Free Afterlife: A Fall of Angels Novelette by Keary Taylor Page B

find that she had been promised to another man was a crushing blow to Cole’s ego that he could not handle.  He was Cole Emerson, women did not turn him down.  Father’s came to him, trying to strike bargains for him to take their daughters into marriage and into bed.
    But Jane.   Jane.  She was destined for better.  Given to the one man Cole would always be over-looked for.
    Money did not equal love.  Despite being given to another, one who was wealthier than even Cole was, she fell for Cole.  Over the course of only a few short weeks, secret meetings were made, hesitant, forbidden touches began.  The fire between them grew into a blazing torrent that threatened to destroy the both of them.  And their families.
    But despite everything Jane felt for Cole, despite everything that he knew she felt for him, she refused to break off her engagement.
    Cole would never be quite good enough for Jane, or her power-hungry father.
    Or their son.
    Even creating a new life, a child together, was not enough to make Jane be a part of Cole’s life.
    As he watched Jane, now long dead and judged, he felt… distant.  There was still that ache that was inside of him.  There was a void that had slowly ate at everything else inside of him, that made him into the monster that he was.  But it seemed to almost be a memory of what the past had been.  Like he didn’t feel the un-bearableness of everything.   It was almost like he only remembered what he had felt, and like he had clung to it for so long that he didn’t know how to let it go.
    And every time he looked at Jane he saw Jessica.
    Jane was a new kind of pain now.  She was a constant reminder of the one thing in his life that he truly could never have.
    Cole had money, he had houses and carriages.  He had fine clothes and servants.  Even though Jane would never marry him, he did have her.
    But as much as Cole had wanted Jessica, as much as he did everything in his power to get her, Cole had, and never would have Jessica.
    All because of a simple boy.
    One boy was all it took to defeat the power that Cole had over women.
    The trial ended with the man before them being escorted to the above, to a place Cole had never been allowed to see.  The other residents of the afterlife set to whatever it was they did to serve out the rest of eternity.
    But Jane stayed, staring emptily out into the vastness of the cylinder.  Without thinking about it, Cole gave a powerful beat of his wings, carrying himself to the staircase just above her.  She ignored his presence as he descended, her wings tucked comfortably behind her.
    “I still don’t understand it,” Cole said, stopping a few stairs above her.  “How did you manage to get into the above?  After everything you did?”
    “Of course you don’t understand, Cole,” she answered simply, shifting her weight back, propping herself up on her palms against the hot stone beneath her.  “You have tunnel vision.”
    “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, his voice harsh sounding.
    “You fixate, Cole,” Jane said, her blue eyes meeting his.  “You see what you want to see and nothing else.  You saw the sins I committed with you for those few years, and to you, I did nothing else with my entire life.”
    Cole stood there, anger at being made to look foolish by a nothing angel flaring within him.
    “And you don’t see what has changed within you,” she said, a sly smile pulling at the corner of her lips.  “You are not the man I fell in love with.  Nor are you the man who has led the condemned for the last century and a half.”
    “I will always be Cole Emerson.  I will always be a branded angel that those around him saw fit to lead them.”
    “Yes, you will always be those things.  But you didn’t used to be a man who would let a woman you care for go to another man.  You didn’t used to be a man who ached because he saw that woman hurting.  You didn’t used to be a man that was suffocating because of