Beneath (Heven and Hell #3.5) Page 3

  After that, I met Callum in secret. Secret, meaning I told no one that I was meeting with a human after every assignment I had on earth. Callum also promised to tell no one, and for several months I would complete my assignments and then rush to the stream, hoping he would be there. And he always was.

  At first, I only went because I was curious about the way I felt when I was with him. Like I was teetering on a cliff, only I didn’t have my wings. It was slightly terrifying but also thrilling. I wasn’t used to feeling that rush of emotions. I was used to a level head and level sentiments.

  But then I realized curiosity wasn’t what kept me coming back.

  He was sitting at the water’s edge, his scuffed-up jeans rolled up around his calves and his feet submerged in the stream. He had his hair back in a low ponytail at the base of his neck, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Instead, he had it tossed over one of his shoulders. I landed on the opposite side of the stream, my feet making a light splash in the water, and he looked up.

  Surprise flickered in his eyes and he smiled, his grin stretching out across his face. He stood up as I flew myself over the water, closing the distance between us and hovering just over the ground so we were eye to eye.

  “You’re not hiding your wings,” he said, his voice hushed.

  “I figured after all this time, hiding wasn’t necessary.”

  “They’re beautiful.” His eyes swept over them and I could see the pleasure in his face. It gave me a warm tingling feeling across my entire body. “So soft looking, but strong, you know?”

  “Kind of like you,” I said shyly.

  He laughed. It was an abrupt sound, kind of like a bark. “I look soft?”

  I couldn’t help but glance at the muscles in his chest. It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d seen a man without his shirt—the angels preferred little clothing—but it was the first time I’d seen him without one. He wasn’t smooth and white like the angels. Instead, his skin was golden, like the sun was shining directly on it, and he had dark hair growing out of his chest that was curly and looked rough to the touch.

  I cleared my throat and looked up from the hard expanse of his torso. He watched me with an amused expression on his face. “You don’t look soft… but I happen to know that what’s in here”—I reached out and laid my palm right over his heart—“is.”

  He stilled and scarcely moved except to glance down at where I was touching him. Thinking I’d done something wrong, I moved to pull away my hand, but he covered it with his own, pressing it firmly in place.

  I’d been right; the hair on his chest was rough.

  But I liked the way it felt against my skin.

  “You never touch me,” he rasped, wrapping his hand around mine.

  “I’ve wanted to,” I confided. Oh, how I had longed to see if he felt the same way he looked. I always wondered if he would be full of textures and whether his skin would be warm to the touch or cool like mine.

  It was more than I thought it would be.

  “I’ve wanted you to.” As the words left his lips, he slid his hand up to my wrist and tugged me a little closer. He reached out and ran his fingers over my hair and then trailed his thumb down my cheek. It’s a good thing I didn’t really need to breathe because I would have passed out from lack of oxygen.

  When his thumb trailed down along the underside of my bottom lip and then up over it, something tightened within me and a sharp feeling exploded in my chest.

  He moved in closer, shifting his body so he was all I saw. There was only him and nothing else. He kept coming, closer… closer still, until his lips were so close to mine that I could practically taste them.

  I jerked back. I might have fallen if he hadn’t caught me.

  I suddenly recognized that feeling in my chest.

  I snatched my arm away and flew up, out of his reach. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

  “Gemma, wait!” he called, but I didn’t turn back. I flew up into the sky as high as I could, past the clouds, until there was nothing but a sea of cerulean.

  Longing. I felt longing. I wanted him to touch me and I wanted him to kiss me. My heart still thundered from what almost happened. He was a human. It was wrong.

  It was forbidden.

  All these months I told myself I hadn’t been doing anything wrong. I told myself I only liked him because he was different from anything I’d ever known before.

  I’d been lying to myself.

  I might have been curious about Callum in the beginning, but now… now it was something else. Something more.

  It felt a lot like love.

  * * *

  I stayed away for a month and, for the only time in my life, I felt sick. How could I have allowed this to happen? When had my feelings for Callum grown and why hadn’t I stopped it?

  Yet, even through all my disgust with myself, deep down there was still part of me that sometimes whispered, What’s so wrong with loving him? He was a good man, a decent man. And more importantly, loving him didn’t take away any of the love I felt for my Father. If anything, I appreciated his creation even more. He was the one who created Callum, a man so incredible that even I, an angel who thought she was incapable of loving anyone but God himself, had come to develop feelings for him.

  I spent the entire month wrestling with myself, with that small voice inside of me that refused to quiet.

