Hey guys!
So I've seen a couple of people compare some of things that happen in here to The Vampire Diaries, but I swear I've only seen like two or three episodes of that show. I thought up all the crazy stuff that happens in this book, I didn't take it from anything. Scouts honor!
Sorry for any grammar and editing mistakes!
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Enjoy!
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Chapter 30
I was having a panic attack. I laid flat on the dirt ground, next to the crushed bones of my first life and Avidus's trapped body, and hyperventilated. It started as soon as the entrance caved in and everything went silent. The only reason I hadn't completely lost my shit was because the torches still cast dim light around the cavern.
I wasn't sure how long I laid on the floor, gasping for air that I wasn't sure I would have for long, and praying to whatever the hell was up there that I would get out of this. That Adriel was still alive, and that Rafael was real.
I closed my eyes and sucked in air greedily. Just a dream. This was all just one really bad dream. I would wake up in my bed, sweaty and confused. Then Adriel would come in, tell me everything was okay, and hold me until I fell back asleep. Yes, that is what will happen. I was able to calm myself down enough to stop hyperventilating, but when I opened my eyes, I was still in that damn tomb.
I rolled over and forced my shaky body onto my hands and knees. I knew what I had to do, or at least half of it. The only way I, and Adriel, would get out of this, was by waking him. My choice had been officially taken from me, but I didn't care. I would wake him a thousand times if it meant keeping him alive.
I used the edge of the slab to help pull me to my feet and steadied myself against its side. I gazed down at the fallen angel chained to stone. He looked some much like Adriel it stole my breath away. My head and back were throbbing, and my body felt too sluggish to do anything, but I forced my hand to move until my fingertips could brush just barely against his cheek.
His skin was warm, and soft, and made my heart ache. Adriel, not Avidus.
Or, at least, I kept telling myself that.
I had to free him. I had to wake him, but Shorzin was right. In all the stories and conversations with Jess and Luke, no one told me how the fuck I was supposed to do that.
"Um, hey, Adriel. I-I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing here." I poked the side of his cheek, like I could annoy him into waking up. "Look, we're kind of trapped, and I would really appreciate it if you wake up and kicked some ass." I lightly slapped his cheek like that would work where the poking hadn't
Then a bad idea struck me. Oh god, was I really going to do this?
Yup.
I let out a heavy sigh before heaving my body over the edge of the slab and onto the sleeping angel. I tried to place my knees on either side of his giant chest, but those black wings were everywhere, so I had to go down to his stomach. "Adriel!" I leaned over and shouted in his face, but he didn't move. He didn't even blink. I tapped his cheek again, and then slapped both.
"Fucking wake up!"
Nothing.
"What good is being the fucking key if I don't know how to pick a lock!" My voice echoed loudly around the cavern and shook something inside my head.
Blood... key...
Blood was the key. My blood.
Fuck.
What is with this town and blood?!
I sat back heavily on my heels and looked around for anything sharp enough that would pierce skin. I lost my fancy knife in all the commotion outside, and I was getting a really bad idea about the stone corner of the slab. It was the only idea I had. I sighed as I took my jacket off and rolled up my shirt's sleeve.
I really fucking hoped this worked.
I leaned far enough over the side of the stone so my forearm could touch the sharp corner. I pressed down as hard as I could and then ripped my skin down the edge. Pain shot through my veins and raced up my arm. "Ow!" I groaned and ripped my hand back to look at the damage. A breath of relief escaped my chest when I saw the thick line of blood start to pool out of the cut.
Thank god. I did not want to have to do that again.
I let the blood slip onto his bare chest, then his forehead and cheeks. I even placed a little on his lips—as gross as that was. I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do, but I decided I bled enough on him and wrapped my jacket tightly around the cut like a bandage.
"Alright, so blood is the key. I'm supposed to be the key, so there. I bled on you. Wake up now, please."
Nothing.
I gazed down at the red staining his tan skin and dripping onto his dark feathers. Nothing was happening.
I tried to force back the aggravated tears that threatened to fall. Crying wouldn't help anything right now. I held my arm tightly to my chest and laid my head down against his chest, not even carrying about the blood my cheek was resting against.
