Auria gasped at the tiny nick in her leather top and skin, which served as evidence of Reah’s intent. The entire room appeared frozen. No one moved except Grant and her. All this pain for no reason. She didn’t want this man, would gladly free them of their shared torment. However, Grant would never relent.
“Do you still believe I should spare her?” He pulled her close to his body.
The heat of him seeped inside her. How could he ask her such a thing? “Yes.”
His hard chest against her back and his crotch nestled to her bottom made desire swirl inside her. Then he shifted, and as he pressed his cock to her ass, it grew stiff. Slickness coated her lower lips. Why couldn’t she just hate him?
“For what reason?” He skimmed her earlobe with his satin lips. Her nipples hardened against the inside of her leather top.
“Because your actions have created this jealousy in her. She is hurt by your disregard of her. Did you seriously not expect her to be angry?”
“Reah knew I loved you, as did the others. I did not mislead any of them to believe otherwise.”
“Yet still, she grew attached to you and now she feels pain.” If only they could be free to find mates more suited to their own ambitions.
“Isn’t this how I feel at your betrayal?”
“God, are we back to this? No. You tricked me twice, first as Etienne, then you abducted me. I never came to you willingly.”
“Perhaps.” He stepped back. “But though you realized I was different from the man you believed me to be, your body and heart wanted me--still do. You think I’m a monster, despite the fact that I have cared for the wounded the other aequitas left behind on the battlefield. Many have joined our cause. I want our kind to stand together against those who have oppressed us, and demand freedom. Why can’t you trust in me?”
She couldn’t rely on what she felt. How could she possibly have faith in him, when he’d shown himself capable of doing whatever he deemed necessary to get his way?
“How can you not listen to what your gut is telling you? Everything you do is based on instinct. I do not take pleasure in fighting our people. However, I will not allow them to stand in the way of our freedom or fight on the side of those who have oppressed us.”
“I don’t believe you.” None of this made sense. Why fight his own people? Why not explain his plan?
“Of course you don’t. And I’m partially to blame. I admit that as my mind became my own once again, I made errors in judgment. Injecting you with the serum was a mistake. I should have explained to you why I’d become someone else, but I needed to infiltrate the council. You would have seen my motives. Etienne fed your fears of me because he did not want you to love me. But when he realized your heart could accept me, he hoped by encouraging your affections toward me you’d believe his motives were pure.”
How could he speak of Etienne in such a way?
“What? You don’t believe your precious Etienne is capable of deceit, to have you? Gabriel and Jehoel fell from grace over a taste of you. Those two angels have lost their place in heaven because of their obsession with you. After all, Etienne was based on a being who slayed his own brothers to please his father. Michael, who led the army of heaven against Lucifer. Each of us is trying to get what we want or what we feel is best. Don’t you understand that?”
All too well. She’d spent centuries of her life serving the will of others. She didn’t want to accept that the man she loved wasn’t the man she believed him to be.
“Haven’t you paid your debt to them?” He spun her, then grabbed her waist.
The plea in his eyes moved her, yet he’d left out vital pieces of the puzzle. “Don’t you get that none of us would be alive if they had not given us the gift of immortality?”
“How is what you are saying any different than the birth of our children?” He placed his hand on her abdomen. “Would you have our sons repay us with servitude, make them slaves for giving them life?”
“Of course not.” The man countered everything she said, damn him.
“Do you believe we own Jet and Onyx?”
Absurd. “No.” She’d never think such a dreadful thing. Her boys were the joy she’d never believed she deserved.
“Are we not to do everything in our power to protect and guide them?” He cocked his eyebrow. “So why would our own father abandon us to fend for ourselves? Could we be nothing more than property to him? Our relationship to God is no different. We didn’t ask him to create us in his image, and yet we are supposed to spend our lives serving him. We are slaves, and it’s got to stop.” His grip around her tightened.
“You want to take the fight to heaven’s doorstep? You’re even more insane than I thought. Lucifer will not stand on the sidelines while you tear the place to shreds.”
“My enemy’s enemy is my ally.”
“Until he stabs you in the back. If Lucifer joins your cause, you can be sure he has motives of his own.”
“Such little faith in me. You don’t think I’ll be ready for the fallout?”
Believing he was ready and being prepared were worlds apart. “What will become of the world when there is no good to balance the scales of life?”
