Forgiven (Book 3, The Watchers Trilogy; Young Adult Paranormal Romance)

Can
any
sin
b
e forgiven?

As I looked at the three fallen angels around me, I had to wonder.  I knew Brand, the love of my life and soon to be husband, yearned to be forgiven
by God for going against
H
is
law
.  Yet,
knowing what he did now, would
Brand
have chosen a different path or did he feel as though he
made the right decision all those years ago?

If he hadn’t fallen in love with Abby’s mother, I knew for a fact
we
wouldn’t be
together now.
  As selfish as it might sound, I was glad he had fallen out of God’s grace because I couldn’t imagine
living
my
life
without him. 
I would have been left living a half existence
not knowing why I felt so incomplete
.

People say we each have a soul mate
:
t
hat one per
son who
se ethereal essence
matches
the ragged edges of
our own
.  I guess
when I was younger
I always thought
t
hat person w
ould be
Will
for me
,
one of
my best friend
s
since childhood.  It wasn’t until
I met
Brand that
I
came to realize what it
truly
meant to find your other half
.  He made me stronger
and
braver
than I could ever be on my own.  If there was a way to
discover the true reason Lucifer needed me
before it was too late
, I knew Brand would be the one to help me find it.

For the last two weeks my small troupe of angels had been trying their best to figure out Uriel’s cryptic message to me.  Just when I thought the arch angel had me cornered and
was about to hand me over to Robert to be
butchered, he let me go with the promise he would
cease trying to orchestrate
‘
accidents
’
leading to my untimely demise
.  Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about the implications of one of his statements to me:
“There is no sin in a martyr’s death.”

His meaning was clear.  He thought I should kill myself before becoming Lucifer’s pawn.  When I
question
ed
w
hy he
decided to abandon
his attempt
s
to
end my life
, he said God had
intervened on my behalf
.  He didn’t
seem to
know
the exact reason why, after all these years, God ordered him to
end
his attempts,
but he assumed it was because I chose to do something which would
ultimately
lead to the failure of Lucifer’s plans.  I had no way of knowing what it was I had chosen
to do
but sincerely hoped I didn’t change my mind about it unknowingly.  As Uriel had said, humans are fickle creatures and often stray from the right path.

“So
,
what do we know
so far
for sure?” I asked.

Brand, Will, Malcolm and I were sitting around the dining room table in Brand’s house.  Will was still combing the internet
for clues
to Lucifer’s plans
on his laptop.  Malcolm was searching through an old book of legends
,
and Brand was
helping me stuff
Jordan
almonds into little
red and white
silk pouches.  On top of everything else, we were still preparing things for our wedding which was only a week away.
  Considering the world as we knew it might be on the verge of collapse, it seemed like an inconsequential activity to be
performing
.  That is until you factored in my mother had practically ordered us to fill the more than two hundred silk purses before the end of the weekend.

“
We don’t seem to know
much, dearest,” Malcolm said, closing the book in his hands.  When he looked up at me, I could see his worry about my fate clearly in his eyes.

“
I haven’t been able to find anything
going on in the world during
the timef
rame we were given
,” Will said.  “There
just
isn’t much happening in December.
”

“
What about
the Mayan Doomsday thing
everyone seems to be talking about
?” I asked. 

“It’s a bunch of hogwash,” Malcolm said dismissively.  “
Something the news media has sensationalized.
”

“
So nothing is supposed to happen?  Nothing at all?
” I asked, desperate to have some clue as to what Lucifer’s real plan for me was.

“Not that I can find,” Will sighed.  From the slight droop of his shoulders, I knew Will had spent endless hours searching for something which would shed more light on what we could expect to happen. 

I felt a
pair of
warm hand
s
cover mine.  I looked over at Brand and tried to
muster up a
smile
for him
.

“Have faith,” he said to me, squeezing my hands.  “God
knows you will do what’s right.
  If
H
e has that much trust in you, we need to trust
H
im too.”

“Brand’s right,” Malcolm said.  “We’re probably worrying over nothing.  Everything will work out in the end, dearest.  Don’t worry.”

I tried to smile and put on a brave face for them, but I felt sure it looked as strained as I felt.