"I don't know what to do." I mumbled against him. "Please wake up. You can't be dead. I need you." I sniffled and pressed my face further into him. "I wish you would just tell me what to do." But he didn't, and I was out of ideas.
I closed my eyes and didn't care about the tears wanting to fall anymore. I hated crying, it was weak, but I had a feeling for a while now that I wouldn't be leaving Deshua alive. I deserved to cry. That morning had just been a sick joke from fate. My last little glimpse of an escape, one where everything was still intact. Adriel was alive, Raf was real, and we were sailing free to somewhere new and safe. I should have just ignored the nagging.
Now he's dead, Rafael doesn't exist, and I was going to die inside an ancient tomb—again.
'Crack!' My eyes snapped open as the sound of rock splitting reverberated in my ears.
What was that?
There was nothing for a moment, until another 'crack' sounded throughout the crypt, and a bit of rock and dirt fell on my shoulder. I glanced up and could just make out a slit in the ceiling, a crack that was quickly growing. My heart hammered in my chest and I sat up as more cracks started to appear around the room.
Fuck this wasn't good. Shorzin must have triggered something when he magic-collapsed the entrance. Now the whole fucking tomb was going to cave in and smother us to death. A large chunk of rock fell from the roof and crashed to the ground. Then another, and another, until I was afraid we would be squished next.
I lurched forward and used my body as a shield to cover as much of demon Dri as I could. I knew he was immortal or whatever, but my first instinct was to protect the closest thing I had to Adriel. Besides, it's not like I was getting out of that alive.
I wasn't sure how long I laid stretched over him, cowering underneath the collapsing mountain, waiting to be crushed. I just kept whispering over and over, "make it quick, make it quick, make it quick", and listening to the sound of breaking rock. Until there was silence.
I didn't realize it was over until the feel of the soft, cold, October breeze rolled over my shoulders and filled my lungs. I stopped chanting and blinked my eyes open to the sight of chaos. The entire mountain had fallen around us. Boulders, rocks, dirt, and trees crashed down a large encompassing circle. Everything was destroyed. The forest surrounding the mountain, a few buildings that had been backed up against it, and even the stone courtyard of the college campus, all destroyed.
The only thing that had been untouched was the stone slab—and us.
"What...?"
I hadn't noticed I was already in a sitting position until I tried to pull away from demon Dri's chest, and strong arms stopped me. My gaze snapped over and locked on a pair of black eyes so dark I could see my own reflection. My heart stopped in my chest, and the air froze in my lungs.
"H-Hey..."
His head was tilted curiously to the side as those dark eyes studied me, but then he smiled and the sight sent warmth through my veins. "Hi." His voice was raspy and hoarse, like he hadn't used it in hundreds of years—because he hadn't. There was always a strange way to it, like he was used to speaking a thousand different languages, none of which were English.
He didn't sound anything like my Adriel.
He blinked those black eyes but otherwise stayed motionless. "I am your Adriel."
"Don't do that."
His smile turned more into that smirk I was so familiar with, and ease slightly chased away the tension in my shoulders. "It's hard to ignore when you're screaming at me."
"I wasn't screaming at you. I was thinking. In my head. Quietly. Where you shouldn't be."
Even though the entirety of his eyes were black, like, with no white at all, I could have sworn he rolled them at me. And just like that, I knew he was the Adriel I had been living with for so long. There was only one person in the world that I argued with over stupid shit that easily.
Then his smirky smile disappeared, and his head tilted curiously once again. "You have blood on your cheek." He unwrapped one of his arms from where they had been securely around me to wipe the blood from my face. That's when I realized the chains that had pinned him down were completely gone, blown to smithereens.
"You have more on you." I mumbled as my eyes flickered embarrassingly to the red spots smeared all over his face and chest.
His shoulder shrugged, like he didn't give one fudge that I bled all over him. "You cut yourself?" Demon Adriel asked slowly, as if he had a hard time getting his tongue to work.
"Um, yeah." I held my jacket covered arm up awkwardly as those black eyes scanned my face. "Blood is the key, right?"
