Page 1 of Touched By Darkness

Prologue

AURELIA

The cobblestone is damp and cold beneath my bare feet. My blood has long since dried between the cracks. Darkness surrounds me, as thick and heavy as the silence. Turning in a circle, I gaze around the town square. The fountain is absent of water, and the cherub follows me with its eyes. I rub my hands over my arms to stave off the cold.

“You can’t help yourself, can you, Angel?” Amenadiel steps out from the shadows, his intense eyes burning with hatred. “The darkness calls you.”

My head snaps his way. Danger clings to him like a fog, swirling in front of his body and crawling along the cobblestone.

Swallowing down my fear, I watch it inch closer to my feet. My hair sticks to the cold sweat on my cheek despite the cold air. “How am I back in Eden?”

He hums, tipping his head back, his eyes roaming over the mended crack in the veil. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

The sky is dark, filled with twinkling stars. Rubbing at the pang in my chest, I focus my attention back on Amenadiel. “Not only am I back in Eden, but I’m back in time. It’s as if I never left.”

“Time,” he repeats, tasting it on his tongue. “What is time?”

“Stop with the philosophical bullshit!”

He tsks, stepping closer.

Inching back, I release a strangled cry when the congealed blood beneath my feet turns liquid.

“It’s too late, Angel. Paradise took you back, but the darkness already has a hold on you. Slowly tainting your soul and seeping through the cracks of your heart, it feeds on your light.”

“Why won’t the gates open for me?”

Closing the distance between us, he smirks. “So eager to whore yourself out to those boys.”

I grit my teeth. “Just tell me.”

“What makes you think I have the answer?”

“Do you not?” I counter when he begins circling me.

“Unlike you, Angel, I didn’t return to Eden.”

My shoulders slump. I had hoped he would hold the answers to my questions. But it was wishful thinking.

His heat presses up against my back. Reaching up and sliding my hair from my shoulder, he whispers, “Looks like we’re both stuck.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and swallow down the emotions clogging my throat.

“You’ll never see those boys again.”

I shake my head. “You’re lying.”

“Heaven’s own angel is in love,” he taunts, chuckling.

Turning around, I start to speak, but his hand shoots out and grabs my chin. “It’s only fair that you get to spend eternity pining for something you can’t have after you took everything from me. You see, it’s about more than love. Once you taste the sweetness of sin, you never forget. It will haunt you, call you to it like a siren at sea, and drown you in your own self-pity.”

I sit upright in bed, breathing heavily, my hair sticking to the sheen of sweat on my skin. Freya is snoring softly on the cot next to mine. Sunshine pours in through gaps in the straw roof, and birds sing in the trees outside. It’s moments like these that make me miss the nighttime outside the gates. I had no problem sleeping in the sunlight before I left, but now my nightmares always wake me.

Placing my feet on the ground, I peer over at Freya. She’ll stay asleep for another couple of hours. Nothing short of the end times would wake her now.

I pad outside and gaze around at the small dwellings, each housing two angels. Flowerbeds fragrance the air, butterflies fly from one rose bush to another, and the warm breeze moves my hair across my body, the strands tingling my bare nipples.

As I draw in a trembling breath, my eyes seek out the wall towering over the trees. My feet follow, carrying me across the soft grass. Before long, I’m running, my blonde hair flying behind me. My heart pounds, throbbing in my ears, and my lungs burn with every shaky inhale.Please, let me out.I fall to my knees outside the gates, startling the deer to my right that’s forever munching on the soft grass. Even the hare darts away.

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