“You’re a student of history. I would expect you to have a sharper eye for the truth. You still don’t get it? All along, God has enslaved living beings, making us serve his purpose. What do we know of war?”
She’d seen one too many for her liking. “The victors write history.”
“Exactly. In the very pages of the bible, the truth is there, glaring at us. Douay--Rheims Bible, The Apocalypse Of Saint John 12:7 ‘And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought his angels’.” He released her and paced. “12:8 gives the outcome. ‘And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven’. 12:9 explains what happened after. ‘And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world. And he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him’. Once they won, they could tell us whatever they wanted. Hidden within the very pages is the truth. God lay with Mary, and from the union a child was born. He commanded his angels to be slaves to his son, Christ. When Lucifer and some of the other angels refused, he tossed them from heaven. God has been creating races of slaves. Then he gives us rules even he can’t follow. A perfect example is lying with Mary, who I might add, is Joseph’s wife.”
The distinct possibility was there. Either that, or she too was becoming insane. Throughout the ages, opposing sides had written up their own selfish slant. Why couldn’t the same be true of the story of creation? And worse, she’d sheepishly fallen in line. She needed time to think this through--figure out if his doubletalk had her confused or enlightened.
“The most brilliant part of this, is they’ve left our belief in the stories from the Bible as equal to our faith in God. Believing in our father is no more something we can deny than our own existence. Without question, God is real. Where the difficulties lie are in the facts of religious manuscripts. All of them point to the same thing. We are slaves serving him. Some of us know it and others prefer turning a blind eye. I call this state willfully ignorant. Examples are in the language believers use--the Lord is my shepherd, Servant of God. It’s glaring us in the face.”
“I don’t know, Grant. What would be God’s reason for doing this?”
“I have a theory. Of course, I can’t prove it.” He huffed. “I believe God feeds off our faith in him. This gives him his powers.”
This was radical thinking. God was some type of creature that fed off the energy of those who believed in him. Maybe she needed to sit down.
The room was filled with frozen beings in various states of movement, and the look of hate on Reah’s face was haunting, sent a shiver up her spine. Grant had tapped into more of the power inside him by suspending time. What else could he do? Dazzle her mind. She hoped not, but for whatever reason, he was making a lot of sense.
“Every time the tides turn and we move away from our beliefs, sweeping events occur to send us all back to our knees in prayer. I nearly walked right into my role of evil in the flesh. Gabriel opened my eyes to who and what I would become if I went down that path. I need you as my wife. But bigger than you or I, our people need you to train them. How else will they have a fighting chance at freedom? Only you can help me bring in the aequitas who’ve sided against us.”
“Why fight? We could hide.” Did they really need to go into a slaughter?
“Is that the life you want for our sons? How did you live while on the run from me? They deserve better.” He met her stare. “Don’t they?”
“Yes, of course.” Yet a pit of doubt grew in her stomach. Would fighting for a better life get every last one of them exterminated? From the religious text, those who sided against God didn’t fare well.
“For their protection, we will need to separate them and place them with human families. If we die, they will live on. If we prevail, we can reunite our family.”
Grant sounded nothing like the man she believed him to be. His sacrifice was further reaching then she could bear. Why would Gabriel want to help him? There had to be something in it for him. The snake only looked out from himself.
“Jesus died because he did not want to be master of us. He saw through his father’s selfish behavior. Then the story was distorted to make it appear we’d killed him. Jesus’s own words tell the truth. He sacrificed his life for us, not for our sins, but our freedom. In the end, his father used his death to once again control us. He died in vain.”
This information was a lot to take in. Her head hurt. “I need time to think about what you have said.”
“Of course. Return to our bedchamber. I will join you once I’ve dealt with Reah.”
This was a test, him allowing her to go back on her own to see if she’d flee or do as told. “What will you do with her?”
“I will remove any memory of any time she and I shared, plus any related events, then send her home. Do you approve?”
“Yes.” Blue mist encompassed her, thickening the air around her.
“Why don’t you go to our boys, and meet me in our room once you’ve put them to bed?” An easy smile curved his lips upward.
Who was this man? Not the Grant misfortune had brought her way. Had she been so blinded by the pain of his betrayal that she hadn’t seen the motives beneath his deception?