in the Garden. That would have been the only way I could have protected her.

  She was mine and all I wanted to do was protect her. And I failed…

  As I sat clinging to her. Trying to find a way to change what had happened. Desperate to find a way to bring her back, I thought back to the beginning of this all — which for me would be the beginning of time. A time when the realm of heaven and earth knew no separation, a time in which hell did not exist. Back to a time when the term wicked held no meaning and the darkness was simply darkness.

  I remember walking through the lush gardens. I can still feel the softness of the warm grass underneath my feet and smell the soft scent of wild hibiscus floating in the air. I came to a lake and found a creature I’d not seen before, and of all the creations I had witnessed, this one by far was the most exotic, most beautiful, most tempting of them all.

  Shifting my gaze from the creature to my friend, I asked, “What is this one called? What has man named this one?”

  Azaal’s stare concentrated on the figure now wading in the clear waters. “Woman,” he said. A smile curved across his face as he continued to watch her.

  Woman. The embodiment of grace and beauty.

  I was unable to tear my eyes from her beauty. Her long dark hair flowed across the top of the water as she waded farther out. Her pale supple skin glistened in the sun. Her movements seemed so fluid, so seductive and sent a bolt of heat raging through my soul like I’d never experienced.

  “She’s man’s gift. She was made specifically for him,” Azaal sneered as he snuck toward the opening in the trees that had hidden us from the woman’s sight. “Such beauty made for the new creation.”

  I found myself following him out into the open field. The sunlight bathed me in a magnificent warmth and the iridescent reflection from Azaal’s ivory feathers shimmered across the green blades of grass. His demeanor became commanding as he stalked closer to the banks of the lake.

  “Azaal!” I called out to him, but he continued in the direction of the woman bathing in the pure waters.

  Quickening my pace, I found myself standing at the edge of the water. The chilled, wet sand formed around the soles of my feet and I stood drinking in the splendor of this woman. My eyes devoured the curves that shaped her body and my chest tightened, causing an involuntary gasp.

  “Not at all fair, wouldn’t you agree?” Azaal asked.

  I tore my gaze away from her to find Azaal’s eyes fixated on her as he spoke. His eyes gleamed. “Why should man get a gift such as this, and we nothing?”

  The woman heard us speaking and turned to face us. She walked slowly to the water’s edge and with each step more of her body became exposed to our eyes. The water trickled down her skin and I felt a fire begin to burn inside me. I made the mistake of locking my eyes onto hers; the bright blue coloring matched that of the water and it mesmerized me. The woman reached her hand out toward me and I grabbed it to help her up onto the bank. That touch, the sensation of her wet skin against mine still, so many years later, seems so real.

  Her mouth opened slightly and the softest sounding voice I’d ever heard came flowing from her lips. “What are you doing here? Why are you not with the other angels?”

  My finger traced over her hand just before she released her hold from mine. The woman’s hands felt slowly up her neck and she rang the water from her damp hair. Seduction. I was unable to move my gaze away from her body, watching as the water evaporated, leaving small trails on her skin, making it glisten in the sunlight. I was awe-struck by this creature. This woman.

  “We were just admiring you, my dear woman,” Azaal’s voice broke the silence.

  Her cheeks flushed pink and the sight of this sent another wave of heat stinging across my skin. She sauntered toward the garden and disappeared behind the lush landscape.

  “Man’s gift!” Azaal laughed. “I see no reason why we can’t also enjoy the fruit of a woman.”

  Azaal stared into me and I saw a dangerous want flicker behind his eyes.

  I found myself returning to that lake day after day and watching the woman. We had been designated to protect man, and here I found myself contemplating stealing his gift for my own. One day while I sat at the edge of the water the woman came over to me.

  “Why do you watch me?” she asked. The sound of her voice sent a chorus of want rushing through my being.

  I felt the slightest of smiles tug my lips up. “Woman, you know we’ve been put here to watch over you, to keep you safe.”

  “Safe from what?” Her blue eyes pierced into me, then fell down to my mouth. Her hand stretched up toward my face and the tip of her finger suggestively traced over my bottom lip. “Safe from you?”

  Reaching up, she stroked the edge of my outstretched wing. Her fingers felt down their frame and to my shoulder, then to my jaw. Her face inched toward mine and I watched her eyes close slowly. The tenderness of her lips pressing to mine awakened a part of me I hadn’t known existed. Desire, want, longing — a need to overtake her filled me. I grabbed onto the base of her neck. Her hair wound itself around my fingers and her body pressed up against mine, fitting the contours of my body perfectly, as though she’d been made for me. The warm, inviting feeling of her tongue dipping into my mouth, the perfect pressure her breasts created on my chest – the taste of her… I was captive to this creature, weakened by my hunger for her. I fell into her, plummeted from righteousness as my flesh faded into hers.