“Anyway,” Malcolm said, “aren’t you supposed to be going out with the girls today?”

“That’s the plan,” I replied, piling my share of the almond purses in a white basket
festooned with artificial red roses
.  “They didn’t tell me where we’re supposed to be going though.”

“It’s your
bachelorette
party,” Malcolm shrugged.  “I don’t think you’re supposed to have all the details.  Some of it needs to be kept a surprise.”

From the broad smile on Malcolm’s face, I had a feeling he knew more about my party than he was letting on.

“Well, it’s just going to be the four of us,” I said.  “I doubt it’ll be anything too elaborate.”

“Abby’s been pretty tight lipped about what
they
ha
ve
planned
.
” Brand look
ed
down at his watch.  “In fact
,
it’s about time for us to
head over to Allan’s house
.”

“So he’s really coming over here?” Malcolm asked.  “I never thought I would see the day he willingly stepped out of his house.”

“He’s stronger than he knows,” I said, feeling a need to come to Allan’s defense.  “He proved that when he
followed
Robert
to that forest
when he
kidnapped
Angela.”

My protectors
fell
silent
and found somewhere else to look
at the reminder of that night.

They all felt as though they let me and everyone
else
down
Halloween
night
when
Robert orchestrated his game of Bait.  Robert had only been able to force
me
to be part of his
sadistic game
because he kidnapped Abby, Angela, Sebastian,
Tara
and Malik
all at
the same
time
.  I never would have been able to forgive myself if Brand’s daughter Abby, Malcolm’s son Sebastian
,
and Allan’s daughter Angela, had consumed the blood of my best friend Tara and my fairy godfather, Malik.  If they had, their souls would have been deemed unforgivable in God’s eye, a fate all of my
W
atcher friends had been feverishly protecting their children from since their birth.

Even though Malcolm had only recently started abstaining from giving into his vampiric ways, I knew he
had been protecting his son from following in
his
footsteps
and face a d
oomed fate.
  He wanted Sebastian to have a chance of reaching
Heaven
.  A privilege
he himself had
lost
long ago.

Will and Malcolm made excuses to leave soon after.

Brand took me into his arms holding me tight.  “You know we’ll never forgive ourselves for what happened that night.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, looking up into the warm gray eyes of my future husband.  “If anyone should feel blame about what happened that night it
’
s me.”

Brand shook his head.  “You can’t think like that Lilly.  It wasn’t your fault
either
.  You’ve been an innocent pawn in all of this.  You didn’t choose how you came into this world, and I can’t imagine anyone else who could have faced what you have and still be sane.”

“I wish Uriel had at least told me who my father was.  Maybe then we would know more.”

“We’ll find the answer to that,” Brand said
,
full of confidence.  “I have faith
in
Him.  He’ll show us the right path.”

Even
though God
refused to let
Brand and
the other Watcher angels
back into
Heaven
because they
f
e
ll in love with human women, the man who held my heart still believed his father would help us in our quest.  I myself had never been very religious.  Yes, I had always believed in a higher power.  Whether that was just ingrained in my genetic code or because Utha Mae had me sit in a pew
at her church every
chance she got, I couldn’t tell.  But considering I now knew for a fact
H
e existed, it didn’t much matter.

When Brand and I phased to Allan’s home, we found him and Angela waiting for us outside the front door
of their fortified castle
, a fact which in itself seemed to be a small miracle.  As far as I knew, Allan hadn’t stepped outside his home expect for the two times he visited me in the hospital and when he helped me get my friends away from Robert
that night in the forest
.

As soon as Allan saw me he smiled in relief
.
I saw his shoulders
visibly
relax
.  Angela waved to us and held
tightly to
her father’s hand as they walked towards us.
  I began to wonder if I was sorely underdressed for my bachelorette party
since
Angela was wearing a sleeveless white cocktail dress and high heel shoes.

“We thought we’d get some fresh air while we waited,” Angela explained.  Her happiness
at the new found strength her father had
recently
discovered within himself written plainly on her face.

“So I don’t suppose you would be willing to tell me what’s on the agenda for today?” I asked Angela.