Touched by Darkness: (Sins of The Fallen Book 2)

Mist crawls along the cold hallway floor, disturbed by my silent steps, and my white dress drags behind me, the hem dirtied and torn as it slides on the filthy floor that hasn’t seen a mop in months. The sconces on the walls flicker wildly, casting terrifying shadows. They stretch and elongate, as if they’re chasing me.

“Hello?” My voice trembles, and I whirl around when a figure darts into the room behind me. “Who’s there?”

Despite the voice inside me that shouts at me to run, I walk back the way I came, then pause outside the gaping door. It’s dark inside, illuminated only by the moonlight filtering through the sheer curtains.

A shiver splashes down my spine, and I hug my arms around myself to ward off the cold as the sconces flicker out one by one.

When the last torch burns out, and the penetrating darkness settles, I draw in a shaky gasp. It’s so dark, I can barely see my hand in front of me.

The beam of moonlight on the floor disappears as a tall man steps in front of the window and looks at me through eyes that I swear glow in the dark.

My feet retreat, but before I can run, his familiar voice rings out. “Where do you think you’re going, Aurelia?”

I pause, barely daring to breathe. “Amenadiel?”

His long legs eat up the distance between us, and then he’s in front of me, cupping my chin. “Why are you wandering the hallways this late by yourself? You should be in bed.”

“I, uh, I…”

Truth is, I can’t remember why I left my room.

His smoky scent surrounds me as he releases my chin and begins to circle me slowly while devouring me with his hungry gaze. “You have questions for me.”

“What are you doing, Amenadiel?” I ask cautiously.

“I’m giving you this one opportunity to ask me questions.”

“I can barely see you.”

“The cover of darkness entices some to open up because they foolishly feel safer. Ask me a question.”

“Why did you lock me up with that man? You knew I would kill him.”

“You want to become more powerful and master hellfire? You need to wrangle the darkness first.”

He’s behind me now, taking slow, measured steps designed to make me feel uneasy.

“What if I lose myself to the darkness?”

“Does that scare you?” His voice is colder now, and all traces of amusement have washed away.

“Of course it scares me.”

My breath hitches when he circles his hand around my throat from behind and steps up close, his chest warming my back.

“Do you doubt yourself? Your own strength?”

“What does that mean?”

His grip on my throat tightens, and he leans down to whisper in my ear, “Do you doubt your ability to master the darkness inside you?”

“What are you doing?” I whisper, my voice shaking on the last few vowels.

“I’m feeding on your darkness, Angel.” His hand splays on my stomach, and his lips curve in a smile against my ear before he drags his nose down the column of my neck. “A little whore like you deserves to be fucked properly.”

At his crude words, I whirl around and shove him back, but he crowds me against the wall, wrapping his fingers around my throat.

“You lost him, Angel.”

Daemon… he means Daemon.

“No,” I whisper, my voice barely audible in the silence that seems to stretch on forever.

“What are you doing to get him back?”

His hand slides higher, over my chin, and steals my response when it clamps over my mouth. I whimper as his other hand snakes beneath the fabric of my skirt.

Amenadiel cups my pussy, brushing his thumb over my clit. “Instead of focusing so much on Lucifer’s son—a lost mission—you should welcome the darkness inside you. It calls to me, keeping me up at night.” He pushes his hand inside my panties, whispering, “We can explore it together.”

I fly up in bed, breathing harshly as I brush my hair away from my sweaty forehead. One look at the clock on the bedside table confirms that I have overslept. I struggled to fall asleep last night after the incident in the woods with the stalker.

That’s what he is, right? A stalker? The first time, I could brush it off as a prank, but that’s twice now that he has stalked and chased me.

And the dream? What the fuck was that? They stopped after I defeated Amenadiel, so why is my mind conjuring him now? Is it because he locked me in a room with a human man?

I’ve wondered about his reasons behind that, mulling it over but coming up blank. The darkness is directly linked to my powers, or rather, my ability to wield them to their fullest potential, so maybe he’s trying to help me?

I snort as I slide my legs out from beneath the quilt. The thought is absurd and shouldn’t be entertained. Amenadiel serves only himself. No one else. If he wants to teach me how to master hellfire, then it’s for a reason that has very little to do with my well-being.

After taking a quick shower, I pull on a dress and then dry my hair before applying a thin layer of mascara and inspecting the results in the mirror attached to the door.

My raven feathers reflect the light overhead as I turn in a slow circle, marveling over how pretty they are. How different they look compared to white wings.

I look so different, yet the same.

But the biggest difference is in my eyes.

And not the eye color.

The innocence that once shone bright is now dull, replaced by corruption, nefarious intent, and mischief. My eyes sparkle like the stars in the night sky—alluring and dangerous.

All it takes is one look to ensnare prey.

One look to lure them to certain death.

And one look to feast on their light.

With one final spin in front of the mirror, I leave the room and walk down the long hallway toward the dining room.

The air smells of freshly brewed coffee. When I enter the room, I find Amenadiel seated at the head of the table.

A table that’s set up with countless plates of fruits. No humans in sight.

