Free Love's Long Shadow by Ciara Knight

 

    Chapter One

    Hell. Okay, not Hell but Kemp, Florida. Close enough at ninety-eight degrees and a hundred percent humidity.
    Sammy Lorre tugged her clinging shirt off her stomach and wadded into the cool ocean. Since her fall, she didn’t have any memory of Heaven, only an occasional moment of joy and pleasant dreams, but it had to be better than here. After all, it was called Heaven.
    Saltwater swirled around her ankles and her feet sunk into the eroding sand with each retracting wave. A reminder of how fragile a barrier lay between fallen angels on earth and the depths of hell.
    She waved for Alex to join her. He pulled off his shoes and tossed them to the sand. The waves rippled as he strolled into the surf. S he clutched her brother’s arm the same way she clung to him when they had plummeted to Earth after their banishment.
    “Take me with you.” Waves crashed against the shore, drowning her pleas. Her hands shook at the thought of losing him.
    “No. Can’t risk it.” Alex stiffened, his gaze cast over the endless ocean. “If I fail…I won’t let you be dragged to the underworld with me.”
    She released his arm and looked at the surf, watching the foam pop and fizzle. Her eyes stung from the wind and threatening tears—a bodily function she didn’t understand. The hollow space deep in her soul ebbed outward threatening to consume her. “Don’t say that. Stay. Please.”
    He took her hand in his. “You have Grace, now. She’s like a mother to you. She’ll take much better care of you than I have or will.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m sorry.”
    “Stop blaming yourself. We both—”
    “It was my fault. If I had trusted…” He bowed his head and dropped his hands to his side. Sandy-blond hair brushed his chiseled cheekbone blocking her view of his bright blue eyes. Their eye and hair color were different but his chin and nose matched hers. Evidence Heaven meant for them to stay together. Why didn’t he see it?
    “We could be a family here. You’d be my real brother, Grace our mother, and—”
    Alexander’s muscles tightened and he stuck his chin out. “I don’t deserve a family or a home.”
    She recognized the expression- Grace referred to as ‘self-brooding’. Her heart twisted with the loss of serenity, sparse images of life without pain and suffering. “We just got here. Give it time. It’s only been a month. These bodies we’ve been granted might be fifteen or sixteen, but we’re still in our infancy here on Earth.” She knew he heard her false cheer as she tried to convince both of them things would get better if he stayed.
    “Granted?” Alexander huffed. “More like cursed.”
    “Maybe once we pay penance in these bodies, Heaven will send for us.” There had to be a reason, a purpose for their suffering, or at the least, a way to return home.
    “I won’t waste a second of confinement in this flesh. It’s too much. My soul’s suffocating.” His clenched jaw twitched. “I’ll prove we deserve to rise again.”
    She glanced at the large white house with the wraparound porch at the top of the hill. The home had stood against hurricanes and served as a way station for fallen angels for years.
    The fading evening sun reflected from the windowpanes. Her heart warmed at the sight. “You’ll adjust. Give it a chance.”
    “Grace adores you. You have a home here, and with her years of experience as an Earthbound Angel, she can help you.” Alexander’s gaze narrowed. “I have to go.”
    He released her and marched from the water.
    “Wait.” Sammy ran after him. “You don’t have to go back up north. Maybe we can help people here.”
    “I’m following the lost souls to the master demon so I can destroy the coven forever.”
    “You said that there were lost souls here.”
    “Stay away from demons.”
    Again with the demon hating. Weren’t they all lost souls imprisoned on Earth? “Why?”
    “You’re weak here, subject to human emotions.