  But nothing could change the fact that an angel and a human together was forbidden.

  It was wrong to continue seeing Callum when nothing could come of our relationship. The very next day I received a new assignment which I completed and then took myself to Maine. I didn’t expect to see him waiting, I figured after all this time he would have given up.

  He was there.

  When he saw me he did a double take and when I didn’t disappear, he jumped to his feet and ran through the water, splashing everything around him and drenching his clothes. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

  “Yet here you sit.”

  He smiled, the chip in his tooth charming me. “I don’t give up that easily.”

  He reached for my hand, but I stepped away. “I only came to tell you I would not be back. I didn’t want you to wonder…”

  “What do you mean you won’t be back?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “This…” I pointed at the air between us. “I never should’ve allowed our friendship. Angels are not supposed to interact with humans the way you and I have.”

  “So all I am to you is a friend?” he asked, a hint of anger in his voice.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. It seemed whatever I said wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear. “I have to go.”

  My wings moved, lifting me up to carry me away, when he caught my ankle and pulled me back down as if I were a balloon trying to catch a breeze and float away.

  I stared at him as my ankle became my calf and then my calf became my thigh as he pulled me down farther until he released my leg altogether so he could capture my waist within his grasp and pull me within mere centimeters. In fact, I was certain if I took a deep breath, the expansion of my chest would fill the little space left between us.

  “You never asked me how I feel,” he said, his voice low.

  “That’s because it doesn’t matter.” I wasn’t trying to be cruel. I was trying to tell the truth.

  “So, knowing the reason I come here every single day, the reason I wait and wait for just a glimpse of you, doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter; it just doesn’t change anything.”

  “That’s funny because loving you changed my whole life.”

  No one had ever told me they loved me before, except for my Father, my creator. God loved everyone. His capacity for love was unmatched. Humans were a kind capable of love, but not with the same volume as God. So when Callum said he loved me, I knew I was probably one of very few that had made it into his heart. It made me feel special. It made me want to stay.

  Yet, still, I could no
t.

  “Callum,” I began, and his fingers bit into the fabric at my waist as he tilted his head lower to hear whatever I was about to say.

  But I never got the chance to say it.

  We were ambushed, front and back, by two angels with great wings. They were both wearing only black pants and their hair was blond and messy. But none of that would’ve been alarming.

  What was alarming was the color of their wings.

  Black as night, dirty as coal.

  They were fallen.

  Up until this moment I had no idea fallen angels walked the earth, and I gasped.

  The one behind Callum, the one I could see, smiled, though it was more like a snarl. “Well, what do we have here? An angel and a human?”

  Callum thrust me behind him, turning so he could see them both.

  “How are you here?” I asked them. “I thought the fallen were banished to hell.”

  The one on my left laughed. “We’re on a field trip.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Fun, power, revenge,” sang the one to my right. “Take your pick.”

  “You won’t find any of that here,” Callum spat.

  “On the contrary, I think we just found all three.”

  “Get out of here,” Callum said, not looking at me. “Run!”

  I shot up into the air above everyone’s head as Callum lunged at one of the fallen. He tried to punch him, but the dark angel only blocked the hit and delivered a well-placed blow of his own. Callum fell back onto the ground.

  “No!” I cried, grabbing a nearby rock off the side of the hill and throwing it at the angel who punched him.

  He caught it and crushed it in his hand.

  “Go,” Callum yelled at me, back on his feet and lunging for the dark angel again.

  The other one had been watching until this point, but he flew up into the air toward me. I spun around, dashing to get away, but he caught hold of my wing and twisted, causing me to call out in pain. I heard Callum yell and then the sickening sound of pounding flesh.

  I was yanked cruelly back onto the ground where I saw several white feathers coming to rest. My feathers. They’d been ripped from my wings. I wanted to weep at the damage.

  With a cry, I threw myself at the one who’d wrenched me from the sky, hoping to inflict some pain, but it was useless. He was twice my size and he had cruelty on his side. He grabbed me, spun my body around so he was holding me like a shield, and forced me to watch as his friend hit Callum time and time again.

  Despair unlike anything I’ve ever known filled me until I was almost blind. This was my fault. All my fault. I didn’t follow the laws and for that Callum would pay.

  “Please.” I choked. “Please don’t hurt him.”

  The dark one holding me laughed. “You hear that? The human’s pain upsets her.”

  The one fighting Callum answered with another blow. He was bleeding. Red rivulets flowed over his skin and dripped off his chin. His hair had escaped the band and fell all around his face, matted with sweat. To his credit, he never stayed down. He always got back up and kept swinging, only to be swatted away like a fly.

