Lipgloss on your Wings - Branded Angel Novels book 1

Prologue

   I watched her sit by his bedside, one pale, slender hand resting on the flat bit of the crisp, white sheet where it met the air mattress beneath. The rest of the bed was occupied with his completely still form apart from his chest rising and falling steadily. The only indication that there was life left in him yet was the monotonous bleep coming from somewhere on her right.

   Her head was bowed slightly but not too much that she couldn’t still see his face. Her hair was falling limp in front of her, she had strands stuck to her damp eyelashes, but she didn’t brush them away. She wasn’t as still as him, but she daren’t move too much. 

   She was swathed in grey material, it hid her anguished posture but did nothing to disguise to anyone who may have seen her the sadness she was feeling, it emanated from her. 

   He was lain in the bed nearest the window. The raindrops cried for him and for her as they rolled down, the water was hitting the glass pane fierce, hard and racing to the sill as fast as possible. It was as if the streams of water could sense that their presence added to the sorrow of the scene, they wanted to escape the guilt of being that reminder of sadness.

   She wanted to escape the guilt she was feeling, but she couldn’t, it was there. It wasn’t her fault he was like this, it was someone else’s, but the monumental weight of responsibility for this man was forced onto her young shoulders just five days before.

   She’d been telling him stories of her childhood, she’d read him passages from books about beings with eternal life and she sang tear-jerker songs through retching sobs. But she never stopped to give in to the heartbreak that threatened to overpower her each minute she was sat with him. The heartbreak that made her want to just disappear like those raindrops, she wanted to reach the window sill.

   I watched and I made her strong so that she could at least feel weak, I filled her with love so she could release her tears of anger, I held her together so that she could shatter with her soul and spirit remaining entire. 

   This one girl with emotions so strong for one man, her passion was powerful, it made me want to taste it myself so I too could feel power of that magnitude. 

   That day she said goodbye to him for the last time, a solitary tear being carried down her cheek by finality. I cupped my hands up to the golden sky and caught that single droplet. She whispered, ‘I love you,’ to his spirit as he left the earth behind and the words flowed around me like a ghost of a river. I knew in that moment I loved her and I opened myself to her so she would no longer feel the full extent of these excruciating emotions that had been piercing her heart. 

   At that exact same moment a brilliant white light illuminated my bare chest, accompanied by a scorching pain that brought me to my knees. I was wrenched onto my back and the light shot skyward, as if coming out of me from the hollow of my throat, forming a thin pillar that disappeared into the golden glow of my sky. I could feel a sharpness as small as a pinpoint etching my skin, it curved and moved along the base of my throat white hot and I knew it was leaving a permanent mark with a purpose. 

   It perished as immediately as it had started and left me behind, unconscious and burnt, with my fate sealed into a brand on my chest.