Tainted Legacy (YA Paranormal Romance) (29 page)

“Help me with what?” Ava asked, finally clawing her way out of the shocked stupor she had tumbled into.

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“I have orders to follow. I cannot help her. You know that is the truth,” Grier told Gabe without a sliver of remorse.

“You have a choice,” Gabe pleaded.

“Free will leads to pride, pride leads to disobedience. We all know that is why Satan fell. I will not disobey.” Her answer was absolute.

“Not even to save her?” Gabe sounded desperate. Confusion swirled around Ava, blurring her perception of everything. A demon…no, a vile
Nephil
was pleading with an angel for her safety?

“You will be silent,” Grier warned. When Gabe opened his mouth to speak, no words came out. He struggled against the ropes, as if he wanted to clutch at his throat.

“Stop!” Ava cried as Grier retained her mystical chokehold on Gabe.

“He is an abomination Ava! He is asking me to disobey, to risk becoming one of the Fallen. Satan was cast out from Heaven due to his pride. You do recall that story?” Grier calmly asked.  “He was one of the eight archangels…Satanal, the best, the most beautiful, the brightest of the archangels. The Morning Star. In his own mind superior even to his seven brothers: Gabriel, Rafael, Michael, Zadakiel…? Need I go on?”

“No,” Ava said as she shook her head. She knew the story. She didn’t need to hear it again. What she needed was for Grier to release Gabe.

Grier went on despite Ava’s protest. A scorching dread began to sizzle its way through her marrow at the sound of Grier’s voice.

“Satanal’s hatred for the human race ran so deep he hoped to create a new race. The Nephilim. He and his followers felt a hybrid of fallen angels would be superior to humans. His hope was to breed the humanity out of them. But humanity was saved. Do you remember how?”

“Yes, the flood,” Ava replied in a quaking voice.

“The Nephilim were on the earth in those times. T
he
Lord
saw the impiety of man was great on the earth. The intent of his heart was only evil, all the time. The Lord went to Noah—”

“Grier!” Ava cried. “Please!” Gabe’s chin rested on his chest. He was motionless.

“After the flood,” Grier continued, “the guilty fallen were chained in The Great Abyss. A punishment worse than death. Few angels have fallen since the flood, unwilling to risk being chained until Judgment Day. But a few of those vile beings escaped.” Grier took a step away from Gabe. Taking with her the unseen force that had been around his neck. The restraints that bolted him to the wall remained.

He moaned as he tried to lift his head.

“Is he alright?” Ava asked as she took a tentative step forward.

Grier’s hand flew out to stop her. “He is fine. The demon—”

“Half-demon,” Ava corrected, the words forming and being executed almost of their own volition.

“Half or full-blooded, the result is the same. Demon blood courses through his veins,” Grier’s voice trembled in anger at the words. “And what is a demon, Ava?”

Her words were immediate. “A fallen angel.”

“
I
did not make the choice to fall,” Gabe said, slowly lifting his head to speak for the first time in his own defense.

“Perhaps not, but your blood is infected all the same. Defiled with the essence of your race.”

Ava knew she should be concentrating solely on Grier’s words. But she felt betrayed by the both of them. Inexplicably, she was more hurt by the fact that Gabe had kept his race a secret than she was hurt by what he actually was. And Grier? What exactly was she? She wanted to demand to know how they could both keep this from her. But somehow such a demand from the deity and the half-demon that stood before her seemed like a petulant request.

“Do you understand Ava?
The intent of his heart was only evil, all the time
.
He was speaking of the Nephilim filth. God flooded the world to annihilate creatures like him. Even his name is an abomination, as well as that of his brother. Gabriel and Rafael, they were named in mockery of the archangels.”

Ava looked to Gabe.

“Yes,” he replied to her unvoiced question, not looking too pleased for the reason of his namesake.

“The archangels who chose
not
to abandon their posts and all that was good, the ones who chose
not
to fall. Answer me this,” Grier demanded, “which of the vile fallen is your father?”

Gabe’s posture became as defiant as his restraints would allow. “He’s been your brother far longer than he’s been my father. Surely, you can figure it out.”

Grier bristled at his words, her hand flinging toward Gabe, never touching him but causing his head to bash the wall with the sickening sound of a melon splattering on the pavement. The intensity was so great the stain-glastheuchsed window nestled into the wall above him shattered in its casing. Gabe slumped, his eyes sliding shut as his head listed to the side. The celestial restraints seemed to be all that kept him from crashing to the floor.

In that moment, vulnerable and injured Ava forgot that Gabe was part demon and remembered only that he was the boy she thought she loved. She screamed his name as she lunged forward, only to be restrained by a simple flick of Grier’s wrist.

“None of the Fallen have been my brethren for millennia,” Grier declared, her voice like the glass she had just shattered. “But of the legion of the Fallen, I smell the tainted stench of Azael’s legacy coursing through you.” She spoke to Gabe as if he were cognizant. With a look of great distaste she took a halting step forward, as if it physically pained her to be in such close proximity to him.