Dmitriy is here too, eyeing the fruit like it’s poisonous.

As I take hesitant steps closer, Amenadiel lowers his newspaper, folds it, then puts it down softly on the table, as if every movement is carefully planned out. “Did you sleep well?”

I draw to a halt. “What’s this?”

His dark eyes glint with amusement. “I once lived in Heaven, remember? I know you miss fruit.”

Dmitriy pulls a face, less than impressed by what’s on offer at the table.

“Take a seat.”

After making my way over, I slide a chair out and plop down, eyeing the ripe strawberries and slices of melon. My stomach rumbles on cue, which is strange since I don’t hunger like that.

“You eat this stuff in Heaven?” Dmitriy asks, sounding skeptical.

“Dariana used to eat the strawberries in her gin. Are you trying to tell me you’ve never tasted fruit before?”

The look Dmitriy levels me with makes me suppress a laugh. “Do I look like I drink gin?”

“Maybe not.”

Amenadiel sips his coffee while I reach for the plate of strawberries, spending the next few suffocating moments piling my plate full.

“Did you visit me in my dream last night?” I ask, straight to the point.

Amenadiel chokes on his coffee.

It wasn’t the reaction I expected. And when he stops coughing and levels me with a confused look, the tips of my ears heat.

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” I rush out. “I just thought… since the veil is still open. How do I close it?”

“What makes you think the veil is open?”

I bite into a strawberry while avoiding Dmitriy’s curious eyes. “You once told me the veil tears when an angel walks out of Eden—that it creates a big enough shift. There’s also the fact that you walked through the veil and into this reality, remember?”

Placing his cup down on the table, he wipes his mouth with a tissue. “I haven’t forgotten, but to ease your mind, the veil is closed.”

“Is it? How?”

“Wait a minute. This shit makes no sense,” Dmitriy says, rubbing the space between his eyebrows. “If you walked out through the veil and into this reality, then where is the other version of you? I don’t see two of my fathers walking around.”

Amenadiel simply snorts. “I disposed of him.”

Silence falls on the room, dragging on as the minutes tick by.

“You killed yourself?” I ask.

“I didn’t kill myself,” he corrects. “I killed the other version of me.”

Dmitriy and I blink at him, unable to grasp this new information.

“You killed my dad?”

“I am your dad.”

“But you also killed my dad?”

“Semantics.”

They bicker back and forth while I study Lucifer’s brother in a new light.

The light of a monster who’ll stop at nothing to ensure his own success. He’ll even stare himself in the eye as he tears his own heart out. If he can’t emotionally connect to another version of himself, then he can’t connect to anyone. Not even his own son.

My throat jumps, and as if he can sense my fear, his eyes slide to me.

“The veil is fixed. I handled it.”

Slowly rising to my feet, I scoot my chair back and swallow thickly before asking Dmitriy if he’s ready to go.

Neither of us speaks until we’re halfway to school. We could fly there, but we chose to walk instead.

“It’s like I don’t know him anymore.”

Dmitriy is tall and broad, like Daemon, and he moves with the same lethal power.

But that’s where the similarities end.

Where the old Dmitriy was cruel and cold, this version of him is somehow softer.

Or maybe I want to see things.

Maybe I still have residual light inside me, and maybe that’s why I sympathize with his situation.

“Could you do that?” I ask.

“Do what?”

I worry my chapped lip. “Faced with a different version of yourself—a clone—could you do it? Kill yourself?”

He drags a hand down his face, then blows out a tired breath. “I don’t think so…”

“The other version of you, whom I know, is much more like your father. Cold, calculating, and cruel.”

Dmitriy stops walking and stares down at me while I crane my neck to look up at him.

The leaves rustle in the trees overhead as we continue studying each other. Searching for hidden secrets and untold mysteries. I don’t understand the conundrum in front of me—how he’s so different from the Dmitriy who fucked me in the classroom, then dumped me like a soiled rag.

Dmitriy looks away first, his jaw clenching. His dark eyes return to me, and when he says nothing, I set off walking. I’ve never felt more lost than I do at this moment. Lost and tired.

Why am I here in Hell?

“What I don’t get is why you escaped Eden in the first place?” he says, catching up to me.

My answering sigh is quiet in the ensuing beat of silence while he waits for my reply. I mull over what information to indulge him with.

“Why would you willingly leave a place of perfect peace?”

“Do you even know the meaning of the word ‘peace?’” I counter. “Perfect love, unity, and all the nonsense they spout.”

His body turns halfway, all two-hundred-and-fifty pounds of him. “Probably not.”

“Knowledge, or rather, your experience, is relative. It relates directly to the things you’ve been subjected to. Did I know ‘perfect love’ before I escaped Eden? I was told I existed in a permanent state of pure, untainted love, but I had no concept of love. Why? Because I had never experienced the opposite of love. The word love held no meaning because I had nothing to compare it to. If you live in constant fear, it will soon lose its potency until it becomes your natural state, and you’re no longer aware of it. It loses its meaning. A kiss curls your toes the most when you believe it’s your last.”

“Did you just say ‘curls your toes?’”

