The Forsaken Read Online Free Page A

keeping him more in the shadow, he enjoyed the music more. A total of four more songs followed.
    By the end of their first set, his breathing was labored, his heart pounded loudly in his chest, and his palms were sweaty.
    He moved from the wall to flex his muscles. A part of him was angry. However, he wasn’t sure if that emotion was directed at himself or the girls on stage.
    What he’d witnessed felt sacrilegious, and it burned through him. He prayed that tonight he’d be back in heaven’s realm, mission accomplished with his future heavenly wife in tow. The minute he found her, he’d call to the Mistress and as promised, she’d let them back into the heavenly realm once his Cherub agreed to the wedding. Then he’d repent for the impurity of his thoughts. Again he shifted, wishing his jeans weren’t so tight as he tried to calm his emotions.
    He prayed one of these Cherubs wasn’t Isabella. He didn’t want her to be openly displaying her body or voice for mankind. Cherub angels were purity. They exemplified all the heavenly descriptions of what that word entailed.
    Marching toward the back of the stage, he wondered why no one stopped him. Cherub angels were never unescorted in the heavens, yet here on Earth, they walked about alone, vulnerable.
    A sharp steel blade cut into his throat, catching him off guard.
    “Well, what do we have here? Why, I do believe it’s a Seraphim and just my luck, the one I saved from the alley the other night. To whom do we have the pleasure of addressing?”
    Blood slid down his throat as the metal scraped across his neck, causing Nathanael to attempt to move back. The blade cut more into his flesh—the Cherub with the sharp knife wouldn’t think twice about ending his existence. Casting aside his anger and stupidity, he realized he was intrigued by these Cherub girls with their macho- Sera attitudes.
    “I am Nathanael, First Born of the House of Raphael.”
    A gasp stole through the other three angels…but not the one controlling the knife.
    “Why, Sere, are you here on Earth?”
    Contempt and hatred spilled from the voice, which only moments before had had him almost on his knees with a longing he didn’t want to examine too closely.
    “I am here to find Isabella and bring her home,” he said.
    “Why?” the leader asked.
    “She is to be my future heavenly wife, and I have come to claim her.”
    “Like Hell,” she said, twisting around to confront him face-to-face.
    Demon daggers looked more inviting than the leader’s pale blue eyes as they narrowed in contempt. Her jaw clenched shut so hard he heard the click of her teeth, and her knife cut deeper into his throat, causing more of his golden-hued blood to flow down his throat and onto his collar.
     

Chapter Two
     
     
    “Izzy!” Meredith’s call cut through the taut-wire tension.
    Isabella sliced her Cherub sister and best friend a silencing look.
    “I think it best if you remove your knife, sister.”
    The reprimand came from Shea, the only Cherub in the group who still attended worship four times a day. Shea’s hair fell in curly waves to her waist. Shea, who had to be forced to wear the on-stage costume, tended to follow proper decorum, praying for the day the heavenly gates once again accepted them. It wasn’t in Izzy to tell her again and again that those gates had been sealed shut from the likes of them.
    Izzy was seventeen, and like all her fellow sisters hadn’t aged a day since cursed from the heavens. Izzy viewed it as a sick part of the Mistress punishment.
    Now this Seraphim angel with his gray eyes that declared “I’m the man” had invaded their homemade haven. Anger rooted itself like a fast growing vine, twisting in her gut. This must be part of my penance. The Seraphim looked to be a little older than her seventeen years. She judged him to be about nineteen. Charcoal-colored hair—cut to human military precision—marked him a Sere , a step below becoming a full-fledged Sera warrior.