  “Please.” I tried again. “Take me. Take me and leave him.”

  Both the fallen stopped and looked at each other. “What an interesting idea,” said the one holding me.

  “No!” Callum shouted, throwing another punch—that was ignored.

  “I’m amazed any angel would care so much for a human,” one said with a twisted grin on his face.

  “Yes, well, her wings are still white. That means she’s worth something.”

  “True.” The other mused. “All right, then, we will leave your human. What a clever idea.”

  I was snatched off my feet and carried into the air, the other fallen rising with us so I was flanked on either side by black wings.

  On the ground, Callum raged. “No! Come back! You cowards!”

  The fallen only laughed as they hauled me away, not even once allowing me to look back.

  * * *

  I didn’t see the sun for days. Its absence filled me with such intense despair. Angels weren’t used to darkness; we took joy in the light. We didn’t like the cold, but reveled in the warmth.

  The black wings stuck me in a tiny room with only four walls and a door. No one spoke to me; no one came to make sure I was still alive.

  I wondered about Callum constantly. How badly he was injured. If he managed to get out of there before the fallen came back and hurt him more. I shied away from the thought of him being dead because even just the briefest flicker of that thought threatened to send me into a pit of anguish.

  This was my punishment for my sin. I never should have went back to tell Callum good-bye. I should’ve allowed him to come to the realization that I was never coming back, and he eventually would’ve stopped waiting.

  I wondered if Sinead was looking for me, if anyone cared that I was gone. Or if they were told I was no longer one of them and I was to be left to suffer for my offense.

  Then through the thick walls of my cage came a rumble. It began in the ground and erupted into the air. Accompanying it was the sound of screams, the sound of shouting and fighting. I didn’t know what was going on. It had been completely quiet until now.

  And through all the chaos, another sound erupted.

  A roar.

  It went on for moments or hours. I didn’t know. I sat there and waited. I listened until a hushed silence fell around the space in which I was trapped.

  I think the silence was more frightening than the noise.

  But it didn’t stay silent for long because the door to my four-walled prison was ripped away and tossed aside like it weighed nothing at all. I expected to be grabbed, to be hauled outside where something horrible would ensue.

  When nothing happened, I looked toward the door and was met by a pair of glowing silver eyes. So silver, in fact, they reminded me of the time I flew beyond the earth to see the moon. The moon really wasn’t yellow. It was a glittering bright silver that was so clear I was sure there were spots I could’ve seen right through if I tried.

  I stared so intently at those eyes (they seemed so familiar) that I didn’t notice the body they were attached to until it was right upon me.

  It was the body of a beast.

  The body of a hellhound.

  I screamed then, and the thing growled, cutting off my sound and reaching down with its great jaws to take my torn and tattered dress in its mouth. I expected it to yank, to roughly rip the fabric away, but instead, I was gently tugged, almost as if I were being asked to move forward.

  So I did.

  Staying in this box wasn’t preferable, and I figured that outside I would have a greater chance to get away. It was nighttime, the only light coming from the stars overhead, but it didn’t matter. Angels had impeccable vision.

  Once we were clear of the room, I saw it was really just a sturdy shack. The animal released me and sat back, staring at me as if waiting for instruction.

  Tentatively, I took a step back. The beast did nothing. I took another and another until I noticed there was something incredibly soft underfoot. I looked down. Black feathers were scattered about, creating a carpet over the grass, making the night appear even darker than it really was.

  These were feathers from the fallen.

  I looked back at the beast, who was still watching me, and a flash of angry silver shot through his eyes.

  I turned and ran. I ran so fast my feet barely touched the ground, and just as I was about to spread my wings and soar, I was grabbed from behind. I stumbled and fell. Something hard landed on top of me. All the air went out of my lungs with a great whooshing sound, and then I looked up.

  Callum was the last person I expected to see.

  But he was there—messy hair, scruffy face, and chipped tooth.

  I gave a cry of relief and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him completely against me. He was alive! I heard him chuckle into my hair and it m
ade me smile. It was a sound I never thought I would hear again, and I hadn’t realized just how truly depressing that had been. But my relief was short-lived and I gasped.

  “We have to run!” I exclaimed, pushing against him. “There’s a beast!”

  He untangled himself just a little so he could stare down at me, brushing a few strands of my hair away from my face. I smiled, pushing my cheek against his hand. “We’re safe now,” he murmured.