He gave me one short nod, before his gaze dropped to my arm. I didn't pull away as one of his hands unwrapped from around me to pull the jacket off. The cut had been bad. I was low key proud of myself really, but it was still bleeding, and I had a bad feeling it wasn't going to stop anytime soon.
I watched with wide, horrified eyes, as he raised my arm to his lips and then licked the entire length of the cut. I suddenly felt nauseous again. That was so not something I wanted to see. Yet when he pulled away, the cut had completely sealed and faded away to a thin white line against my skin.
"That was gross."
Those black eyes rose from my arm to glance at me, and he smiled. As if I were amusing. Oof.
That's when I realized how big he really was. My Adriel had only been a few inches taller than me, and as buff as any construction worker. This Adriel was twice his size. His torso alone stood a full foot and a half taller than mine, and you could probably shove two of me into its width. And his wings were massive. Each one seemed to span seven feet stretched out and were covered in the silky black feathers that had once haunted my dreams.
He seemed to glow too, like he had when I first entered the cavern. The air around him just pulsed with energy and power, and it was so dazzling I immediately felt inferior in every form of the word. It was the strangest feeling in the world, one of complete awe, adoration, and fear. I felt it once before, what seemed like a million years ago, though it had only been a few short weeks.
But, despite the massive size difference, and the wings, and the black eyes, he still looked like my Dri.
"I am your Dri."
"Stop. That."
His chuckle rolled over my shoulders and seemed to dance in the now open area surrounding us. I forced my gaze from his to glance around the chaos. "Did you... do all this?"
His eyes followed my own, and his arms seemed to tighten around me. "I could not stand when you started crying. I had to get you out of there, yes?"
I gulped down the knot that formed in my throat. That... was a lot of power.
Then his words hit me like an eighteen-wheeler.
"You were awake?" My eyes snapped back to his and narrowed at the guilty look that suddenly pulled on his unearthly handsome face. "How long?"
He shrugged and gave me a small, apologetic smile. It was such an Adriel thing for him to do that it tore at my insides. "Not long, just when your blood touched my tongue." His voice seemed to grow stronger and normal with each word he spoke. I think he could see the blatant fury brewing behind my eyes because he quickly continued. "It took me a while to gain all my senses back, I'm sorry. And my mind had to readjust after being—sent back like that."
I knew he meant 'rudely kicked out when those fucks snapped my neck' instead, but I appreciated that he didn't say it like that.
"And are you... like, okay?"
Those black eyes blinked at me, and he smiled again, like he found my complete awkwardness funny. "Yes Angel, I am okay."
"You do realize how fucked that is? Calling me that, right?"
He shrugged again but those arms seemed to pull me closer as if he were afraid I would take off at any moment. "Angels are beautiful, eternal. They are meant to keep peace and serenity. That's what you are to me. My angel."
"Oh." I didn't know what to say to that. When he was just human Adriel, he never really gave me a reason for the nickname. I always just assumed it was because that's what Raf said when we first met, like an inside joke. Then again, Rafael wasn't real, so it probably was him calling me that from the very beginning.
"So, what now?" I asked hesitantly as the fact that I was sitting on his very large lap suddenly entered my mind. That seemed to be a question I was asking a lot lately. I shifted uncomfortably, but those freakishly long arms tightened and didn't let me get very far. "Do you go all psycho and try to take over the world again?"
He raised a dark eyebrow, though I found it really hard keeping my gaze on his. "I told you I don't want that anymore."
"Right..." I rolled my eyes and tried to lean away from him. He wouldn't let me. "Because 'I'm all that matters now', yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah."
"You are all that matters, and nothing has changed. We can still do whatever you want."
The hope that flickered in my chest was surprising, and I had to squish down the smile that wanted to pull at my lips. "You'll still leave, Deshua?"
The second his face fell and he looked away, that hope that surged in my chest died. "I can't."
"I knew it." I didn't bother keeping the disgust from my tone, and I tried to rip away from him, but those impossibly large arms refused to let me.
"It's not like that, Lark. I want to leave, I swear. I just can't."