  Sin. I brought the sin of temptation to mankind.

  Other angels fell just as I did, and the wrath for our departure from grace was felt.

  The Creator ordered man to curse us. The mortal stood in front of us, a scowl furrowed across his brow and his chest expanded as he drew in a breath. “Deviants!” he screamed at us. His voice echoed throughout the gardens. His fists clenched tightly at his sides as he stomped toward us. “The Creator will not even be in your presence due to the disgrace you have brought this world.” He glared at us, shaming us for our desires.

  “You’ve taken mortal flesh and perverted it. You are now the fallen and shall be damned for your sins! Immortal you may be, but you will forever be enslaved by your mortal ways.” The man’s eyes narrowed. The tension rushing through his body was evident by the flickering muscles of his jaw. His eyes locked onto me in a cold stare, and he continued. “Stripped of all grace, you will have a hollow emptiness that will consume you, and your flesh will be marked. Mortal things you longed for and for that you will be cursed, your souls will long for the peace only man’s soul shall know.”

  The women had been brought out before us, lined up beside the man. He grabbed the one I’d come to know and jerked her around by her shoulders. Her eyes were red and filled with tears, her lip trembling as the man tightened his hold on her. It was as though she were pleading for me to save her… but I was no savior.

  “These women you have tainted —” he shoved her toward me. Stumbling, she fell at my feet. “— will be banished with you, and your offspring will thirst for their mother’s blood. Wickedness you have bred within the darkness and wickedness shall you see — Wretched —” The man turned his back, his head bowed. “You will hunger for mortal’s souls and thirst for their blood. Bound to them by cannibalistic desires. The darkness is now your home – angels of darkness – demons of light.” And with that, all ties with grace were shattered.

  Banished.

  Azaal and I sat along the murky banks of the Mesopotamia. Our sins had created a separation and heaven and earth were no longer as one. Darkness had cast itself across the face of the earth. This desolation engulfed the radiance of our souls and etched its color across our wings. The once brilliant white coloring became suited and marred from our sin, and since we had been damned our identity was made invisible to the eye of man. Never again woul
d the allure of our immortality tempt woman.

  I let out a heavy sigh and pushed my body up from the ground. The landscape was desolate and unforgiving.

  I heard Azaal’s voice gathering the other fallen together. His face was red with anger and his voice boomed into the arid sky. “This creation, this man — it is his fault we have been banished, stripped of all grace and our rightful place!” Azaal threw his clenched fists toward the heavens. “Bow to him? You expected us to bow to him!” His face cast down to the ground as he shook it slowly from side to side. “I will make his life miserable! He too shall fall. He was boastful and flaunted his gifts. He made woman seduce us!” he said, his eyes looking out over us. He nodded his head as he spoke, “He longed for our immortality and though he did not take that from us, he damned us to darkness.”

  Cast out of grace and forced to live as mortals we stayed with the women and began to build cities. Within the first year we created offspring and our curse carried on to these children of darkness. Mortals were not meant to breed with immortal beings and the result was nothing short of pure, unadulterated evil. They were born with pale skin, a disdain for the sunlight because it was a reminder of the redemption they would never know, and an insatiable thirst for blood. Our curse — these creatures had a desire for mortals just the same as us, but this desire was not one of lust but one for death. Creatures of the darkness, damned souls, the fallen; just as their fathers— the fallen angels. I was the birth of legends, the birth of myths, and man would one day name my offspring vampires. The Fallen longed for souls and had a craving for blood, but for us the taste of blood was only a desire. A delicacy. Our children needed the life coursing through the veins of mankind. We took from man the only glimmer of immortality they had; our children took from them their life. To die without a soul is eternal damnation, a fair trade for man damning us from grace.

  Man fell just as Azaal had said he would; oddly enough it seems the exotic wiles of the woman caused man’s fall from grace as well. Two races cast out together, and to man we now seemed no different than they.

  The havoc our children wrought on mankind for his first centuries was unrelenting. In desperation man bartered souls for protection. An agreement was made between man and the fallen that we would take only from the wicked, from those marked as evil. We were still allowed the pleasures of women and many other luxuries possessed by mortals such as wealth and distinction, but we were to suppress our powers and reveal our identities to no one.