Ava struggled against her own invisible restraints, willing them to melt away. As Grier’s attention was diverted elsewhere, they seemed to do just that. As she took her first step forward she watched in horror as Grier raised her hands to Gabe’s face, cupping his temples in her palms. His body jolted but remained inert. The only indication that he was still alive was the tortured, primal groan that bubbled up from some deep chasm of his being. She edged closer but did not entirely close the distance between them. She wanted to continue on but she was fearful of this new Grier.

She instinctually knew that the way Grier was holding Gabe was not as innocuous as it appeared. She knew this, even before the blood started to flow. First a slow trickle from his nose…then a bloody tear seeped from his closed lid, zigzagging down his cheek…a spattering of blood fell from his ear, pooling at the floor beneath his feet.

In the same moment a second, larger, bloody teardrop fell and Gabe’s body convulsed in Grier’s grip. Crimson blood bubbled from his lips as an animalistic keening filled the room.

Without conscious thought Ava threw herself at Grier, latching her hands to her wrists in a feeble attempt to pull her away. Instead, Ava was pulled in as the crimson wave of Gabe’s tortured memories engulfed her.

Chapter 20

A young child with pale gold hair, lying face down, strapped to a table while wings the color of pewter trembled. A woman with the same golden hair, something glinting wickedly in her hand. A meat cleaver swung down, neatly chopping the wing from the child’s body. Blood cascaded into the air, then rained down, gruesomely splattering the small white form.

Ava opened her mouth to scream in terror as the agony under her shoulder blades gripped her. Her scream was drowned out by that of the child. Gabe. She knew it was Gabe but—

The cleaver came down again, detaching the second wing. A man stormed the room, ferociously, maliciously enraged. He struck the woman as he used her weapon against her. In a fit of rage he tossed each wing into the fireplace, each igniting like an inferno but burning out almost instantly. An indescribable pain indecipherable and yet paradoxically clearly distinct in its own right as that same man used hot branding irons to cauterize the ghastly, gruesome mess that was Gabe’s wingless back.

The scene blurred into a haze of scarlet, as if looking through blood streaming down a window pane. Ava could smell burning flesh. Feel the sizzle as her skin charred. Only it wasn’t her skin. It was Gabe’s. She knew this and yet it felt one and the same as his memories grasped her and their anguished screams melded into one.

Gabe, now older, forced into a tub of water by the same man. His body went rigid as he fought to remain compliant to this man, his father.  Azael plunged him under, holding him beneath the surface. The water began to steam and bubble as the boy’s skin began to scald and blister
. 

Holy water!
Ava’s mind screamed at her as the scene washed away into something new.

Gabe standing in front of a gray house with a red door. Waiting until a girl with a dog rounds the corner then bracing himself as Rafe pummels him with punches. He allows him to draw blood and then decides it’s more realistic if he fights back. The immense pleasure he feels as his brother’s nose crunches under his fist. The same girl touchin

Ava’s anger surged over the betrayal, intense and intoxicating as she realizes their meeting was a set up. She doesn’t have time to ponder the point of it all because the world is changing again. Flickering, flitting, flashing…

Gabe, in the darkness, looking up at the star dappled sky. The girl next to him moves closer. He knows he should move away. His head is screaming at him to move away. But he doesn’t and suddenly her body is pressed into his and he cannot stop his own hand from settling possessively around her waist. He knows she is going to kiss him. And he knows that he cannot allow it. But he does. And his heart is pounding because kissing this forbidden girl is the most deliciously sinful thing he has ever done.

Gabe was not supposed to care about her. It was not allowed. She knows this as surely as she knows that in her heart, she’s a St. Clair, despite her origins. She understands this even if she doesn’t understand why. But he started to care. Images…flickers of memories…thoughts…feelings…a war waging within himself…confused images that she can’t comprehend, thoughts covered in blood and sadness. All coming so fast and fading even faster. She can’t make sense of it all. The thoughts slow down but remain erratic
.

Gabe’s heart tumbles in his chest when he sees Ava, ready for their first date. He argues with Rafe about her.

She feels his anger but she can’t hear the words. It’s all so confusing but she knows its Gabe’s confusion she’s feeling as well as her own.

Ava’s head is screaming,
What does this mean?
But the only response she receives is a burst of flaming red.

Red hair. Rafe. Rafe holding a knife to the throat of a dark haired girl. Gabe lunges forward, knocking her free
.
If he could only have pried the knife from Rafe’s hand he would have gladly plunged it into his heart.

The rage that emanated from Gabe would have knocked her to her knees if she had not been locked into this nightmare of memories. It was a silvery blue, blinding rage that surged through Ava’s body as she felt what she knew he felt at that moment. A hatred for his brother and a desire to protect her that was so intense that his body ached with it.