"I don't believe you. You did before." I tried to push and struggle away from him, but the fuck head refused to budge.
"That was when I was human. Michael doesn't have restrictions on humans, but all Fallen can't leave where they fell. It's not allowed." His words came out as such a desperate plea that I stopped struggling against him.
"It's not like you haven't broken the rules before." I grumbled down at his strong chest. "You fell for a reason, right?"
He laughed, and the sound echoed around us. "Yes, I broke the rules, and do so quite often, but this is a domain issue I physically cannot overrule. Michael is stronger than all of us. His word is commanding rule. I can't leave in this body if he won't allow me." His words were soft, and he nudged his forehead against mine. It was such a simple, normal action between us that I felt my heart almost crumble at my feet.
"You can't just become human again and we can go?" I asked hopefully, even though I knew it was unfounded. Especially with how his gaze turned sad and guilty.
"I can look human again, and put my mind in one, but I can't be what I have been now that I'm awake."
"You can look like you did?" I tried not to sound as excited by that as I really was, but the thought of getting my Dri back was a little too tempting to ignore. He smiled, and even though it was soft and endearing, there was a sadness behind it that didn't sit well with me.
I blinked, and he was gone—or the angel/demon Adriel was. Now I was sitting on the lap of the man I had fell one hundred percent head over heels in love with. The one I gave everything to, the one that was a lie, and the one I watched die. I had no control over my own body, and I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck and squeezed with all my might.
"I am so sorry, Larkin." Adriel murmured into my hair as I buried my face into his neck and refused to let go. "I never meant for any of this to happen."
"Can we just... can we get off this thing please?" I mumbled before forcing my arms to let go.
He lifted me easily onto a sturdy looking piece of rock rubble, before jumping down after me. That dark pulsing power that had surrounded him significantly diminished as he switched back into human Adriel, but there was still an encompassing presence to him that dared anyone to try him.
Adriel groaned when his feet touched the floor, and I raised an eyebrow. "What?" He grunted as he stretched out his sore limbs. "You try being asleep for five hundred years without waking up sore."
I didn't say anything but let him take my hand when he was done grunting and stretching. I looked carefully at his bare back as he guided me through the destruction. There was no trace of those ginormous black wings he had only minutes ago. No tattoo either.
"Where's your tattoo?" I asked as he lifted me over a boulder bigger than my car.
"It wasn't a tattoo." His hand slipped back into mine, like he was terrified I would disappear if he wasn't holding onto me. "Power leaves marks, especially when you have to shove through a piss poor spell to create four humans." I still wasn't okay with how nonchalant he was talking about all this power and creating bull, but I wasn't in the right state of mind to be okay with anything.
"So that wasn't real either?" Even though he could have taken that however he wanted, my voice was sad. Just another thing I loved that didn't exist.
He glanced over his shoulder at me, with those dark blue eyes that I loved, not the pitch-black ones that came to my dreams. "It was real, it just wasn't a tattoo." But no sooner had the words left his lips then those dark, intricate, black lines started snaking down his arm. I blinked, not sure I was seeing things correctly, but when my eyes opened again there was the tattoo. Exactly as I remembered it.
"Whoa..."
He smiled at the surprise, and slight awe, in my voice, before helping me over a fallen tree. "I'll do anything for you, Larkin. Now that I have my body and all of my mind again, I can do almost anything. Change myself, change the town, anything. Just name it."
"Except leave."
Adriel's smile faltered and he looked away, but not before I saw the sad look crossing his handsome face. "If I could, I would in a heartbeat."
I sighed but didn't say anything else as the ground finally started to even beneath our feet. I believed him, even if it wasn't that great of an idea.
-&-
Hope you enjoyed!
We're reaching the end, my friends! One more chapter to go, then it's the end of Book 1!
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If you guys like/love to draw feel free to draw some fallen angel pictures for me! It's honestly ridiculously hard trying to find ones that I think represent this story accurately. So, if you think you can draw some crazy awesome pics please do! I would love to see them! I will also feature all of them on the Instagram page with tags to your insta and wattpad account!
See you guys tomorrow!