ONCE UPON AN ANGEL
(TO LIGHT AND GUARD BOOK 2.5)
By Piper Hannah
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Copyright © July 2014 Piper Hannah
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PROLOGUE
ADRA
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived an angel who was so beautiful that even the other angels were jealous of her.
But wait.
Hmmm…
Let me think about this for a second. Perhaps I shouldn’t start my story with the words ‘once upon a time’ because I don’t want to mislead you. You might think that my story is a fairy tale, one that ends with a ‘happily ever after,’ but clearly, my life is far from that.
For one thing, I live in Hell now; it's a dark and gloomy prison for demons like me. Now... that doesn't sound much like a ‘happily ever after,’ does it?
Don’t feel sorry for me though, because I’ve learned to cope. Living here is what I get for killing a human. Yes, I must confess, I am a killer... but in my defense, the girl I killed really deserved it. You see, she took the love of my life away from me. Hence, she deserved to die. Don’t you think?
Paige Harper.
That was the name of the girl I killed. She was eighteen years old, filled with light and hope, and she’s dead now.
A thousand years ago, she was Gwendolyn - the Radiant. They were one and the same… and just thinking about her makes me angry. She was the reason for every bad thing that had happened to me.
To keep my sanity in this place, I have to keep reminding myself that Paige was dead now. Well, until her next lifetime, that is. That’s the thing with these humans. They get reincarnated every time they die. Every. Single. Time. It’s like recycling, and I'm certain that in a thousand years, give or take, Paige’s soul will be back on Earth… unfortunately.
Hmmm….
Now you’re looking at me as if you’re confused. Because right now, you must be wondering why I wasted my time in killing her then. Have you ever heard of crimes of passion? For me it was kind of like that. Hatred. Anger. Jealousy. Pain. And more hatred. These are the things that brought me here.
In this place…
Where my story begins...
In Hell...
CHAPTER 1
ADRA
In Hell...
I landed on top of the mountain overlooking the valley below. Standing behind two female demons, I saw one of them glance back at me. She had long silver hair, but because of the red light coming from the ground, her hair looked pink. It was pretty, I suppose, except I hated the color pink.
The demon’s name is Oriana, and she looked at me with annoyance, which didn’t bother me at all. That was because we weren’t friends. Actually, I could probably say that she didn’t like me at all. Well, come to think of it, I was being generous; maybe she hated me. For what, I wasn’t really sure, but I had made quite a few enemies back in the day.
Without bothering to say hello, I asked the same question I had been asking everyone since I landed here... oh, I’d say about two months ago. I wasn’t really sure how long I had been here. It’s hard to tell the passage of time in a place where there is no sun. I couldn’t tell the time, and I couldn’t count the days.
“Do you know how I could get out of here?” I asked Oriana, getting right to the point. There was no reason for me to pretend to be nice. Everyone here already knew that I wasn’t… nice.
“Not yet,” she said. “But rumor has it that Gaius has found a way out recently. Three demons saw his wings turn white, and then, he disappeared into thin air.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. They said, it was like a door opened up for him, and he walked right through.”
“His wings turned white? How did he manage to do that?” I asked, sitting next to her on the ground. I crossed my legs in front of me and arranged my white dress over them, covering them completely.
When she didn’t respond - probably because she didn’t know the answer to my question - the other female demon turned to me and said, “Repentance. Forgiveness. At least, that’s our theory. He’s been on his knees for… at least a hundred years.”
I sighed. A hundred years could have been a thousand. Like I said, it was hard to tell the passage of time in this place. But at least there was a bright side. A way out through repentance? Forgiveness? It was something to keep in mind, I suppose. Although, I wasn’t quite sure what repentance was really like.
I looked down at the valley below where the giant, flying beasts resided. I won't lie. They are the scariest things I had ever seen in Hell, and I've seen plenty, but they are also beautiful in a feral kind of way. They looked like wild black cats, as large as elephants, with shiny black scales covering their bodies. It made them look fluid like water when they moved, and the fire that came out of their mouths was pretty remarkable. Stunning.
I wish I could do that - breathe out fire. I would be scary just like them. I wondered what it would be like to be able to create fire. To have that kind of power would be so incredible.
The giant cats were scattered all over the valley below. They were fighting, screeching, stomping, and biting the demons who antagonized them. I shook my head. The demons could just sit here on top of the mountain where we were safe.
On the other side of the mountain, there were large snakes that were hidden beneath the mist. I was fairly certain that the large cats were afraid of the snakes because they never ventured out this way, but demons were demons for a reason, and some demons liked chaos. Some of them go in the valley to anger the beasts, but maybe it’s just a way to relieve the boredom.
As for me? I wasn’t that bored yet, and I was still very much afraid of the beasts that dwelled here in Hell.
Oriana stood up, her black wings flaring out. Dust scattered all around me. She looked at the other demon, who was still sitting down on the other side of her. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go play.”
By ‘play’, I knew that what she meant was to fight the beasts. The other demon got up, dusting herself. Then, the two of them jumped off the mountain together. I watched them as they landed somewhere in the center of the
valley below. I had no intentions of following them down there - not that she was inviting me to do so. Actually, she may have been trying to get away from me, and her solution was to fight the beasts. I should feel something. At the very least, I should feel annoyed, but I couldn’t find it in me to care.
I watched Oriana and her friend as they repeatedly punched one of the beasts in the face. The beast roared. Then, it breathed out a stream of fire, burning off all of Oriana's hair. I laughed out loud at seeing her bald head for about ten whole seconds, which was how long it took for all of her hair to grow back. Just one of the many perks of being a demon.