I playfully nudge him with my shoulder. “My point is that duality doesn’t exist in Heaven, and for that reason, I didn’t understand love, peace, or any of those concepts.”

“But you do now?”

“I finally know the difference between sadness and happiness. Now, when I feel happy, I can pinpoint the emotion. And once I found myself back in Eden, I knew I couldn’t return to that state of oneness. I craved the rainbow of emotions. The gray outside of the black and white.”

Dmitriy stays silent while we walk the rest of the way.

As soon as the tall, gothic, castle-looking academy comes into view, I draw to a halt.

Dariana waits for me outside.

She narrows her eyes on Dmitriy when we walk up the path, and with a flick of her hair, she dismisses him as if he’s beneath her and not worthy of her attention. It soothes me that she’s as fierce as I remember. This is the girl I fell in love with. The unapologetic girl who goes after what she wants without hesitation.

“Disappear,” she growls at Dmitriy, who bares his incisors at her on his way past.

His show of defiance also soothes something inside me. To see the evidence of the vicious Dmitriy I have come to know resurface, however briefly.

Dariana regards me for a moment before softening the harsh look in her eyes. “I wanted to apologize about last night.”

“Apologize?”

“Yeah,” she starts, lowering her voice and stepping closer when a group of students walks past us. “The story you told. It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

Her raven hair moves in the breeze, and a few strands get stuck in her lip gloss. The urge to brush them away hits me out of nowhere, so I set off walking to stop myself from acting on my impulse.

Dariana stays hot on my heels, surrounding me with her scent of midnight and exotic flowers. “Can we go somewhere and talk for a moment?”

“We have classes.”

We enter the bustling hallway. I make a beeline for my locker around the corner, but she grabs my arm, steers me down a different hallway, and shoves me into an open, empty classroom.

I stumble back, watching her close and lock the door.

When she turns around and pins me with that dark, intense look in her brown eyes, which sparkle with the stars that shine in the sky visible through the window, I backstep, only to collide with a desk.

“Do I make you nervous?” she asks, her tone as sultry as the look in her eyes and the calculated steps she takes in my direction.

The desk scrapes on the floor when I push off and attempt to round it to escape the intensity in her gaze, but she keeps coming.

“I don’t like it when outside sources threaten the people I care about the most, and you, little witch, are a threat.”

I collide with another desk, then dart to my right, but she’s faster.

The sound of her wings erupting behind me has me spinning around, my hair moving off my lips with my harsh intake of breaths. I’m met with empty air, and then I feel it, a soft tap on my shoulder.

With my heart in my throat, I slowly turn around.

Brown eyes—dark enough to lose myself in—and long, wispy lashes and pouty red lips greet me. “Caught you.”

My hands seek the desk behind me. I lean back, away from her orbit, but she follows, trapping me in with her arms on either side of me.

“Why are you scared?”

My heart thunders in my chest, beating a staccato rhythm I swear she can hear in the tense, crackling silence that settles in the inches of space between our lips.

“Do I scare you?” Her delicate fingers brush my cheek with a whisper-soft touch, then trail over my cupid’s bow.

My breaths cease, and I collapse onto my elbows. Her body follows, draping over mine as her sweet scent envelops me.

“I do scare you,” she observes, the tip of her finger trailing down the curve of my chin and down my neck.

“Please,” I whisper, and she pauses as her eyes fly up to mine.

“Please, what?”

I swallow thickly and inhale a breath, then two… three… in an attempt to steady my racing heart and loss of control. “I can’t do this.”

“You can’t do what?” Her eyes glide down to my chest as her finger continues its journey between the soft swells of my breasts that are heaving from my labored breaths. “What can you not do, little witch?”

I shove her away and scramble back, desperately brushing my disarrayed hair out of my eyes. “Whatever your plan is, please stop.”

Like a predator on the hunt, she cocks her head while her gaze dances down my body before slowly, ever so slowly, returning to my face. “Who says I have a plan?”

“I told you my story last night. I know you, remember? You never act blindly. This sudden interest in me, this hunt, is part of a bigger plan.”

My words cause her to draw to a halt, and I daren’t breathe in the silence that follows, settling over us like a thick blanket. I can’t let her touch me. Not like this. Not when the power is all hers. I’m already in love with her, and my heart is already hers, yet her own is nowhere in sight for me to steal. Dariana guards it safely behind the thick walls hiding her from me.

“Please,” I beg again, “not like this.”

Don’t kiss me unless your heart is in it, too.

“Don’t break me further unless you’re willing to pick up the pieces.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but my words hover in the air, whispering unspoken truths my heart is not yet ready to admit.

I fully expect her to ignore my trembly plea, but she steps back as my eyes prick with unshed tears. Her ragged breaths match mine, and she opens her mouth to speak but slams her lips shut. Turning on her heel, she walks out.

In the ensuing silence after the soft click of the door, I break. Crumpled in a heap on the floor, I release a soundless cry as my heart splinters.

When duality hits, it hits hard, and when it hurts, it doesn’t just hurt; it shatters the soul into a million fragmented pieces that float away, lost on the breeze coming from the open window.

This is the price we pay for love’s exquisite touch.